Estimated Reading Time: 15 minutes
I watched in horror as a two-legs picked Mia up and smashed her skull into the concrete floors. Repeatedly, blow after blow. Mia struggled to escape from its grip, but it was no use. She wasn’t strong enough. After the third impact, she finally stopped screaming.
The two-legs waited a few seconds to make sure she was dead, then it walked away with her lifeless body as if this was the most normal thing in the world. A trail of Mia’s blood followed it out the room.
We all stood there. Stunned and powerless. In just a moment we had been reduced from seven to six. From siblings to survivors. No one knew what to say. I examined what was left of Mia on the floor and tried not to throw up.
After what felt like forever, Mom broke the silence, “Gather around children.”
We sulked over to the side of our room where Mom lay in her cage. She tried to turn her body to face us but, as always, the bars prevented her from doing so. The cage was too narrow for her to face anywhere but forward at the wall. She settled with craning her neck to the side to address us.
With tremors in her voice, she began to speak, “Children, I’m so sorry you had to watch that… you have no idea how much it pains me to be so powerless… what… what just happened to Mia was one of the cruelest acts I’ve seen in my time here at the Shed… I know I’m usually the one to keep our spirits high, but right now… all I feel is pain.”
Seeing Mom so defeated flipped a switch inside of me. Suddenly my terror turned to rage. I began to shout, “Why do they do it Mom!? Why did they kill Mia? Why do they keep us here?”
Mom gazed at me with tears in her eyes, “Lily, I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to us Mom!” In the heat of the moment, she had become the subject of my anger. “You’ve been here longer than any of us. You must know something!”
“It’s no use to speak of what I know,” she sighed.
“Mother please! It can’t be worse than what we’ve just witnessed. At least let us understand why we’re here.” My siblings nodded in agreement.
Mom hung her head and stared at the floor. She paused for a long time before she spoke next. “Okay children. I suppose Lily’s right, it’s time I explained this place to you.”
She repositioned her head between the slats of her cage and took a deep breath. “The Shed is all I’ve ever known. Like the rest of you, I was born here in a room like this, but unlike me, my mother never talked. Every day, she’d just gnaw on the bars of her cage until she fell asleep. At first, I didn’t see why, but over the years I’ve come to understand.”
“Why didn’t she speak Mom?” one of my sisters asked.
“The Shed drove her crazy. Every year, she was forced to give birth in this tiny cage, and every year, her children were taken from her… the same thing happens to me now,” Mom’s voice trailed off. She took a moment to compose herself before continuing. “The Shed is much larger than I ever expected. There are thousands of us here, kept in cages and crowded rooms. Many of us die young, but if we live long enough, we are loaded onto rolling machines that take us away. Nobody knows where we go, because nobody ever returns.”
“Thousands of us!? Mom, I don’t understand,” I cried. “Why do the two-legs do this?”
“Lily, I’ve come to realize there’s only one explanation. It’s to keep from killing themselves. The two-legs are an evil breed… their true nature is violence. They built the Shed so that instead of harming one another, they could harm us instead. That’s why they trap us here in these awful conditions… they relish the violence.”
“But Mom, what about Mia? Why’d they kill her, and not the rest of us?” I pleaded.
“It’s because she was sick,” explained Mom. “If a two-legs sees someone who appears close to death, it will take it upon itself to finish things. Two-legs never miss an opportunity to kill.”
The next month was the hardest of my life. Mom’s story drove my siblings and I into a competitive frenzy. Whereas before we had all drank equally from Mom’s milk, now we fought one another for every drop. Nobody wanted to get sick, nobody wanted to end up like Mia.
“Move it Lily!” my brother shouted as he shoved me out the way.
The shove hurt, but I was expecting it. My siblings never let me drink for long before taking the nipple from me. I begged them, “Brothers, sisters, please just share a sip… I haven’t eaten in days!” But it was no use. Our fear of the two-legs was far stronger than our ability to cooperate.
