Human(e)

The flames hiss as Alice Crester lights the candles with her match. They sway in the bit of air passing through the slit in the barn’s window.

It's getting terribly cold, I have to admit. The candles do not really help. But the excitement about this evening keeps me warm. 

I like watching Mrs. Crester as she sets the plates of food down. Silver plates, covered by shining domes to hide the food for our eyes. Although, I already know what it will be for dinner. 

She appears apprehensive now. People can't shut up in her vicinity.

I mean, sure. The evening is exciting and everything. But Alice is very obviously wanting to make an announcement. I can see the despair in her eyes. She wants us to listen. Sad that this does not really work out. In the end she just takes a fork from the table and jams it against one of the domes. 

I really want to jokingly scream "Attention" or something like that, but I swore to myself to not draw too much attention on myself today. 

But the crowd actually listens as discussions get more and more quiet with huffed voices and small whispers. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen." I can see it in her smile how excited she is. This will be her moment. 

"Welcome to Animal Life org. I'm so happy to have you all here tonight." 

Applause. I just clap along, try not to be too obvious in my eager. 

Also, I can't clap too hard, as long as I want to keep the object in my sleeve a secret. 

But all eyes are at Mrs. Crester, of course. She quickly brushes over her hair, thinking she was not seen. Don't be so nervous. This will be great. Especially for me. 

"I am Alice Crester." she proceeds telling us what most of the people here already know. "From now on I will be the new head of Animal Life org. And as my first act of leadership I invite you all to feast together tonight."

The mass applauses. But did she actually say leadership? Kinda pathetic. 

“Now.”, she grins with a dramatical pause as if waiting for us to burst from excitement. “Let’s take a look at the food.”

Two servers next to her lift the domes of the plates, slowly, delicately. I can’t stand that anymore to be honest. But I have to wait.

The pasta looks quite good. Green spinach sauce, thick with some kind of cream. I would like to dig my nose into it to feel the sauce on my skin. Would the others mind me doing that? Ha-ha, probably not. Still, I leave my hands at my sides, trace the shiny cutlery with my fingers.

Alice already goes on how talking about how the pasta was made. How wonderful it is and everything. Her face lights up, but I’m not even listening. There was only the word cheese, which let me shut off. I didn’t wan to know what was in there specifically. My appetite shrank down in a second. Thank you, Alice. Can’t you keep quiet for a minute?

She goes on about hand-picked spinach and I truly just want to know if she’s making all that up right now. How the heck is spinach even picked? But who am I to know?

I wait for the obligatory “Enjoy your meal” before I carefully make my way into the pasta, picking out the pieces of cheese. My plate looks terribly messy and I’m probably just rude, but at that point I don’t even care anymore. I know that today there won’t be a dessert. And this knowledge excited me. I’m in charge here, remember that.

I see that now another guy is on the table’s side. “Thank you for having me today.” He lifts his hat in almost a mocking gesture, but I guess I’m not actually meant to laugh about that. He makes it hard though.

“It’s an honour being here today.” he repeats himself. “I’ve been advisor for Animal Life org. for five years now. And you can be sure: I know how it feels when your owner just dumps you out there in the cold, just like it happened to so many of our animals here.”

Not a bad simile. Still, I don’t understand why he can relate to having an owner that puts you in the cold. Is he some kind of slave or what? I guess he is somebody to likes to enslave others, when I look at him.

“And so, we should celebrate our efforts we did the past years. We managed to rescue 12.800 of stray dogs, cats, mice and other animals. Everything you can think of. Even snails.” The mass of people laughs, but I can’t take him serious at that point. Leave the poor snails out of your weird speech.

“And so, we drink.” He lifts his glass and everybody joins. Yes, even me. Although, there is only water in it. And somehow, this glass feels quite familiar in my hands like that.

She raises the glass like a queen. Her red dress swaying as she turns around, almost dancing on her heels as it seems. I have never seen such charisma and love combined in a single person. So, of course, I raise mine with her.

 The wine is swaying over the edge, wetting my fingers. In any other case I would stick them in my mouth, lick of the sweet wine. But not here, in this room.

The chandelier breaks the light in beautiful shards, throws it on the wall. Diamonds shine on the fingers of the people around me. Candles, yes, real candles, hold in the sticks on the wall, illuminating the old castle bricks. How rich do you have to be to celebrate your birthday here? And not only that. Also, how rich does somebody have to be to invite complete strangers to their birthday in such a ball room? Strangers, meaning me.

I never felt more honoured than when I saw the message on my phone. I stopped checking Instagram weeks before, since I couldn’t stand the messages anymore that seemed to come automatically as soon as you opened your mouth about animal rights. But her message was different. She thanked me for my work. The work I do all day. Standing up not only for myself, but for those weaker than myself. The ones that have a voice we tend to not understand. Or we just refuse to understand. And then she invited me to her birthday. Which was a day later. Meaning, today.

And now she doesn’t even look at me. Because she does have no idea who I am. Not that she talked to me. It’s as if there was nobody there. I enjoy free food, wine that’s actually filtered without gelatine, which made my heart jump a little, and live music from a Danish band that gives me goose bumps, even though this is party music. And still, I want to cry. How pathetic was I to think this could be my chance to get into networking? To finally meet people I can relate to? And so, I almost smash my glass as I put it down. Don my jacket over my freaking T-Shirt, because of course I thought this was some kind of casual birthday.

“Where are you going?” And there she is.

