Snippet Of My Life Episode 29 – Pigs And Sheep Estate, With A Marketplace

This is a story of Dooku, of which the prequel you may have already read.  Dooku was a farmer, a chef, but not any more.  At least for now.   While the story may be inspired by the people at work, all the characters are works of fiction.  If you feel that I am writing a story about you, you should buy me a drink.  Because you are about to get famous.

Kidding.

*     *     *     *     *

One day, Dooku has entered a city.  Not the biggest city on earth.   But one that is sophisticated enough to have people working on a desk that comes with a chair.  An office, as the city dwellers may call it.   Dooku chuckles whenever he hears the word “office”.   An office or a farm – in Dooku’s simplistic mind – mean the same.   In a farm, you wake up early, plow the soil, add some cow dung if need to, do more plowing, and when the time comes, you harvest your produce; the cycle continues.   In an office – as Dooku observes – people wake up early, push some paperwork around, create more work for others if need to, push more work to each other, and when the time comes, collect their paychecks; the cycle continues.

In this new office, Dooku loves to ask people what their roles are.  That seems to piss people off.   Because most people prefer to keep their roles as fuzzy and vague as possible.  But in Dooku’s defense, he asks because he wants to know what he needs to do.   Back in his farming days, if Dooku knows that no one is going to clean up the excess cow dung left in the farm after the fertilization process, Dooku would clean up the cow dung himself.   All farmers do that.  Why?  Because too much cow dung piled up under the sun attracts flies.  And it especially intrudes Dooku’s olfactory senses.   Dooku is a simple man.  A helpful simple man, who is often misunderstood at work.

One day, an unfinished piece of work is handed over to Dooku.  No matter.  Work is work, unfinished or not.   There is an architectural model large enough to fill up a boardroom that needs some touchups.   Dooku takes a closer look.  First at the signage.  It says: An estate for rapid evolution with the goal of galactic domination! He then stares at the proposed housing units for the pigs, and at the proposed housing units for the sheep.  The marketplace for the pigs, and the marketplace for the sheep to trade their produces with the outside world.  Where are the weapons of mass destruction?   How do the pigs and the sheep envisage the means to dominate the galaxy?   Dooku then takes the liberty to rename the signage to: An estate for the pigs and the sheep with an efficient and hygienic marketplace for trading purposes. Satisfied with what he does, Dooku goes on touching up the aesthetic aspect of the model.  The look-and-feel.  Correcting some obvious design flaws like sheep do not need handrails, unlike the pigs that at times, walk on two feet.   Just like how it is documented in the “Animal Farm”.

Next, Dooku takes another look at the model.   As it is, the estate looks like a DMZ between the pigs and the sheep.  Such obvious demarcation between the two races.  What gives?  The pigs and the sheep suppose to co-exist in one allocated area.  Are they not talking to each other?   (Dooku, a simple man as he is, may not aware that pigs and sheep do not normally talk to each other.)   Again, Dooku takes the liberty to slightly rearrange the housing estate, making it more like pigs and sheep living in harmony.   He then combines the two marketplaces into one by knocking down some walls, clearly labels the “Vegetarian” section for the sheep to sell their vegetables.   And the “Meat Lover” section for the pigs to sell pork chops.   As an icing on the cake, Dooku even illustrates how the outsiders should be led into the marketplace, how money can be exchanged, details that were not available in the previous model.

The peace loving sheep look at the polished model, love it, with no further question.   The war raging pigs look at the same model, hate it, and spit on it.  Because it looks superficially different from what they have seen before.  But surely this is a more polished design, Dooku asks.  Besides, what lie inside the houses and the marketplace remain unchanged.   Unfortunately, the pigs cannot be reasoned with and insist that something major, other that cosmetic, has been modified.   Flabbergasted, Dooku is asked to organize a town hall meeting that involves a large team of people and pigs and sheep to iron out the differences.   In the meeting, Chief Porky goes on and on about not able to verify the interior design of the houses and of the marketplace for the mere fact that the model looks different.  And he has no time or found it too tedious to reconcile the two, unlike his sheep counterpart.  More and more time is poured into this pointless discussion whereby in the good old day, Dooku would have seen his maize grow beautifully, day by day, taking in the sunlight from the sky and the water mixed with the cow dung from the ground, turning into something so yummy in salad and in soup.   As this pointless discussion carries on, in this farm now called office, Dooku wonders what does time and effort turn into.  The pigs talk louder, more and more.   Chief Porky bangs onto table going into all four (instead of the usual civilized standing posture).  Dooku cannot help but daydream.  In his dream, he sees a parallel universe.  In this dream, he is a bird.  An angry bird.  Together with his fellow birdies, they have launched an angry attack against the pigs.  Because enough is enough.   One flying angry bird threatens to pulverize the home of the pigs.  Two flying angry birds threaten to penetrate the pigs’ last defense.  As more and more angry birds rain down from the heaven, the pigs are squashed into oblivion.   Mashed together with the cow dung, this enhanced pig-cow dung serves as a rich fertilizer to the maize nearby.  What was so irritatingly useless in pig form becomes so useful mixed with dung.   Maize grows and grows, getting taller and taller almost touching the heaven and bum!

Dooku wakes up.  It is dinner time.  And he orders a pork chop served with corns feeling a whole lot better already.