Dinner, Again
There was a vegan family. Some people in the community thought it was unethical to impose veganism upon the children, robbing them of their personal choice. By this, they meant: it was unethical to decrease the number of de-beaked chickens, raped cows, and murdered pigs in the world until the children were old enough to decide for themselves if they wanted to do these things. This argument of these meat-eating ignorami paralleled the arguments of straight people who don’t want to introduce queerness into the minds of their asexual but, surely, pre-heterosexual children. Except, in this case, the damage was not merely psychological trauma inflicted upon children. The damage was fatal violence inflicted upon animals for thirteen years. Or eighteen years. Maybe even twenty-one, depending on the age at which some governing body (the parents, the state?) decided that a child reached the age of majority.
Luckily, the vegan parents saw through these dim-witted arguments and raised their children as vegans, calmly explaining what happens on egg-producing factory farms and the ethics of owning living beings even, say, on a family farm. The parents did not want their children to consume meat. Still, they knew they would be encouraged — nay forced — to consume dead animal flesh at their friends' houses (the vegan parents were concerned that their children should receive adequate socialisation and did not homeschool). Anticipating the propaganda sure to spew from their friends’ imbecilic guardians, the vegan parents told the vegan children that they could eat meat whenever they wanted as long as they killed the animal themselves. This rule aimed to teach their children — not to mention the aforementioned imbecilic guardians — the full implications of animal consumption.
The youngest vegan child, Jeremy, was over at his friend Emma's house. Knowing the rules, Jeremy asked in advance what Emma’s family would eat that evening. They planned on fish pie for supper, so he asked to bring the fish. It was quite easy to kill the fish, Jeremy found out to his surprise. It looked up at him with large gaping eyes and a curious mouth, and then he bashed its brains in on the nearest hard surface. All it took was one good whack. The fish was delicious. Jeremy understood that he had taken its life; perhaps it had been worth it, he thought. His parents had neglected to mention whether or not their principle might extend beyond the dinner itself to his dinner-mates, who had — quite rudely, Jeremy thought — neglected to offer any dessert.
Anna Genevieve Winham writes at the crossroads of science and the sublime, cyborgs and the surreal. Anna serves as the Prose Editor for Passengers Journal and the Poetry Editorial Co-Lead for Oxford Public Philosophy. She is Ninth Letter's 2020 literary award winner in Literary Nonfiction, Mikrokosmos 2020 Poetry Contest's 3rd place winner, Writer Advice Flash Fiction Contest's 2020 3rd place winner, and was long-listed for the 2020 Penrose Poetry Prize. Anna writes and performs with the Poetry Society of New York, moonlighting as Velvet Envy in The Poetry Brothel.