Pastoral: Science Fiction

The shepherd sat upon the hill, the breeze brushing his hair back from his face, and he watched the sheep milling around on the grassy sward below. And he pondered three-dimensional maths and why the spaceships had not yet returned and whether this batch of sheep could possibly have the vaccine that the spacemen had been hoping for when they returned. He wondered if they had all died out there, leaving their fine ship drifting among the stars. He wondered how the people, the shepherds, would ever know what had become of them. And he wondered if his good wife had made her beef stew for dinner tonight, because he thought it was delicious, and he figured that she knew it.

Inspiration: "pastoral"
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: *blinks* Well, my mind certainly didn't want to write something honestly pastoral, now did it?