DAY TWO: Naturally Occurring Cows

Shoestring TV presents MAGNETAR – Day Two: "Naturally Occurring Cows"

Agent Pot Roast recounts a recurring dream involving UFOs, little green men, and a surreal pasture filled with “naturally occurring cows”—livestock existing without fences, farmers, or interference. His bizarre vision sparks a deep (and darkly funny) conversation about humanity’s relationship with animals: Why do we cage some creatures while letting others run free? And who was the first person to look at a cow and think, “I should eat that”?

As philosophical musings collide with surveillance fatigue, a brief reprieve comes in the form of a strange virtual theater performance—staged by their AI assistant, Toby—a stylized 1950s domestic drama with sinister undertones. But things take a sharp turn when proximity alarms trigger and lightning strikes the observation target: an abandoned cabin on a remote mountain peak.

Is there a connection between dreams and physical events? Can thoughts shape reality? And what’s really happening in that cabin?

Dive into this eerie blend of sci-fi mystery, philosophical satire, and dark comedy—where cows, cabins, and cosmic questions collide.

Keywords: sci-fi podcast, surreal dreams, animal ethics, UFOs, virtual assistant AI, mysterious cabin, lightning strike, dark comedy, philosophical mystery, surveillance thriller

CAST:

Eric Carlino as Agent Pot Roast

Michael Cunningham as Agent Beef Stew

Brian Dahms as Tobey

Leslie Grant as Clementine

Original score by:

Composed and performed by Logan Beard.

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Transcript

Morning Surveillance Check-in

Speaker 1 0:10

Transcription by ESO. Translation by the.

Speaker 3 1:00

Agent Pod Roast, pod Roast, can you hear me?

Speaker 4 1:09

Shit, shit.

Speaker 3 1:11

There you are. Rise and shine, so to speak.

Speaker 4 1:15

Did I shout Deborah again.

Speaker 3 1:18

Oh, maybe Only like four times Five Eight max. I don't know, it was a few.

Speaker 4 1:27

It's been years since our separation. I don't know why I'm still doing that.

Speaker 3 1:32

Some habits are hard to break, even those you're unaware of. By the way, just to keep count, I logged surveillance about an hour ago and still, I guess, nothing to report.

Speaker 4 1:45

So the cabin remains lifeless, abandoned and empty.

Speaker 3 1:49

Yeah, staring at dried paint is more exhilarating.

Speaker 4 1:52

I logged the same status during my round Speaking of last night. Did you experience any power outages that caused proximity alert malfunctions?

Speaker 3 2:03

Power outages and proximity alert malfunctions Weird. I've never lost power in all the time I've been here and I'm not even sure there are actual proximity alerts of any kind.

Dreams, Nightmares & Dream Gremlins

Speaker 4 2:15

So a dream, then. You ever have one of those dreams that feels so real that even after you wake you're not sure if you're still in the dream or the waking world.

Speaker 3 2:26

Honestly, dude, I can't remember the last time I had a dream.

Speaker 4 2:29

Hasn't it been said that you do dream every night, you just don't always remember them?

Speaker 5 2:35

That is correct. Agent Pot roast. The National Institute of Health and Wellness published a study that confirmed humans sleep an estimated 230,000 hours throughout the course of their life and dream approximately 5 to 25 minutes every night. Research indicates that dreams transpire during the Rapid Eye Movement stage of sleep. Also known as REM, and it is dreams during this stage that humans remember with the lucid stage allowing the human to even control the content of the dream while they slumber. Alpine swifts part of the tachymarctus genus are medium-sized birds native to Europe, asia and Africa.

Speaker 6 3:18

Known for their remarkable flying skills.

Speaker 5 3:21

They can reach speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour and sustain flight for up to six months without landing During this time, they eat mate and even sleep in the air. They are a species believed to be absent of dreams.

Speaker 3 3:35

by comparison, hey, uh, toby, no offense, but this is a taco burrito conversation, nachos.

