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“It was to see if man could be trusted and kept from temptation, but he failed. Thus, man and woman were cast out of paradise and made to bleed and feel pain and hunger, and from that day to this one, ever since to hunt and eat animal flesh.”
The younger animals ran and hid as the chickens flew to the rafters.
“Oh, but we thank man for his fall from grace for it has allowed us to flourish and multiply and to be cared for and kept safe and nourished by man made in God’s image. So ends the word of God. Go forth now and multiply for it is your duty to serve God and man.”
“If he doesn’t sound like someone’s parrot, I don’t know who does?” Julius said to the ravens, but they did not answer. They were asleep.
By the time the service was over, both Blaise and Beatrice were asleep on their feet with Beatrice snoring ever so lightly. In a nearby pen, Molly, and her friend Praline, both leaders of their respective flocks, and not prone to such religious fervor, were also asleep, curled up warmly together in their part of the barn, where, once the euphoria wore off to allow them to sleep, the other sheep would eventually find their way. Praline was curious about most things around her. At certain moments like this, when she was in attendance, she often had questions, but would always think otherwise and not ask. If Adam named the sheep, did he not also name every breed for which she knew of at least four, including the Boer and Angora goats on the farm? The question was a simple one and she assumed the answer was just as simple. Did Adam name all the different breeds of animals? Someday she knew she would know the answer. Someday she knew she would ask the question.
Joseph, the elderly barn boar, 12-years-old, and 900 pounds, lay prostrate in one corner of the sanctuary with a small group of young piglets. “And 100 little angel-piglets fly around and land on the head of a pin.”
“What?” said one of the piglets, “100 balls of shit? Did he say you could roll up 100 balls of shit? What are you talking about, you crazy old boar?”
“Angels, my dear boy, angels,” breathed the elder. “Little angel-piglets fly around the head of a pin as hundreds, even thousands, alight on the head of the pin. This is heaven.”
“No, this is crazy,” said another young pig. “You are a crazy old boar.” He and his friends laughed and shuffled away. Mel’s ears twitched. He did not appreciate the tone the young pigs had taken with Joseph, the elder.
The next day there were Fourteen Pillars of Wisdom, with the following scrawled in chalk across the bottom of the wooden planks,
“14: Honor thy elders for they have struggled long and hard to survive the dinner plate into old age.”
6
Dueling Banjos
Boris was something of a novelty, a curiosity, and anywhere Boris went the other animals were sure to follow. One day they followed him out to the feedlot behind the barn where Bruce stood, leaning against a fence post near the water tank.
Howard the Baptist stood in the shade of the fig tree beside the pond and warned the animals to be vigilant against the possibility of marauders in the night.
“Ignore the blasphemer,” Mel said from the sanctuary of the barn. “He is the heretic of the great heresy. Follow him and you shall surely follow him straight to hell.”
The yellow chicken came running from the barn flapping her yellow feathers. She ran into the barnyard crying, “The end is near! The end is near! Better have your houses in order. Good day, rabbi,” she sang past Boris at the compost pile on the other side of the fence. She would soon be followed by a mass exodus from the barn.
It was the Sabbath, and no Jews were to be seen, not even the moshavnik Perelman. Juan and Isabella Perelman didn’t always observe the Sabbath, but instead usually traveled or at least never came out to work on the farm. The laborers usually took advantage of the peace and tranquility of the Sabbath, but they knew regardless of the occasion, when there was work to be done, it was left to them to do it. Today was no exception. Rambunctious as always, a dozen ten-month-old porkers were separated, held in a pen with a loading ramp next to the barn. More anxious and nervous than usual, considering it was the Sabbath, the porkers rutted under the fence, squealing all the while that something was terribly wrong, that something awful was about to happen, but what or when they didn’t know. The laborers were not to be seen either and this, too, frightened the corralled pigs, and all the farm animals for that matter. Afraid, they flocked to Boris, the Berkshire boar, and Messiah.
When Boris saw the multitudes come rushing toward him, he sat down next to the compost pile and knew where his next meal was coming from. They gathered around him in a semi-circle. Separated as he was from the masses by a lot fence, the masses could not kiss his pig feet. Instead, they cried, “Oh, dear Lord! What does it all mean, Rabbi? Teach us!”
