by Timothy Jung (6th)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8TH, 1947

The mind is the part of the head that does all the thinking. It’s a great part of the body, when used correctly, that is. That means that sometimes, humans have the minds of corn seeds, which is saying a lot, noting that the human is apparently the smartest living being in the world. In my opinion, humans are animals. They kill us turkeys, us farm turkeys that have evolved to be “too fat to fly”.

So now what’s going on is that I’m being shipped to America, away from my home country. Of course, I don’t neccessarily know what country I lived in before, but I do know that I used to belong. Now? Now I’m with a bunch of nobodies.

And we need to get out.

I try to be encouraging to the other turkeys, but all they do is grunt. Then one of them says,

“We were the lucky ones.”

And all of a sudden, I feel as if these turkeys have done this for some time.

Then someone shakes my cage and looks at me. He’s a youthful one. He looks terrified, and I ask him,

“What’s wrong?”

The same voice says,

“He’s sad that the people always take the young.”

All of a sudden there’s chattering. Nobody wanted to hear it.

“Come on!” one of them says, “Clark, you cannot be so pesamistic.”

Clark, I wonder. Names are names. They can be useful.

All of a sudden, there’s a shake. Everyone’s cages are leaning, and someone sighs,

“Everyday. Don’t they think that we’ll get seasick?”

Clark, still moping, responds,

“They torture us first in a steam-boat, then they eat us. Animals.”

There it is again. “Animals”.

There’s silence for what seems like hours, and then a big crash. All of a sudden there’s murmuring, another whimper, even Clark looks up from his moping, wide-eyed.

“Stop whimpering,” Clark says, position fixed. “Flappy always whimpers.”

Flappy, I think. The whimpery one.

“That always happens,” he continues, but everyone knows it’s not normal.

“What are we supposed to do?” says someone. “We might have a chance to escape…”

His voice trails off.

“Not since last time,” responds Clark, position still fixed, unmoving.

Something tells me that I don’t want to know what happened last time.

“Escape?” I wonder out loud. “I’ll do anything for a chance to escape.”

Everyone has mixed expressions, some uncertain, some sad, and some unhappy.

“No,” Clark’s voice says firmly. “We can’t let you go without ever knowing your name.”

I look at everyone, and say,

“I don’t have a name.”

Clark looks at me, and says,

“Then make one.”

“Not yet. I’ll think about it.”

That’s enough talking for today.