



In tribute to George Orwell.

There was a small farm in the eastern province where rice and fish use to be eaten. Surrounding forests were really dangerous, full of wolves. Fortunately this farm was a safe farm, protected by a strong fence and brave watchdogs from the “outside world”.

The farm was owned by a good owner, at least the caretaker and all his aides were saying so. The animals didn’t saw him yet, but the caretaker promised them, that once they will be mature enough, perfect themselves, they all will live with him in his house and eat together with him. He even showed them the way to the house. But there was still a fence and a closed gate between them.

But the caretaker created the coat-of-arms of their farm and hanged it on the fences as a symbol of hope and pride. It had an owner’s house in the middle with twelve roads (absolute discipline, hard work, etc.) leading to it. Around the houses he painted the circle symbolizing all the yet unworthy animals to enter the house. All those chosen animals received a special sign on their right ear. This even more helped them to understand how special they were.

The caretaker was not much kind to the animals. He used to scold them and beat them a lot. He also used to maintain their health and good physical condition by whole day hard work. The animals knew, that he is doing that with the heart of a father trying to save his children from danger and helping them to mature. The aides were also very strict. Maybe some of them very more nice, but most them were nice only when reporting to caretaker or promising something.

The years were passing on and the owner was not coming. Nor the animals were allowed to cross the gate. The caretaker was very disappointed that the animals didn’t grow enough and didn’t work hard enough. He has always emphasized how much he is feeding them, that he had provided them everything to grow abundantly… But still animals were feeling a hunger and were losing the weight even though they have eaten all what was provided. The caretaker decided to hang his portrait to every cage to help the animals to realize their responsibilities clearly.

One of the reasons why animals didn’t grow well was the fact that the aides used to take the provided feed for themselves. Also the more they took, the less they worked. Some of them even exchanged their boiler suits for suits with neckties. Of course the caretaker didn’t worked manually at all. Once in the past he used to work unimaginably hard in some prison, but as he said he was absolutely innocent and suffered there instead of real criminals. Now he was working mentally. By his word, giving guidance to all aides, scolding all the animals and managing whole farm. And that was much, much harder than any work.

The caretaker had a big family. Many of his children used to visit the farm. Some of them didn’t appear for years, some used to spend a lot of time there. They were just the same as caretaker. They all knew how to manage the farm – especially how to scold the animals. For example the oldest son had good persuasion skills. Even though some animals were afraid of him as he used to drink a lot, and then to beat them hardly, or even to threaten them with knife in his hand, they knew that he did that only from love and finally it always helped them to achieve the common goal of total discipline in the farm.

The wife of caretaker didn’t use to care of farm at all. She used to appear only between whiles usually asking caretaker for gold coins in order to do important shopping in nearby villages markets. On the other hand she was a noble lady and many other women admired her noble clothes and rings. The animals were only sad that she never caressed them or looked to their eyes, as she always wore the huge fancy sunglasses.

The years fled by and the animals were even more hungry, even more tired from the hard work, some of them were very sick, some of them had even died. No new were coming, even though the aides were doing massive advertisements on the surrounding trees and village walls, campaigns in the streets, organizing meetings with other famous farmers, even providing fabulous bribes to corrupted landlords, but still the animals suffering in other farms didn’t come. Some animals believed that they were scoffed by evil wolves on their way to their farm. Some more pessimistic animals thought that other animals were too much blind to understand that only their farm had good owner.

Soon the situation was so bad, that some animals started to oppose the corrupted aides. That was peacefully solved by the caretaker and his aides by selling such animals to other farms. The only mystery for animals was why such animals were so much desperately screaming on their way away behind the gate and why the caretaker and his aides had always feast that day… Some more traitorous animals who lost their faith even fled the farm. All the faithful animals hoped that the traitors will be caught by merciless wolves. Some of such traitors had even such insolence that during night they came back to the farm and behind the fence they were preaching such a non-sense that there is a freedom outside and no wolves live there.

The caretaker saw and heard everything. As a loving father he initiated self-sacrificing actions for his animals. First of all he did hard conditions during 40 nights in his house. Every morning he was so tired and dizzy that he was almost unable to speak and his smell smelled terribly. The aides gave guidance to all animals not to annoy the caretaker, as he is under hard condition. After forty days the caretaker victoriously finished his condition and enabled the animals to do their five percent. Such a grace! From now on the animals had to wake up one hour before the hard work started and bow to the portrait of good caretaker finishing it with victorious shout three times. The next days the animals had strong spirit. Also the next days many hunters were seen around the farm. The caretaker proudly declared a written resolution that he hired them to protect the farm from evil wolves.

Following years the caretaker tried to find many new ways to keep his animals happy and joyful. He found new conditions to fulfil and new goals in their hard-working responsibilities. He also made a special amazing announcement that the good owner is actually himself. And that he is much better than any owner has ever been. His new declaration has to be celebrated every year. He renamed his farm to “Family Subjugation for Gold Piece”. Also a new coat-of-arms was hanged on the walls – displaying himself and his family in the center and all small animals around him.

The animals were never able to fulfil that incredible vision, as the caretaker, the true owner has soon after that died. The following days were difficult for animals. There were many people running around the farm but it was not clear, who is actually taking care of animals. They heard about many new true owners.

One day the people didn’t even come. The animals could only hear them behind the walls. They could hear them very clearly as the people were shouting a lot on each other. The animals were very hungry. So they started to scream to let the people know how hungry they are. Soon after that an aide had opened the gate and started to shout something on animals. They could not understand him. Then he again disappeared behind the wall, but the gate stayed opened.

The animals stayed in shock. One goat asked: “Should we go… ?” The duck had instantly replied: “How you dare! We are not yet prepared, we didn’t fulfilled all the conditions!” But the horse started to go to the gate. Other animals one by one joined him. Some of them, those who still didn’t fully understood the new truth, thought that there is a house of the owner. Those who already fully understood the new truth knew that there is house of the only true owner – the caretaker. Anyway, they all felt the glorious ecstasy to go to the house, to their everlasting good home.

But after they crossed the gate, their house from cards had totally fallen. Behind the gate there was … no house. There was only a big table. Around him were sitting the noble lady with her aides on one side and one of her sons with his aides on the other side. They were screaming on each other, fighting. And they were throwing some bones on each other. On their plates was something like meat. Then there was some strange construction from the logs behind the table. On that construction were the parts of … oh no, that was their fellow, who secretly disappeared yesterday! Here similar story from similar animal farm ends.

But in our farm the hope didn’t died. It took time for animals to understand. But finally they understood. Nobody knows when they are now. The only what we know is that they are now surely on much better place.