Joseph D'Lacey - Meat

He smiled at the Grand Bishop, turned and kept walking.

Some of the gathered townsfolk shouted to the stockmen and black-coats.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Why don’t you stop them?’

‘Quick, before they’re all gone.’

‘Just grab a few from the back.’

But no one made a move.

By evening, all the Chosen had stepped from the road into the wasteland. Behind them came the last of the followers.

The Chosen walked with the great dignity that they often spoke of to each other. They were no longer afraid to hold up their heads and let their eyes scan the horizon. It was hard on their mutilated feet but they did not falter. The land was like no land they’d ever seen; black glass sculpted into razor-backed dunes. Across these solid obsidian waves a black dust blew at the will of a constant wind. Where the dust came from or where it blew to, none of them knew.

They only knew that they were free now and that with Shanti’s knowledge and the knowledge of the followers, they would survive until they reached a land where pain was no longer a memory, a land where what they had given would never be asked for again. They knew it existed.

The town of Abyrne lay distantly in the west now while the Chosen walked eastward.

Not one of them looked back.

For the record, I’m not a vegetarian.

Yet.

Nor am I on some kind of animal welfare crusade. I’m just one of those people who can’t help thinking about things.

Because I do all the shopping and cooking, I see to it that most of our meals don’t include meat. When they do, the meat is expensive; in other words it’s organic and from animals raised and slaughtered respectfully and humanely.

If you don’t have the stomach to kill, gut, skin and dress an animal, you ought not have the stomach to eat it either. Much of the impetus for this book arose from that double standard. Consumers are very happy to pick and choose their cuts of meat after they’ve reached the butcher shop or supermarket. If they ever think about the process that got the meat there, they must put the truth out of their heads in order to enjoy their rib-eye, neck fillet, belly or breast.

Having researched the subject and watched hours of gut-churning footage, my conclusion is simple. All over the world, animals are farmed and brutalised for slaughter in the most appalling conditions and in numbers no-one wants to consider. I won’t go into it here. There are plenty of websites where you can find out for yourself. You might try typing ‘slaughter footage’ into a search engine and see where it takes you.

Or you might decide not to. I could understand why.

In ‘Meat’, I put humans through abattoirs for the freak-factor, for the sheer horror of it. But all the time it was the animals I saw in my mind’s eye, animals waiting in lines in narrow steel corridors, waiting for death at the hands of men with targets to meet.

Believe me, they don’t go quietly or willingly.

Who would?

First published 2008 by Bloody Books.

www.bloodybooks.com

Bloody Books is an imprint of

Beautiful Books Limited

36-38 Glasshouse Street

London W1B 5DL

ISBN 9781907616891

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright © Joseph D’Lacey 2008

The right of Joseph D’Lacey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library.