We had soiled ourselves.
Once upon a time, a village of animals was governed by a brigade of very important creatures wearing very full diapers. The villagers had thought they should tolerate and accommodate them because this was the UNITED STATES OF BARNS.
These guys, they had guns (loved guns!), flags (loved flags!), titles, and access (oh, how they had worked hard to weaponize tolerance, free speech, and the legal system to get here!). They had a team of storm troopers to keep everyone “safe.” Some were even sheep in wolves’ clothing while others were wolves in sheep’s clothing. But this was not cross-dressing. It was merely a complicated personality disorder, or CPD, if you cared about science. They were useful or immoral perverts, if you were religious and appreciated the dominance. They were patriots, if you believed you appreciated being dominated.
Wanting to be dominated was perverted, but not in politics. Political S&M was needed. Hierarchy and predator-prey behavior were natural. They were animals, after all. To point it out, that was perverted.
But back to these guys, these guys, they had political scientists and strategists to tell them what to say, when to say it, how to say it, and whom to blame when the smell became unbearable.
Each authority figure held up a sagging diaper with one paw and brandished a weapon with the other.
“Behold our strength!” they declared.
Some were brandishing Bibles. The weapon of choice in the diaper belt.
The villagers were expected to be impressed. Many were frightened. Some were both. Some were confused and foggy because both could be true at the same time, and that was complicated. Some envied the diapers, but they didn’t admit this to anyone, not even themselves.
At the center stood Boss Hog, whose diaper was the biggest and messiest of them all. His political strategists held up one side. His stakeholders held up the other. Foreign strategists stood nearby, offering suggestions, occasionally writing positive soundbites. They kept their diapers out of sight. They forced others to wear their diapers. It was masterful in countries with authoritarian leadership. Boss Hog envied them.
“It’s leaking,” said a rabbit.
“That’s prosperity,” said a strategist.
“It’s dripping on the school.”
“Educational reform.”
“And the library.”
“Public safety.”
“And the church.”
“Religious freedom.”
The minister, a solemn old ram, had his own diaper to hold up.
“No to background checks!” he shouted. “That’s against my right to bear arms!”
He had four legs.
The congregation applauded. The ram declared it a victory for freedom and went about welcoming animals into the church. When he should have employed a background check for a volunteer, he used a third-party service instead so no one would know. It was unofficial. So it couldn’t be used against him.
But then he learned that a sex offender had gained access to the congregation.
“Oh, shit,” he said.
His diaper became heavier. The man had said he had repented and had come to the Bible study to show everyone how changed he was. Many goats and sheep had gotten scared of the stranger and were confused by his testimony. Weren’t they supposed to believe he changed? Wasn’t faith powerful? Why were they all feeling foggy? Their heads and hearts and nervous systems were all over the place.
The Bible study closed suddenly.
They all sighed relief, but they were also upset.
“COVID,” the ram announced. “You know Chino sheep made it in a lab! Then ‘our’ government gave us confusing information. Don’t blame me. The issue was intentionally complicated. Prayer and God’s will!”
His hands were tied, he explained, though everyone could see they were occupied with his diaper.
And he had hooves.
The fire inspectors were having a difficult time, too.
For years, they had enforced certain rules with particular enthusiasm in goat-owned buildings. They knew which developer to give a hard time and which landowner to be a particular pain to.
Now they applied every rule they could find to schools and libraries because they knew that was where the bastards were.
Public. Inclusive. Mixed. Tolerant.
Repulsive.
Tolerance was for them the other four years. Now it was not needed. Just like free speech. And religious freedom. It was theirs. This was their United States of Barns.
They missed when the schools and public buildings had been theirs. Before the public made it difficult.
Doors closed. Programs stopped. Families complained.
“Big government,” the inspectors said, shaking their heads. “Our hands are tied.”
They had hooves.
Their diapers grew heavier with every inspection.
The strategists took notes.
“Tell the villagers the government is ruining their lives,” they said.
“Are we not the government?” asked an inspector, looking at his body, worried he was a ghost of his former self.
He was.
“YOU are when you help us.”
The brigade marched through the village carrying flags that said DON’T TREAD ON ME.
They marched over the school steps and through the library doors and over bookshelves. They marched into church meetings and doctors’ offices. When someone objected, a boot came down on a neck.
“Don’t tread on me!” the marcher shouted.
“You’re standing on me,” said the creature beneath the boot.
“This is freedom.” A flag waved over his head as he posed for his social media account.
Behind him, the ram held a Bible over his head in the shot.
“Ten Commandments!”
He wanted the commandments displayed in every classroom. He wanted selected passages read aloud every morning. He wanted the authority to decide who was pure, who belonged, and who should be allowed a voice in the village.
“Once we have the power to make everyone moral,” he explained, “we won’t need to listen to immoral animals anymore.”
“Who decides who’s immoral?” asked a teacher.
“I do.”
“Can we vote on that?”
“Not until we determine whether you’re moral enough to vote.”
His diaper sagged.
