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Athena, The Sheep Who Fought And Won
Rather than being in constant shock, I found that the best way in which to view the world, was to face the facts that had contributed to my life as if to an encyclopedia. Then to rid myself of that old set of books, by leaving them out on the kerb for a roadside collection. There had been no instruction but my parents contempt for my existence. Yet still my own survival instincts led me to crawl forwards, whilst others power walked ahead of me, stepping over the body. I did not know how to enter their worlds, as I did not know any better. When I finally began to stand and walk of my own accord, that was when the pain set in. That was when I looked down at my own bloody hands and knees, and realised that I had been crawling for a long long time. That was when I realised that others had seen me crawling, and that no one had had reached down to give me a boost up. I did not want to become bitter and hateful towards the ones who didn't show love. They had built their bomb shelters and turned their backs on the world. As for me I preferred to work on the streets and clean up the maggots. The other day I was forced to make a decision whether to kill five million maggots or not. Ingrid and I had found this sheep in a lane way with four years growth of wool. The farmers had been bringing them in, and dumping them in the city on the household lawns of politicians. They took this action to protest about the way in which the government had helped them kill their own land over the years. Well this sheep must have gotten away and she was laying on her side. I dug deep into the wool of her until a gigantic soft face was produced. It was like the birth of her personality through a head of pollen. We named her Athena after the goddess of war. As we dug down further through that wool, we found out that her body was being eaten alive by five million maggots. Her face and her body down under there was fighting the maggots. The skin of Athena was fighting a losing battle with the crawling. We took her back to The Lost And Found Home on a stretcher in Ingrid's old bomb. Ingrid had a few rescuers waiting there who began to clip off the wool. Athena had dropped down in the battlefields of her own wool. Her wool that had risen up like a tide of ocean to cross her eyes and drag her down. She had fallen in the battle to save her own skin. Her new skin was exposed after the dirty grey blankets of wool were removed. It appeared as if her whole skin was now moving, as the maggots ate their way in. I helped sprinkle the powder on that skin. In this way I killed five million to save one. We all had tears in our eyes. We wiped our foreheads and tears along arms of sweat, blood and powder. Some maggots stuck there and some dropped off. There were half living maggots and powder on our teeth and eyebrows. Some of us wept whilst we worked. When it got too much, I crept outside to retrieve the diamond ring from around my neck. I looked briefly at the sun inside it. Then I was able to go back inside to the sheep's body. None of us liked the killing, the tragic genocide of maggots. But we had to save that poor old sheep. She looked into our hearts and said, 'My body is being eaten alive and there's not a thing I can do about it.' The same force that created maggots with an appetite for blood gave us compassion. It demanded that we make the choice. It was enough to cause a few cracks in the fabric of each of us. 'We'll help you Athena! We'll stop the pain.' The war waged against the warm-blooded mammal was too tragic. None of us were mass murderers but to the maggots we were. Our eyes yelled back down into her wool, as we cut it away and sprinkled powder. We took sides in the bloody war of fleece and flesh. We helped Athena the warm-blooded sheep, win the battle to save her own body. During this operation and for many weeks following, I thought of her body as my own. The bleeding body of the city of Detroit was like a maggot on the body of the earth. I loved Detroit and the maggots like I loved the earth. There was no hatred inside. Yet sometimes there was no time to philosophise. You just had to pull your sleeves up, produce your courage and save the thing closest to you. You had to save the life that seemed most in need, or the thing that was crying out inside you. So it was on that afternoon, with all the midwives looking down and weeping, that the face of the gentle sheep was born. |
