Freedom to Dream

To my little Queen of Hearts

The door of her cell unlocks with a loud noise, and she crouches instinctively in a corner, holding her breath. She waits, but no one enters. She is alone. Cautiously, she walks to the door, listening attentively. Silence. She slowly pushes it open, the rusted hinges creaking loudly. She freezes. Hearing nothing but silence, she finally gathers the courage to peek out. The hallway is clear… no one in sight. She steps quietly out of her cell, creeping along the wall. She passes several empty cells, but as she comes closer to the exit door, she feels a gust of fresh air. Her heart races; freedom is close! Accelerating her pace, she reaches the exit, and without pausing, she walks through it. The soft breeze envelops her body as tears fill her eyes. She breaks into a run without looking back. She is free.

The lights go on and snap her out of her dream. She keeps having that same dream over and over. She closes her eyes and tries to hold on to it; she wants to taste a few more moments of freedom. Tara stirs next to her and mumbles something. She wakes up, her body aching after the night on the hard floor. There is no bed here, not even a blanket to hide under. Everyone around her rouses and starts getting up. One accidentally steps on somebody still lying on the floor, starting a fight. The cell is so crowded that it is hard to move around. She shakes off her sleepiness and stands up. Being a fighter, she won’t give up and will get through this day. Everyone eventually gets up, and the room soon fills with chit-chat and bickering. Their chatter joins the chatter from the other cells in their row and all the rows around: on the left, on the right, above and below. A cacophony soon replaces the silence of the night in the windowless prison.

She looks around and sees Sandy still lying on the floor. She is on her side, breathing heavily, and her eyes are closed. She makes her way to her, strokes her face, and says a silent prayer. Sandy is not going to make it through the day, especially with this heat. The temperature barely dropped to 95F during the night. The heat makes the stench of this place even less bearable. No one ever cleans the waste dumped in the hallways. It has been piling up since she was moved here.

She doesn’t know which day it is, for she stopped counting them a long time ago. It doesn’t matter anyway, as all days are the same. Thankfully there is Tara, her best friend. Fate threw them together in the same cell. They were young and scared, and they bonded right away, finding comfort in each other. Now they are inseparable. They watch each other’s backs, share the little they have, and give each other courage and strength.

She needs strength… lots of it. She can deal with the exhaustion and the pain of her bruised body, but the phantom pain is always present. It’s terribly frustrating, as it prevents her to fully feel and explore her surroundings. Although she was just a baby when it happened, she does remember being restrained and terrified, the hot blade, and the intense pain. That pain has been haunting her ever since.

She is hungry and paces impatiently, waiting for the food to arrive. They are all always hungry, for they get fed just enough to stay alive. Tara is the first to hear the heavy footsteps. Their captors are moving slowly through the hallways, dropping food in front of each cell. They produce loud guttural sounds that she cannot understand; it’s like they are yelling. She sees one giant monstrous body approaching. It has two small eyes extremely close to each other in front of its head. The eyes gaze at her for a second; she shivers. It dumps food in front of her and leaves. Everyone crowds against the bars to reach the food. She grabs some and gets pushed away. She pushes back and stands her ground to grab more, eating it as fast as she can. She gets more bruises from the wrestling and the rubbing against the bars, but she doesn’t care. She needs strength, for today is the day she will escape.

The weakest barely get crumbs. They will slowly die of exhaustion, if not trampled by the others beforehand. Their captors don’t seem to care if they are sick or injured. They rarely remove the dead bodies, and their decomposition adds to the stench of the place. Sometimes, when survival instinct wins over sanity, a dead body is cannibalized. It’s the survival of the strongest. It’s every girl for herself.

Yes, they are only girls in here. She had a baby brother, Kevin, but they got separated a long time ago. They were little and only had each other. She cried and begged them to let him stay with her. She can still hear his screams when they took him away. As soon as he was out of her sight, his screams turned into terrifying shrieks. Just the thought of it makes her blood run cold. She never heard from him again.

