SLAUGHTERHOUSE MAN

     The sky hangs low over the slaughter house, low enough to give the illusion that sights and sounds emanating from it are being soaked up by the cloud cover above. The clouds were so low no one saw the light bubble that touched down and almost immediately vanished. The slaughter house was moved here to farm country for many reasons. One of those reasons was to move far enough to the middle of nowhere so John Q Public would never see how animals were slaughtered for the dinner table. Another reason was the pungent odor surrounding the facility. Here in farm country odors were expected and accepted. Country folk were nothing like the sissified city folk that got offended by a little stink.
   

 “I’m here to apply for a job,” the strange looking man said, as he patted his long curly blue-black hair into place on his head that was twice as big as most others heads.
   

      Shelia, of personnel looked him over, “do You speak English?”

    “Yes, I do,” he answered, and pulled out a handful of ID that he handed her.

    “I only need a SS. Card,” she looked through the handful he had given her, found it and said, “OK you’re hired, but why do you have the same first and last name? Namuh, Namuh.

     “I don’t know. It’s my given name,” I just go by Namuh.

     “OK, Namuh, Monday, is cow day, the trucks are loaded with cows that no longer give milk or give less than required. It will be your job to help unload the trucks,” she handed him over to the foreman who showed him what he was to do.

      When confronted with a bellowing cow, Big John one of the truck drivers reached into his truck for a long two by four piece of lumber he kept for driving the cows on and off his truck. Getting a firm two handed grip on this piece of lumber, he raised it above his head.

 
     “Watch this newbie” he told Namuh, and brought down the two by four with all his might. The cow bellowed louder, He looked at Namuh and said, “Watch and learn, he hit it again and again. Each time he struck the cow she bellowed in fear, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do, but the Big John knew exactly what to do. Keep on hitting the cow until she shut up. Finally after twenty or so hard hits the two by four broke into two pieces. Big John threw the broken lumber as hard as he could at the cow, he then punched and kicked the cow.

    Namuh said,“Hey Big John, don’t you usually tenderize them after you kill them.”

     Big John gave him an angry look, but stopped beating the helpless cow.

     Namuh was shunned by his fellow workers for several reasons.

 
     “Look at the size of that guy’s head,” one worker said as he pointed at his much larger than normal head.

     “Not only his head, I watched him in the locker room when he was changing shoes, he has seven toes on one foot and eight on the other,” another said.

     A third worker chimed in and said, “yeah, but the worst thing about him is his B.O. I can smell him over and above all the rotting smells here. Imagine what he’d smell like if you invited him to dinner?”

     “God damn company will hire anyone who walks through the door,” grumbled the third worker.

     “That’s the only reason you got hired, you walked through the door,” the third worker said and laughed at his own joke.

     Namuh could hear the squeals of the thousands of pigs who faced the executioner this overcast morning. Tuesday is pig day.

     “C’mon get those trucks unloaded, the foreman shouted as he shocked a passing pig with his electric cattle prod. The trucks lined up at the abattoir pens, waiting to unload their living cargo. Drivers waiting their turn watched Clyde as he unloaded his truckload of porkers. Clyde wouldn’t be caught dead using a piece of lumber to beat any animal. He was high tech. He had an electric cattle prod that shocked the animals into submission. He unloaded the pigs from his truck. Fear of him caused them to run as far back into the truck as they could go when he marched up the cattle ramp hooked to the rear of the truck. The pigs screamed with fear as Clyde approached with prod in hand. The nearest one had its mouth wide open. It screamed in fear when Clyde jammed his electric cattle prod down its throat and turned the voltage to its highest setting. The scream increased tenfold as pain was added to fear. Soon smoke started to billow around the prod stuck deep in the animal’s throat. Clyde seeing the smoke smiled. He enjoyed seeing the animal suffer. Many of the watching drivers smiled at the sight of a smoking pig.

     Namuh, approached the pig torturer and said,“We don’t usually cook them until after we kill them,” he got an evil look. But the driver withdrew his cattle prod and the damaged pig scooted down the ramp followed by the other animals.

