Night of the Nuggets: Chapters 22-23
The Amazing Miss Pearl—Helping to Make the World Better for Chickens and People
Hi, everyone! It’s good to be sending out a new edition of our newsletter this week. It has definitely been a better week for getting things written and illustrated due to the rainy days we had recently. Fortunately, things cleared up on Thursday, and we had time to get outside and celebrate the sunshine. Today is going to a beautiful, sunny day here in Coastal Virginia!
Pearl had a rather lengthy conversation with Mr. Kimble. He suggested that she may want to speak with the actual factory workers to find out more about them and why they seemed so unconcerned about what troubled her.
Although the factory floor was noisy and unpleasant from the steam that the machinery made, Pearl set out to learn all she could from the workers themselves—just as Mr. Kimble had suggested. He had also promised that he would work on making changes that would help to create a better working environment with the hope that better conditions for the workers would lead to better conditions for the chickens as they were being turned into chicken nuggets.
Pearl went into the middle of the factory floor and flew up to the top of a large crate in the middle of all the activity. She stood her tallest, stretched out her neck, and called out to everyone.
Some of the workers kept working, others moved closer to the crate, and Pearl began to feel that she had made a stage for herself, just like Nate had made for her back in the Garden so that she could do put on her Comedy Coop show.
Beside her, Mr. Kimble stood and spoke out to everyone on the factory floor.
“Listen up, everyone. I have a special job for you to do today,” announced Mr. Kimble. One by one, the machinery was turned off and the workers formed a circle around Pearl and Mr. Kimble. When there was silence, Mr. Kimble continued, “This is my friend, Pearl. She has some questions for you. I will leave you with her, but I want you to tell her the truth. You can say anything, and it will be kept completely confidential. She will only tell me what the answers to her questions are, not who gave the answers. There will not be any negative consequences for even the most critical answers about The Chicken Nuggets Syndicate.”
Knowing what she did from written records and from seeing the factory processes, there was still more Pearl felt that she needed to find out from the workers concerning why they had gone along with everything that the Syndicate asked them to do.
On the top of the crate, she stood her tallest, stretched out her neck, and called out to everyone.
Then Pearl realized that this performance had a completely different purpose. If anyone laughed at one of her hats, that was would be okay, but her show there in the factory had to end with something happening in the heart of every audience member.
“I’m looking for answers to important questions. I need to know about this place. You can tell me honestly what is on your mind. Even though I came in this morning with Mr. Kimble who is in charge, nothing will be held against you for anything you say.”
Then someone near the back called out, “We serve the machines.”
There were murmurs of agreement in the crowd.
“I think I see what you mean,” said Pearl. “Machines aren’t anywhere nearly as important as people. But you have to do what the machines tell you to do. I suppose that would make you feel like you are just a machine yourself being controlled by a bigger and more complicated machine.”
“That’s right! You understand us even though you are a chicken.”
“Maybe I understand because I am a chicken, and I’ve seen how we chickens are being controlled by a bigger and more complicated machine. Tell me more and maybe we can come up with a solution that helps people and chickens! Why do you serve the machines?”
“Because they serve us,” called out the same voice near the back of the crowd.
Pearl stared directly into the crowd and then at Mr. Kimble, and she said defiantly, “Chickens serve you too.” Then so that there would be no uncertainty, “We serve eggs to you, day after day. Has any machine done anything like that for you? Our eggs are gifts to you. They are what The Great Gardener created us to do—not to be turned into Nuggets.”
Until Next Time…
We are stopping here even though we did want to include a third chapter in this edition. Our iPad is giving us so many frustrations with moving things around to unexpected and unplanned places. We are simply grateful for being able to get this much out to everyone!
Thank you for reading,
John, Gracie, Bessie, Pearl, Blanche, Emily, and Amelia
Nice to see this serial up and running again.
The comment "We serve the machines" reminds me a bit of E.M. Forster's story "The Machine Stops", which is about an item which controls its society until, as the title implies, it stops working and the people have to figure out what to do next.