As the others gathered around, the piglets, and there were many, with three recent litters joining the general pig population, because pigs every three months, three weeks, and three days produced new offspring, fell at the great boar’s even-knuckled feet. Next were the little kids, the Angora and Boer goats, falling in behind. Many of the newborn little lambs were either with their mothers while they grazed along the slopes in the shade of the olive trees or in the barn where most of the fowl spent the afternoons away from the pigs and other animals of the farm. Except for Stanley. He was in the barn eating grain from the trough in his stall.
Boris opened his mouth to teach, and this was what the wise one taught, “Blessed are the farm animals, high and low, great and small, for they are poor, and the poor shall be rewarded in heaven.” Sally, the Sow, appeared from the throngs of animals with her broad of new piglets under hoof from her most recent litter to speak to her son, Boris, the runt of her seventh litter.
“You, my son, have done well to survive and thrive. For this, I am grateful. At first, I did not want you to be taken away, so far away as that, and in that direction.”
“I am the son of He who you do not see or know but that I do. She is merely a sow,” he said to the gathered animals. “I am the son of heaven. Be gone, sow, and litter no more.”
Ezekiel and Dave alighted in the branches of the fig tree that shaded Howard near the pond. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted, for in paradise, which art in heaven, no animal’s flesh is ever cut from the bone for the nourishment of heavenly creatures.”
Cheers went up among all the animals and they were happy.
Not so the Muslims, who perched on the ridge of the village overlooking the Israeli farm and the animals below. “For this is God’s gift to those who suffer for righteousness,” Boris said. “Remember, no one eats in heaven; thus, no one defecates.”
“Rabbi, must we wait for heaven before we are rewarded?”
“It is not for us to question the way of the Lord,” reproached another.
“And until that time that the poor shall enter the kingdom of heaven, they shall first inherit the earth.”
“Nor do they, say you, Rabbi, fornicate? I mean, procreate in heaven?”
“There is no sin of the flesh in heaven. In the kingdom of heaven, we live in peace, the lamb alongside the lion, the goat beside the wolf.”
“What?” said Billy St Cyr, the Angora goat, who was due for a shearing soon, especially now, the height of summer.
“And the bird shall nestle with the alligator.”
The animals ran to Howard the Baptist.
“Well, there you have it,” Dave said. “I guess we’re blessed because he mentioned animals of the wild.”
“Do you want to lie down next to the crocodile?”
“No, thank you. I don’t want to cuddle with a snake either,” Dave said.
“No, thank you, Boris,” Ezekiel said. “I don’t want to lie down with the boar either, lest he snore.”
“Rumor has it he does, as per Blaise.”
Howard said, “This is nothing. Nothing but evil, owned and operated by Satan, and our lives on this evil plane should come to an end as fast as possible, so that we may enter God’s world. God’s world is the true world and the domain of our Creator God. All else belongs to Satan, including the barn in which so many of you worship.”
Boris said, “As surely as you walk on four legs, I am the way. In my father’s house, there are many pigsties. Through me, you shall enter heaven, for I am the way, the light, the truth.”
The Baptist said, “A truth.”
Boris said, “The Truth.”
The Baptist said, “Semantics.”
Boris said, “The only truth you’ll ever need. Just as the rivers bleed in the spring, I am the calm in the storm, the beacon to light your way through the darkness of this world.”
“You mean bacon, don’t you?” said a sow and smiled.
Boris ignored her.
At the pond, Howard the Baptist poured water over the snout of a sow. He said to those in attendance, “You are animals. You are innocent. You do not need a barn to worship in. You carry the true religion within you. It is not in this world or place or within the walls of the barn. The only structure worthy to house the knowledge of the true religion is yourself, for it is found within you. The truth is your buttress against this other nonsense and the evils of this world that enslave us for the slaughter and nourishment of the slave master. The true religion is in your heart. It prepares you to enter through me, your Prefect, into the realm of heaven that which was made by our one true God for us, the good.” Howard the Perfect of the one true religion then recited the Lord’s Prayer. When he said, “Thank you Lord for our daily bread,” the pigs, omnivores every one, darted, and started a stampede back to Boris, their one true Messiah, as per Mel, their spiritual leader on earth or this farm, and away from Howard the heretic, as per Mel. Mel, standing in the shadows of the awning of the barn, was pleased.
