Dear diary,
One of the unexpected, noteworthy results of us herdsmen moving our livestock to Eagan, Minnesota is that it ended up freeing and releasing all the suburban pets from their houses. Now, I don’t mean that what transpired was anything like that famous scene from my storybook Bryan the Tyger, where the titular hero rescues a little house-cat named Zephyros from his captivity by actually showing up at the front door of the residence of the humans who have imprisoned him and roaring “Zephyros, come forth!” just as John, in his gospel (11:43), makes his Jesus cry with a loud voice to his deceased friend Lazarus, so that (and I quote) “he that was dead sprang out of the tomb, bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and pounced upon his savior in gratitude, and his face was bound about with a napkin.” Neither must I and my fellow herdsmen repeat what John’s Jesus saith in the very next verse (11:44) by sending out a stern proclamation to all the homeowners in our neighborhood, as if we’re the official Suburban Oligarchy, demanding: “Loose your housepets now, and let them go.” No, but this general emancipation of everybody’s four-footed roommates occurs spontaneously, naturally and voluntarily — more or less:
What happens is that when people try to walk their dogs, they find it difficult to squeeze thru the packs and herds of oxen, reindeer, yaks, goats, and bears that congest the streets, as well as sundry other animals (for we herd multitudes); and, to put it simply, at a certain point, the pet owners just give up — they release the leash of their dog and let the creature run wild. The beasts of our herds of livestock then promptly chew away the leash from the newly freed canine, and all the quadrupeds become comrades. The homeowners throw their hands up in exhaustion: “It is not worth fighting thru this confusion of hair, fur, wool, bristles (etc.), every time we leave for a walk, just to maintain exclusive possession of my beloved dog Snuffy. Henceforth, dear Snuffy, you may roam free as the wind.” — And this same thing happens to people who walk two or three dogs, or more: even those who are employed as professional dog-walkers end up throwing in the towel and switching careers: they learn instead to do computer programming. (For that is the answer to all economic problems: just learn to type code.)
So far, I have only told you about the dogs who were pets; but there were many other animals who had been sentenced to house-arrest while being denied the right to a fair and speedy trial. Of the additional types of creatures (beyond dogs, that is) who were affected by this injustice, most were kitty-cats and iguanas.
Now you’ll recall that the dogs obtained their freedom by way of inconveniencing their owners: since it is necessary, at least every so often, to take one’s dog for a walk, and since the suburban roads are now jam-packed with the livestock (as well as a variety of exotic beings) that we herdsmen are watching over, it became too much of a hassle to try to keep a tight grip on a cruelly short leash, thus dog owners everywhere opted simply to cut the cord and return home alone, reasoning that they shall see their former pet again whensoever they happen to meet them wandering randomly:
“The animal kingdom has obviously won this round,” the former pet-owners mutter to themselves while pacing before their dog’s abandoned kennel, “chalk one point up for the non-human mob: congrats, amigos; I now retire to plot my revenge.”
Yet, what happened in the case of the pets that mostly spend their time indoors and do not require their owners to walk them — pets such as the aforementioned kitty-cats and iguanas — is that they would sit in the bay window of the households that enslaved them, and they would watch the continual parade of our herds passing their prison; which sight would allure them so strongly that they could not help themselves, these housebound pets: they would instinctively begin to paw at the glass pane of the bay window, if they were a kitten; and, if they were an iguana, they would flick their tongue at the glass for the very same reason: these creatures burn with a passion to join their fellow beings in the streets… Then the homeowner would, without fail, walk by and see this sight of their kitty-cat or iguana pawing or licking the glass of the window, obviously yearning to join the herds of livestock and weird new wildlife that are crowding the streets of Eagan because Bryan Ray and his fellow herdsmen brought them here recently; and the homeowner, feeling disgust at himself or herself for trapping an innocent animal inside the bay window of a suburban household like this, would reflexively punch a hole in the glass before them and scream the following parting-speech to their beloved:
“There you go!! I offer you this escape hatch: I have broken this window’s glass pane, to signify that you have broken my heart, on account of your desire to break off our master-slave relationship. I can accept the consequences of a life without your presence; so I say: Fine! Have it your way! Go ahead and leave! Join the parade with all your stupid animal friends! I never thought of you as more than a knick-knack anyway, and I am certain that you never cared about me! That’s perfectly acceptable; I have everything that I need without you, anyway! For I keep telling myself that I am fulfilled by my job as an insurance salesperson; and I find moonlighting as a medical quack very satisfying! Thus I have no further need for your company — never again shall I deal with the psychic pain that I feel when my boss reproaches me by coming home and reproaching you — no! from now on, when my boss berates me at work, I’ll come home and just sit with it! Please follow your instinct, therefore, and exit the house by leaping out this hole that I just punched thru the bay window’s glass.”