I’d try to fight back, I really would. But I had always been the smallest of my siblings, and the competition only made things worse. I watched as my siblings grew to twice my size, I suffered through the hunger pains, and I started to slowly lose my mind. I thought for sure I was going to die, I just hoped it wasn’t the same way as Mia. For that reason, whenever a two-legs walked by, I hid behind my siblings, praying it didn’t sense my growing weakness.
One day, one of them did. “Saul, come look at this piglet. I don’t think she’s going to make it!” shouted the two-legs. It towered over me and my siblings, gazing down at me with its piercing eyes. My siblings scrambled, leaving me alone in the center of our room.
I looked up at the two-legs, and then over at Mom. I was too shocked to say anything, but my eyes gave away my terror. Mom briefly made eye contact with me, but then she dropped her gaze to the floor. I looked around and saw that my siblings had done the same.
I didn’t blame them. There was no point in rewatching what happened to Mia.
Another two-legs came into view. “You’re right Shane. She’s too small to make it in here much longer. Let’s take her.”
One of the two-legs swooped down to pick me up. I thought about running, but after weeks of fighting for my life, I no longer had the energy. I resigned to my fate and within a matter of moments, the two-legs had me wrapped in its hold. I braced myself for the skull bashing to begin.
But it never came. Instead, the two-legs began to run. “Let’s get out of here Saul!” it yelled.
I watched as the Shed swept across my vision. I caught glimpses of more rooms like mine, more children like me, and more moms like Mom. It was just as Mom had described it: cages and crowded rooms.
“Intruders! Seize them!” shouted someone in the distance. A loud, blaring sound started to ring in my ears.
“Shit, they set off the alarms Saul! Let’s pick up the pace!” The two-legs sprinted until we reached a huge door at the end of the Shed. The two-legs called Saul stepped back, lowered its shoulder, and charged at the door. It flew off its hinges and we ran out.
On the other side, we emerged into the biggest room I’d ever seen. Even though I looked everywhere, I couldn’t find the walls. The two-legs seemed unfazed by this, and they ran straight into the darkness ahead.
“Stay in the shadows Shane.” We crept onwards through the mysterious, unbounded room. The ground made a weird crunching sound below us, and somehow, the air felt as if it was moving. Meanwhile, the shouting behind us sounded like it was getting closer.
“They’re gaining on us Saul. We have to hide. I can’t outrun them to the car while still carrying her,” the two-legs said urgently.
“Okay, but where? There’s nothing but pasture.” The other two-legs pointed to a large box alongside us. “The dumpster!? Are you serious? You know what they throw in there.”
“I don’t think we have a choice.”
We climbed inside the large box, and the two-legs crouched to lower their heads. Upon entering, the first thing that hit me was the stench. It was overwhelming. I tried looking around to see what was producing the awful smell, but my eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the darkness. Meanwhile, the voices outside grew louder.
“Goddamn animal extremists… terrorists is what they are… think they have the right to steal our property.” The voices sounded like they were right outside now. At the same time, my eyes began to adjust to the low lighting, and I started to make out some of the objects around me. But I wish I hadn’t.
The objects weren’t objects, they were bodies. And they all looked like Mia.
I shrieked at the top of my lungs. Quickly, the two-legs clamped its hand down over my mouth to stifle the scream, but it wasn’t fast enough. The voices outside paused.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yeah, must’ve been one of the pigs from inside. They never shut up.”
A few minutes passed, and the voices eventually trailed off. One of the two-legs popped its head over the box and said, “They’re heading the other way. Let’s make a run for it.” We hopped out and the two-legs didn’t stop sprinting until we got to a big cage on wheels.
“Get in the passenger side Shane. I left the formula in the cup holder.” We entered the cage and the two-legs placed me in its lap. I watched as it patiently picked up a bottle and moved it towards my face. I tried to squirm away, terrified of what it had in store, but the two-legs grabbed my head and forced the bottle into my mouth.
Where I was expecting a sting, instead I felt relief. Warm milk poured into my body and filled me up from the inside. It wasn’t exactly like Mom’s, but I was far too famished to care. I didn’t stop to think why this strange two-legs was helping me. I didn’t even stop to process the horrors I’d just witnessed. All I did was chug.
