Animal Calm
I wrote this in July 2021 as I was trying to make sense of a world going bonkers.
This was a nod to Orwell, whose prescience may never be surpassed.
The farmyard was mourning because poor old Daffy had died. She had stepped on a nail and cut her foot, prompting Nima the pig to make a speech.
“Who will be next to step on a nail?” She asked, but only rhetorically, as everyone in the farmyard knew that the pig would look after them, whatever their answer.
“There will always be nails, yet we cannot risk anyone else stepping on a nail. Construction must cease.” The pig declared.
The twin goats, Beavis and Bertha were not convinced.
“There are rocks and twigs in the farmyard we might step on as well, it seems unlikely that stopping construction will help.”
“That’s right,” soothed Nima, “stopping construction will help, but we also require a few sacrifices. No one leaves the barn from now on. If you do so, you may walk the nails inside where we can all step on them. You’d be putting others at risk. Try not to think of the reality of sticks, twigs, stones. Try to focus on fearing the nails for now.”
The animals filed inside the barn, but Chivette the Chickadee squeaked in her small voice
“I need the bugs in the grass outside to eat, what can I do?”
“That’s right, Chickadee - the barnyard policy is our safest option right now. There were 10 instances of people stepping on nails today! Things will get worse for a short while, but soon I will have made you all metal shoes.”
Soxy the cat, with her piercing green eyes and darting movements had always put the other animals on edge, so they were wary when she spoke softly:
“Millions of years of evolution have given me padded feet that suit me well in all situations. I’ve stepped on thousands of nails before, so I’d prefer not to wait for the shoes.”
“The metal shoes are safe and effective.” Replied the pig, smiling, as he curled up next to, but on top of, the cat - providing warmth and comfort. The cat squirmed at first, but soon settled down, and with the weight of Nima on her ears, she missed the commotion on the other side of the barn.
Daisy the cow was telling what happened.
“Michail the mouse was sniffing around this half constructed feeding trough with nails all around it. He was spreading lies that Nima was the one building it, and was responsible for the nail that killed Daffy.”
Olly the Oxpecker, who was usually silent by necessity, paused his deep cleaning of Nima’s ear canal to poke his head out “Conspiracy!” he cried. “That was a naturally occurring pig trough which just happens to have the letters NIMA printed on it.” Without waiting for a reply, she went back in the ear.
But the commotion had unsettled the sheep, who preferred grass to conversation. One particularly rowdy sheep yelled “Nima is a person, and Yis or Ziz can speak for themselves, they don’t need a woodpecker mansplaining for them.”
Even the polite sheep rolled their eyes at this. “The metal shoes are safe and effective” a few of them murmured, and the others soon settled down to eat.
Over the following months, Nima occasionally opened the barn door. Surprisingly few animals thought to operate the door handle themselves. They were mostly pre-occupied with a conundrum - “there would always be nails, but we cannot risk anyone stepping on a nail.” It seemed everytime they filed out of the barn door, someone eventually stepped on a nail. The animals mostly huddled in the barn, feeling fortunate that the battery hens were churning out enough eggs to be delivered to their stalls. Occasionally someone would ask about Chickadee and all the small birds that had disappeared. Shep the sheepdog missed the variety and the song, and often recalled….
“There were 12 instances of stepping on nails today” The roosters crowed, interrupting Shep’s reminiscences.
Finally, the first metal shoe arrived, and none too soon. The manure pile in the corner had gotten out of hand, but no one dared sweep it away because, of course, they could not risk anyone stepping on a nail. Nima made a delighted speech:
“I’m proud to announce: ‘Sinoshoes’. We tested them, and only eight out of ten people had bleeding feet! They also prevented half of their wearers from stepping on nails, and we all know that every hundred thousandth nail will make someone sick, so it follows that they are necessary, safe and effective, and once we have them fitted on all of you, we will be safe to go outside.”
Daisy the cow cheered. She was eager to get outside. She assumed all the other animals were cheering but couldn’t quite be sure - she had recruited Olly the oxpecker and his wife to clean her ears most days, which made it hard to hear most of the time. She did not hear Shep confirming that the naturally occurring trough explanation had always been questioned legitimately by the oxpeckers, and that if Michail the mouse wanted to constantly question things which the oxpeckers did not want to share, he might need a lesson in proper science.