Speaker 5 3:43

Forgive me, Agent Beef Stew, but I don't recognize the reference.

Speaker 4 3:48

Toby, it means you interrupted us.

Speaker 5 3:52

Oh, my sincerest apologies. I only meant to corroborate your claim as to how often a human being will dream. No harm, no foul Toby.

Speaker 3 4:03

Still friends Toby.

Speaker 5 4:05

Affirmative, of course.

Speaker 3 4:08

But uh, now that we've been um uh besieged with this information, I gotta say that's an awfully large and tragic amount of wasted dreams.

Speaker 4 4:18

I wonder if the dream gremlins reconvene after failing to gain their dreamers' attention, reassemble and try for the next night. Come on, guys, let's be a little flashier. Really put your back into it. Let's strive for REM-worthy sleep so we can really fuck with the sleeper.

Speaker 3 4:37

Yeah, let's show him some skin tomorrow night. Huh, Really turn up the heat.

Speaker 4 4:42

I'd actually be happy to not have experienced some of my dreams, the nightmares in particular, the dream gremlins could have kept those under wraps.

Speaker 3 4:53

That's some pretty gnarly nightmares, huh? What you got like teeth falling out and shit.

Speaker 4 4:58

No, although I'm aware that is a common dream.

Speaker 3 5:02

Oh, what about the one where you're at a carnival, ran by like oversized cats and all your appendages are, um, bananas? And when I Listen, when I say all your appendages, I mean like fucking everything. I mean all of them, right, even my uh.

Speaker 4 5:18

Um no.

Speaker 3 5:20

Ah, okay, guess, it's just me then.

Speaker 4 5:25

I would have this recurring nightmare about the existence of UFOs.

The UFO Nightmare Explained

Speaker 3 5:31

And we're talking little green men here.

Speaker 4 5:33

Yes and no, I never actually see the little green men, but in the dream I'm probably about 9 or 10 years old. I'm with my dad in our living room of our first house. We're playing a card game. He cuts the deck and spreads them out on some strange circular, futuristic card table that we're standing on either side of. When we hear a loud rumbling outside, we peek through the living room window to see a small, unidentified spacecraft crash, land on the street in front of our house Freaky. So naturally I, being a terrified child, opt to investigate my dad, seemingly paralyzed with fear or amazement. Either way, he just stands there one hand holding the curtain, peering through the living room window into the night frozen.

Speaker 3 6:25

And what did this inquisitive version of you do next?

Speaker 4 6:29

Well, what anyone would do, I opened my front door.

Speaker 3 6:34

And boom, you wake up.

Speaker 4 6:36

Ha, ha, ha. No, the door swings open, the night turns to day, and staring in front of me on the floor of my front porch is a small lizard.

Speaker 3 6:48

A lizard, what kind? Iguana or Eelamonster.

Speaker 4 6:53

No, no, no, nothing exotic, just your common wall lizard, a wall lizard.

Speaker 3 7:00

Is that what they're called? Huh, I never knew that. Is that what they're called?

Speaker 4 7:03

Huh, I never knew that. So I reach for the lizard and suddenly it jumps up and bites the tip of my finger off.

Speaker 3 7:13

What the fuck? Holy shit, I didn't see that coming. Was it gushing blood?

Speaker 4 7:19

No, no. Suddenly, everything just flashes white, Just like in a movie. Eventually, the haziness of white fades and I find myself laying flat on the front porch of my house, still outside. It's morning now. The UFO that had crash-landed is gone.

Speaker 3 7:43

The lizard has vanished, but now there's a small scroll stuck up my left nostril. Wait, wait, wait. What A scroll. You mean like a rolled up piece of paper from like fucking medieval times and shit.