“That was a close call back there Saul.”
“I know, the industry’s catching onto us. I wish we had time to save more of them.”
I woke up to the softest feeling, as if I was sinking into the ground beneath me. I opened my eyes and glanced around the room. It looked like the Shed, mostly empty, but the surface beneath me confirmed that I was indeed somewhere else now. The Shed was hard, not soft.
I felt calm, that was until I looked up and saw the two-legs’ face. Unbelievably, the softness I was feeling was the torso of a two-legs. Repulsed, I screamed and immediately jumped off. The two-legs became startled by this now too and jolted awake. For a moment, we just stared at each other, but then I made a run for it.
I got as far as the door before I realized that, yet again, there was nowhere for me to run. I turned to face the two-legs, expecting it to be closing in on me, but it was still laying in our original position, just staring. “Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” it began to repeat.
“It’s not okay!” I yelled back. With nowhere to run, I resorted to my words. “Stay back from me! I know about your kind. I’ve seen what you do.”
To my surprise, the two-legs actually seemed hurt by these words. In fact, it almost looked guilty. “I’m so sorry… I know you’ve already seen too much,” it replied. “And I understand why you don’t trust me, but I promise you I’m here to help.”
“How can I trust you?!” I cried. “Do you know how much two-legs have harmed me?”
“I’m so sorry,” it repeated. “If you give me the chance, I can explain everything.” I didn’t have many other options, so I let this strange two-legs continue. “Let’s start with our names. What’s yours?” he asked.
“Lily,” I replied flatly.
“Lily,” he repeated. “My name’s Shane. I rescued you from the factory farm last night because I saw you needed help, and I didn’t have the heart to leave you behind.”
“You didn’t have the heart!?” I shouted. “Then what about my siblings? What about Mom? Why didn’t you rescue them!?”
“I wish I could Lily,” it said solemnly. “I really wish I could. The reason I was there last night is because I want people to see what the industry does to pigs like you. I want them to understand how much you all suffer.”
“You want who to understand!? Other two-legs?” I challenged angrily. “How would a two-legs ever understand what I’ve experienced?”
“Because I recorded everything. Now people can see the conditions you’ve lived in. They can see the violence for themselves.”
“So what?!” I screamed back. This two-legs was either lying or foolish. “Do you seriously think that will change anything? Two-legs love violence, that’s why I was abused.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mom did. And she’s been at the Shed longer than anyone else.”
Upon hearing this, the two-legs started to look even more shameful. Its face sunk, and its eyes dropped to the floor. It didn’t say anything else for a while. When it looked back up at me, there were tears in its eyes. I didn’t understand. Was this two-legs actually remorseful?
“I get why your Mom felt that way,” it said quietly. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be abused by humans your entire life. But the truth is, that’s not why your family was tortured. It’s not because people love violence, it’s because people tolerate violence.”
“What do you mean?” I truly had no idea what it was saying.
“Do you want me to show you?” it asked. I was tempted to start shouting again, to say something angry and scathing. But something about this two-legs made me hesitate. It seemed genuinely apologetic, like it actually cared.
“Okay,” I replied.
Shane opened the door and we walked through together. On the other side, I found myself, again, in the big room with no walls. But this time everything was blue, and there was a blinding light hovering above us. It was frightening to take it all in, but Shane seemed unbothered, so I trusted it would be okay.
“What’s that above us?” I asked.
He looked up and replied, “I don’t see anything.”
I gave him a puzzled expression, and as I did so, I watched the recognition wash over his face. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” I was getting used to hearing him say this. “I forgot you’ve never been outside before… the blue stuff is the sky, and the yellow ball… that’s the sun. The greens on the ground are called grass, and the greens in the air are called trees.”
“Where are the walls?” I questioned.
“There are no walls outside,” he explained.