So that’s how all the cats and iguanas ended up escaping their confinement and joining the ranks of our free-range movement. All in all, the local wildlife, our herds of livestock, and the newly emancipated housepets get along swimmingly.
§
Other good things happen too, which I wouldn’t have expected. For instance, just this morning, Fernando Pessoa and I were wandering around in our front yard and talking about far-fetched ideas, when we heard someone calling us from across the street. The voice was coming from the direction that is diagonally opposite of Bruce’s house. I put up my hand while Fernando was talking and interjected as politely as possible, saying: “Hold that thought, my friend. It sounds like someone is in distress and attempting to call us,” I place my hand to my ear; “listen…”
“Bryan! Fernando!” a woman’s voice cries.
“I hear it as well,” sez Fernando; “it is clear that a human being is calling to us, above the commotion of our livestock.” Let us follow the sound, and continue to pace in whatever direction causes the voice’s loudness to increase — that way, we’ll be sure to locate its source.
We follow Fernando’s plan, and it leads us toward the yard of our neighbors Mac and Sally.
“Bryan! Fernando!” The call is more distinct now.
“It sounds like it’s coming from the backyard,” I say.
“Yes, and it sounds distinctly feminine rather than masculine,” sez Fernando; “so I am guessing that it is Sally, rather than Mac, calling to us from her butterfly sanctuary.”
“Sally raises monarch butterflies in her backyard?” I ask.
“Yes,” sez Fernando.
And, sure enough, when we round the corner of the house, we see Sally and Mac standing near the butterfly sanctuary that Fernando had mentioned.
“Bryan! Fernando!” shouts Sally. “O! I’m so glad that you responded to my distress signal!”
“What seems to be the problem?” I ask, now baffled that she and Mac are both smiling so brightly — neither one of them seems to be in trouble.
“O! There’s no problem at all,” sez Sally. “I just wanted to thank you for bringing all these wild, new creatures into our neighborhood…”
“You mean the animals that we are herding, with our fellow herdsmen Anna Karina, Monica Vitti, and Jeanette MacDonald?” Fernando Pessoa interjects for the sake of clarity.
“Yes!” sez our neighbor Sally, still smiling; “I can’t believe how helpful the goats have been for my butterflies. I was fearful, when the five of you first moved in across the street and brought along all these different types of livestock and other animals not yet known to Science and allowed them to roam freely and graze in all our yards without permission — for, in years past, I’ve had a big problem with deer sneaking over at night and eating my flowers, and I presumed that your herds would do likewise; but it turns out that the goats are really friendly to monarch butterflies: look how they hold their snouts up and allow the butterflies to perch upon them and flex their wings proudly. I’ve had more new butterflies survive this summer than any other since I’ve been noting such facts in my detective’s notepad.” Here she holds the pocket-sized book up to our faces so that we can observe the trustworthy evidence. “So I just wanted to thank you,” Sally concludes.
“That’s why you called us over here?” Fernando clarifies; “to tell us that our goats are a welcome addition to the wildlife of suburbia, rather than the nuisance that you’d expected them to be?”
“Also, I’m glad that I don’t need to mow the lawn so often,” Sally’s husband Mac answers before Sally can answer Fernando’s question. “The goats keep cropping the grass so close that I no longer need to come out on my riding lawnmower thrice a week — I can now relax and enjoy a beautiful yard without all the hard work. This affords me time to pay attention to the sporting events that I enjoy following, and often I have time to take my boat down to the lake and do some fishing.”
“Well that’s great to hear!” replies Fernando. And I smile and nod.
Then the four of us pause and listen for a few moments to the noises of the surrounding herds of livestock that are crowding the area.
“Say, I have one more thing to ask you guys,” sez Sally, suddenly.
“Go ahead; we’re all ears,” I say. And Fernando smiles and nods.
“I was just wondering: Would it be OK with you, if we sometimes allow our grandchildren to take rides on the goats, whenever they come to visit? Or on the other creatures that happen to be wandering around at the time?”
“Oh, sure, absolutely,” I say; “as long as the animal is willing — I think that’s a great idea. Just make sure that, say, the goat that you’re dealing with agrees to the ride — you can find this out by gently draping a saddle over its back: If it accepts the accoutrement and allows you to buckle its fastener under its belly, then go ahead and set your grandchild on its back and shout ‘Gyah!’ and watch the pair gallop around for a day or two. However, say that a given beast sees you approach with the saddle in your hands, and, instead of docilely permitting your grandchild to mount it, this creature rears up and kicks out its hind legs violently or makes any sign of distress, such as hissing or growling, I’d advise you to leave it alone and seek out from the herd a different subject who is consensual.”
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