Once I Was a Man, Now I am a Landlord

HENS

As long as I possessed nothing more than my bed and my books, I was happy. 

I now own nine chickens and a rooster, and my soul is disturbed. 

Property has made me heartless.

Every time I bought a chicken, I tied it to a tree for two days, to impose my address on it, destroying in its fragile memory the love of its old residence. 

I fixed my yard fence, in order to keep my birds from leaving, and to keep out the four- and two-foot predators.

I isolated myself, fortified the border, drew a diabolical line between my neighbor and I. 

I divided humanity into two categories; me, owner of my chickens, and the others who could take them from me.

I defined the crime. The world was filled with putative thieves, and for the first time I cast a hostile look from the other side of the fence.

My rooster was too young. The neighbor's rooster jumped the fence and started courting my hens and embittering my rooster's existence. I stoned the intruder, but he jumped the fence and hightailed it to my neighbor's house. 

I gathered all the eggs and my neighbor hated me. I saw his face over the fence, his inquisitive and hostile gaze, identical to mine. His chickens crossed the fence, and devoured the wet corn that I had put out. 

The alien chickens looked like criminals to me. I chased them and, blinded by rage, I killed one. 

The neighbor made a big deal of this. He didn't want to accept a compensation. He solemnly removed the chicken carcass, and instead of eating it, he showed it to his friends, recounting the tale of my imperialist brutality.

I had to strengthen the fence, increase surveillance, raise, in a word, my war budget. 

The neighbor has a dog that is determined to get in and kill my chickens. I'm thinking of getting a revolver.

Where is my old peace? 

I'm poisoned by distrust and hatred. 

The spirit of evil has taken over me.

Once I was a man, but now I am a landlord.   

           — Rafael Barrett, Paraguay, 1910.