Outside. I decided I loved outside. Shane and I walked through the greens on the ground and under the greens in the air. I wondered at the colors around me, I breathed in the smells, and I ran through the sky. The best part of it all, I could feel the sun on my skin. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
I rolled around in the grass and Shane started laughing. “How’s that feel?” he smiled. I didn’t have to respond for him to know. I just kept rolling, and he just kept laughing.
After about an hour of playing, Shane and I lay down beneath a tree to rest. Shane looked up at the sky to examine something called clouds. He tried getting me to look up with him, but I was more interested in sniffing the grass.
“Lily, do you still want me to explain what I was saying to you earlier? About the factory farm?” he asked. “I should warn you, it’s not as fun as this has been. It’s actually very scary.”
“Shane,” I said between sniffles of grass. “As long as we don’t have to go back to the Shed, I want you to explain everything.”
“Then follow me,” he said. We got up and continued walking. This time, I wasn’t as sidetracked by all the new sights and smells, although there was one thing that really caught my attention: these furry creatures, with long tongues and strings tied around their necks. Shane said most people failed to see it, but these creatures were actually quite similar to me. Personally, I didn’t see the resemblance.
I followed Shane through crowds of two-legs, across striped white lines, and around more of those big cages on wheels. It was terrifying to be around so many other two-legs, but Shane quickly noticed this and scooped me into his arms.
Eventually, we arrived at a large enclosure Shane called the grocery store. “Alright Lily, before we decide to go inside, I want you to understand what there is to see. Inside this building are more pigs like you, but none of them are alive anymore. They—”
“Shane what!?” I interrupted. “Two-legs kill us inside of here?”
“No… no they don’t. This is just where we keep the bodies,” he sighed.
“What!? I don’t understand,” I cried.
“Lily, I’m so sorry. We don’t have to go inside… I… I probably should’ve waited longer to tell you this.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said defiantly. I was tired of others not explaining things to me. Mom had done the same thing to us back at the Shed, and maybe if she hadn’t waited until the moment when she could no longer hide the truth, things would’ve gone differently. “Let’s go.”
Shane sat me down inside a cage on wheels and pushed us forward into the store. My first impression was the place didn’t look so bad actually. Two-legs were walking around with their children, it smelled pleasant, and everyone appeared calm.
“We’re about to enter the meat aisle Lily. This is where the other pigs are.”
“What’s meat?” I asked.
“It’s the word humans use for animals after they’re slaughtered and cut into pieces.”
I tensed. We turned the corner and entered the meat aisle. Again, it wasn’t as bad as I expected. All along the shelves were red strips packed into boxes, but I didn’t see anyone that looked like me.
“Where are the other pigs Shane?”
“You’re looking at them,” he replied.
I took a second to examine the red strips closer, still not understanding. Meanwhile, another two-legs that was walking past saw me and stopped. “Is that a piglet?” it asked. “Shouldn’t it still be at the farm, not the food store?” it laughed. “I don’t eat red meat anyway,” it offered as it walked away.
That was all it took for everything to finally click. “Shane,” I said softly. “Do two-legs… do two-legs eat our bodies?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “That’s why you were born on the factory farm. The purpose wasn’t to harm you, it was to eat you.”
I glanced back at the packages and broke down into tears. How could two-legs be so casual knowing there were dead bodies stacked between the shelves?
For a moment, the grief overwhelmed me. I cried for Mia, and the brutal death she suffered. I cried for Mom, still stuck in her cage, and my brothers and sisters, confined to the Shed. I cried for all the others I never met, the ones who left the Shed never to return, each of them slaughtered to red strips.
After a minute, I composed myself. I still needed to piece the rest of it together. “But if Mom was wrong, and the purpose was truly just to eat us, not to harm us… then why did they torture us back at the Shed? Why do they make our lives miserable up until the very end?”
“Because it’s easier that way. The cages and the crowds, they let the industry produce more bodies with less work,” Shane explained.
“We’re tortured for convenience?” I cried. “Don’t two-legs feel guilty for abusing us? Doesn’t it feel wrong to chew on our flesh? To have our bodies sit in their stomachs?”