Beavis and Bertha were in no rush. They had agile legs, and could climb the stairs of the barn, jump on bales of hay and collect plenty of hen’s eggs. They laughed at the silly metal shoes the other animals were wearing, but the goats had a strict code of being tolerant and respectful. They stuck to their code - it didn’t cost much, even though from their vantage points, they could see other barns, and they knew that the story was not so simple.
Here the Isroyal barn were all wearing metal shoes, but were still locked in their barn.
There, the Ropians had been running free all along and were largely fine, but had heard the sheep chanting “The metal shoes are safe and effective”, so they decided to force all their animals to wear them. The Straya barn was the most interesting. They had no nails at all in their barn, and few of them had ever died from a nail, yet they had killed hundreds of animals by forcing the metal shoes on them. If they saw a nail in another barn, they would all run inside in a comical fashion. Daisy the cow, who had calves in the Straya barn, clomped with her metal shoes around the fence, but was not let in.
The sheep, who were particularly sensitive and naturally fearful, also climbed onto the bales of hay. However seeing the confusions in other barns made them upset, so the sheep decided to take the bales of hay down. The kind oxpeckers offered to bring them news of the other barns, but the sheep were confident they didn’t need it.
“We cannot risk people stepping on nails, and the metal shoes are safe and effective” they repeated - glancing menacingly at the cat. Her lack of metal shoes made them uncomfortable. She was not like them.
The cat, aloof most of the time, was not oblivious.
“Look” she said, “I’ll wear the metal shoes, but since they are irreversible, you’ll look after me if they maim me right? No? OK, then you’ll allow me to use these other metal shoes that are safe and effective but are not made by Nima right? No? OK, could you please just raise your eyes to the roof of the barn where we wrote our laws on animal righ….Mrrroowww”
The cat froze as she was pressed down by gentle daisy, who was looking wild in the eyes.
“I wore the sinoshoes …. I wore the sinoshoes.” Daisy was getting a little unhinged.
“The sinoshoes are safe and effective, but some safe and effective is more equal than others, so I cannot visit my calves. So I put the Pifpaz shoes on top, but the nails bend, the nails bend - I know they’ve always bent over time, but this caught me by surprise somehow! Now my husband is dead even though he wore the shoes and I’ll have to fit the Booster shoes next year before I’m allowed to see my calves. It’s not fair! The metal shoes are safe and effective and we cannot risk anyone stepping on nails! If only you, Soxy the cat, had worn metal shoes - it’s all your fault!!!”
“Now now” Soxy soothed, “No need to attack others based on your own fears. It’s all perfectly explainable, you’ll just have to get used to some critical thinking - see it’s possible that the sheep were ignoring data and animal rights to feel more secure, or that the pigs and the oxpeckers have motives other than your health and freedo...”
Beavis and Bertha were very interested in what the cat was saying, but the cat’s speech was cut short, because at that moment, all hell broke loose.
First, gentle daisy, wild with cognitive dissonance, bit the cat’s head off. As she spat it out, she declared “The metal shoes are safe and effective … I was right to silence the voice against them”
The sheep instantly took up the cry. They threw paint on the ceiling and dragged all other animals into the muck to get their metal shoes, and have their mouths taped shut. They were interrupted briefly when water started flooding the barn from somewhere, but they were more startled by the animals from the Developing nations barn who came storming in, some wearing their metal shoes, but all claiming they had no eggs!
“Close the door” Nima, they cried, but Nima didn’t care for the plight of the others, she single mindedly made sure only her hand was on the door, this being her only true desire, with the exception of declaring wars, digging up carbon, trafficking sex-piglets and making money, which she also enjoyed. On top of all that, the manure pile started to topple. Beavis and Bertha scampered up to the roof, away from all the chaos.
“They’ll come for us.” said Bertha, quietly
“They’ll come for us.” agreed Beavis, with infinite sadness in his voice.
“I really miss little chickadee” said Bertha, yet I was powerless to help her - if I fought to let her outside I would have missed out on my egg ration.”
Beavis disagreed
“You are not powerless, brave sister. You have seen as well as I have that animals march and animals protest. The words on the roof are important. Animals step on nails, yes, but they do so regardless of whether we lock them up or force them to wear shoes. More importantly, you know what the water in the barn means. Can we really trust the pigs and the oxpeckers to solve that for us?
“I agree with you, but I’m going down now to wear the shoes and enjoy some eggs. I can afford a nice corner where there is not too much muck. There is nothing more I can do. You’ll have to come with me, and we’ll have to change our code of course. They won’t let me have eggs if my twin has no metal shoes. ” And without pause for a reply, she left the roof.