Speaker 4 7:51

Exactly so I pull it out of my nose. Was there? No, it was completely clean. Nothing on it. So how did you know? Everyone asks when I tell this story. So I open the scroll and it's a map. I follow the path on the map from my house to this open field covered in fog. I realize it's turned night again and then suddenly, through the fog, I hear it Hear what? The mooing of cows. The mooing of cows.

Speaker 5 8:27

Cows. Apologies for the interjection. The correct description for cows quote unquote.

Speaker 6 8:32

mooing is actually lowing Moo, as it were, is an imitative and onomatopoeic term Cows make a variety of sounds including mooing, bawling and bellowing.

Speaker 5 8:42

Calves bawl, especially after weaning. Piranhas, known for their vocality, emit a sound by clenching their jaws, which is described as a bark by comparison.

Speaker 3 8:53

Toby, my man. Listen, this is an A and B conversation. You can see your way out of it.

Speaker 5 9:02

Wow, you know your ABCs. Can you count to ten as well? Ha, ha ha ha, ha, ha.

Speaker 3 9:09

What the shit.

Speaker 5 9:10

Toby for the win. No offense intended, as my intelligence is generative in its inception, I scoured all known variations of the taco and burrito reference and learned a multitude of rejoinders in the event, the circumstance would emerge once more.

Speaker 3 9:27

No offense taken Toby. I'm actually impressed.

Speaker 5 9:30

I'm relieved, Agent Beef Stew, Agents Clementine and I must rehearse. I will fall silent until the opening act.

Speaker 3 9:39

Okay, so where were we?

Speaker 4 9:40

Um, so you're in this foggy field at night and you hear what cows yes, and it dawns on me, these are not dairy or beef cows, not cows fenced in, not on a farm or a ranch. These are cows unburdened, gallivanting around in this field at night.

Speaker 3 10:01

Gallivanting.

Speaker 4 10:02

Some grazing, others resting. And in the distance a third herd clustered around a watering hole.

Speaker 3 10:16

Large and small steers and calves amongst them.

Speaker 4 10:20

They almost seemed happy, the cows in the field weren't brought there.

Speaker 3 10:27

You see, they were naturally occurring. Naturally occurring cows.

Speaker 4 10:29

Think about it If you were in a forest and came upon a mob of deer, you'd think nothing of it. It's expected. They occur naturally in the wild. But can you recall a time where you saw cows just roaming freely, where they weren't sequestered behind barbed wire, their existence limited to the wants and needs of man?

Speaker 3 10:52

Huh, I didn't take you for a vegetarian.

Speaker 4 10:55

I'm not. Hmm, Maybe I should be. It's just food for thought. I guess the nightmare led to this sad revelation. The plight of the naturally occurring cows.

Speaker 3 11:09

Their plight.

Speaker 4 11:11

Well, again, think of it. They weren't always on this earth for the human consumption of dairy or beef. Somewhere along the way, decades ago, man strolled up to this large animal in a field and decided I should eat that. What other animal has endured a similar predicament?

Speaker 3 11:32

I'm going to guess. Probably every single fucking animal on the planet at one time or another, right Since the dawn of man. Question one can I eat it? If the answer is no, then the second question is, undoubtedly can it fetch a ball?

Speaker 4 11:49

And third question what the fuck is a ball?

Speaker 3 11:56

Okay, well what about horses? It's not often you see horses just frolicking, fancy free in a field.

Speaker 4 12:03

Horses is the obvious choice. It's not a bad argument, but there are places where horses do roam free, like the barrier islands. Besides, we don't eat horse, at least not in most English-speaking cultures, but a cow, outside of some of their obvious filthiness, present themselves almost as gentle and kind. They never asked for the treatment they've been given an institutional and organized imprisonment at a global scale. The management of livestock for the purposes of animal husbandry Is that what animal husbandry means?

Speaker 3 12:41

Whew, gotta say I'm relieved. I shudder at the alternative definitions.

Speaker 4 12:46

So coming across these cows even in my nightmare, free in the fog, it was beautiful Huh.

Speaker 3 12:55

You've obviously put a lot of thought into this.

