Steak

The braying of sheep and the moos of cows. The smell of dung and decay and death. Machines whirred, humming happily as they did what they were designed to do. The ground was too slippery, regulations and procedures requiring that the death and travesty be wiped away at the start of every travesty. Otherwise, they would be ‘unhygienic’. A lonely mechanical trolley strolled through the empty factory. The ghosts of terrified sounds echoing through the halls, bouncing off the metallic walls. Everywhere. 

Outside, cows were standing in their dung, and that of their comrades, munching on corn that was constantly being shuffled into an extended trough for them. Sheep picking at grass nearby. The sun would not shine on this spot of land, heaven and earth having long forgotten and left this abode. Men shuffled along, driven to this land in trucks, grey and drab as the uniforms they were required to wear. They worked, muscle memory guiding their hands and arms, and feet, worked mindlessly, brains turned off, numb to the horror they were inflicting.

After their shifts, early morning, or evening, when they would kick off their shoes, watch tv like the mindless corporate slaves they were, and would see on every channel buzzwords like ‘genocide’, ‘mass murder’, ‘tragedy’, ‘global disaster’, they would see but not realize, not equate those words to their own lives, to what they were helping to contribute.

They would then go to sleep. They would wake up, and those trucks would be waiting for them, driving them along bumpy roads, meant to deter people who were not yet numbed, driving them to the factory. Smoke grinning as it flew out from big chimneys, evil, menacing.

They would poke the cattle that were herded in with zappers. Sometimes the animals would be stunned, sometimes they would not. They would thrash as they realized the full impact of the horror that would be inflicted upon them, as their brethren, their mothers, their fathers, their sisters, their brothers, their children were slaughtered in front of them, blood flying everywhere, spraying the floors, shining, sparkling. When they were stunned, they would still feel it all. Their brains working, pain shivering through every nerve, every ending, none moving. They would feel the knife brandished, they would see it reflecting the little light in the factory, they would feel it slice through their necks, and again, and again. The knife was blunt, wielded by just as bone tired employees as the cows were. The knife was hungry. It was greedy. They would feel every slice. They would slip in their blood and choke and gasp and die.

The wives of those workers would buy meat from grocery store aisles, the workers would eat it, numb. Just as the rest of humanity was. Drawn by their own concerns, each carrying a burden, it seemed, bigger, and heavier than the last. Each drowning in their sorrows, their suffering. As the dark clouds of fate loomed closer and closer to earth, became bigger and bigger with every passing day.