The Pig Farm

All of the residents of the pig farm had gathered around a large concrete podium-styled elevation at the entrance to the farm. When the humans still controlled the farm, the elevation served as a ramp way for trucks who’d come to pick up the pigs for slaughter. However, after the swine residents took over the farm and overthrew their human oppressors, they have started using the elevation as a sort of stage for speeches and assemblies.

The farm’s elected-for-life leaders conducted these. The third leader of the pig farm was an elder boar with a massive scar running down the side of his face. Even in his old age, he seemed like an intimidating beast. Pedro I. Goodwin, a name given to him by his former human oppressors.

Pedro stepped up the concrete elevation with the utmost confidence. He expected to be blasted with complaints from the other residents of the farm. The farm had experienced a period of stagnation and decline.

A deadly plague of dysentery afflicted the young ones. The disease killed indiscriminately, forcing the young piglets to defecate themselves to death as they slowly wasted away in front of their helpless mothers. Death was slow and painful, sometimes taking weeks at a time. Predators were another danger. Wild cats were unstoppable killing machines that could devour a newborn piglet in a matter of hours, leaving nothing, not even the bones. The drugs the humans left when they were chased out of the farm did not cure swine diseases. They merely served as mild symptom management. An epidemic of mental health ravaged the elder residents, who remember the days during which the humans abused and tortured them for their meat and reproductive abilities.

A litany of problems riddled the pig farm, and Pedro had promised to fix them all during the elections after the death of the previous farm leader, Harold Oswald Grando. Thus far, however, Pedro seemed to fix nothing, merely enjoying his newfound status as the prime breeder and head of the Pork Society. Pedro’s position as the leader of the farm meant he had full control of the resources within the borders of the farm. He had access to the best food and the best chambers, leaving the other residents to suffer in the feces and mud-covered parts of the farm.

Pedro stood on the concrete elevation, a gigantic cloaked object was rolled behind him as he greeted the squealing and shrieking masses.

"Friends, brothers, sisters… We’ve gathered here today to deal with our problems. We have come here to eradicate our ills. We are here to solve everything! I promise you that today we’ll start our path to a better futu…"

He was cut off by a shrieking female pig, "Enough talking, Goodwin!"

The crowd jeered, "Yeah! Enough talking… Start working, you pig!"

The scarred boar shook his head and tried calming the agitated masses down, “Now, now… I promise you, today everything changes!”

"Oh yeah? What will you do about this?" another Swine called out angrily, hoisting the bloodied skull and spine of a piglet that ended up as a meal for the cats. The crowds gasped in unison at the gruesome sight.

Pedro stood there, silent, his eyes transfixed on the crimson bones of the piglet that didn’t even get to live long enough to know the scent of its mother.

Another pig yelled out, "What will you do about this?" pointing to the exposed blood-red muscle on his thigh. “The floors in the western tower are still slippery. I cut up my leg. Someone else might die!”

"Some have already died like that…" another one barked in response.

A young boar called out with a strained voice, "I am sick and tired of cleaning out the jammed corn dispensers! When will you get the water out of food?" He snored in sheer contempt.

"We already started butchering our young to spare them from the clutches of the plague!" another pig cried out, sending a terrified sigh through the crowd.

"What will you do to fix this?"

"What will you do?"

The crowd roared in unison, "What will you do?"

"What will you do, Goodwin?"

"What will you do? Huaaaaugh"

Pedro I. Goodwin stood there, completely silent, letting the crowd rage on until they seemed like they were about to lose it and overrun the concrete elevation. Then he motioned with one of his hooves. One of his bodyguards walked up to the cloaked colossus behind the farm leader and removed the cloak.

The crowd went silent at the sight before them, Goodwin soaked in the collective awe of his subjects as a wide smile formed slowly on his massive head. The scar on his mug bent, giving him an ominous look. He motioned his hoof again, and another bodyguard handed him a short bone spear.

Goodwin turned to the bloated, pale green corpse of Harold Oswald Grando. The remains of the previous leader were riddled with puncture wounds, and blood pooled down to its hind legs and behind, causing the lower part of the carrion to turn purple. Goodwin jammed the spear into the abdomen of his predecessor.

"This is the source of all our ills! We must punish him for those mistakes he had made, for they have cost us gravely!" The pig kept on stabbing the carcass until its guts fell out and covered the farm-head in blood.

Under the force of Goodwin’s blows, the bone spear cracked and broke in half, leaving the sharp tip lodged deep inside the side of Grando’s body.

"We must correct what he had broken. The roofs to combat the cats? A ruse to cover up his classicism! They don’t even protect us from the feline devils!" Goodwin roared as he started beating on the decaying remains of his predecessor with his hooves.

The crowd started cheering the senseless violence.

“We must break those roofs and dismantle the corn dispensers. The corn must be hand-dispersed equally among all of you, all of us! We must import better medicines!”

The crowd erupted into cheers and joyous squealing as the elderly hog tortured the lifeless body of a long-dead swine.

"Goodwin!" the swine squealed.

The scarred hog suddenly stopped, causing the crowd to stop along with them. He pulled the loose skin on the open gaping gut wound of the battered carcass and sarcastically cried out, “Maybe we should make his hide into rugs to cover the floors of the western tower?”

The crowd erupted into mocking laughter as the elderly pig started pounding at the corpse all over again

"Goodwin!"

"Goodwin!"

"Today is the day we dismantle the tyrannical systems devised by this good-for-nothing human of a pig! Today is the day you people get what is rightfully yours – all of this belongs to you, all of us." Goodwin declared as he landed a savage hook onto the tusk of his predecessor, breaking it in half.

"Goodwin! Goodwin! Goodwin!" The crowd cried out in adulation as Pedro I. Goodwin made his way down from the concrete elevation.

He smirked, looking at one of his advisors, "Told you, it works every single time with these simple-minded swine."