     Wednesday, the trucks are loaded with horses. One of the drivers told Namuh, “People who owned these horses have no idea of the shit they put them through, the pain, fear, and suffering these horses endur before being slaughtered should be a crime. Americans will not knowingly eat horsemeat. The English will not consume horsemeat either. To them, horses are companions, not food. If the Americans and English only knew how much horsemeat gets mixed in with their sausage, hot dogs and other meat products, along with the FDA allowable amounts of rodents and insects.

     A small black and white appaloosa fell down while walking down the ramp and the driver started beating it with a length of two by four he carried for that purpose.
      “Get up you stupid god damn horse,” he shouted as he kept on beatingthe now dead horse.

     Namuh, told the man who was beatingthe horse. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying, you don’t beat a dead horse?” The driver looked at him with confusion in his eyes, like he didn’t know he had killed the horse.

     Thursday, the last day of a four day work week for the slaughterhouse. This is reserved for killing sheep. Most sheep are slaughtered as lambs. This makes it an easier day for the workers, handling small animal bodies is easier on their worn out muscles from lifting the heavy carcasses all week The sheep are stunned electrically. Tongs are placed on either side of the brain, and the current induces a state of immediate epilepsy (electroplectic shock) in the brain, during which time the sheep is supposed to be unconscious. sheep may regain consciousness during bleeding-out and try to escape, only to be mercilessly killed.

     Namuh, didn’t stick around to watch what cruelties’ were in store for the sheep. He didn’t even wait for his paycheck. He just disappeared as far as his co-workers knew. Namuh was appalled by the barbarian attitude of all persons connected with the slaughter of animals. He knew this was their food source, but to treat a cousin so cruelly… He could understand a few rouge people mistreating the cousins, but brutality was ubiquitously practiced.
He knew the designs of these facilities for slaughter were designed using an intuitive understanding of animal psychology. The holding pens and corrals funneled a herd of animals into a single file so they could be slaughtered one at a time. It was designed so the following animals couldn’t see what was happening to the animals in the lead. He noted this in his report.

     He walked to the next town where there was a chicken processing plant and got hired as soon as he walked through the door. The first and only day he worked there was more than enough for him. He witnessed the oafs he worked alongside stomping to death as many chickens as they could in five minutes to see who could kill the most.

     Namuh, thought the chickens had suffered enough before they got here, chickens are the most abused animal on the planet. Each year in the United States, 9 billion chickens are killed for their flesh. Namuh approached the chicken stompers and said,

      “What came first, the chicken or the egg?”

     They told him to get lost before he got stomped. He wrote it all down In his notes. They didn’t see him leave, but they were glad when he was gone.
“That guy gave me the creeps,” one of the chicken stompers said.

     Namuh checked his chronograph to be sure of the exact time. He needed to be at the exact latitude and longitude at the precise minute or he’d miss his transport. He stood waiting and right on time he could see the light beam forcing its way through the atmosphere. Reaching like an inverted bubble through the air to get to him. It arrived without a sound and he felt the light close around him. He was enclosed in a protective cocoon of light and energy as he was lifted from the atmosphere of Earth and transported at the speed of light to his home planet, Htrae.

     “What a relief to be home,” he told his wife.

     The next day he was due to report to the “World Institute of Scientific Study” to report on their experiment. Millions of years ago this very same council decided to make a mirror image of this world and had created Earth. There was never a problem with anything that was created this way until they tried making mirror images of themselves. Then something went wrong. Namuh was the first being from this planet to ever visit Earth. Scientist feared the experiment could be contaminated by any visit. But conditions appeared to be quite difficult there for the cousins and it was decided someone had to investigate. That of course was Namuh, and he was waiting outside of the council. Soon he would be called to give his report.
He was called into the great hall and all the translation machines were silently scrolling the thoughts of their species across large illuminated screens. The hall was set up so the four legged members could stay at ground level as it was sometimes hard for them to get to the higher levels. Of course the ones with wings got the highest level, because it was so much easier for them to get there. Two legged members like himself were seated on the second level. No species was considered above any other on this world. All species were equally protected under the law. Marine life would be shown the proceedings on video scattered throughout the planets bodies of water and then allowed to submit their votes. This took several days to accomplish.
Namuh knew when he made his report the planet Earth was finished. The cousins would never allow the mistreatment of beings like themselves to continue on Earth. He had an idea and would bring it up after he had given his report.

