An allegory
When I was younger, I had a job in the palace of a legendary Eastern prince. The grounds were lush and verdant, with many acres of fruit trees, wooded areas stocked with all kinds of game, and an aviary with exotic birds from the world over. The voluptuous undulations of the hills to the west were nearly as enticing as those of the prince's consorts, and there was a river, as well, whose water was cool and refreshing, and from which fish nearly lept into one's net.
It was in its entirety given over to the pleasures of the flesh—for, that is, the prince and those he favored. The workers, and I was one of them, endured long, backbreaking days, for however much the palace appeared to be a remnant of the Age of Gold, it, like all things, was yet a product of our present Age of Iron, and the maintenance of the appearance of unsought plenty required near-constant labor.
I must have done something to attract the ire of one of the foremen (who were really in no better a position than the rest of us)—perhaps some imagined shirking, or, it wouldn't surprise me to learn, jealousy regarding my abilities—because not long after I arrived I was transferred to the aviary, one of the worst jobs going. I had to muck out the floor while high overhead birds of prey gazed down at me with expressionless eyes, seemingly well aware that one workman more or less would never be missed. Perhaps I owe my life to the nearly nonexistent meals we were given, just enough to keep us able to work another day ("he fed us on carrion and on a dry crust, mouldy bread that his dogs had vomited", as the poet says); if I had presented a plumper image, I don't doubt that little would remain of me now but bird droppings or owl pellets.
I had other duties still less pleasant in the aviary, among which the worst was no doubt the following. Every day, I would have to climb high up a tree around which the aviary had been built in which a roc had built its nests. (Rocs build more than one nest among which eggs are shifted.) The roc itself however had died, but not before laying a single egg. Let me inform you now, in case you were unaware, that the egg of a roc is quite large and quite heavy, and it was my job, because there was no bird to sit on them, to cover the egg with blankets at sundown, remove them and rotate it at sunup, and periodically move them on the tree from one nesting location to another.
Now as my comment about the precedence of the aviary and the tree may have suggested, it was really for the roc's sake that the whole thing existed, and with it gone all the more importance attached to the egg—and all the less to the other birds. The significance of this was not lost on me: I would surely be released from my duties if the egg didn't hatch. The hard part, of course, would be doing so in a way that wouldn't result in my being tortured to death, which would surely happen if it looked anything like my fault and possibly even if it didn't. Eventually I concluded that there was nothing for it; if I could be assured of a swift execution, were I to be caught, it might have been worth the risk—but no such luxury would be available to me, paltry though it would be compared to those enjoyed daily by those for whom I labored. So my work continued.
But not a day went by without my dreaming about throwing down that oppressive yolk.
Comments
on 2011-01-18 16:55:04.0, Daniel Lindquist commented:
Groan.
and, further, on 2011-01-31 17:11:55.0, horus kemwer commented:
You realize if you get enough other birds to hatch, you can tie them together (not unlike the coconut transportation suggestion in the early minutes of The Holy Grail), thereby producing the simulacrum of a hatched roc, and freeing yourself from the onerous task of blanket shifting. Just a suggestion.