STANDING WITH WHITE

On the farm it is often said that turbulence is but a temporary state of affairs, a necessary occurrence for those who fly high. Everyone knows this, especially Whitist priests whose jobs have become more crucial than ever before, now that White, doing great things, was experiencing turbulence. 

As far as White and his farm hands were concerned, the farm was great. Nothing would change that. Not farm-wide darkness. Not droughts and barren land. Not dry pipelines. Not long queues of animals receiving food aid while chanting and  holding placards that read:#WeStandWithWhite and #ItIsNotMassacreIfBatsAreKilled and #WhatsWhiteGotToDoWithIt and #WhiteIsLove. Wearily, the animals that ran the food project which was created to give succour to animals suffering from the crippling infrastructure of the farm distributed grains to Whitists, promising more and telling them that the reason that they were experiencing all of this was because of Goodhead’s 16 years of destruction. 

The Whitist priests initiated a ritual which they mandated every believer of Whitism to undertake on the first hour of the first day of the week. They were to procure a whip of chains and flagellate themselves until they bled, chanting repeatedly: “Goodhead is the cause of my pain.” They were to do it for 16 minutes, one minute for every year that Goodhead and his friends plundered the farm. In this way, the Whitist priests argued, the animals would never forget who to blame whenever they felt pain.

However, many animals still grumbled. Ade Sinner, the puffy pigeon that sometimes spoke for White, heard some of the grumblings about the lack of water and food and cooed angrily, calling them ungrateful saboteurs. “If you want water,” Sinner said, “go and arrest the packs of wild dogs who are bursting the pipes along the way from the marshlands where the water is.” 

And then animals began to really complain. And White and his advisers thought they needed a young progressive animal, an energetic one, to manage their communications, especially as Ade Sinner was given to foolish utterances. They found a turkey called Tolo-Tolo who was widely respected and made him man the central station from where the public address system of the farm was run. 

Long ago, White had a friend who, in his days of poverty, gave him a job that enabled him live a nice life. His friend was an old farm manager, Mai Goggles, who ran and plundered the farm long before the days of Goodhead. In fact it was said that Goodhead, for all his crazy theft could not match the theft of Mai Goggles. It was so bad that almost two decades after Mai Goggles, other farm managers were returning farm supplies and money that he stashed in their farms. However, White would not call his friend a thief. He could not deny that his friend had stolen farm supplies because the evidence was public in the stolen bags of grains that kept being returned, year after year. So he got Tolo-Tolo to carefully craft a message that came as close as he could to admitting that his friend Mai-Goggles, was truly a thief. Tolo-Tolo said: “It has come to the notice of White that when Mai-Goggles was farm manager, he temporarily relocated some bags of grain to other farms. We now in the process of recovering those bags of grains.”

White knew that saying the obvious would mean admitting that he was somewhat complicit in that theft, since he and Mai-Goggles were friends when the looting of the farm took place. This was however a subject that was forbidden by Whitist priests among Whitists.

Months passed since one of White’s farm hands Dick-Tai had massacred hundreds of bats for standing in his way as he went to pee on the edge of the farm; since White had wondered angrily how a bloody bat could hit the chest of a farm hand; since Dick-Tai had wandered through a part of the crocodile swamp looking for bats, capturing them, killing them and burying some of them alive. The leader of the crocodile swamp had asked some old crocodiles to write up a report about what really happened the day that Dick-Tai went crazy and began his bat genocide. Everyone thought that since the leader of the crocodile swamp liked White, at least in public, the report would exonerate White and his farm hands. But the report instead identified the spot where Dick-Tai and his assistants had buried the bats they had massacred. The report said it took only a few hours to dig up the shallow graves where they dumped them. Some wondered if the leader of the crocodiles was trying to discredit White, whose job it was rumoured he was eyeing. 

Meanwhile, wolves related to White were running around the farm killing lambs and sheep and goats as retaliation for animals disrespecting them. They would come in the cover of night, invade animal quarters and kill as many as they could find. And White remained silent until the stench of animal carcasses began to smell everywhere the wolves had killed animals. And they he swore that his silence was not inaction. “Silence is the best answer for a fool,” White said, sitting down, crossing his legs. 

And Whitists in the farm pretended that they had not heard the findings of the report ordered by the leader of the crocodiles saying that Dick-Tai had secretly buried hundreds of bats. 

And the genocidal Dick-Tai carried on being a farm hand as if he had not been exposed as having buried hundreds of bats.

And the animals who hated bats said that while killing bats was wrong, bats should not have flown so close in the face of Dick-Tai.

And there was darkness all across the farm because there was no wood to burn the fires.

And there was thirst all across the land because there was no water coming from the pipes.

And White carried on travelling to other farms while his farm hands guessed what his opinion was about things going on in the farm. 

And wolves kept invading animal quarters, killing any animals they could find. 

And prominent animals kept speculating about the health of White, positioning themselves to take over from White.

And the priests who worshipped White sang their hymns in darkness and thirst, praising White for having brought change. And they prayed:

In the name of the White father

And of the farm hands

And of the holy Whitists…

Bless us White for we have sinned

Bless our thoughts

Bless our desires

Bless our intentions

Blessed be thy name

Thy will be done in every quarter among every animal species

Teach us to love your will

Teach us to be teachable

Teach us to trust your will even when your will may not be clear

Teach us to defend your will before it becomes your will

For thine are the decisions, the thoughts and the glory

For as long as you choose to be farm leader

Amen