The meat-eaters is a story I wrote as an [last minute] assignment for my Literatures of Diaspora paper. Short analysis, disclaimers, and apologies at the end of the post.
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“Cabrón! Entrar en su jaula de mierda!” [“You bastard! Enter your f****** cage!”]
Whack.
“Lo que son demonios hacer con nosotros?” [“What are you demons doing to us?”]
Whack.
“What’s he saying?”
“He’s one of them stronger folks lootenant. He’s been at it throughout the f****** voyage!”
“I asked what is he saying sergeant!”
“ Usted debe ser un oficial. Vamos a salir de esta locura!” [“You must be an officer. Let us out of this madness!”]
“Bichos ¡Cállate! Él no entiende español. [Shut up vermin! He doesn't understand Spanish.] Sir, he’s been wanting to know where we’re taking him, and what we’re gonna do.”
“Thank you sergeant. Now translate this for me. We’re at Los Angeles. Heard of that place? You must know what it means… ‘The angels’ in your stupid language, isn’t it? We’re bringing you here to sell you to people, who will then eat you. Comprehendo amigo?”
“That would be comprendo sir!”
“Whatever crap sergeant. Now translate that.”
E’re en Los Ángeles. Ecos de ese lugar? Usted debe saber lo que significa … The sergeant started saying with a gleeful expression, whilst the captain stalked away chuckling. Somebody banged a baton onto my head and I lost consciousness again. Thus passed my pioneering admittance into the United States of America. Estados Unidos de América.
Somebody had pushed me into the cage. That intimidating crate. But its door was hanging open? The rock and lull of sailing had ceased. We were on land. Somebody was calling out names.
“Chael, Abantiades”
That sounded like an Americanised version of my name..
“Chael, Abantiades?!”
The voice seemed to be losing patience.
“Aqui. Mi nombre es Abantiades Chael.” [“Here. My name is Abantiades Chael.”]
I knew English. But a mask of ignorance might be wise. Or so I thought then.
“No entiendo espaniyol. Now get in that truck.”
A translator standing next to the army officer began muttering illegibly. Excellent. From the cage to a truck.
After a few more of us had been pushed into the dirty and smelly truck, bringing the total inhabitants of that dingy space to maybe around two hundred, the doors were closed, barring out the light. We heard the clicks of locks and the roar of an engine. Soon, we were vibrating in tune to the hum of the truck’s engine. Squished like octopus tentacles in pickle, some fainted, some began vomiting, and amongst this snarl, some began to chant verses from la Biblia…
Ten days back from then, I think, I remember la policia came and forced us into a truck, apparently for questioning, from the slums in Chihuahua. I remember they came in combat uniform, and rounded up all the inhabitants of that place… Between seven and ten thousand people. No one can say how many truly live in these barrios. The others must also have been bundled into ships with awaiting cages. The others were wondering why, constantly chattering and making conspiracy theories. But I knew.. I knew.. I knew that I knew, but I couldn’t bring myself to know..
A strange feeling pressed me more than that knowledge. A strange feeling for my lovely Paola… my wife.. And my children.. And my home.. My church.. My knowledge of my looming fate had made me thrust my face against the bars of the cage, in a futile attempt to push the ship homeward. The bars had left red press-marks on my cheeks, to add on to the angry pink blots which had popped up on all our bodies in the last few years. Existence was bitter. Like the stem of the jalapeño, the bigotry of the world made me even more bitter.
The truck stopped. I heard the doors open and slam shut. Somebody talking in accented English. And suddenly, light poured in, hurting my eyes.
“Salir a todos!” [“Get out you all!”]
And we were bundled out, and through a cordon of armed guards, into a dark room. The room smelled of something horrible. Like a mixture of decay, sweat, and blood. And all of a sudden, water was splashed on us. Powerful jets of cold, chemical-smelling water. After our ‘shower’, we were made to wait.
Most of them were ignorant of what we were waiting for. I knew. And it weighed me down. We didn’t have to wait long to find out. As many walked around the room, trying to find a weak spot where they could dig to escape, the door opened and a few Americans walked in.
“The next batch eh.” One of them said.
“Yup. The Mexican top boss ain’t that bad… Good stock this is, yes.”
“Oh of course their president can’t keep us waiting can they.” He chuckled.
“Not after we’ve got a few nukes poking right up their a**. Heh heh heh.”
“Well anyway.. Lets get a couple of them chickens out and let people see, shall we?”