     As expected when he gave his report, mixed sounds of sorrow and rage emanated from all members. Although the monitors silently read the thoughts of all members, once they heard of the horrors perpetrated on Earth, the member’s vocal cords got a workout. This was truly a cacophony of species voices. Of course the lions and Elephants could be heard above the cows and horses, but the cackle of the chickens filled the hall with subliminal sound.
Anger directed all the inhabitants of the hall. It was so strong in all species that a pungent smell of anger filled the great hall. It got directed at the scientists for this failed experiment and all demanded the experiment be destroyed at once. A vote was taken, but before a resolution could be passed the council had to wait while the news was carried to all the species that lived under water and were unable to attend the meeting. This usually took several days. Namuh, knew if he was to save Earth, this was all the time he was going to have to accomplish that goal.

     He pleaded with the Supreme Council to grant him an audience. It was granted on the condition that he accepts their decision as final. The council consisted of one hundred individual members. Membership changed completely every twelve months to guarantee fair representation for all species. Namuh presented what he thought may be the cause of the brutality and a solution to it.

      “Members, I have concluded that the mirroring process we used to create the inhabitants of Earth was largely successful, other than the humans. I think that somehow when we mirrored them our nature got turned backwards or inside out and went from love to hate, from kindness to brutality, from compassion to heartlessness. I profess the experiment isn’t perfect, but they’re the only problem and the problem can be easily remedied.”

     “How do you propose we remedy the situation?” asked the spokesman.

     “There are several avenues we can follow; one simple way would be to develop a plague to only kill the humans. But in the name of science I believe we should research them to see if it’s possible to return them to a natural state.”

     “How do you propose to do that?”

     “On Earth they have a saying, “Give him some of his own medicine.” And I think that would be an interesting study. Reverse the situation and let’s give some of the cousins the upper hand and study the reactions of all parties. Maybe it was the fact that the humans had total control that corrupted them?”

     He received permission to return to Earth and start his experiment. Before long he had recruited 1.3 billion cows around the world. There were100 million in the U.S. alone. Earth time was much different than time on Htrae, where one year equaled fifty Earth years. He had been given five Htrae years to complete his experiment.

 
     He started in India, where in Hinduism, the cow is considered sacred and its protection is a recurrent theme in which she is symbolic of abundance, of the sanctity of all life and of the earth that gives much while asking nothing in return. Most Hindus respect the cow as a matriarchal figure for her gentle qualities and providing nurturing milk and its products for a largely vegetarian diet. It holds an honored place in society, and it is part of Hindu tradition to avoid the consumption of beef. Namuh, returned to the animals what had been taken from them through thousands of years of subjection and torture. They had speech and intelligence returned. Soon after Namuh did this a boy shouted,

     “Mom, mom, our cow spoke to me,” the little Hindu boy told his mother.

     She of course didn’t believe him. “What did he say to you?” she asked.

     “She said her true name was Aadarshini, and she told me the world was about to change, and because we have honored her kind for so long we were to be rewarded.”

     Now his mother was getting captivated as her son usually didn’t construct stories.

     “Let’s go talk to Aadarshini,” she said, and walked to where the cow was kept.

     “Hello Vanalika,” the cow said. She couldn’t believe her ears; the cow knew her name and spoke it. She fainted.

     “Miracle talking cow discovered” The headlines blared around the world. The cow made the talk show circuit and was in demand everywhere. That was five years ago. Now all 3.9 billion cows talk and are in charge of much of the world’s commerce.

     Namuh now set his plan in motion and the cows had structures built where they would entice humans to enter. They would be designed on the same basis the slaughterhouses for the cousins were designed before the sacred cows changed that.

     The humans would be promised sex, booze and salvation and would be led one at a time through the maze. They wouldn’t know the ones ahead of them were being slaughtered. Namuh observed that none of the animals in charge displayed any cruelty toward the humans as the humans had done to them. It was strictly business to them, for now anyway. It remained to be seen if the cousins would eventually turn as cruel as the humans did when they were in charge.




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