Once there was a village whose principle means of income was
raising sheep. As the flock needed looking after 24/7, a teenage boy was
selected to take the night shift. Now this boy was neither very smart nor much
of a worker. All he was interested in was his video games and his cell phone.
His only interest in sheep was the mutton sandwich his mother packed for him
his first night of work. One wonders why the village chose such a mutton-head
to guard their principal source of wealth. My guess is his father was
well-connected and his mother was eager to get him out of her house that
smelled like Axe Body Spray and Taco Bell from his constant presence.
The kid was not eager to do his job, and to make matters
worse, his cell phone wasn’t getting any connection out there in the pasture!
After a few moments grumbling, followed by a few more spent distracting himself
by teasing the sheep, the boy stumbled upon a (to his mind at least) genius
idea. At the top of his lungs he started yelling “Wolf! Wolf!” And sure enough,
within a matter of minutes, he could see a series of lanterns being lit and
carried towards him by awakened villagers.
The kid was as amused as hell by this, the villagers not so
much. But that made it all the more fun for the kid, who did the same thing the
next night and the night after. Eventually, the amount of people who came to
check on him dwindled, but it didn’t matter to the kid because the ones who did
show up were even angrier than before. Until, one night, his face lit by the
cell phone he gazed into, the boy thought he heard a noise. Finishing up his
text and hitting send, the boy scanned the pasture in search of any sign of
wolves. But as his eyes were used to staring into a lit screen, he couldn’t
even see the white sheep, let alone any wolf prowling in the shadows.
So it wasn’t until the shit hit the fan that the boy
realized there were wolves amidst the flock. Like the little spaz he was, he
ran around, wildly crying “Wolf! Wolf!” while posting “OMG. Wolves!!!” on
Twitter. But nobody came because nobody believed him.
And that is the end of the story as you know it. Most people
assume the kid was eaten by the wolves and justice was done, but that wasn’t
the case. See, in the real world, it is always the innocent sheep who suffer
while those in charge go on to bigger and better things. While both are dumb
and easily frightened, sheep, not pimply teenagers, are the preferred dinner of
wolves. When the option is between a tasty lamb and a kid who reeks of Axe Body
Spray and has metal piercings in unusual places, the wolf is going to go ovine
every time.
So the kid got away with his life. Not only that, an intelligence
agency that had been observing his Twitter account really appreciated his moxie,
his attitude, and his ability to commit to a story. They hired him on to work
for them.
You might be familiar with some of his work. Some years ago
he wrote a story about wolves breaking into the sheep incubators and eating the
children alive. You see, the pasture is gone now. The village was pretty much
decimated by the loss of their sheep. Fortunately, Sheep Tech©
saw the pasture as a great business opportunity and the state’s governor gave
them a sweetheart deal on taxes to move there. So instead of sheep in a
pasture, there is now a factory farm. Those few villagers who chose to stay saw
their real estate value plummet even farther as the smell of sheep dung has
become most intolerable. (The boy, who moonlights as a spokesman for Sheep Tech©,
says it’s not bad and really rather reminds him of the old pasture days. He
calls the smell “bucolic”).
The kid’s really grown up since his first temp job, as he
now refers to it. Not only did he sell the wolves in the incubator story, he
followed it up with the story about the wolves developing WSDs (Weapons Of
Sheep Destruction). As with most of his stories, he’s had to lay low while the
fallout happens, but once again he’s back to announce confidently that the wolves
are up to their old tricks again. It’s a different pack of wolves this time, Eurasian
wolves with sharp teeth dripping saliva in anticipation over feasting upon the
carcass of our democratic institutions.
The valley wherein the pasture once lay, where now sits
Sheep Tech’s©
massive factory farm, has few people left nowadays. What with downsizing and automation,
there isn’t much call for autonomous human beings anymore. But there is a
greater herd of sheep than ever before, and their freedom and democratic institutions
are of paramount importance to Sheep Tech©, which is why Sheep Tech’s© executives
were so shocked to learn that the wolves were once again up to their dirty,
underhanded tricks.
It seems that the wolves have been conspiring to disrupt the
sheep’s sacred freedom to opt for which slaughter tunnel they entered, the left
one or the right one. Apparently, at least according to the kid whose job it is
to inform the sheep, these wolves have been leading the sheep to choose the
slaughter tunnel on the right by telling the sheep the tunnel on the left leads
to them having a steel pin shoved through their heads and then their bodies
stripped of all their meat to be sold in supermarkets. Now even the kid whose
job it is to warn the sheep about the danger of wolves has to admit that what
the wolves were (allegedly but uncontestably) saying was true, but the mere fact
they (allegedly but most certainly) said it proves what a danger the wolves
are. Now more than ever, cried the boy, we need to fear the wolves.
And the sheep did what sheep do. They gathered frightened in
a herd and looked for someone to lead them, which the people at Sheep Tech©
most obligingly did. But as unintelligent, docile, and easily spooked as sheep
can be, there is a limit to the amount of times they will respond to the habitual
shrill cry of “Wolf! Wolf!” A trick that works once may work again, may work
many, many times, but eventually, if only through weariness, the sheep will
refuse to react to the boy and his well-worn game. And on that day they will
prove themselves to be more than mere sheep.
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