“The pure of heart waddles in mud,” Mel said to his two henchmen, the Rottweilers Spotter and Trooper. They watched from the floor of the barn as Howard continued to baptize piglets, goats, and certain fowl in mud and water from the pond. “Stubborn pigs,” Mel said. “They are delusional. They think they’re doing God’s bidding. Take your pick, two idiots talking a good game. Fools both of them, but one talks my game while the other is of no consequence. We can stand to use a pet pig.”
Mel’s pet pig continued his teaching, “Blessed are the gentle lamb and the kid, the daughter and the son of the sheep and the goat, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after truth and righteousness, for they shall be filled with righteousness and truth. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy and be plentiful in heaven. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God upon entering the kingdom of paradise, which art in heaven.
“Blessed are those who are shepherded by righteous man, the Christian, for they are truly the true children of God, and shall be called as such, and their shepherds Godly. Blessed are those who are persecuted, marked for slaughter for righteousness’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. For righteousness’s sake allow yourselves to be ingested, digested, and well-rested, for eternal life in heaven is given to you who is risen through the digestive tract of righteous man, the Christian. For as the good shepherd leaves this earth upon death and enters life eternal in heaven, you, too, shall enter heaven through the righteous Christian’s bowel.”
They ran for Howard.
“Beware of all others,” Boris called after them. “The Jews, the Muslims, the false prophets, for you cannot enter paradise through the bowel of the infidel.”
“Oh, my God, are you kidding me?” said Dave, aloft in the rafters.
“No,” exclaimed Ezekiel. “He’s shitting you!”
Howard warned the animals gathered at the pond that the Muslim holiday Ramadan was upon them and that if they wanted to survive to the Jewish High Holidays, they should take heed and prepare for a possible raid coming from the desert in the foreseeable future. “Look how they salivate over our kids and little lambs.” Egyptians perched along the edge of the village that overlooked the Israeli moshav, all the while watching the farm animals graze in the fields below. Howard continued his sermon, preaching that they should stop procreating. It was a sin against nature. As the animal population dwindled, he reasoned, the humans would no longer procure or process them out for meat, and therefore would leave them alone as they faded from the earth, which was created by Satan anyway.
The animals ran for the sanctuary to seek forgiveness and reassurance from Mel.
“Ignore the heretic. He is the heretic of the great heresy,” he assured them. “Disregard everything that comes from his jaws. Follow Boris, your true Messiah.”
“Blessed are the Christians for it is through their kindness that we, too, shall enter into heaven,” Boris continued his sermon next to the compost pile.
The sheep settled in around Boris’s four-toed cloven hooves for comfort.
“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”
“The mink — what the — I don’t want any stinking mink inheriting the earth.”
“No, no, friend, not mink, meek,” said a 6-year-old 250-pound boar. “The meek among us shall inherit the earth.”
“Friend, there are no mink among us.”
Pandemonium broke out in the pigpen as a 26-foot box truck came into view and backed against the loading ramp. On the side of the orange-paneled truck in black letters: “Harvey’s Pulled Pork Palace of Tel Aviv, live Blues music Friday and Sunday nights.” Through all the squeals of protest and chaos, two men prodded the porkers up the loading ramp into the box truck and, in short order, they had the dozen porkers loaded and were gone, never to be seen again. As for the two men, they would return.
Boris stood on two legs and to the faithful, he preached, “My friends, those porkers were rendered eunuchs for the benefit of man, and being that they are swine, you can rest assured that they are intended for the gastronomical pleasure of Christian man. Put yourselves upon the cutting block and you, too, shall be assured a place at God’s table.”
The faithful squealed for Howard.
Howard preached of the forces of good and evil, the dualism between God and Satan, a close game at best, the evils of flesh and blood, the entrapment by the body and of the earth, of light and darkness, the sins of humans in general. “Stop procreating,” he advised. “Humans will stop eating animal flesh as our populations dwindle to nothing.”
