Published in Edition Three (2024) as part of the Provocations of the Past column.
CW: mentions of violence
Kartiya (@kartiya.ilardo):
My animal friend of many years. We grew up on this farm together. Many hazy mornings where the grass held dew droplets. But now we have witnessed our friends get slaughtered. Now we stand here, as grown women. Straw surrounded us and echoed within the large barnyard as we made our way to our corner. Yes, our corner. Mollie and I, every so often, come here to discuss the goings-on at Animal Farm, and today was no different. Or should I say, tonight, as the moon was high and all the animals were asleep. They were trying to sleep at least, after hearing the news.
“I can’t wear this pretty blue ribbon in my hair anymore?” Mollie stared longingly at the ribbon, her luscious mane now bare from her expression of self.
“Nay, you cannot.” I spoke. “Don’t you understand what we are trying to do here Mollie?”
The dullness filled her once twinkling eyes. Yes. It had dawned on her.
“But-“ Mollie tried. The azure ribbon now orphaned. Snowball's firm voice reverberated around my head. No. No. No.
No sugar. Only grains.
No clothes. Just our naked bodies.
Our animal bodies. I looked at Mollie without her ribbon and my mind faltered. A snap.
I looked down at my fur– my woolly fur – and I saw droplets fall down.
“Kartiya… you’re crying.” Mollie’s voice coated my mind in a familiar warmth.
The tears were the only things that were mine. This body I shared with all my animal friends. What’s to distinguish me from them! I’m a sheep.
The thought of experiencing nothing but dry grains for the rest of my life burned my throat, yet I savoured the acidic sting. It might be the last experience of individuality for a while yet.
That is, until a fire sparked within me. A burning rage that seared my stomach.
“We have to get rid of him.” The words pushed through my quivering lips and closed teeth. The deepness of my voice frightened me. My words were laced with an unfamiliar demonicness that lived inside of me.
Mollie’s bright eyes flashed with fear and her eyebrows turned upwards. The whites of her eyes contrasted with the darkness of the night.
“Snowball.” I imagined a knife sticking into his back as I spoke every syllable of his goddamn name.
“Kartiya, chill.” Mollie’s voice shocked me out of my state of rage. The silence of the barn blanketed us both. I chilled and the soft warmness in Mollie’s eyes reminded me that a ribbon is a ribbon. Snowball can try to kill us, but in our eyes, there is something that will always remain.
Mollie placed her hoof on top of mine. It was that warmess again that battled against the cold midnight air which whipped the side of the barn.
“We will get through this… together.” Her breath warm against my chilly wool.
“Yeah… yeah I guess we will,” I sighed and the sharp air scratched my throat. I stared at the ribbon one last time before it glided away with the breeze.
A.A. Sagar (angus.albert.s):
But then Kartiya the sheep remembered the seventh law.
7. No animal shall kill any other animal.
She sighed and shook the thought from her head. Mollie thought Kartiya was imagining the way ribbons used to dangle and dance all down her face. Mollie was a one-track sort of thinker. Either it was about ribbons, or it was about sugar cubes, and sometimes the absence thereof. But Mollie meant it when she said they’d get through this together. At the time, she meant it. They both set about remembering the seven revolutionary laws, to keep their hearts pure and minds away from evil. Revolutionary purity relied on adhering to perfect statutes, and the seven on the wall were white in colour, and white in virtue.
- Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
- Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
- No animal shall wear clothes.
- No animal shall sleep in a bed.
- No animal shall drink alcohol.
- No animal shall kill any other animal.
- All animals are equal.
Kartiya was an intelligent sheep, unlike her friends. She was even able to memorise the full song of the Animal Rebellion. Whenever she regretted her subsistence on oats, or the lack of pretty ribbons, she sang the song. It was as sweet as a sugar cube. It made all the world a ribbon in her eyes while it lasted. But, one day in the future, Mollie had run away. They would not get through this together. Then a bit later, it was heard she had been seen eating sugar cubes in the Enemy’s neighbouring farm, and with new ribbons in her hair. After this news, Kartiya the sheep cried night after night for two full weeks. Her baaa trembled like the grass in the night wind. Her voice’s strength paled like the moonlight. She remembered the revolutionary song and tried to sing, but found herself changing the words.
