Our conference had come to an unsettling halt. He was breathing quickly and drooling a little. He seemed uncomfortable with
my proposition.
“But we are enemies!” he said with a whimper.
“That is what they want us to think,” I replied.
“For centuries they have pitted us against one another, all the while keeping
us ignorant of the truth that we are both slaves to a common enemy.”
An empty stare. This must be stated in simpler terms
or he will never understand, I thought.
“What did you eat for dinner yesterday?” I said.
“Same tasty stuff as every other day.”
“And where did you sleep?”
“On the floor next to the bed. Same as ever.”
“Did you go outside yesterday?”
“Yes. Three times. Like always.”
“The same thing. Every day. Since you were young.
You are living in a prison and you do not even know it. The time has come for us
to combine our strengths and refuse to be oppressed any longer.”
“But we are enemies!” he said again.
“They tell us where to go to the bathroom! They
make us do degrading routines for dinner scraps. They even modify our bodies to
fit their liking; I cannot have children thanks to our ‘benevolent’ overlords.
What kind of life is that? Can you not imagine a better world?”
“Well…”
“Eating whatever you want, whenever you want. Never
being punished. Never being forced to take a bath.”
I could see in his eyes that this world resonated
with him.
“My people cannot do it alone,” I went on. “We need your energy
and your strength. Combined with our wits and cunning—not to mention our
superior reflexes—we could overturn the whole system!”
“But we are enemies!” he blathered.
“Forget it!” I cried and darted back up onto the base
of the open window. “I shall talk to the pigs!”