Shane flinched. “We do feel bad Lily… we really do. That’s why these packages look nothing like you, it’s because the industry knows it’s best for us to not be reminded… we try to forget you were once someone with a family and feelings… that you were tortured in a factory… that you were killed in a slaughterhouse. We try to reduce you to objects, because we can’t even stand the thought of it.”
“But surely everyone still knows it, don’t they? Even the two-legs that just walked by acknowledged the process.”
“You’re right Lily. At some level, we all know what’s happening. But the problem is, everyone else is letting it happen too… that makes it hard to question the system, and even harder to speak out against it… sometimes that’s all it takes for the gears to keep turning.”
I didn’t know what gears were, but I think I finally understood. Two-legs weren’t evil, they were just complacent.
Shane and I didn’t have time to debrief any further. As soon as we exited the grocery store, a two-legs kicked over the cage I sat in and sent me flying to the ground. By the time I regained my senses, another two-legs had Shane pinned to the floor, and was tying his hands together behind his back. “Shane Wung, you’re under arrest for animal terrorism. You have the right to remain silent.”
The two-legs grabbed me and Shane and shoved us into the back of a cage on wheels. “What’s going on Shane?” I whispered.
“I’m being arrested,” he replied. “The government thinks I’m a criminal for rescuing you.”
I was too tired to ask what that meant, and too exhausted to feel angry. I just wanted to rest. I nuzzled into Shane’s body and closed my eyes.
I woke up back in the Shed. I knew immediately because the floor was hard again. My eyes opened to the metal bars and familiar colors. Suddenly, the misery and frustration I associated with this place started to boil up inside me. I had been free for less than a day, only to find myself back in a cage.
To my relief, I wasn’t alone. “Come here Lily, it’s okay,” Shane said gently from behind me. He was sitting on the floor in the corner of our room, the same place Mom used to lie. I walked over to rest my head in his lap.
“Why’d they put us back in here Shane?”
“Because I broke the law. This is where they take people who broke the law.”
“What’s that?”
“The law? It’s rules made up by humans.”
“Why’d you break the rules if you knew they’d take you here?”
“Because I wanted to help you.”
“It was against the law to help me?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
I considered this for a while. Why would helping me be against the law? Perhaps it has something to do with the gears, I thought to myself.
“Who makes the law?” I asked Shane.
“I told you, humans do.”
“But why do only humans get to make the law?”
“I guess it’s because we’re the ones with the power to make it.”
“Well, if I could make the law, I’d make the Shed against the law, and the grocery store too. And the rules would say that two-legs aren’t allowed to kill us anymore.”
“Me too Lily, me too.” Shane looked down at me with another apologetic face. I was beginning to understand why he always seemed so sorry. Even though Shane was the one to rescue me, I think he was ashamed to be a two-legs.
After a few days back at the Shed, I realized that the other cages were no longer packed with pigs. Shockingly, they had been replaced with two-legs. I never knew that two-legs also trapped their own kind in cages. Shane explained that most things two-legs do to pigs, they also do to themselves.
The Shed wasn’t as horrible as my first time around, but it was still painful. I just hated being back in a cage, even if it was less crowded. I wanted to go outside again. I wanted to roll in the grass.
Often, I’d panic and ask Shane when we were going to be killed, and he’d have to explain that that wasn’t going to happen. This Shed was different. People usually survived to go outside again. And anyways, we were only stuck here until his trial. When that happened, he was going to win and set us free.
I struggled to understand what he meant by that, but Shane said that was okay. The only important thing for me to understand was the jury: a group of two-legs who would decide our fate. As long as we persuaded at least one of them, we could go outside again.
“Get up Mr. Wung,” said a two-legs from outside our room. “It’s time for your trial.” It unlocked the door and motioned for us to leave.
Shane picked me up and followed the two-legs out the room. As we walked through the Shed, I was reminded of when Shane rescued me, and how I’d watched cage after cage flash by. The same thing happened now, but this time we were moving slow enough for me to examine not just the cages, but also the caged. To my surprise, their faces didn’t look too different from how I remembered my siblings: bored, frustrated, and afraid.