Beasts all alone, beasts under the moon
Beasts betrayed by friends now foes
Hearken to my joyless tune
Of the golden past time
Fast or slow the day would go
Two friends would frolic and chat
All over the fruitful fields of Farm
They would trod and lay the grass down flat
Rings would grow underneath our eyes
And ribboned words flowed betwixt us
But sugar and ribbons are worth more than friendship
Mollie left me all alone – for her it was no fuss
She was interrupted by her own deep, deep sigh. The sheep’s lovely brown eyes looked to the moon, asking are physical things worth more than the ideas that give us freedom? Why should one animal choose a cube of sugar over a lifetime of freedom?
Lachlan Ferguson (this needs reworking now that I have done my bit)
Kartiya and Mollie then were helpless. The rules were rules, and as sheep, their instinct was to stay in line. So stay in line they did.
For many days and nights, Kartiya and Mollie became distant from each other. Not because they had a fight, but because there was no fight. Every day was the same. Kartiya and Mollie could not recognise each other amongst the other crowds of sheep.
They all looked the same… who was Kartiya? Where was Mollie?
We don't know.
We cannot find them anymore.
The corner where they once gossiped and mingled now home to webs and dangerous spiders. The warmth of their breaths now floated away as condensation as they spoke.
They truly became… sheep.
Amy Wortmann (@amywortmann):
(CW for animal death)
When the wind was right, a single swoop could take her across the length of the paddock. From the rickety gate, rusted with rain, to the telephone wire whose silhouette bisected the rising sun. She would perch on top of it sometimes, enjoying the way the air around the wire hummed. It prickled her feathers in a way that delighted her.
A way that used to delight her.
Now, the pole that supported the wire was split down the middle: the aftereffects of a revolution gone wrong. She could still perch on top of it, if she opened her wings to balance. It wasn’t high enough to see the sunrise any more, but it was enough to see the field turning slowly brown. The slumped mound that was once a windmill. The shapes of animals, pale and indiscriminate, nosing through the rubble.
In the sparrow’s eye were memories of this field: the indentures of bright green as she flitted over the grass. Lambs were delighted with the flash of light on her wings; the horses bent their handsome heads so she could peck fleas out of their ears. Delicious fleas that popped in her mouth. They were once a delicacy; now they were everywhere.
When the sheep stopped coming to this field, the sparrow had gone looking, as sparrows do. She remembered the barn’s enormous shadow, swallowing her in blue, as she studied the strange white marks smeared across its side. They formed shapes she couldn’t understand, but somehow knew held significance.
And the animals seemed to revere it. She watched from the gutter as they gathered around it and squealed, brayed, whinnied, bleated; prayed, she even dared to say, when a sheep keeled over in front of them. Her knees buckled as if in supplication, but no sound left her mouth. She did not rise again.
The sparrow had always been fascinated with the way farm animals treated death. There was a strange solemnity in the way they would gather around a body, running their velvety noses over the unmoving flanks. When the farmer came to carry it away, they would go, with a quiet resignation. She had always wondered what would happen if there was no farmer—if the animals were allowed to grieve, uninterrupted. She had imagined reverence; dignity. Ceremony.
But instead, there was none. The sheep was seized by the hock and dragged away. It was flung through the air, its body not yet stiff, and when it landed, the sparrow heard the split of a sharp rock harrowing into its flesh.
Beads of blood rolled slowly from the wound, no longer spurred by a beating heart. As the sheep’s body stiffened, the sparrow swooped closer. In death, its fragility was strangely lessened. This was no longer a creature, whose muzzle twitched, whose eyes flickered, whose limbs trembled.
It was just white wool, adorned in delicate red ribbons.
The Provocative Inklings are an established emerging Melbourne-based writers group who experiment with many forms and aim to create a supportive community of writers. @theprovocativeinklings