“Teachers should carry guns!” shouted a strategist.
“Everyone should pass a purity test!” shouted another.
“And bring back corporal punishment!” cried the ram, gripping his waistband.
The strategists sent out notices asking for donations to protect the children. Then they sent out more notices asking for donations to protect the schools from the animals who objected.
The money came in. So did the fear.
A group of politically minded but meek and humble goat moms, concerned with schools doing their job to defeat Satanism, bleated.
“WE need protection! Where are our umbrellas?”
They knew female autonomy was satanic. So they did their best to restore female meekness by being loud and visible. Some wanted offices. They wanted their reproductive status reinstated as sacred. It had been made too valuable as a recreational trampoline. They were sacred vessels. Their daddies told them so, how special they were to be so submissive and receiving and reproductive.
No one asked why they didn’t have more children and why they were spending so much time at rallies and being on boards. They seemed to have a lot of time and energy to devote away from their families.
“We were masculinized! We are LABORING to restore the feminine!”
The animals who ran the schools wondered where they were supposed to put the guns and who would write the purity test. The teachers wondered what they would be expected to do. The children listened to the adults shouting about them.
At a school meeting, a fox stood up with her family.
Always foxes. Sneaky adulterous bitches. Definitely why they voted for satanic opponents.
“We don’t want your version of Christianity forced on our child!”
“Satanic family!” cried the ram. “Was that the woman who spoke? Vile. Ten Commandments! In God We Trust! Bathsheba! Lilith! Jezebel!”
“We’re talking about our child’s school,” said the fox.
“Adulterers! Idolaters! You are for me to judge! For God! I am the word of God!”
“No,” said the fox. “You’re a ram in a diaper holding a book you use as a tool.”
The ram pulled a stone tablet from beneath his arm.
“Thou shalt not kill.”
“What about soldiers?” asked a young fox.
“They have to protect us.”
“And police?”
“They have to protect us, too.”
“So there are times when you believe it’s more complicated,” said the fox.
“That’s different. Abortion is murder!”
“Murder is murder,” said the fox.
“Murder is not murder if you’re justified!”
“Then abortion can be justified.”
“Murder is murder! Babies are innocent!”
A doctor asked what to do when a pregnancy threatened a patient’s life.
The ram slammed the Bible onto her desk and pointed to a passage.
“Thou shalt not!”
A doe asked why her husband could threaten her and still be considered the head of her household.
The ram opened the Bible to another passage and held it up to her face.
“Ten Commandments!”
A mother asked whether her child’s teacher would be allowed to answer a question about science.
A father asked whether his family’s religion would be taught in the school, too.
A man asked whether he could love another man and still belong in the village.
“Ten Commandments!” the ram shouted.
“But which of their questions does that answer?” asked the teacher.
The ram threw a Bible at her.
“Thou shalt not!”
It struck her shoulder and fell open on the floor.
“You hurt me,” she said.
“Turn the other cheek.”
“You threw it at me.”
“Forgive.”
“You could apologize.”
“Be humble.”
The villagers looked around at one another.
They did not all believe the same things. Some went to church. Some went to different churches. Some went to a mosque or a synagogue. Some did not worship at all. They had different families, different histories, and different ideas about how to live.
They still shared schools and roads. They worked together, borrowed sugar, paid taxes, and waited in the same doctor’s office. Their children played together. Sometimes they disagreed. Sometimes they hurt one another. Sometimes they had to work out how to make room for someone whose life they did not understand.
The ram had a plan for every complication.
“If you would just be God-fearing, humble, and meek, your life would naturally be better.”
“My life?” asked the doe.
“Your marriage. Your relationship with your children. Your position in the village. Your relationship with us.”
“My husband threatens me.”
“Be meek.”
“My child is afraid to go to school.”
“Have faith.”
“My wages don’t cover the rent.”
“Be humble.”
“The library is closed.”
“Be grateful for what you have.”
“And if I still have questions?”
“Kneel.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Satanic! Wrong! Do what you’re told.”
The strategists stepped forward to explain the rest.
“Pay your taxes. Don’t demand accommodations or services. Accept that the rules are being used against you.”
“And if we vote you out?” asked the teacher.
“Then it was your fault,” said a strategist. “You voted wrong. Or you didn’t vote. Or illegal voters voted. Or you let trans animals into the conversation. Or the machines were wrong. Or the paper ballots were counted wrong. Mostly, you are immoral! and thereby deserve being disenfranchised!
“And if you win?”
“God’s glorious will,” said the ram. “At any means possible.”
“Glorious,” said the strategists.
The ram opened his Bible and held it toward the villagers.
“Eat the Bible. Sleep the Bible. Be good sheep in our flock. We have you.”
A lamb raised her hoof.
“Can we leave the flock?”
“We’ll have each and every one of you,” the ram said.
The teacher picked up the Bible from the floor.
“It’s a collection of stories,” she said. “You’ve chosen parts of it to control people.”
The ram clutched his waistband.
“Satanic!”
“Can I say I disagree with you?”
