A Conversation on the Nature of Evil and the Various Applications of Farming
HORTON: Mr. Billingsby, I presume?
BILLINGSBY: And you must be Horton. Good show, old fellow! Welcome to the Facility for the Attrition & Mitigation of Evil. Find the place alright?
H: If you are indeed HORATIO Billingsby, then yes, I have, although I must say IT has found ME quite perplexed.
B: Whatever about, dear fellow?
H: Well, for one thing, the, um, Facility for the Attrition and Mitigation of Evil -
B: You mean the Facility for the Attrition & Mitigation of Evil.
H: Quite, that’s what I said.
B: I’m quite sure you didn’t. I’m quite sure I heard you say “and” rather than using the preferred “&”. We at the Facility try very hard to project a unified brand to the public you know.
H: How could you – I – we’re SPEAKING! They sound identical.
B: Do they indeed? How fascinating! But, you were saying?
H: Right. Well, it’s just that, this Facility of yours appears to be a poultry farm.
B: And?
H: And you appear to be a poultry farmer.
B: Quite so. You are a damn sight sharper than you look, if you’ll pardon the profanity.
H: Not at all – look Mr. Billingsby, I am still confused.
B: About what?
H: About whatever poultry farming has got to do with ridding the world of evil! That is what your … establishment advertises as its primary function, is it not?
B: Quite right again! I see that nothing gets by you. To be specific, poultry farming has little to do with demolishing evil. Rather only one specific type of poultry farming has anything, and indeed everything, to do with the subject. Look around you Goodkind – may I call you Goodkind, Mr. Horton? You’ll see only one variety of bird at the Facility.
H: Chickens?
B: Chickens it is! An ornithologist as well as a – what did you say your profession was?
H: I didn’t.
B: Quite.
…
H: Why chickens?
B: Why, because chickens are inarguably the most evil creatures on the face of God’s green Earth. I’m surprised at you, Goodkind! What a silly question. Well, no matter, education is bound to fail every man in one way or another. Think nothing of it. Although, it seems an odd thing not to know.
H: I beg your pardon. Chickens are the evilest creatures?
B: Without question. Have you ever looked into the eyes of one of these horrible birds? Try it now. I can tell you one of two things will happen: either it will look away instantly, unable to hold your gaze out of shame, or it will stare at you with eyes filled to bursting with absolute malice.
H: Very well, I won’t presume to quarrel with an expert. But how does the active cultivation and distribution – am I correct that you do sell your chickens?
B: Oh yes, have to!
H: Right. So how does breeding chickens and sending them into the wide world reduce the amount of evil? I would think that would do quite the opposite.
B: Aha! There’s that collegiate mind I was quite sure you possessed, my dear fellow. A wonderful question. I’ll answer it with one of my own: what is evil?
H: I suppose there are two schools of thought among those who recognize evil as a meaningful word. One would be that evil is simply the absence of good. The other is that evil is a force in and of itself, a property of the universe.
B: It’s the second lot who’ve got the right of it, I’m afraid, which is why we need chickens.
H: I’m very sorry, but you’ll have to explain further.
B: I intend to. Are all Hortons so impatient? Evil is indeed a property of the universe. It is a measureable, quantifiable substance, if you have the correct instruments, and unlike energy, it can be destroyed. And must be! For as we all know, the more evil there is, the more there will be. The stuff breeds like rabbits.
H: Evil begets evil?
B: Quite right. Never a truer axiom. The idea is to keep ahead of the pace. It’s an eternal struggle, but we think we’ve struck a balance. If it weren’t for the vegetarians, we might be able to actually make a push and eliminate evil once and for all.
H: Vegetarians are evil?
B: Oh no – not more than anyone else. Less in fact. Look, that bit will be more obvious soon if you bear with me.
H: What choice do I have?
B: Well said. Where was I? Oh yes. Chickens. The flesh of the chicken is like a magnet and a sponge to evil. A living chicken draws the stuff into it from miles, even light years away. The most sophisticated radio telescopes have been able to detect evil moving slowly toward this Facility from over 10,000 astronomical units away.
H: Radio telescopes can detect evil?
B: Of course. If they’re tuned to the correct bandwidth. Anyway, the chicken flesh absorbs the evil, making the chicken into a sort of hazardous waste container.
H: But we eat them!
B: Yes of course. You see, human beings possess a unique digestive enzyme that renders evil inert as it passes from ingestion to elimination.
H: Fascinating.
B: Is it not? So, you must eat your chicken, my dear Goodkind, and do your part to keep evil from overrunning the universe. Only, don’t eat too much of it. There is a danger, you see. The human digestive tract can only process so much evil before the stuff leaks into the bloodstream and infects the mind. All the most evil men in history ate far too much chicken.
H: But Hitler, one of the most evil men in the world, was a vegetarian.
B: That, is a lie. Told by pig farmers. Those swine.
H: I see.
B: I hope that you do.
H: And how do I know that this isn’t just some grand tale you’ve concocted to make it a moral obligation for people to buy and eat your chickens?
B: I hope, Mr. Horton, that you are not making an accusation. But I can appreciate skepticism as much as the next fellow. If looking into the eyes of one of the birds is not enough to convince you, I can only point to your own experience of eating chicken.
H: My experience?
B: Certainly. Doesn’t the world feel like a better place when you’ve got a belly full of chicken?
H: I suppose it does.
B: There you are. That’s because you’re digesting some of the world’s evil out of existence. And really, my good, kind Mr. Horton, is eating less chicken really a risk you can afford to take? All humanity is counting on your appetite.
