There are no pig farms at the western coast of Norway

There are no pig farms at the western coast of Norway.

Nobody told you about the sheep when you bought the house. Nobody told you that by May, millions of fluffy, cotton-candy-like abominations would be roaming tirelessly around the neighboring countryside. At first you found them amusing. Relax, you told yourself. They are just sheep.

Then you noticed the bleating.

Loud bleating. Night-and-day bleating. Endless, penetrating bleating that you knew would continue for months and months until a blessed day in the fall when the damn sheep and their even louder offspring finally would be sheered, herded and sent to some food-processing facility far out of hearing range.

During those long months of bleating there will always be one or two villagers snapping. At least that’s what they told you at the local store a few months ago. You laughed. Now that it’s become May, you don’t laugh anymore.

You cannot write anymore on your manuscript either.

Instead you have started dreaming of sheep. Soon you think about them every hour of the day, doing Google searches to identify the local sheep breed, obsessing on their hidden weaknesses, shape and color. You find yourself becoming an expert on sheep wool quality while simultaneously being able to calculate its corresponding flame point. Then you buy yourself a high-powered rifle and some gasoline.

Last year it was Karl Johansen snapping. This year, you know it’s going to be you.

***

There are no pig farms at the western coast of Norway. Just steep, slippery cliffs and engulfing, ice-cold seawater.