Snowball was dead, or missing. The other pigs were growing hands and toes, things that could pick up something as delicate as a pen. We saw them all eating, gorging themselves on meat and cream and vegetables out of season—things that had never come from our farm. Coffee, liquor, cigarettes; these things they grasped in their new born fingers and hands.
The larger animals were all dead. The horses were long gone. The rest of the resistance consisted of mostly what used to be the fringes of barn-life: the rats, the bugs, the worms, and spiders and such; there were a few field animals that now sat in meetings and even spoke there—it used to be farm business, wasn't anything they concerned themselves with. Now we have learned that the neighboring farms have also been on the market, one's even in escrow; so, now, the field animals are also worried. There has been talk of a major urban project going up in the area. So, of course, the umbrella has changed. It's not just our farm, anymore.
* * *
"Well, I, for one, am all for the slash and burn! I don't see why we have to wait for escrow! I say burn the Mice out while they're in there!" one pig snarled.
"And kill the Moles, too!" came still another pig at the table.
The meats were all laid out. There were pitchers of cream, cheeses were stacked into towers upon which they feasted. Bowls of strawberries and plums and apricots and grapes, everything exotic and piled up and stacked. Even the table was set with linen and plates and silverware, but they gorged on with their stubby human-bits.
One pig sat at the head of the table. He reached out for a bit of chicken and poured wine into his glass. Cottage cheese stuck to his neck and he had scooped a pile of salad in front of him, his pink fingers hanging limp about his lips.
"Comrades! Gentlemen! Associates! A word, if you will!" he summoned their attention. "The Horses have all been summarily slaughtered and their parts sold into food or glue. The Chickens seem satisfied sacrificing the majority of themselves so that a few might naturally live, this including their children. We have tobacco, we have wine, we have beer, we have gin, and cigarettes, we have meat, we have fruit and vegetables, clean water—hot water! We sleep in beds and are learning to write our own names. Soon we will be able to write our own books! We have hired lawyers and are in possession of huge tracks of land! This, Pigs! Is our bounty! Our riches!"
The pigs snort and squeal. One pig belches up his dinner and then eats it again. A few play a rhythm on the table and dance a jig. One farts. The other squirms. A fork flies across the room, a howl is sent up, and laughter and laughter. A sheep, a sheep from the original wars with the farmers, his name now forgotten, naked, humiliated, shaved down to his pink skin, moved from pig to pig with a silver bowl for their fingers to wash in. Once in a while, a pig would knock the bowl into the air, and the sheep would fetch it and fill it with water and take it around again.
The other animals watched from the edge of the fields. It was now too dangerous to watch from a window. The pigs had posted a watch. Mocking birds were posted on the roof, and if they got too close the alarm might go out.
* * *
Later, at the meeting in the field...
The animals were tired and cold. They had had to abandon the last barn some months ago and now lived out in the fields with the animals there. They were thankful to the rodents and the other creatures who taught them how to burrow and create shelter with dry corn husk. They refrained, per usual, from lighting a fire—they each would have enjoyed this pleasure they had learned. No, the Pigs might see the flame through the fields from their farm house, or their watch might alert the pigs to the animal's position out in the fields. No, they hadn't had a warm night in several months.
"I say we poison the chicken meat!" spoke up a dung beetle. Some of the other animals seconded the idea. True, they were beginning to think of ways to kill pigs—but some hated the Chickens even more, for doing what they did to their own. It was repugnant to everyone. Even the dung beetles were turning.
Sal, a field mouse, the most unlikely hero to emerge among the resistant farm animals, spoke. "Our farm has been taken over by the Pigs. Our fields have been sold to the Humans. A life can not exist without a territory. I propose we that are left think not of creating a life of our past, that is dead; but, instead, recognize that, without our consent, these animals have irreversibly damaged our way of living. I, for one, am a field mouse. I like to eat snacks and prance along dirty mounds. I like to poop in piles and mark off a little territory. Now, that is all gone for me. I am willing to see the rest of it go, too. I, for one, see nothing but a dead pig."
Later still, in the farm house...
Markus, the pig who out-smarted Snowball, the one who had made himself El Presidente, flopped into his eiderdown bed and grunted amongst the pillows and comforters. The wine and gin and chicken all played games with his pig-mind. His soft, human fingers began to stroke the tiny, emerging penis between his fat thighs. The lamp next to the bed bounced and swayed to the jerking motions Markus was making to himself. He grunted once more and then splashed the floor with his filth. A billion piggy-babies wiggled about in the protoplasm. The laughter of the pigs still in the dining room outside came in through the cracks of his room. A picture of the old farmer stood upright on the bed stand. Some dirty pig had stolen the one of the farmer's wife the night of the raping. Markus farted and giggled at the thought of his past life. At that time, the time of the insurrection, he had been a first lieutenant, scrambling in the dark and buckshot. Now the cotton sheets and the soft pillows were washed, and a human hadn't slept in the bed in years. It was all hog scent. Markus passed out.
A pig's dream isn't much different than anything else's. He flew around a bit, saw some of the things he had done, he made love to something, he ran in fear, and he dreamed his dreams.
* * *
Meanwhile, the animals in the field were making watch. Some slept together; the ones with fur spacing themselves between the animals with none. And a couple of hours before dawn they were all awoken. Torches were lit, sharp metals were passed around quietly among them...