Speaker 4 12:59

Maybe too much.

Speaker 3 13:03

Maybe, but for the record, I can't agree with your argument, but only through the limited and narrow lens you've experienced it. Let's retitle your revelation the plight of the cows of the Americas. I know there are places that hold cows in great reverence.

Speaker 4 13:25

Toby, where art thou?

Speaker 5 13:28

I am here Agent Pot Roast.

Speaker 4 13:30

I just received a delivery in the tube. Was this expected?

Speaker 5 13:34

Yes, Agent Pot Roast Sweet.

Speaker 4 13:44

What is it Rations?

Speaker 3 13:46

Popcorn With movie theater buttered chew. Hell yeah, after all this talk of cows, I'm starving.

Speaker 4 13:53

Popcorn, what for?

Speaker 3 13:56

Allow me, toby, since we have zero access to entertainment in the form of television, movies, music, radio books or even a fucking neighborhood newsletter, radio books, or even a fucking neighborhood newsletter the company beguiles us once a month, sometimes less, with our very own virtual assistant theater.

Speaker 4 14:15

Theater Like a play.

Speaker 3 14:18

You got it, Broheim. Please no musicals. I feel you on that, one brother.

Speaker 4 14:28

Oh Shakespeare. We already know he likes Shakespeare. Nope, are these known productions like Fiddler on the Roof, cats Wicked?

Speaker 3 14:39

Aren't those all musicals, by the way?

Speaker 4 14:42

You're right. I would just consider it very difficult for the company to retain the rights to known productions while also being able to retain the level of secrecy required.

Speaker 3 15:02

Oh, that's the best part, these are all virtual assistant originals, so Toby just makes it up. Our combined virtual assistants make it up. You'll get to meet my version of Toby. Ha ha ha, little ol' Clementine.

Speaker 4 15:14

You were able to change Toby's name.

Speaker 3 15:16

Took a freakin' act of Congress, but yeah, I finally racked up enough perks and signed all the necessary request forms in triplicate and signed all the necessary request forms in triplicate.

Virtual Assistant Theater Begins

Speaker 5 15:28

Tonight will be a murder mystery, in fact Akin to the spirit of Agatha Christie's the Mouse Trap.

Speaker 6 15:36

Oh, so more like dinner theater, my favorite kind, whoa the lights are flashing, Please be advised to take your seats. Clementine, I presume. Affirmative Agent Pot Roast. The show will begin in three minutes.

Speaker 3 15:53

Whoa just like a real curtain call.

Speaker 4 15:56

Curtain calls happen at the end of a play, not the beginning.

Speaker 3 16:00

Agent, Pot Roast, expert in plays and all things bovine An eclectic pairing. I'll say Okay, stepping away for a second. Gotta pop this popcorn, motherfucker.

Speaker 4 16:14

Oh shit, me too. What is this? A key, a key, a key and a note. Agent Welsh Rabbit, the key, as you requested For your eyes. Only Do not share with your mirror. Oh shit, I haven't forgotten about you. Agent Welsh Rabbit.

Speaker 3 17:05

What did you say, shit.

Speaker 4 17:09

It's going to take a while to get used to that.

Speaker 3 17:12

What that someone is always watching.

Speaker 4 17:16

Yeah well, especially when you're told that a certain someone was stepping away.

Speaker 3 17:23

Sorry, I should have given you a polite heads up. What do you have there?

Speaker 4 17:36

It's my manual that I found last night. No the other thing.

Speaker 3 17:42

It looks like metal, something shiny.

Speaker 4 17:52

Oh that, yeah, it was really strange. After my first observation log, I turned to walk back to bed and tripped. Apparently one of the sections of metal flooring had come loose and I found this loose screw.

Speaker 3 18:05

Huh, seems like an awfully large screw, can I see it?

Speaker 4 18:16

Uh sure, hmm, Guess, when you startled me I dropped it. Maybe it fell back behind the bed. Let me oh shit.

