I recently saw a hawk. A hungry hawk, eating savagely. When the hawk noticed me watching, it gorged faster. A circle of red spiraled around the hawk, a kind of bloody dinner table, and it kept peevishly glancing at me -overall, it was cute.
I was touched. More so, I was hungry for meat. I know plenty of vegetarian fish-eaters. It's a blatant contradiction that should deny fish-lovers like me from even saying the word vegetarian. I perceive fish as big underwater snacks, less to me important than, say, a glowing lightning bug. Take shrimp-delicious and no more meaningful than ocean cockroach. Although we live in a value-menu, triple-patty McWorld, do we still have the means to live meat-free? Does soy milk taste better than real or supposedly pus-filled milk? Are you sick of these questions?
Yes, yes and yes -depending on whose side you believe. I side with those People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Whether or not I believe all the facts they present, there's something shady about meat consumption in the United States, and they back me up. Then why the fish? They feel pain, not to mention the other ocean creatures that are netted unintentionally, killed and thrown aside -such as the dolphin.
Well, I'm still hungry. This is a problem. Most folks are raised on drumstick pacifiers, and are unaware of many factory farm conditions: de-beaked chickens, stinking and painful enclosures, and the animal's struggle to stand up with a pulsing, hormone-heavy body.
But people lose focus when they're hungry. Rather, they become more focused on just the idea of food in their (I must say) made-for-meat-tearing mouths. The problem is that hungry people become as empty-headed as the cow on which they're chewing: a cute cow, by the way. At least, it would be cute if it wasn't hanging by its feet, mooing and moving closer to the live-disemboweling machine . . . delicious. Atkins diet, here I come.
I should be a bit more positive here, and note the benefits of being vegetarian. There are so many wonderful things, such as the variety of new foods. Raised in a box-in-the-microwave household, I'd been unaware that things like artichokes and falafel existed. I'm free of guilt -at least in the eating aspect of my life -and genuinely feel physically better.
But I must admit: after three clean years, I ate some chicken. It was free-range chicken, so my guilt was curbed, allowing me to enjoy the delectably sweet, heavenly . . . Oh, my sour stomach. My body no longer liked the idea of digesting meat. I dropped onto a couch and into a three-hour stupor of burps.. Call it karma, poetic justice or whatever, I was suffering.
After I saw the remains of what the hawk had eaten, I noticed the red circle. Looking closer, I saw that it wasn't blood, but the red feathers of Ohio's state bird -the cardinal. I'd think of symbolic significance -more of that karma stuff -but I'm just too hungry.
-Daryl Largent is a Summer Post writer. Send him an e-mail at dl387502@ohiou.edu.
17 Archives
The Post Editorial Board
