Pigs In Paradise. Roger Maxson

asked a little whippersnapper, a piglet.

      “The earth’s flat and that’s that!” gaggled the geese.

      “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