They turned to Boris, who said, “Blessed are you when people reproach you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the swine prophets who came and went before you.”
Julius flew out and alighted on the right shoulder of Bruce. “Who’s winning?”
“Tied, two-all, the bottom of the fifth, with two outs and a goat on second,” Bruce said and shook his head.
“Hmm, the bottom of the fifth,” Julius said. He moved to the fence post afraid that his weight would become too much of a burden for Bruce to carry and wear him down. “I’m afraid this game is too slow for me to stay to the end. What if it went into extra endings! Oh, my goodness, it might never end!”
Bruce closed his eyes against the flies.
* * *
“Duck!” quacked a duck in the barn when a Chinese laborer appeared from nowhere. Chaos ensued as chickens, ducks and geese scrambled in all directions to hide in all corners of the barn. The laborer reached down and grabbed a goose by the neck and disappeared as quickly as he had come.
Two ducks ventured out and met in the middle of the sanctuary. They peered about, surveying the area as chickens, other ducks and the remaining geese came out from hiding.
“Oh, my goodness,” said the duck who had warned everyone. “That was close.” She looked at her friend.
Her friend said, “Don’t say it. Don’t say it.”
“Her goose is cooked.”
“Next time we may not be so lucky. Next time they might crave Peking duck.”
“Well, thanks be to Boris that none of us is from there!”
“Blessed are the Christians, for in their wondrous wisdom feed us,” Boris continued from the compost pile.
“If you call the slop they give us, food, you’re a bigger pig than I thought.”
“Blessed are the Christians who eat us.”
“Eat us? And you bless them for that?”
“You do not enter heaven through the bowels of a Muslim,” Boris explained. “However, because of our association with Jesus, we enter the Kingdom of God through the Christian’s digestive tract. And blessed is the Jewish God, Yahweh, for He granted asylum to the swine as well because the Jew did not like the sound of pigs squealing. It reminds him of the cries of babes. Rabbis, forever after, granted swine were dirty, and stupid, left us alone to frolic, and flock, and multiply.”
“Yes, well, I’m not so sure about that,” said a young boar, and lucky to be a boar. “He’s changed his mind because now some Jews are putting bacon on their plates.”
“They’re not kosher or devout as their Muslim neighbors. Regardless of what Muhammad said, or what he said that they did not hear, Muslims swore off pork.”
* * *
“So, when are you breaking out of this joint?” Julius said.
Bruce said, “When the tide comes in.”
“I didn’t know you could swim.”
“You’ll carry me to safety. Anything would be better than this shit.”
“I’m not sure, but it might depend on which way the wind blows. Don’t look now, but rumor has it, cell block number 9 is making a break for it later tonight. They have a tunnel dug, but I can’t bear to tell them it comes out under the Gaza Strip and not the Kerem Shalom mall.” Julius covered his beak with a wing as he turned his head to feign a laugh.
“Is the mule leading the way?”
“Are you kidding? He’s pinning his hopes on the back of the Bore of Berkshire, just as the Boar has the tail pinned on the donkey.”
“Tell us, O Lord, of Jesus and the Demon Swine.”
“Oh, yes, please do, Lord,” cried the piglets. “Tell us the story of how the demons were cast into swine.” And Boris did not disappoint. He told the story of how Jesus cast out demons into a herd of swine, but with a different outcome, which was joyous and beneficial, particularly to the young pigs among the farm animals.
“When Jesus came into the country, he was greeted by two people possessed by demons. They met him there on the road, coming out of tombs, and so exceedingly fierce, they would not allow anyone to pass that way, not even Jesus. ‘Behold,’ they cried out. ‘What do you know, it’s Jesus. What do we have to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’ Jesus replied, ’No, not at all. Just passing through on my way to Galilee, friends, carry on.’ But the demons begged him, ‘If you cast us out, dear Lord, permit us to go away into that herd of pigs over there feeding as they are far away from us.’ And the Lord said to the demons, ’Go!’ They came out, and went into the herd of pigs, and behold it was said, and the whole herd of pigs rushed down the cliffs into the sea, and died against the rocks.”
“Oh, how awful,” the piglets cried.