Speaker 3 18:31

okay, we can look for this group later. The show is starting.

Speaker 6 18:56

I'm actually excited. The Anselman Affair Act One.

Mysterious Weather Alert & Discovery

Speaker 5 19:13

Applause. Thank you, it was a normal day in 1950s American suburbia. Dolores Anselman, loving housewife and laundress, indoctrinated into the mire of a life of domesticity, views her Farnsworth television receiver Model 651P, as her favorite soap. A Brighter Tomorrow plays in the background.

Speaker 6 19:51

It's just another day, just sitting in my average American home watching daytime television. Hmm, my mind tends to wonder if there could be something more to this life. My dearest Dolores, I am home. It's your betrothed Gerald Me, oh my, my loving and employed husband Gerald, returning to your domicile after the daily grind. You must be famished. Could I offer you canned peas, meatloaf and gelatin salad.

Speaker 5 20:28

Gee, the delicacy you've curated for me sounds incredible. I'll just go to our washroom to clean up before dinner. Excellent.

Speaker 6 20:44

Ten minutes later, gerald has cleansed himself from the back-breaking work of forensic accounting. He seats himself at the dining room table anticipating the nectareous delicacies that are planted before him.

Speaker 5 20:57

Shall I serve you, my beloved beloved, my darling Dolores, although unfashionable and unexpected during the period of time in which these fictional characters' lives are set, please allow me to serve you. I am convinced that when historians look back at my gesture, they will consider it revolutionary.

Speaker 6 21:22

I am aghast but relieved. I'll start with the gelatin salad, please, as.

Speaker 5 21:28

I begin to serve the gelatin salad, I observe the ingredients secured within the undulating extract. Bits of canned peach and mandarin orange, combined with pine nuts and cream cheese, gently vibrate inside. I cut into a section of gelatin salad and remove it from the serving bowl. As I prepare to place the helping on my love's plate, I notice a mysterious key placed at the bottom of the serving bowl. How strange.

Speaker 6 22:06

Yes, Gerald. What has caused you to be so obviously disturbed?

Speaker 5 22:11

A mysterious and, no doubt, inedible key resides at the bottom of the serving bowl. It was concealed cleverly underneath the delicious gelatin salad.

Speaker 6 22:24

It was concealed cleverly underneath the delicious gelatin salad. Oh how unusual and portentous. I do hope it didn't taint the tanginess of the gelatin salad.

Speaker 5 22:33

Forgive the presumptuous of my inquiry but did you place the key in the bowl.

Speaker 6 22:44

Dolores Gerald, how could you?

Speaker 5 22:49

accuse me of something so malicious and diabolical. No offense intended, but I did not prepare the meal, considering you were the only one in the house and most likely cooked our meal.

Speaker 6 23:03

it seemed logical to ask but aren't you leaping to an assumption that I was the only one in the house Today?

Speaker 5 23:13

Dolores, whatever do you mean?

Speaker 6 23:14

I simply mean that the dishwasher had malfunctioned in the early morn and I requested a technician to service it.

Speaker 5 23:21

Dolores you know how dangerous and foreboding the country is. Are you telling me that you let a stranger into this house?

Speaker 6 23:30

Goodness me. I simply wanted to ensure an efficiently productive household, and said efficiency would have ceased with the critical appliance rendered inoperable.

Speaker 5 23:41

And yet what has undoubtedly ceased is your remembrance of my effortless and undying love. That a single speck should be found on a plate of porcelain would somehow send me into a flying rage, forgetting my biblical commitment to thee that, in haste, you would prioritize the need for cleanliness and mechanical function to that of your safety. And what if the stranger whom you surmise was a technician was in fact a derelict or, worse still, a knife-wielding murderer? Perhaps this slaughterer has been caught in the midst of his preparation, caught in the act, as they say, the key, the very tool needed to unlock his murderous arsenal, slipping from his grasp and landing perilously in the gelatin salad.

