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THE EGG TREE

( Andrea Biello ITA – La pianta delle uova )

 

 

Transforming grains into eggs, that's what I do.

I was very lucky when I was born.... they chose me!!!

I did not end up in a grinding machine. I was so lucky because I am a female;

and the long belt that transported us now has delivered us.

We are so many and we make so much noise. What a strange world. We are born like this, just like grass or sand, we are so many.

To tell the whole truth, it is very tight here, but all it counts is to make noise.

When I was on the conveyor belt there were some big animals with a white coat choosing us. We (females) were lucky cause our brothers were all thrown into the grinding machine.

I don't really know what is such a machine (I don't even know what baby chicks are). Maybe we are the babies, maybe that's how those big animals dressed in white call us.

As soon as I was born, I wanted to see my mom. But the run immediately started and Hyppiieee..I thought I would meet her later.

Now I am here, a lot of time has gone by, I have learnt a very important thing: I have to make eggs.

The eggs is what we female chicks produce. We are egg makers, that's how one of those big animals in the white coat called us.

He said we are more than 1 million in this building, can u imagine what we could do in such a number?

We could turn the world upside down, get organised and create a city just for us, we could cover the world with our eggs , we could fill up a stadium, we could make a lake, a river with our eggs.

There is a friend next to me who never talks, she always eats the food she gets and once told me a terrible story.

She told me that if we don't produce enough eggs the giants with the white coat come and take us to the supermarket. So she eats as much as possible and makes as many eggs as possible. "until I make eggs I will stay here!". This is what she yelled at me one day when I told her I was tired of the life in this chicken farm.

She told me that the supermarket is a place where other giant animals buy pieces of smaller animals. The smaller animals are us.

so now from that day I eat as much as possible and make lots and lots of eggs.

The giants in the white coat come every day to check how many eggs we have made, they pick them up and give us more food to transform.

You know? we egg laying hens have a great power: transform food into eggs. Nobody can do this except us .

I make a lot of them, even if I start to be tired.

When the giants came to take my friend she told me: "Goodbye for good"

I don't know what this word means, once I heard one of them saying that god is like one of them, another time they said god is like a pig. I hope she went to the pigs cause I understood that the less the animals look like the giants the better they are.

I am staying here for many months now, my legs are very tired and they grew inside the iron bar of my cage, so I cannot move anymore. My nails are so long and sharp, they look like razors and the bottom of my feet is growing around the net of my cage.

Maybe I am becoming a plant !

Sometimes, when I look up though the whole of our farm I think I can see a very bright light, but it is different from the one the giants make us see. That light is warm and with a pure color.

The more time goes by, the less light we see. Many of us are very angry with everyone and find any excuse to fight with each other, luckily we are separated by our cages.

I have heard that there are places where they cut your beak if u fight and that is very painful.

Those giants don't know that our beak is not like their nails but it's full of nervous veins… bbrr I get shivers when I think of it. I am lucky that I am an egg-laying hen.

Since my new cage friend has arrived peace is over. She is always complaining that it is not fair that we 'hens' must stay in such cages all the times and so she decided not to do eggs anymore.

I ma very anxious, if the giants realise we make less eggs they will send us to the supermarket and I don't want to go there. I prefer to become a plant in this farm than being in a supermarket and be bought by a giant. I have decided to eat more and to make more eggs, also for my new friend on strike. She is always nervous and told me that if she could she would escape from here, she said that outside from that hole that we see there are many plants and perfumes, not like here that it always stinks of ammonia!

Maybe she is right, I would like to see what there is out there. Sometimes a light breeze comes from that hole to my beak and I can smell incredible things, I cannot explain it but it's fantastic: I would love to run on the conveyor belt just like I did when I was born, I would like to be in the grinder to see what's in there, I am sure the giants hide something in there and I am so fed up to transform feed into eggs. I can't do it anymore. I screamed it out loud, in the ears of my companions, out there is a world that we have never seen, there are good smells that the giants hide from us so that we make eggs and I don't want this anymore!

The youngest of my friends, who arrived not recently, says she doesn't care. she wants to make eggs cause she doesn't want to go to the supermarket and here at least she has us.

By now my nails are way too long to be able to move and they really hurt me but the giants couldn't care less, I saw them picking up boxes and putting some of us inside. They were all screaming , I saw them. they were the best . when I arrived in this farm they were my idols cause they were making so many eggs and I did everything possible to imitate them, but now those men say they don't produce enough anymore. Liars! they make eggs better than all of us here.

the boxes became 10, then 100 then even more and when they were a lot a big door opened, the farm was suddenly filled up with warm daily light, my eyes were hurting and I could not keep them open for long but I managed to see all my friends with their heads sticking out of the boxes that were looking at me and screaming. they were going to the supermarket.

Those idiots of giants, we always did everything for them , we always transformed their feed into eggs and now our turn has come ...

I heard them saying that the production went down so it is time to slaughter us.

So we all thought that if we were going to make more eggs they would have kept us and we tried our best. But my legs are really hurting me, I have blisters everywhere, on my chest, on my feet and now the meat is totally around the iron.

I ended up in a box very small and tight. the feathers of my friends are everywhere and I can see out of the box, if I look up I see so many of my friends screaming, while downstairs I see only our excrements, what a stink... I see my friends who are going to stay in the farm and I would like to greet them for the last time, but we are too many and they cannot recognise me, we are almost 1 million in our farm. we could build a city of egg laying hens if they would allow us to, we could run if they would allow us to.

the big door opened and I screamed as well, I knew I was going to go to the supermarket. I was trying to imagine but I could only scream, I was scared and my friend and I were so tight in those hot and stinking boxes that some of us started to faint. I was looking outside and finally I could see the smell that so many times I had imagined. it was green and it was the smell of grass. the most beautiful thing of my life was the smell of the grass...and the light of the sun. I had never seen them, I had only heard stories about them. I had stolen the words from the giants in order to dream in the farm. My friends are still inside, I feel sorry for them that they cannot see the beauty of the grass. Maybe supermarkets don't exist and this is the pay for our hard work.

I am so weak, my legs are too weak, I have never run and the weight of my friends is almost choking me. I am happy, I ma a lucky hen cause I saw the sun I saw that the grass is green and smells good. My friends are all crying but I cannot hear them anymore. I want to keep my eyes open to see as many things as possible. there are beautiful things in the world, e.g. there are pieces of grass that grow on pieces of wood, they call them trees and they are beautiful, they are green and brown, I saw the sky and it is fantastic, consider that the chickens smaller than us can fly and I am sure I could have done that too if they would have let me to.

I am very tired but I am happy cause I have seen the world, next life I go for the grinder to see where that brings me.

Some say that those giants are called human beings and they are very stupid animals, greedy and arrogant. they spend their time eating our eggs, building roads and supermarkets where they can sell them to other humans. So they don't realise how big trees are and what a good smell the grass has.

To all of them, poor fools, I wish them to become, one day, egg laying hens, just like I was.