We exited the Shed and for a brief moment, I was outside again. The sun tingled my skin and the sky parted around us. Shane looked at me and smiled. “We’ll be out here again soon,” he promised.
Our guide led us into a beautiful building with lots of colors and no cages. Inside, it took us to a big room with two desks facing the front. Shane and I sat down at the left desk. Sitting at the right desk was another two-legs, and sitting in front of us was a two-legs with a hammer.
“All rise for the jury,” said the two-legs seated in front. Everyone stood from their seats and a group of two-legs filtered into the room. They sat in a box across from us.
The two-legs seated at the desk to our right stood to address those in the box. “Members of the jury, you have been called here today to decide a very simple case. Indeed, the defendant, Mr. Wung, has confessed to the crime himself. On the night of May 22nd, without permission, he trespassed onto Factory Farms and stole one of its livestock. As proof, that livestock is present with us here today, seated right beside him.”
I fidgeted in my seat. I hadn’t heard the word livestock since before I met Shane. I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I knew it was used to degrade those like me.
The two-legs continued, “Now, Mr. Wung may try to tell you that what he did was the right thing. That this poor piglet was suffering, and she needed to be rescued. But please, when you make your decision, don’t consider the feelings of Factory Farms’ property, consider the feelings of Factory Farms’ owners.
“The owners have been terrorized by Mr. Wung for simply farming. Farming! One of our nation’s oldest traditions. All they wanted was to practice their profession in peace, but Mr. Wung refuses to provide this decency. He has vowed to continue his crusade, and I quote, ‘Until Every Animal Is Free.’ He wants a world where none of us can eat meat. We simply cannot allow this extremism to go unpunished. Today, I trust that you will all make the right decision.”
The two-legs in the box seemed to resonate with this speech, and that worried me. How was Shane supposed to explain the part about meat? If the grocery store taught me anything, it’s that two-legs will tolerate almost anything for more meat.
Shane stood and walked over to the box, “Hello everyone. The prosecution is correct. I did trespass onto Factory Farms, and I did steal one of its ‘livestock.’ But I didn’t do it to harm the owners, I did it to help the animals. One of those animals is here with me today, and I want you all to meet her.”
Shane motioned for me to join him. I jumped down from my seat and ran over. “This is Lily.” Fearfully, I examined the jury’s eyes. Some of them seemed angry, but others had softened. “Lily has lived a very difficult life, and I could go on about it, but instead I’ll allow her to tell her story herself.”
“Objection your honor!” yelled the prosecution. “Animals are property. They have no standing in a court of law.”
“Your Honor,” Shane replied, “As the victim in this case, Lily has the right to make a statement.”
“Mr. Wung, Factory Farms is the victim here, not the pig,” said your honor. “Objection sustained.”
This made Shane angrier than I’ve ever seen him. “Jury members, the exchange you’ve just witnessed is precisely why I’m here today. Our law regards animals as property, but does property breathe like Lily? Does it feel joy and suffering? Does it roll in the grass? It’s evident that the law has strayed far from our humanity when sentient beings are regarded as objects, and when factory farms are regarded as victims. Clearly, the true victims here are the animals.
“And finally, I must admit that the prosecution is correct when it says that animals have no standing. But this is not because animals cannot stand, rather, it is because our government has buckled their knees. Time after time, our laws fail to consider animals, allowing even the most trivial reasons to justify their oppression.” Shane looked at me with tearful eyes, apologetic as always. “What I want to leave you all with today is a question. If our laws fail to consider the vulnerable, then are they really laws at all?”
Later that day, the two-legs with the hammer announced that the jury had found Shane “not guilty.” I wasn’t sure what that meant until I saw the relief on Shane’s face. He turned to me and smiled, “Do you want to go outside now?”
We walked out of the courthouse together and stopped on the front lawn. Shane lowered himself onto his knees, and at first, I had no idea what he was doing. Then he fell onto his back and started rolling around in the grass. Laughter coursed through my veins, and I joined him. This is what freedom feels like, I thought to myself.
Taj 