They dragged away two unconscious prisoners. In a while, we heard a weird machine hum. Machines… Machines had changed our worlds hadn’t they. A couple of decades back, in 2078, they made that global network of machines. I remember protesting against that along with other students from my university. But who would then bother to listen to a few upstart intellect addicts.. It was disappointing how the governments ignored the movements around the world and gave way to the free market’s desires… The environment needed it, they said. We needed less machines, and for that, the machines had to be networked, they said. Instead, we ended up with even more machines. The concept of labour had changed since then. Two global wars had not made the pig-heads change…
From the other side of the wall, we heard a bell, quite like the bell in a store. So we were in a shop.
Muted voices.
“Hey. I heard you got more supply.”
“Good morning. Yes, that we have. How much would you want?”
“A couple of kilos?”
“I need your ration card, and your Amex.”
Shuffling of feet. Scraping of metal against metal. Cling of a weighing scale. An unfamiliar beep. A few button clicks. The sound of ruffling plastic.
“Thanks Bill. See ya later.”
Estamos en una tienda. Hubo algunas personas que entraron y compraron algo…Those English literate amongst us were rapidly explaining the exchange to the others…
¿Eso significa que estamos en una tienda?[“Does that mean we are in a shop?”]
¿Qué diablos significa eso? [“What the hell does that mean?”]
¿Por qué estamos aquí? [“Why are we here?”]
Quiero casa. [“I want to go home”]
The last was from a squeaky voice. A boy. Not older than fifteen. My heart bled for him. For I wanted very much the same thing.
I want to go home..
Home.. Where my wife and children also in some shop, truck or ship? Or were they safe, mourning the loss of their husband, father… Or were they running across the arid desert, to flee.. If they were fleeing, how would they survive.. How would they find food?
Food… We had been quite well-fed throughout the kidnap. Bread, hamburgers and other American bland stuff of course..
“I could do with a nice tortilla with some salsa..” Muttered an unknown in Spanish. He was unusually tall for a Mexican. Lean-figured and athletic, he had long hair, and sported a beard, very much like a Chinese-beard.
“I don’t care about food any more.” Said I.
“Ah I know what you mean.. But these Americans seem to differ, eh?”
“Apt of you to make a joke of times like this.”
A third voice interrupted. “What do you mean?”
The store bell rang again.
“Momma, momma, I don’t like this place. Why do we come here so often!” A little girl’s voice.
“We need to buy food honey.” Obviously the ‘momma’. It made my thoughts drift to the momma of my own children.. Sweet Paola..
“Good morning ma’am. May I have your ration card please?”
“Do you have more food?”
“Yes ma’am. We got a fresh supply of good healthy Mexicans just today.”
“Good. We’ll have five kilos then.”
“Momma, are we having Mexicans for dinner then? We had Chinese yesterday! How crude.”
¿qué están diciendo? What are they saying? Persisted my companions to those few who knew English. But those few were looking at one another with horror scribed on their faces. Tears, rage, and insane laughter broke about the room. Nos están comiendo. Estamos alimentos. They’re eating us. We are food. Chocked one, amidst hysterical laughter and tears. As other voices joined in and helped the translation of the ghastly news, more hysterical laughter and screams were to be heard. I knew.. I had known..
“Momma! What’s that sound!”
“Its just the Mexicans having fun to be more tasty for us, darling.”
“Yeah, that’s right kid. Whaddya know, they get tastier as they laugh!”
“Hey Jim, what say we show lil kiddo here how its done?”
“Oh yeah, that should be quite a treat, eh kid?”
“Um.. Are you sure its appropriate to show her all that blood?” The concerned mother’s voice.
“’Course ma’am. Kids love it. And they do have a right to know what they eat, yes they do. After all that genetically modified food crap giving people that red thingabobs on their faces and killing people, everyone has the right to know what they eat. Right Reg?”
“Yup. I’ll get one of them out now.”
“Oh oh oh… This is going to get terribly interesting now…” Said my Chinese-bearded friend.
The iron door opened. ‘Reg’ came in with a couple of guards.
“Right. Which of you creeps want to be a children’s media star? How ’bout this one ‘ere?”
The guards assaulted a rather plump little man standing at one of the corners of the room.
“No. No. No. Yo no. Por favor!” [“No. No. No. Not me. Please!”]
They whacked him on the head and dragged him out. The door slammed shut. We heard him moaning as they dragged him across the store.
“So as the Americans run out of food, because of the genetically modified grains and animals polluting all of nature, they start eating humans! How ingenuous!” Commented my friend.
“You knew this from before?” I asked.
“That I did.”
“So I was not the only one..”
“Ooh look momma.. He looks like Santa Claus! But.. but.. Momma, why do we eat Mexicans?”
“Because, honey, their president is a good friend of our president, and he said that we have to support each other in times of need, right. So he said he’d give us a few of them, so that we can have good food here.”
