Other
Crashing the gates of darkness-
The fence that surrounded the yard, was a black and dense, dark thicket.
None of the herd ever left the yard, without earning themselves, "the ticket".
Every spring, a cunning, strange creature came into the yard, with sharp tools and a sharper wit.
He was covered with our wool, and the sight of him always made our ears twitch.
He was the shear collector,
and we liked him not, not even one little bit.
His real name was Sam or Sammy, but I don't remember which.
We fearfully let him fleece us,
leaving us with barely a warming stitch.
Sam would often happily declare to us, after we had all been shorn, "This is a very great thing you have done,
so don't you be forlorned.
I know it often seems to you,
for this to be kind of hard.
But the process helps us
to maintain the grass
that grows out in the yard.
"Remember, you are all very good, and obedient little sheep!
And it's also the way
that you get to earn for yourselves, your much desired keep.
"I stand here now before you as your most noble and wise teacher.
Remember, sharing with us your wool, helps us to make you into
a great, and NEW kind of productive creature."
He would go on and on
with this sort of onerous, patronizing, and propoganda prattle;
treating all of us kept sheep,
like some ignorant kind of cattle.
"Remember, if your yard's grass grows sparse, or you have trouble growing your blessed coats...
...we can set you up with plenty of our honey and our oats!
"If you really want to see for yourselves what lies out there, far beyond that thicket,
then stay close with me and listen, and I will give to you, your ticket!"
Sam would sometimes give out those tickets to the obedient ones, who he deemed to be properly trained.
He liked to affectionately call them "His little, ambrosial sons of Sam."
But, we never did quite come to understand the meaning of this name ; or even how it was, we earned those tickets, that came to us, from his wooly, and generous giving hand.
One day, a black ram bleated up,
saying, "Sam, can I have with you a word... ummm... well... Where exactly does this ticket take us?, for we have never heard."
"You know that thing you can see up over there!," Sam pointed, "That mysterious, glorious tower.
The one that, I tell you, gives to us ALL, our wonderful great power.
You see those two snakes that climb its sides,
and its top shaped like a glorious bird?
Well, it is known to all of us mere sheep, by just one easy and sublime word.
We have deemed it so aptly, the great and mighty, 'Thunderbird'!"
This answer struck the black sheep as evasive, and almost purposefully clever.
But most of the herd just shrugged and thought,
"I don't know... or even care... whatever!"
This "Tower of Power" was a curious, and most ominous of sights.
To some of us, the very vision of it, it filled us up with fright.
It had this big box on one side,
that slowly went up and down.
Usually on its way up,
it emitted some creepy kind of sound.
The black sheep claimed that
after Sam issued out some tickets, to reward the best of the obedient herd ;
this box was always coincidentally seen, reaching the top of the mighty Thunderbird.
Us black sheep... well, we are a most inquistive, and questioning sheep, of sort.
We would try to look up and over the yard's thicket, but our legs were much too short.
We would stare intently through that thicket.
Our will wasn't at all fickle.
Trying to see something through the opaqueness,
even the smallest of enlightening trickles.
We would often be reminded of that other thing, that Sam, so often, said.
He'd say, "Stay away from that sickle, lest you find yourselves all dead!"
But being such Black Sheep,
we were determined much, to decide for ourselves what we could think. Destined to conjure up our own sickle, and put our lives upon the brink.
We fashioned our own little cutter, although it was very crude.
The sound of it cutting through that thicket sounded gravelly and rude.
All the sheep heard it grinding through that thicket, a liittle, bit by bit.
Seems the rest of the herd didn't pay much attention to it, though,
or even care one spit!
We even had a nickname
for our great and wonderfully abrasive tool.
We had come to call it A.J,
for it was such an "Auspicious Jewel".
We often asked the other sheep
what they thought might lie out there, far past that opaque seeming thicket ;
but the more impassioned our bleating became, the louder chirped the wild's crickets.
Some other herd members would ask us, "Why all that passion, about what's on the other side of that thicket?
I would think you should just concern yourselves with getting your OWN Thunderbird power... your OWN rapture granting tickets."
In our time away from being a herd of abiding, and good little obedient sheep ;
'tween the grazing and the bleating and the fleecing and the sleep...
The herd played some creative games, with a stitched up, cow skin covered little orb.
Though, to many of us black sheep, the rams, they seemed to be way too much absorbed.
We made up more and more of these fun, distracting, pointless little games.
One, was this crazy seeming form of a weird kind of violent tag... Where we'd be chasing around with no abandon, a goofy brown chicken's egg.
We Black Sheep, really couldn't blame them for playing this silly kind of game.
For it kept our minds off of the annual fleecing, and the confusion and the shame.
