User blog:Promestein/Starcross - Meat

“It’s not that hard, Alicia. I know you can do it,” Papi smiles at her, holding down the chicken with such practiced ease, obviously used to this after doing it for years. Ever since he was a little kid - ever since he was Alice’s age. Alice fidgets awkwardly, looking down at the knife in her hands, still afraid she’s going to nick herself on it if she isn’t careful. She looks back up at her father, an uncertain expression on her face. He looks back, patiently, and Alice’s eyes drop down.

The chicken’s eyes are wide, but Alice can’t see any emotion in them, or on the bird’s face, so her brain fills in the blanks with all the life this chicken must have. The chicken family. Her sister had her turn at killing a chicken yesterday, and she had been crying throughout the night. So now, it’s her turn, and Alice doesn’t think she’s quite ready, yet, but it’s her turn anyways. She looks down at the knife, and swallows, feeling butterflies exploding in her stomach.

She doesn’t really want to do this, especially not after listening to Sara crying and crying for hours. But Papi is still looking at her so expectantly, even if patiently, and Alice shifts awkwardly. Usually, Sara got all of the attention and praise from their father, as Alice is smaller and weaker and always, always struggles to muster up the interest to help with work around the farm. This is a chance to show her dad just what she can do, right? “I just have to, um…” she makes a gesture with the knife, “its throat, right?”

“Mhm. Not too deep. It’ll thrash around a bit once you do it, so don’t be so surprised when it does.” Alice nods, stubbornly fighting back the tears that began to creep to her eyes. She hates it when she cries, especially in front of her parents, and especially in front of her father. Stepping a bit closer, she fidgets with the knife more, briefly touching her fingers against the edge and wincing, feeling the sharpness. This is what the chicken will deal with. Will it hurt? How bad? “Be careful, Alicia,” Papi says, sternly, and, for a second, Alice thinks he’s going to snatch the knife away and do it himself. But he doesn’t.

Breathing uneasily, a bit faster than normal, Alice takes another step, now as close to the chicken as she can be. It’s breathing quickly too. Like her. Alice stares at it, and then looks up at Papi again, fearful thoughts rushing past in her mind. His expression hasn’t changed. Alice holds his gaze for a moment, and then looks away, not at the chicken, or at the knife, but the rest of the farm. The smell of it settles deep into her mind.

Alice reaches out and, well… she does the best she can. She closes her eyes, and, careful to make sure she doesn’t cut through anything she shouldn’t, pulls the knife down. There’s little sound, but she can feel the resistance of feather and skin for a moment. And then it’s gone. The knife goes through, and she pulls it back, and then, warily, she opens her eyes. She gives a small chirp of surprise as the chicken trashes in her father’s hands, and recoils, dropping the knife to the ground. It thuds against the dirt, splattering blood and bits of feather over the earth. The chicken kicks around for a little bit more until it’s still.

“‘Atta girl,” Papi lets go of it, leaving it to lie, limply, on the stump, and reaches out to pat her head, roughly. There are feathers sticking to his hand, Alice realizes, dumbly, but the trepidation fades a bit in the warm glow of his praise. “You did a good job! You shouldn’t close your eyes when you do it, though. That’s a big step towards being all grown up, though! Papi’s proud.” Before Alice can think about it any more, he lifts her up, hands underneath her arms, and high up into the air. She squeals, excitedly kicking her feet (and hitting him in the chest a few times, not that he seems to care), and he sits her down on his shoulders.

The dead chicken fades from her memories pretty quickly, and the shoulder ride doesn’t last that long, but Alice is still bouncing on the balls of her feet when she’s set down, and while Papi is picking up the chicken and bringing it inside for cleaning. Alice follows after, beaming wide, even if she still feels like there are bugs crawling up her throat. “Papi, did I do anything wrong?”

Papi hums a bit, looking back at her with a slightly more serious expression on his face. “Hm. Well, you cut a bit deep, but for a first try, you did a very good job.”

Alice frowns. “Will the chicken be worse food because of me…?”

“Oh, no. That just means it hurt a bit more for the chicken, but it’s dead now,” he says it casually, and Alice looks at the chicken, limp in his hand, “and you’ll learn to be gentler with it!” He pats her head with his other hand again, but Alice is still frowning. So it did hurt. The chicken hurt, and it’s her fault.

“I feel bad,” Alice mumbles.

“Don’t feel bad. I told you to do it, and you can’t be blamed for not being perfect. You’re only seven. I’ve hurt a lot more chickens, even as a grown-up. It happens. I can tell you’re a natural, though, and this chicken will be even better now, with your help.”

Alice nods, smiling a little, but she’s already thinking about the next time she’ll do this, setting her jaw. Next time, she’ll do it better. The tears are forgotten, now. “Can I help clean it?”