“Thats right kid. And y’know what, you know that this world has like 30 billion folks now right. Y’all learn that at school right? This is a great way to cut down that number. They’re doing this all over the place now. All eating each other.”
“Its Darwin in his true sense.. Survival of the fittest..” The Chinese-beard.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And we ate them. We ate them all. And we raped them. Now we rape and eat ourselves. After all, humans are also “that moveth upon the earth”.
“No. No. ¿Qué locura es ésta?” [“No. No. What madness is this!”] Shrieking Santa Claus.
“Look Momma, they’re putting him on that machine… Ewww! What is that red thing all over there?”
“Thats blood kiddo. This machine is what does the cutting trick. You put them in here-” (No! No! Parada! [stop!]) Weird machine hum. (No! N- aaaaaa!!!!) “-and you get them all fresh and cut over here, minus all hair and intestines! There goes Santa! Cool eh?”
One could scoop and make a soup out of the silence which hung in the adjoining room. No one dared to talk. All looked at each other, their eyes screaming their raw fear. I didn’t care any more. I knew. I had known.
‘Darling’ and ‘Momma’ left the store. Remember, the inner thigh tastes the best, especially when cooked rare, Bob had said, as they left. The silence still hung thick. Chinese-beard wrestled a razor from a man trying to kill himself. I coaxed it from him, and ran my finger over the blade checking its sharpness. It was sharp. I put it on one end of my arm, and dug it in. Blood. Pain. I slowly dragged it, pressing hard, digging deep, all the way till my wrist. Blood seeped out like melting ice finding its way down a mountain. Pain. It helped.
“Some try to kill, others abuse their own bodies. Why my friend?”
“We are all going to get butchered anyway. Right now, the pain helps. It helps me forget that I am away from everyone I love as I die. Its like.. Its like a drug. Let me use my body before they do.”
“I’m puzzled by what the world is going to be.. They now send nuclear bombs killing millions for want of water. They do not learn from the lessons of the decades before. In a way, I don’t mind dying now.”
“No. Neither I. Not because the world seems like at an end. Because I don’t find meaning in any of this. All I found meaning in was my family. Away from them, away from my land, I have no meaning. The world has no meaning.”
The door clanged open. In came Bob, Reg and the two guards.
“How many ‘ll we take?”
“Oh, lets say a couple?”
“K Bob. How ’bout that weird looking guy there and the one next to him?”
“That’s us Abantiades.”
“You know my name?”
“Yes. I know your name.”
“How?”
They started dragging pushing us forward.
“Hey! No protest from these ones Bob. Nice eh?”
“Chattering like crazy though. Idiots. Like everything’s normal. No wonder they deserve to be cooked. Like f****** chickens these lot are!”
“How do you know my name?”
“I know Abantiades. The world is, sadly, small.”
“Who are you?”
“Who are we..”
They walked us into a white room, coated with blood all around. It had a sinister looking machine poised on a pedestal in the centre. Adjacent was a door, probably leading to a much more neater display area.
“Adios cerdos Mehicos!” [“Bye Mexican pigs!”]
They shoved my unknown yet known friend into the machine.
“Adios Amantiades. Tranquilidad.” [“Bye Amantiades. Peace.”]
“Tranquilidad amigo.”
A roar of the machine. And voila, my Chinese-bearded friend was a neat pile of fresh cut human meat ready for consumption by inhuman pigs. The fact that I was next gave me a sense of eerie peace.
“Lo proximo.” [“You next.”]
Next change.
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Thanks for perusing through that story! First, I would like to acknowledge and thank Google Translate, the experience given by two Guatemalan friends, and my Sri Lankan buddy for the Spanish. On the same note, I would like to apologise to all Spanish speakers, if its bad Spanish. For my part, no entiende espaniol! Lo sentimos.
Secondly, this story is completely fictional, not based on fact whatsoever. If you anyone finds any similarities to people, events etc., they are co-incidental, and definitely not intended. Apologies for the stereotyping of USA and Mexico, and apologies for the racism. Also apologies for the language used – I was trying to create a necessary verisimilitude.
Thirdly, despite my claim that the story is completely fictional, it has been inspired by real going-ons in the world. Phenomenon like climate change, greed, materialism, racism etc.; topics which I believe I need not delve deeply into for its obviousness.
Fourthly, this is the catharsis of some sort of existential angst. And thus the bitterness. I believe I’m usually a more positive hearted person.
And finally, I deem this work (however stupid and lame it might seem) devoid of copyright. Go ahead and do whatever you want to do with it, if you would want to. Though it might be nice if you could cite me.
(Love of Fellow Beings)
