There Is A Place Called Hierbell: An Animal Fantasy With A Social Message

Alice the Ewe lives at Hierbell, a small, independent sheep farm in a country with five distinct regions. Her story is one of love, loss, risk, and awakening. Alice has spent her entire life being shorn of her thick wool and producing beautiful, healthy lambs who are taken from her within weeks or months of their births. Alice has been a slave her entire life. Her accumulated sorrow has drained her resolve and weakened her mind, body, and spirit. She has reached the end of her productive years and has delivered her last lamb, Benny. Once he has been weaned, Alice’s usefulness will be at an end. A trip to The Shed will be the last walk the old ewe will take. Sadly, she won’t fight this final indignity because she has learned that her life is not her own. Resistance is futile. However, when her five-week-old lamb Benny finds a hole in the fence of the upper pasture at Hierbell, Alice doesn’t hesitate to follow him to freedom. The two begin a journey that will change their lives forever. Unlikely alliances will be forged and help will come from unexpected places; animal, human, and otherworldly. From hornets to fireflies, from feisty cats to wolves and piglets, Alice will discover that true friendship isn’t limited to one species. She will learn that bravery is not measured by the shape or size of one’s physical presence but by the kindness, courage, and love in the heart.The story of Hierbell is a stark reminder that humans, routinely and without thinking, deny our fellow Earth beings the lives to which they are entitled. The way we force them to exist is not only wrong, it is criminal. They have no voices, no rights, and no means of alleviating their daily suffering. They are victims of greed and a product for profit. Their misery is not noted, their grief is unimportant, and their suffering is not relevant. Their deaths are a footnote in a record book. Every year around the world on small, independent farms, and in massive, ugly, industrialized factory farms, animals are brutalized and tortured. They are forced to live in crude, overcrowded, filthy cages, pens, and crates. When they reach their slaughter weight or are no longer productive, they are expendable. They are shipped to slaughter in appalling conditions, to be killed in ways that are unimaginable. Humans kill billions of animals every year - not millions, billions. The tragic and unthinkable reality is that every one of these gentle beings had a mother, a father, a family, and a story. While the tale of Alice and Benny is a surreal, animal fantasy, it is a tragic reflection of the much larger, global issue of abused creatures in the agricultural industry. We exploit wild animals in the same amoral way. The appalling treatment of animals has been hidden and their deaths have been normalized by clever marketing campaigns and greedy, business interests. Most people are wilfully unaware, because animal cruelty is still a taboo subject, concealed behind windowless walls. It is time that this egregious mistreatment of animals is exposed and stopped.I hope that the animals of Hierbell shine a light on this subject, so that every creature living in bondage may one day enjoy the change, that ultimately follows true awareness.Toronto, Canada - 2020