100,000 chickens were killed in a fire at a Connecticut farm a few weeks ago. Normally, I can compartmentalise the horrors of factory farming reasonably well. But this story was eating at me. I felt a visceral sense of pain just from thinking about it, and then a profound sense of sadness at the thought of 100,000 chickens essentially being a rounding error compared to the overall size of the factory farming industry.

I also felt disgusted at how flippant the world is to these sorts of tragedies — one article in particular noted that "no injuries were reported in the fire".

Rather than sit by uncomfortably, I wanted to try turning these feelings into something productive, so I wrote a short story about it. As a content warning, this story contains graphic descriptions of suffering. If this sort of thing (understandably) bothers you, I'd probably suggest not reading.

My hope is that purposefully writing as uncomfortable of a story as possible can help build intuition about how utterly repugnant factory farming is. I'm also curious if these kinds of short fictional stories might be helpful for spreading awareness of things like the harms of factory farming or the importance of protecting future generations.

No injuries were reported

The flames burned with primordial rage as they devoured the building’s wooden skeleton. She stared aimlessly at the smouldering walls as her breath came in searing gasps. All she felt in this moment was her drive to survive eclipsed by a sense of fear, all while a billowing plume of smoke enveloped her body. Heat and terror. Helplessness.

Through strained eyes, she saw other shapes staggering and flailing in a chaotic stupor. Cries of panic and pain blended into an encompassing wall of sound. She tried to rise but could not. She was in company, yet all alone.

No injuries were reported.

She wasn’t aware of it, but soon she would be melted to a pile of flesh. A burnt clump of matter. Nameless and faceless. None would be the wiser.

She did not have much of a sense of her place in the world. But she could feel, more than most would ever suspect. Millions of years of evolution attuned her nervous system to avoid pain, and to seek pleasure. In some senses, it was all she ever knew.

The fire seared through her nerves, causing excruciating pain to radiate through her body. In this moment, she hadn’t a desire in the world, other than a primal urge to escape her torturous environment. But she was confined, and her fate was sealed.

No injuries were reported.

Despite her feeling of isolation, she was not alone in any sense of the word. She was surrounded by a hundred thousand others, who similarly wrestled with their impending deaths. Somewhere in the crowd lurked her own faint cries, a scream amid the greater tide. Soon, heart by heart, the screams and flutterings faded until only the fire roared. For an omniscient observer, the void left by those silenced hearts would scream louder than the uncontrollable flames, a chasm of nothing where much had once been.

No injuries were reported.

Less than an hour after the flame ignited, the barn was reduced to rubble. A pile of burnt flesh, bones, feathers, and faeces. It was probably a malfunctioning heating device that caused the blaze that killed over a hundred thousand chickens. But by the time the fire crew arrived, it was too late.

The press soon began reaching out to the farm’s owners, in response to questions from the public of what caused the massive column of smoke to fill the winter air. “Rest assured for folks who are concerned”, said the owners, “nobody was hurt in the fire”. The workers had already left for the day, and the flames were confined to the barn.

Thankfully, no injuries were reported.