Howard Larson no longer noticed the smell of damp wool suits that pervaded the crowd pressing its way across the bridge that prevented them from dropping like lemmings into the Chicago River. Four to eight tank-topped suburban teenagers were making merry sounds because it was a Thursday morning and they had daringly skipped school to take the Milwaukee Road commuter train into the Big City for the day. Even though they were only a few feet in front of him, he could barely see them through the squashed flesh of yet another weekday. They were drowned out every thirty seconds or so by the sounds of jackhammers coming from a direction which was impossible to determine.

Howard Larson noticed none of these things, because today was a day like every other day, and he was thinking of the plot of a situation comedy he saw on the previous night, occasionally getting sidetracked because he couldn't remember the name of the actor who played Lou Grant on the Mary Tyler Moore show and later on his own show and who was involved in the screen actor's guild.

Howard Larson checked his watch, to ensure that it was before 8:45, which it (whatever "it" was) had to be in order to guarantee his arrival at the Tanzit building by 9:00. He also checked the date, primarily because it was displayed right by the 9 on the watch face. May Fourteenth. May fourteenth. May fourteenth, Nineteen-Ninety Eight. Something was nagging at him. 5/14/98. 14-May-1998.

"Oh, Shit! It's almost Cow Time!" he thought. Or maybe he said it out loud. There was no way to be sure, for nobody was listening. And it wouldn't have mattered anyway; in order to make it for Cow Time he would have to be in Comiskey Park at 9:15 exactly, and that wasn't possible. By the time that Howard had reached the other side of the bridge, he had accepted the fact that he was going to miss Cow Time.

By 9:10 AM, it was impossible to get into Comiskey Park. The entire baseball field was packed tight with true believers, revelers, history junkies, and the ever-present press. The people with video cameras were angry because they couldn't raise their arms and press "record." The pickpockets were angry because they couldn't move their arms to take people's wallets. Some of the people in the center were being crushed to death, and ironically would not live the five more minutes until Cow Time. The entrances were mobbed with people pushing, pushing, pushing to squeeze in. The mood was not hot and angry as you would expect. The heat coupled with the sense of impending Event to cause a feeling of religious ecstasy to pervade. And it was only five minutes more.

At 9:14 AM the countdown began. "Sixty! Fifty-nine! Fifty-eight!…" As expected, clouds started to form over the area, which cooled the air down to tolerable levels. Some people felt drops of rain, although they could have just been feeling sweat from taller people shaking their heads back and forth. "Twenty-five! Twenty-four!" The various advertising blimps and planes with messages trailing off of banners started to fly away, as negotiated with the City of Chicago. Pity, because now everybody was looking up. The clouds were thick. Unnaturally thick. But it was still quite light enough to see. "THREE! TWO! ONE! COW TIME!!"
They fell faster and thicker than anybody could possibly have visualized. Holsteins, Jerseys, Brown Swisses, and Guernseys all plummeting from the sky, some feet first, some back first, some head first, and all of them mooing up a storm. Each THUD crushing twelve, fourteen, sixteen human beings. The people in the stands were not spared, although some made their escape by leaping off of the back wall of the bleachers, landing on the crowds gathered outside.

Nothing but cows for a full fifteen minutes. And it even made the national news.