Rachel is staring at her with piercing white eyes, shaking her head as if she can read her thoughts. Despite being blind, she seems to see everything. Rachel has an aura of mystery surrounding her. She is feared and respected by all in the cell and beyond. As the eldest, she knows a lot and always recounts stories to whoever wants to listen. Often she raves to herself, telling tales that make no sense to anyone.

She sees Lisa curled in a corner, her body twisted with cramps, each wave of spasms contorting it even more. She feels for her, knowing the agony. They modified their bodies to such an extent that every day, each one of them goes through the pain of childbirth. It hurts and drains all their energy. She is not only prisoner of this place, but also prisoner of her body. Sometimes, she wishes she was gone with Kevin.

Who is she? Where does she come from? This miserable life cannot be her purpose. She can’t even remember her mother’s face. Have they wiped that memory from her past?

She spends the rest of the day pacing up and down nervously in her cell. There is really nothing to do; she is bored to death. The only distraction she and Tara have is picking fights with their cellmates. It helps release some frustration.

As suddenly as they went on, the lights go off. It’s bedtime, and everyone quickly looks for a place to settle down for the night. There are a few squabbles as they are stepping on each other to find a good spot. It is still oppressively hot and humid. She shifts for a while trying to find a less uncomfortable position next to Tara. When she finally falls asleep, she drifts into her same dream: escaping to freedom.

The lights go on, waking her up with a start. It has only been a couple of hours; something is off. Everyone starts talking at the same time and wondering what’s happening. They are starting to panic. Lisa is the first one to see them entering the building. They start opening the cells and taking them out one by one. Her heart races. She recalls one of Rachel’s crazy stories. “One day without any warning, they stormed into the building. They yanked them from the cells and crammed them into wagons. They were pushed so hard that their bones broke, and they suffocated under the weight of the others. Once the wagon closed, the screams were replaced by an eerie silence.” She thought it was just the ravings of a mad person. It cannot be true. She is too young to die. She knows deep inside her that there is more to life.

They grab her and pull her out of her cell. She struggles and tries to escape. She is jammed in a small cage unable to stand up or move. She can only lie down and wait, wait for her fate. Her cage is put with the other cages in a big dark trailer. She can’t see anything anymore; everyone is quiet. She calls softly for Tara, but no one replies. She can only hear her own heavy breathing. Exhausted, she closes her eyes and dozes off. After a time that seemed an eternity, they open the trailer, and take the cages out into a new building. She peers through the bars and wonders where she is. They open her cage. She is scared and curious at the same time. She decides to walk out; maybe she can escape now… they are not looking.

With her heart pounding in her chest, she steps out. The ground is different from the floor of her cell. It feels good. Her feet are touching the soil for the first time in her life. After being jam-packed for such a long time, she stretches. She is surprised that she can open her wings without touching anything or anyone. She flaps them and tries to fly, landing clumsily on top of a bale of hay. There are big windows in the new place. She feels the warmth of the sun and the fresh air on her feathers. She looks around and sees all her sisters discovering this new world with great delight. She recognizes Tara, runs toward her, and together they join a few others digging in the dirt and covering themselves with it. She rolls around in the soft cool soil with immense joy.

She doesn’t know where she is or where she will go. But now feels good.

She plans to enjoy every moment of now.

She is living her dream. She is a free hen.

Her name is Marjo.

Based on a true story. Marjo was born in winter 2013 in a commercial hatchery where her brothers were killed a couple days after hatching. She was then sent to an egg factory where she spent 18 months confined in a battery cage. In fall 2014, she was rescued by Animal Place, a farmed animal sanctuary, where she tasted freedom for the first time. In early 2015, she was adopted with her friend Tara by Isabelle and her husband. She spent many years enjoying freedom at her new home, and became a little ambassadress for her egg-laying sisters. Marjo passed away peacefully in spring 2018. She was free and loved.