note: with apologies to Audionautics.
voting for christmas
‘All I’m saying is, if you don’t vote, then you accept things as they are and can have no say over Christmas,’ Nolla declared, basking in the gobbles of agreement from many of the turkeys in the room. As is ever the case with poultry however, the sentiment was contentious. Trusty felt the need to give it voice.
‘But I don’t want to be taken to Christmas,’ he complained. ‘I don’t like it. Everyone we’ve seen leave for Christmas has disappeared, never to return. Seems suspicious to me.’
‘Better the devil you know then,’ Nolla joked. ’Cooped up in these ’ere pens, whiling away the time coughing and spluttering until we die! That may be a delightful existence for you, but I think a great number of us want more, which I believe lies outside this domain, if only we had the courage of our convictions to elect it!’
‘I never said I was happy with the way things are,’ Trusty protested. ‘I just think there must be something else other than to risk our fate at the hands of the Farmers promising us this so-called Christmas, whatever it is.’
‘Oh yes? Have you seen some other way recently? If so, do tell us! We’re all ears.’
The ears were left hanging.
‘That’s because there is no other way!’ Nolla harrumphed, to an eruption of laughter that deflated Trusty’s spirits. ‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘who are we to criticise the chosen ones? Did you not see how the last lot were, before the Farmers came for them? They were the best of us. Remember 567, the Great White? He looked well, happy, even. And why? Because he was plump and shiny through good feeding, he stood strong and tall thanks to the Farmers taking him outdoors for a while a time, and he sang as smoothly as anyone I’ve ever known. A spectacular tomfowl. When I last saw him, he spoke very favourably about the prospect of going to Christmas… something about being given “The Free Range”, I believe…’
The murmurs of concord among the group were undercut by another voice. ‘That’s how they fool you.’
Mixer’s remark had the effect of either elevating him above the others or sitting everyone else down, depending on your perspective, all while remaining still.
Nolla rolled his eyes at the new challenger. ‘Only you would see our well-fed, well cared for brethren and draw the least obvious conclusion from it.’
‘And only you would see a Farmer feed us and think that there is nothing in it for them,’ Mixer shot back. ‘Trusty understands this. Why don’t you? Surely you can’t be so naïve as to prefer we be sent to our deaths fattened and glowing above fighting for the right to be free to feed ourselves?’
‘What demagoguery! You have the nerve to gobble on about freedom from a sedentary position? Breathtaking. Have you even tried to escape? Or are you waiting for freedom to come a-knocking?’ Paralysed by gales of laughter from all sides, Mixer could only stare in frustration while Nolla continued to tease him. ‘I suppose it’s not come yet because it’s busy giving Christmas a bloody snood, eh? And how do we travel there, if not by Farmer? Must we carry ourselves to the promised Independent Republic of Turkeys, Land of Unlimited Grain?’
Mixer remained defiant in the face of Nolla’s provocations. ‘Mocking me only highlights your ignorance. You may look like us, but you act as though you are something else entirely. It’s bad enough to have no sense of solidarity for your brethren, but what’s worse is your complete inability to imagine the joy of a life free of our enemies! Did you forget who is keeping us here against our will? Or are they paying you off?’
‘Ooh, fighting talk! The real question is, why should we sacrifice our lives in the pursuit of your unknown pleasure? Of course, you’ll have no answer to that, unless you in some way admit you are doing the bidding of the Grim Reaper themself! Which is why I find it highly amusing that you would slander me as some sort of stooge for the farmers to pick us off, when in fact it is in my interests — nay, all of our interests — to find ways to improve our lives for the better, instead of risking almost certain death trying to stay alive in your free new world!’ And with that flourish, Nolla assumed a buffalo stance to lord it over a cowering Mixer.
Except nothing of the sort happened; Mixer’s stare hardened, if anything, while he muttered the word ‘traitor’ repeatedly under his breath, which moved Nolla to a rage. He strode towards his nemesis to meet him beak-to-beak, the perfect distance to deliver a telling off, sotto voce.
‘Perhaps you, like Trusty, need explaining what’s at stake here,’ Nolla chided. ‘The choice is not Christmas or Freedom! It is Christmas and Freedom, or this.’ He gestured towards the rest of the room, where the bloodied carcasses of all poultry scrapping for space to breathe were staining into the walls, and fecal treadmarks were left to fester on the stone floor in the harsh bulb lights, and the darkened corners were stashed knee high with piles of rotted limbs amputated from diseased gobblers, and the battered bodies of those same neutered toms huddled over them, crying over what they’d lost.
‘Is this what you want? When you could be out there somewhere, in the Free Range?’ Returning Mixer’s gaze with interest, Nolla made one last appeal to his stubborn counterpart. ‘We’re both better than this, old boy. I urge you to focus on the material rewards of Christmas. Think of those trappings, the trappings!’
Still Mixer held firm, dismissing the thought instantly. ‘The trappings! Pah! You are not as clever as you think. You too paint utopias precisely because you have no proof of what happens outside of here. But I will take my utopia over yours every time, because a Christmas at the mercy of others is no Freedom at all.’
‘That may be true,’ said Nolla, ‘but at least you can catch a glimpse of my utopia. Look around you. It is in the shape of every prize turkey here.’
Nolla raised his wing above both their heads and toward a spacious solitary pen in which major tom Fame2 stood proud, seemingly unruffled by the commotion beneath him, looking every inch this year’s model with his plump belly, firm smooth red wattle, bulging thighs, and glistening featherskin. Everyone knew he was next in line for the promised land because he was decorated: pinned to his breast was a large red rosette for his services to the Farm.
‘This is what my future looks like,’ said Nolla. ‘What about yours?’
Mixer’s eyes blazed ever more fiercely, but to the crowd he appeared speechless. Nolla seized advantage of his silence by calling on the chorus for a decisive vote on the matter.
‘All in favour of Christmas, say aye!’
A great majoritarian-sounding shout of approval rang out from the crowd.
‘And all those to the contrary, say nay!’
At that moment, the air filled with yelps of excitement from Fame2, who was plucked from his pen, presumably for Christmas, and perhaps Freedom.
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