Napoleon threw a birthday party

Napoleon led a revolution and chased away the angmoh farmer from his farm. He and his fellow animals took over the farm as theirs. Napoleon told his animal peers that they were the new owners and they should work hard as the fruits of their labour would go rightfully back to them. The cows, horses, goats, sheeps, chicken, ducks and the dogs were all excited by this new dream, as co owners of the farm. They worked day in and day out to improve the productivity of the farm. And the farm prospered. There was plenty of everything for everyone. And everyone was happy that they were working for themselves and for their own good.

That was many years ago. Napoleon had taken over the role of managing the farm with his fellow pigs. They were in charge. And they told the rest of the animals that they needed to work doubly hard to produce more, the farm was their farm, and they would share the fruits of their labour.

Napoleon celebrated his 50^th birthday. He threw a big party for all the animals in the farm. It was like Christmas time. Everything on the table was on the house, paid for by the farm’s income. And every animal was so happy and helped themselves with the food and drinks.

In the midst of the party the old horse looked around and asked, ‘Where are the turkeys?’ Their turkey friends were missing. Then someone whispered, ‘Look, look at the table….’ Before he could finish his sentence Napoleon voice was heard roaring from the stage. ‘Welcome everybody to my birthday party. I am so happy that you are all here. I can see you are all enjoying yourself and having a good time.’

The animals roared and clapped in approval and shouted, ‘Long live Napoleon. Long live our great leader.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, allowed me the pleasure to introduce my relatives and their friends who have travelled far to be here to join me in this party.’ The animals clapped again. Only then that they realised that there were many pigs present that were not really the same as Napoleon. They looked different, but never mind since they were Napoleon’s friends and relatives.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am embarrassed. My friends and relatives are complaining to me that there were not enough turkeys to eat.’ The animals stared at the Napoleon and all the turkeys were gone. And they looked again at Napoleon’s friends and relatives and saw them struggling with pieces of turkeys in their mouths.

Napoleon continued. ‘My fellow citizens of the farm, we have run out of turkeys for my friends and relatives and they are not very happy. Can someone suggest what we should put on the table to make them feel welcomed? They like our farm very much and wanted to make it their home. We need to make them happy, we need to integrate them and make them one of us.’

‘Horse meat, horse meat,’ someone shouted. Another shouted ‘Dog meat, dog meat.’

Napoleon raised his hands. ‘No, my fellow citizens of the farm, we cannot have horse meat. They have worked very hard for the farm. They deserved to be retired and enjoy their sunset. As for dog meat, this is also a no, no. The dogs are very loyal and deserve better. They protect us and our farm.’

The animals nodded their heads in agreement. Napoleon was always so wise and had thought about everything and had always been looking ahead, about their future.

‘Fellow citizens of the farm, to make my friends and relatives feel good and welcomcd, and hopefully they will stay here with us to share our prosperity, I would like to suggest that we serve them with roast beef and lamp chops.’

‘What about roast pigs?’ Someone shouted from the back.

Napoleon shouted back in an angry voice, ‘Who said that?’ There was silence. ‘I warn you not to say that again. In this farm there will be no serving of roast pigs or anything related to pigs.’

The rest of the animals bowed their heads in silence. Their great leader had spoken. The cows, the sheep and the goats went back in tears. The turkeys did not enjoy the party. Their party was also coming to an end. And they could hear the dogs barking away in the distance of the night.

They dreaded when would be Napoleon’s next big party.