Her father blinks down at her, surprised. “That’s messy, Alicia. You sure?”

“Yes. I wanna help Papi however I can! I’ll be a big girl soon! So I can help even better then!”

With a chuckle, Papi pats her head again. “Okay, Alicia.”

Chickens are made out of meat. It’s a really simple observation, but Alice feels like her eyes have been opened in a whole new way by the sight, by the realization, as she sees how all the different parts of the food she’s taken for granted come together. How a chicken becomes that meat. She never thought about it much before, but now, she understands how it’s made.

Alice watched as the blood was drained from the chicken, as Papi explained that, generally, there were cleaner ways of killing than what she did, but that she’s not strong enough to break a chicken’s neck or just chop the head off quite yet. Then, she watches as it’s dipped into boiling water, and then has its feathers picked off. She feels a bit sick as she sees the chicken go from a living, recognizable thing, to a hunk of meat, and then thinks about how, under every bird, there’s the same meat.

“Humans are like that too,” she says, quietly, tilting her head.

“Hm? Humans are like what?” Papi looks over.

“Meat,” Alice says, flatly. “Underneath the skin. Meat. Like chickens, and cows, and pigs, right?”

Papi stops for a second, and Alice doesn’t know what his expression is, before he just says, “Yes. But we don’t eat humans. No one eats humans. That’s wrong. It’s called cannibalism.”

Alice nods, “Because humans are special. We’re not like chickens, or cows, or pigs.”

“Yes.”

For a moment, Alice thinks about asking what would happen to a human if you put it in the boiler, but the thought makes her feel sick. She imagines skin peeling off, and underneath, the white flesh of a chicken, wings, drumsticks, wishbone, and all. She imagines being turned to meat herself, and looks down at the ground, trembling a little.

“You okay, mijita?” Papi has stopped again, and looks over at her.

“I don’t want to be meat,” Alice mumbles, rubbing at her eyes.

“Oh, Alicia, you won’t be meat. Don’t worry.” He doesn’t go over to hold her, which makes Alice unbearably sad, but then she remembers he’s wearing gloves and working with the meat, so she’s not so sad, and in fact, a little grateful. It’s scary to watch. “Do you want to go? You don’t have to stay, mijita.”

Alice shakes her head. She wants to be strong, for Papi. “I’ll stay.”

“Okay,” he says, a bit uncertainly, before going back to his work.

Once the chicken is plucked, Alice watches Papi carefully gut it and take it apart. It’s even worse than the plucking, and it makes her wonder just how everything in her own body goes together. She knows where her stomach is, and where her heart is, and where her brain is, but what about that, and that, and that? Does she have those? Is she put together the same way as that chicken? Her neck isn’t as long and as thin, which is good, because the chicken’s head comes off so easily…

It’s not a pretty sight, and Alice feels sicker the more she watches. She sees guts flop out, and her father points out some of the organs. Offal, he calls it all. The more that comes out, the sicker she feels, until she hobbles out of the farm and pukes once it’s all done. Papi then cleans up and carries her inside, and tells Mami how proud he is of all she accomplished today, though Mami concerns herself more with the puke, and she’s passed off into her arms.

Still sad about her own chicken, Sara stares at her, almost accusingly, and Alice thinks about how they’re all made of meat.

That evening, Alice stands on a stool by her mother’s side, and does her best to help her turn the meat into food. Ever since she was little little, Alice helped her mother with cooking, and it’s still one of her favorite things to do. Even with the memory of the chicken’s offal on her mind, Alice helps, despite Mami’s suggestions otherwise. Soon enough, Mami realized that Alice isn’t going to back down, and she just sighed, smiled, and shook her head as she brought out her stool.

Now that the chicken is without its guts and head, it’s much more tolerable to work with and look at. It barely looks like it was ever alive, but Alice can fit in the blanks in the shape now, which makes it just a bit less okay for her. But she does it anyways. The chicken ends up in so many pieces it becomes impossible for Alice’s brain to put it back together again, which she’s very, very grateful for. It’s shredded into a sauce and gently placed onto tostadas, and as Alice’s family eats, Alice can’t help but boast about how she not only killed the chicken, but helped it turn into supper!

Mami pats her head, and Alice beams. Even though the scary thoughts don’t quite fade away, they become a lot more bearable when she’s among family, and eating. Even Sara’s content, despite the enduring memory of a dead chicken, with food in front of her.

Still, that night, Alice dreams about being made into meat, and she wakes up wailing. The nightmare had followed her throughout the process. From human, to meat, to food. Shredded into something unrecognizable. Reduced to something that can’t be called human anymore, and watching it from outside her body, powerless, helpless, weightless.

That dream only gets worse as she grows older.