After several years, A.J. FINALLY broke through that thick, dense insidiously growing wall.
Making one tiny peep hole in it,
we, black sheep, were all so very enthralled!
We squinted and each peeked intently through that tiny little hole.
For no more!, we hoped,
will Sam be fleecing us
of OUR precious, warming wool!
Much to our shock, there was only a bit, that we could plainly see.
Still we had glimpses of great beauty out there way, way past that bohemian - like, grove of ominous trees.
"What's that over there?",
one of the sharper eyed, black sheep, suddenly exclaimed.
"Up against the wall, where the gate there meets the thicket.
Right there, next to the place that you go, right after earning your own ticket."
As we squinted and we blinked,
to the best of our collective might; through that tiny little peephole, we witnessed
a very disconcerting sight:
A similar creature to Sam, was busy there, but not wearing any of our wool; a menacing creature, cranking on some kind of machinery turning pole.
Round and round and round and round, this crooked handle turned... and it seemed that it was somehow connected,
to the Thunderbird.
And right next to the chicken coop's yard, stood a stack of what appeared to be a bunch of cardboard boxes.
The whole operation seemed to have as it's guard,
some bushy-tailed red creatures... some say that they're called foxes.
That's all that we could make out.
We wished that we saw more,
but that ever growing thicket,
it filled itself back into that enlightening hole that we bore.
Now AJ was spent.
It could cut no more.
We had nothing left but to remember...
it's poetic sounding lore.
Remembering that sound that AJ made, whilst it was being spent...
Its obnoxious sound,
many didnt like its message... but this is how it went:
"Outside the yard, where we can hear the big bad wolves howl, and even see the clever foxes crawl ; also lie those glorious hills, where a flock of sheep can sprawl.
For the perfect Shepherd, He is waiting... up in those grand, promised rolling hills. Serving HIS staff, you will find yourselve's totally fulfilled."
Those words, they seemed to ring out true, in our black and sheepy ears. They seemed to even help us in getting over our many fears.
We cared less and less about receiving Sam's, supposedly great tickets.
What we wanted most
was to see up and over
that thick, dark, dense, damned thicket.
Suddenly one day, when the wind was blowing with a Spirit that was just right,
the restless herd, they were sensing some new kind of awful fright.
"We kind of remember that obnoxious sound, that your noisy AJ made.
Seems though, if I remember right, it spoke of things that Sam, so very much forbade."
With our new found boldness and a refreshing, free smeling Spirit in the electrified air; to push the herd even further, we then decidedly declared,
"Don't think us crazy black sheep, because our colors are much bolder...
Here, come see what it is that we see! Come climb up on our shoulders."
Much of the herd said,
"NA-AA-AAA-AAA-AAHHH, that's BA-AA-AAA-AAA-AAA-AD!"
And many more said, "No thanks, I hope to get me mine. So I really don't want to step away from my place in the Thunderbird's great line."
A couple of the mob though, they said "Hey, what do we have to lose? Let us take a chance, and get us a peek up and over that dark, mysterious thicket.
Let US have a glance.
Show us the things out there that you think may be so nasty and so wicked."
So they leapt up onto our black sheep backs, and they jumped and jumped and jumped.
Gaining tiny little glimpses, till our weary backs, they slumped.
"Wow, such weird things I just saw!" one said
as his feet crashed to the ground.
"But let us first catch up on our breath, and then we can expound."
We all tried to put it together to explain everything we ALL saw:
"Out there, we saw creepy Sam.
He was joyfully dancing and eating... like some kind of perverted glutton.
With a quick sniff of the air, and a head bob, he would push some creepy, weird, red button."
One sheep even said
that it was Sam's close cousins, that he most definitely saw. They were exercising their wet, drooling jaws, and sharpening up their claws.
And all of those boxes stacked up, along the chicken coop...
well, those foxes, they were filling them up with cans of something called, 'mutton eggnoodle soup'!
Such is the state of the mob that's penned up, out in the veiled yard.
Deducing the rest...
well, it shouldn't be very hard.
Consider the warning issued forth, through this lame, unrhythmic bard:
That mob needs to all come together peacefully,
and through knowledge,
burn down that damned, insidious thicket.
THIS, is what I dare say,
is "Humanity's great Ticket!"
With this, mankind will crash through the gates of darkness, and enter into the promised coming Light.
For "Outside the yard, where we can hear the big bad wolves howl, and even see, the clever foxes crawl ; also lie those glorious, promised hills, where a flock of sheep can sprawl.
For the Perfect Shepherd, He is waiting for us... up in those grand rolling hills. Serving HIS staff, you WILL find yourself totally fulfilled."
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