“You know Amanda,” my sister Stacy said, “Before that was a burger, it was a living, breathing cow.”
“I know.” I said flatly. Every night at dinner it was the same lecture. She started again, “It had feelings, emotions. It could feel pain. And it spent its-”
“Last minutes hanging upside down before it was brutally killed so I could have a snack.” I finished for her, “I know. I always know. I knew that last time you told me this, and I also knew that time before that.” I looked her square in the eyes and took a bite of my dinner.
I love my sister, I always have, but she can be so annoying. We look a lot alike, but our personalities are completely different. She’s much more of an ecological person than I am. Don’t get me wrong, I care about the planet, I turn the water off when I brush my teeth, and I try to make my showers less then ten minutes, but there are a lot more important things to worry about. Like the politics, or grades, or what I plan to wear to school tomorrow. Anyway, it seems like all she does lately is complain about me not being a frigging vegetarian like her.
“You know,” I said between bites of my burger, “Animals have two vital functions in today's society: to be delicious and to fit well.” Stacy started to say something, but I continued, “If a cow could eat you, it would. And it really wouldn’t care how comfortable your truck ride over was, either.”
She stood up. “Amanda, that is the single most disgusting thing I’ve every heard. I’d like you to see what its like to be cramped up in a little, tiny, disgusting box for your entire life, feed steroids that make you so fat your legs can’t support your own body, and then have you be murdered so some fatass could have her super bigmac deluxe.”
“Actually, this is from Burger King.” I said with mock irritation. She glared at me and stormed upstairs. I laughed. “Go hug a tree.” I shouted after her.
I finished my dinner and watched TV for a couple hours before climbing into bed. I thought about what Stacy said, and although I’d never tell her that it got to me, what she said about the life of a slaughterhouse cow freaked me out a little. I’ll eat a salad tomorrow then. I thought to myself, and drifted off to sleep.
I woke up the next morning and smelled something awful. Stacy must have put her smelly sneakers next to my bed for revenge from last night. God, she’s so immature. I though, eyes still closed. Loud, annoying sounds I couldn’t place kept coming out of nowhere. Really Stace? I thought. I went to pull my pillow over my head, but couldn’t find it. I opened my eyes to see if it fell behind my bed, and was so confused. This wasn’t my room. This wasn’t my house. This wasn’t my freaking neighborhood. I was in some factory thing. I looked around. Other people were here too.
“Hey! HEY!” I shouted at some guy. He wouldn’t turn around. “HEY! Dude! W-what the hell is going on?” he turned to face me. He had a depressed, empty look in his eyes.
“Shut up. There is absolutely no reason to be this loud” he said.
“Uh, no. How about you tell me where the hell I am, why it smells so damn bad, and how to get the eff out of here.”
“Jesus, are you frigging retarded?” he asked, “you’re in the slaughterhouse, it smells so bad because you’re in the slaughterhouse, and you can’t get out, because you’re in the slaughterhouse.” He rolled his eyes and started to turn back around.
“But why am I in a slaughterhouse? Cows and pigs and chickens and crap belong in a slaughterhouse. I’m a human!” I cried. He gave me a blank stare. He paused for a few seconds, like he was trying to figure out what I was saying.
“…The cows run this place, remember? I grew up here, you grew up here, she, he we, grew up here. We were born here, and we’ll die here.” He turned around, making it obvious he didn’t want to continue our conversation.
I just gotta find Stacy. Or Mom or dad. Or anyone I frigging know. I thought to myself. I started to walk away, but couldn’t. My legs were chained to the floor. I kept trying to go, hoping the chains would detach and let me free. They didn’t. I gave up. I flopped on the floor and started to cry. Everyone around me gave me dirty looks, like they were annoyed that I was upset. Didn’t they understand that we were in A MOTHER FREAKING SLAUGHTERHOUSE? Did they word ‘slaughter’ not mean anything to anyone?
All of a sudden I was yanked away and thrown into a chair. I saw cows walking by and felt the worst pain I’d ever experienced on my arm. I screamed and looked down. ‘Johnson’s Meat’ was branded into my arm. I let of a stream of curse words that no one responded to. This was just getting ridiculous. It had to be a dream. This was impossible. This was not real life. But you can’t get hurt in dreams, right? And boy, did my arm hurt.
After my branding, I was shoved into a 3 by 3 square with just enough room to curl up into a little ball and cry. Then, a tube was shoved into my mouth. I tried to spit it out but it was shoved back in. Food started pouring down my throat. It was disgusting. I had no more control over my life. When the food stopped, I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
The next few days were a blur of pain, noise, ungodly smells, which came from poop that no one cleaned up, and people who had died from diseases, and their rotting carcasses.
On the fourth day, I was yanked from my little pen and dragged by my hair to a conveyer belt. To tired to cry again, I sat down and moved along with everyone else. Each time the conveyer belt moved a place ahead I heard screams. I leaned to my left to see if I could catch a glimpse of what lay ahead. I did. People were hung upside down by their ankles, having their throats slit, fully conscious. This was my fate. In a few moments, I would be up there. I would die.
No. I looked around and jumped off the conveyer belt. I ran and ran and ran looking for an exit. All of a sudden, I was thrown to the ground. It was over. I closed my eyes and screamed.
“Amanda! AMANDA! Wake up!” My dad’s voice. My bed. My room. I was home. I was alive. It was a dream. I jumped out of bed, leaving my confused father to deal with the tangled sheets, and ran into Stacy’s room. She was asleep. I jumped on her bed and shook her until she woke up.
“Stacy, you’re right about cows and sheep and chickens and goats and meat and I’m never eating meat again and I’m sorry and you’re right and they’re branded and burned and force fed and it sucks and they die and-” she cut me off,
“shut up, get off me, and talk slower.”
I got off the bed and took a breath, I started again, “you were right last night, and you’ll be happy to know that I am now a vegetarian.”
She looked confused.
“Why the change?” she asked.