The Question
Name something you have seen with your own eyes that you could live without having seen. Explain what it is, how or why you saw it and why you'd prefer to erase it from your mind and memory. How has it affected you?
On a bright, sunny day in March, about fifteen years ago, I was out and about with my mom, we’d just pulled into our favorite supermarket’s parking lot. Generally, only one of us goes in to do the shopping and this day was no different. I went in and my mom sat in the car.
Once I’d done the shopping I wheeled my trolley to the car, and that’s when it happened…
A man alighted from a huge truck in the field of my vision, carrying a skinned, whole pig over his shoulder. The animal's face was all I could see; it was in my “face”. I dropped several items I was carrying including a newspaper which I’d tucked under my arm and I bent down to retrieve it, but the tears had already begun. The image, which I will never ever be able to erase from my mind, was one of excruciating pain and suffering, the mark of it was all over the animal’s dead face - there was no mistaking the terror the animal had been through. I remember that the newspaper I’d picked up was completely soaked through by the time I got back into the car. I’d cried a river for an anonymous creature, whose flesh I regularly ate and ENJOYED IMMENSELY.
I WAS HORRIFIED…
In the car I turned to my mother, with the horror fresh on my lips, I was billowing and blowing, hardly able to breathe or voice my devastation. But, and here’s the thing of it, MY MOM WAS CRYING TOO...we’d both seen the same thing but from a different vantage point and it was so powerfully abhorrent that our reaction was identical.
We no longer eat meat. We haven’t since that day!
Now the question is would I prefer not to have seen what I saw?
The answer is that I would probably have preferred to remain “innocent” of the widely condoned horrors of animal farming practiced worldwide. I often have nightmares about pig’s heads, drawn into unutterable grimaces of pain. So, I hate what I witnessed. But...on the other hand, I’m so glad I no longer participate in causing this pain - I'm glad I don’t eat meat.
This commitment to avoid farm-grown animal flesh is not about being a bleeding heart - it’s a stand against cruelty and abuse; animals are GROWN, often in horrific conditions, so that humans can enjoy their flesh. I don’t care who you are, you’ve got to accept that this is untenable.
I’m not touting that man shouldn’t eat meat, I think if you kill an animal in the wild and eat it that’s part of the “facts of the animal kingdom”, it’s nature, you may not like it but it’s a fact - it’s the way the world is built. Even the new, and fashionable methods of Free Range Farming, are not unacceptable, since these methods allow the animal to live a “normal” life before they are slaughtered. They are not kept in a tiny, movement-inhibiting cage, for their entire life, so no horror, right? However, I no longer have the “taste” for meat and I get ill if I walk past the butcher’s counter at the supermarket.
I do, occasionally, eat fish, though, as long as it is caught in “deep waters” (not farmed.)
It’s the weekend, so I’m not going to add horrific images of the suffering encountered by innocent animals at the hands of man, this post is horror enough.
Initiative by @galenkp
Find the question here
@galenkp/we91-posting-topic-prompts-without