Valley-Junction
They had all made the trip in a truck, open to a cold wind that was, until then, unknown to them. Each one of them had left the fattening farm where they had been industrially fattened up under the neon lights and in the mire of a too small pen. A year of carefree living had passed, punctuated by the daily and abundant distribution of a sweet-smelling cereal mash. As long as there was food.
There was the almost daily removal of the corpses of those who had succumbed to disease or heart attack. They always grumbled with concern when the human came. But he only came to take away the carcass of a dead animal or to distribute food.
The farm worker would casually hook the animal in the cheek and drag it to the exit where it would rot away before being taken away. The pigs were indifferent to the fate of those who disappeared. It was probably statistically inevitable, in these huge farms with thousands of animals, that death would have its share. As long as they had enough to eat.
Sometimes men would come to pick up some of them. These men were in a hurry and used electric truncheons and panels to quickly remove those who had been chosen. In panic and screaming, the selected animals were pushed out. The pigs were left in a panic as they watched the selected ones leave and went off to who knows where. But soon enough, they were forgotten and the daily routine resumed. As long as there was enough to eat.
That day, they were the ones who were picked up. They had hoped, once again, to escape the round-up. But the men knew who they were coming to get. The electric batons burned their flesh, the men beat them, screamed until they gave in and ran for the exit. There was no escape.
Once they entered the exit corridor, the pigs were blinded by daylight. They discovered the smell of the outside, the smell of freedom. It was fresh, so pleasant. Their instincts told them that they were born to live out there. They had hope. Perhaps they had been fed to give them back their freedom.
But they were already being pushed towards the truck, towards the metal decks where they were piled up with their fellow creatures.
The noise of the engines frightened them. They were still captives. They grunted, pushed, bit each other, but the pressure of numbers reduced the space, inexorably. They ended up crushed against each other, resigned.
Some already lay down, waiting for their end; an end still unknown, but which their instinct feared. The others tried to push the barriers, taking in the air from outside, intoxicated by all those unknown smells. They wanted to live.
The journey lasted a long time, the landscapes passed by. The pigs looked at the forests and plains as far as the eye could see. So this was real life.
Now the animals were calm, numbed by the reassuring hum of the engine. The cold outside and the natural environment, for which they were designed, excited them.
When we arrived at the slaughterhouse in Vallée-Jonction, the truck slowed down. The animals looked at the rectangular building, the fences, the wall at the entrance. They found the smooth, white, industrial walls that reminded them of the farms where they had grown up.
They stared blankly at the words on the entrance sign: "Slaughterhouse and pork cutting plant.
As the truck slowed, climbing the slope that led to the loading dock, concern grew.
It was justified. The men re-emerged, yelling and banging them down. The men waved some kind of clappers to scare them into moving. The animals did not know that the cruel electric truncheons were no longer allowed in the slaughterhouse.
They were put away as they approached the slaughterhouse. The clappers did not burn, but their noise was enough to frighten the animals. They were already being pushed into the building, with plastic panels being closed behind them to close the walk.
Suddenly, the unbelievable happened: all the pigs turned around, jumping up and down.
Instead of blindly trying to force their way out by pushing back the signs, the mammals jumped in the faces of those fat farm boys.
The first ones failed to find a way out, but the next ones leaned on their comrades and jumped into the faces of the bipeds, nose against nose.
The men, surprised, lost their balance and fell. They could not contain the flow of pigs that were now pouring out. Most of the pigs managed to get out. Already they were running down the slope and across the street, quickly weaving in and out of the cars in the parking lot.
The men tried to catch them, but the animals scattered in all directions, contrary to their usual behavior. Free to move, they quickly lost their pursuers.
Some of them even came to the aid of their fellow animals in the fight with the farmers, jumping on the humans or knocking them down with a violent and brutal charge. The farmers were stunned. This aggressive behavior was unusual. In the memory of the farmers, it had never been seen before.
Without stopping, the four-legged animals were already running loose in the surrounding woods. Since they went in all directions and did not stay on the roads, the search was difficult. Few were caught, others were peacefully adopted by private individuals.
The majority of the pigs disappeared completely into the wild. Some were reported in the United States, in the Baxter Nature Park in Maine, more than a hundred kilometers from Vallée-Jonction. Conservation groups lobbied the government to spare these animals. The Vallée-Jonction slaughterhouse was closed, as were most of the slaughterhouses in Canada.
This story, to be true, would suppose that the pigs are very different from what they are, that they think like human creatures, silencing their instincts of millennia-old prey, listening to inspirations that are beyond them today. They would probably need the help of a transcendent intelligence, that of a god.
The condition of these pigs is ours; poor humanity led to our loss. We are also subjected to a system that flatters our pathetic thirst for immediate enjoyment and our individualism. We are the pawns of a game that is decided before we are born and we become, for the most part, what we are expected to become.
One day we will evolve, inspired by the true masters of the universe, and we will become what we should be.
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