“That’s an attack on my religious freedom.”
“Can I vote against you?”
“That depends on whether you pass the purity test.”
“Can I ask who wrote the test?”
The ram turned to the strategists.
“They’re attacking the Bible,” he said.
“Put that in the fundraising notice,” said a strategist.
“We see your diaper, Minister,” said the fox.
The room went quiet. No one had thought to call out the diapers.
“We see Boss Hog’s diaper, too. We see the strategists coming up with talking points and rhetorical tricks. We see you causing chaos, using the chaos, and then blaming everyone else for it.”
“You are supposed to forgive!” the ram cried. “You are supposed to be charitable!”
“We see your diaper.”
“Turn the other cheek! Hypocrites!”
“We see you doubling down on number two.”
“Wait until we send in our storm troopers.”
“We see their diapers, too. And some of them should fail a background check and are not meek or humble and are cruel. But you’ve given them authority. And military-grade weapons. What are you thinking of doing next election with them?”
The ram turned to the crowd.
“If we lose, you’ll have adulterers, abortionists, and trans animals with fake background checks molesting your children while reading satanic verses from science books!”
A strategist scribbled it down.
“Fear the satanic transmissions from the liberals!” the ram continued. “Socialists! Propagandists!”
“I’m not a liberal,” said the fox. “I’m an independent voter sick of your shit.”
His supporters waved flags. Others passed out bumper stickers. A few strategists stepped aside to award contracts and remind local businesses what could happen if they supported the wrong animals.
Soon the whole village was being herded.
One group was told to fear the schools. Another was told to fear the churches. One group was told the deep state was coming for them. Another was told their neighbors were coming for them. Everyone was told the village would be destroyed unless they chose the correct side. And they were to be meek, humble, and forgiving and charitable toward the hogs, the wolves, the dogs, and their lap sheep.
The storm troopers were and were not the deep state, of course. When an issue was complicated, that benefited the brigade politically. When it was black and white, that benefited them politically, too.
Meanwhile, life got harder and harder and harder.
The smell became so overpowering that it was difficult to think.
“Is that a diaper?” a child asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said her father. “That animal has a gun.”
Another villager recognized the creature he had voted for beneath a particularly large flag.
“Didn’t you support him?” his neighbor asked.
“I supported the flag,” he said.
Just then, a bomb threat was called in.
“We have to evacuate!” someone shouted. “Our bowels…”
“It’s the Husky!” cried one strategist.
“The Chino Sheep!” cried another.
“It’s the illegal immigrants!” cried others.
The fox and her family followed the crowd outside. Across the street, Boss Hog stood beside his enormous campaign bus, talking on the phone.
“Did that clear the room?” he asked.
A strategist nodded.
“Good. Now tell them they need me to make them safe.”
Boss Hog climbed onto the bus and waved.
“Drain the swamp!” he shouted.
The fox looked at the brown trail running from the bus, across the road, and down the steps of the school.
“You are the swamp,” she said.
Boss Hog hoisted up his diaper.
“Fake news! Harlot! Adulterer! Pervert satanic trans fox!”
The fox had had marital problems, mental health problems, and a back injury. She had put herself through college, had to change jobs repeatedly, and had no retirement savings. But apparently, hooking up with her old boyfriend disqualified her from having a political voice. It was a genius strategy. Ha ha. Dumb foxes. Only hogs got away with behavior from their past. The ram helped them. So did the strategists and lawyers.
At last, the brigade traveled to Washington for The Great Diaper Changing.
Boss Hog arrived first. His strategists and stakeholders followed, carrying the edges of his diaper like the train of a royal gown.
Inside the Capitol, changing tables stood beneath chandeliers. Attendants waited with gold-plated wipes.
The officials entered to the sound of the Imperial March, holding their weapons high.
“Please put those down,” said an attendant, “so we can change you.”
“No,” they said.
“Then we can only change you one side at a time.”
“That’s discrimination,” said one.
“That’s socialism,” said another.
A third demanded an investigation into who had filled his diaper.
“And who holds you accountable?” the teacher called from the crowd.
The ram looked at the strategists. The strategists looked at Boss Hog.
Then they all laughed.
“You can’t,” said Boss Hog. “We are the deep state, the shallow state, and the hollow state.”
Eventually, there was a great deal of shouting, and some of the old diapers were carried away. New animals arrived wearing fresh ones. The villagers opened their windows and took a hopeful breath.
For a little while, the air was better.
Then the new strategists gathered around the new authorities.
“What shall we talk about?” they asked.
They studied the village. They found its worries, its grievances, and the places where its creatures already disagreed.
Then they began again.
The diapers grew heavier. The villagers were herded. The strategists chose new talking points.
Because divisive politics, they had discovered, only works if you double down on number twos.
And when the smell returned, nobody wanted to admit they had voted for the diaper-wearing brigade.
It must, then, be the fault of the nonvoters. And illegal voters. And voter fraud!
Those other bastards were letting the country go down the toilet.
Thankfully, they all had diapers to double down in.