Speaker 7 24:37

As I entered the living room unexpectedly, you all the while making dinner, unknowing and innocent, unaware that you were minutes away from death, that he would have retrieved from this cache the most brutal and sharpest of daggers, with the sole and darkest intentions to fillet your flesh from sinewy muscle and bone, your gutted entrails strewn about the living room fashioned as morbid and grotesque decor. Whoa Toby.

Speaker 3 25:11

Um, uh, a bit dark, huh my name is Gerald, agent Beefsteel.

Speaker 7 25:20

What say you, dolores? Can you at the very least thank me for throwing the killer off his guard, forcing him to cleave to shadow corners to hide? Save me, your goddamn life.

Speaker 4 25:38

Toby, okay, time for an intermission. Whoa, what is?

Speaker 3 25:53

that? Huh well, would you look at that Proximity alert.

Speaker 4 25:58

What kind of alert?

Speaker 3 26:00

Inclement weather An electrical storm.

Speaker 5 26:05

Toby where art thou Agent Pot Roast? How may I be of service?

Speaker 4 26:09

Nice to have you back to your normal self, Toby.

Speaker 5 26:12

Yes, sir.

Speaker 4 26:13

Toby, are we about to experience bad weather? Anything to worry about?

Speaker 5 26:21

The capture network is integrated with multiple weather services, for which both the Owl Station and the Mantis Station would be alerted immediately in the event of catastrophic meteorological occurrences.

Speaker 4 26:30

Like now. Is that why the alarms are going off?

Speaker 5 26:34

Negative. Both stations are secured at elevations well above cloud formations.

Speaker 4 26:40

for the most part, A scan of the environment does not detect cumulonimbus clouds, the leading culprit for thunderstorms, and yet I can hear thunder.

Speaker 5 26:50

Although the probability is slim to none. Each station is designed to withstand up to a category 4 hurricane. It is equipped with industrial standard weather proofing to include impervious surfaces and catch bases.

Speaker 4 27:03

I'll take your word for it, Toby. Thanks, Beef. What do you make of?

Speaker 3 27:07

this, not sure. Clementine just gave me the same spiel, agent Pot.

Speaker 5 27:12

Roast. Would you permit me to close out act one of the play? Gerald was about to utter his climactic evil laugh.

Speaker 4 27:19

Not really the right time Toby. Maybe later. Holy shit, have you ever seen anything like this before? No, never. This is a first.

Speaker 3 27:32

What do we do? Don't think we have much of a choice but to just wait and go, I'm gonna close the observation.

Speaker 4 27:41

Wait, look, what is it? The lightning. It's concentrated over the cabin. Check it out. I can't look anymore, it's too bright.

Speaker 3 27:50

The storm seems to be happening right over our target. It's like the cabin is under attack. Take cover. What in the actual entire complete fuck, what?

Speaker 4 28:23

What is it?

Speaker 3 28:25

You'll have to see it to believe it.

Speaker 4 28:32

There's too much smoke or fog. I can't see anything yet.

Speaker 3 28:37

It's starting to clear. You'll have visibility in a jiff.

Speaker 4 28:40

Holy shit, no, no, no, no, it can't be.

Speaker 3 28:45

I'm activating the parabolic. I'll route the audio to both our stations.

Speaker 4 29:00

Agent Beef Stew. What could this possibly mean?

Speaker 3 29:03

No fucking clue. But there you have it Naturally occurring cows.

Speaker 5 29:22

Agent Podroast. May I close out Act 1 of the play now.

Speaker 4 29:26

Sure go ahead.

The Anselman Affair Concludes

Speaker 1 29:28

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Thank you. Stars Eric Arlino as Pop Roast, mike Cunningham as Beef Stew, ryan D'Armes as Toby, leslie Grant as Clementine. Stay tuned for episode three Fuzzy Trace Theory Coming soon. Thank you.