This time I don’t smash my glass as I put it down. I slide it on the soft tablecloth and watch as the servers remove all the plates. Luckily, they don’t even give mine a second glance.

“The next course is a speciality of the house.” Alice cries out over the muffled discourses.

“It’s rooted so deeply in my family, for me it is more than a tradition, it is my life.”

Well, I tell you: It isn’t someone else’s life.

This time, the servers bring a whole table inside, roll it into the dining room. It’s huge, yes. But it needs to be, in order to feed all of us here.

“Sooooooo.” Alice’s voice is suddenly very high-pitched. “Reveal the main course.”

My hands get sweaty. But since everybody’s regarding the huge dome hiding the steak, oh, now I have spoilt it, I can wipe off my hands on the cloth without anybody caring. Better, because the next step I just cannot miss.

“You haven’t even finished your wine.” She says with a voice so sweet I cannot detect any of the wine she must have drunk as well. “Don’t you like it? I can serve you new wine.”

“Oh no. Thank you, it’s very great. It’s even vegan wine.”

She furrows her eyebrows and my heart skips a beat faster. “Why shouldn’t wine be vegan?”

Is she serious? She must know best, since she put the label on it.

“It’s often filtered through gelatine, which is, won from parts of dead animals.”

She just nods. As if she didn’t know.

“So, you are in the animal business as well?” she asks.

“I wouldn’t call it that. Animals are not really part of the business itself.”

“But why not?” She sounds a little like a child, I have to admit. Asking questions after questions. But finally, I have a chance to get to know her.

“I don’t work with the animals, I work for them. Provide the best possible for them. Don’t you do the same?”

As soon as she starts to think about it, my heart drops like an ice cube into water, bobbling up and down, making me almost sick.

“I would say animals are part of my business. What would I be without them?” She laughs, throws her head back so comically. There is something terribly wrong here.

“Convince yourself. I have another celebration next month. Some big changes are coming for me.”

And that’s how I got here. Staring at how the servers lift the domes so slowly I think I’m gonna fall asleep and miss all the show. And then I see it: a thick, almost burgundy red, steak. Crusted, steaming. One could find it extremely appetizing. One could say that their mouth is watering. But I must suppress the urge to vomit right on the table. This we will do later.

Alice lowers the knife and the juice is leaking, collecting on the hem of the tray, streaking down on the edge. The sound is like ripping off a band-aid. Actually disgusting, but it sounds kinda nice, if you don’t know what it is about.

People around me are screaming in excitement. Their mouths probably watering with actual spit and not with pre-vomit. I also wanna scream. Although, all of this is my fault. I just thought it was easier. And suddenly the object in my sleeve feels so heavy my arm gets tired.

Alice Crester is by far not my first victim. She is just the one I went maybe too far with for the first time. Although, I would not say that something like too far exists when it comes to the lives I actually save with my doing. Still, I was a bit more cooperative the lasts times.

Jamila was my mother’s friend. She was chill, actually. Held her own chickens in her backyard, made cake every Sunday and was always the first one to shovel the snow from the street. How could I be so diabolical with her? I don’t know. Honestly.

But she cried when she discovered that two of her chickens were missing. Her makeup was so smeared over her face, she looked like some kind of chicken herself.

And then I looked her into the eyes. Dead-ass, as I like to say it. I stared at her and claimed to have eaten the chicken. Because I was so hungry for chicken wings.

She didn’t believe me. Of course. Who would have believed that? But as I then went on, explaining her that the chickens were not safe in her hands, since she liked to eat chicken wings herself, she got quite furious. Didn’t I just want the best for her chickens? She should have thanked me. What a hero.

But she didn’t. She slapped me. Right into my face. And it felt so good. Because I knew that I made a statement and that I was provocative. She mistook my excitement over my smile and slapped me again, but I didn’t care. Explained her that I cannot give her the chickens, since she can’t guarantee not to eat them.

And a few months later, she went vegetarian. I know this is a little bit of a lucky find, because most people would not react so quickly and understand the message I conveyed. But as I said, Jamila was nice.  

I wonder if Alice is nice as well.

But today, it’s at least not me being kind. Because let’s be honest: What I’ve done to Jamila was nothing. A plain joke and that’s it. So, let’s see about today.

My fingers can’t rest under the table. I trace the pocket of my trousers, push my fingers in and out again. Around me, people are looking at the piece of meat. The corpse. They beam with light as Alice lifts slices on their fragile plates. I’m the last one to get one. And while Alice shoves the greasy thing on my plate, she finally looks at me. And her smile widens at first, until I see how hard it is for her to keep it up. Her face looks so tense.

I don’t sit down. I just wait for the people to eat. How they nod in approval as they taste the steak. Is it time? Has anyone tasted it already? Someone not liking it?

My feet twitch in my tight shoes, the plate is slipping on my sweaty hands. But it’s time to put it down.

“really good meat that your father provided for us.” I exclaim with pitch honesty in my voice.

Nobody is surprised to hear me talking. They mostly don’t even look at me. Haven’t they just waited for that mysterious man in the corner finally opening his mouth?

I have to get their attention. So, just keep on babbling.

“Can you tell me more about the family tradition?”

Alice is now picking her own slice, probably desperate to eat, since she just says: “After the dinner, I’d love to.”

This has to be different. “But what can you tell me about the meat in general?”

Should I offer her to sit down for that? She can also speak sitting. Doesn’t always have to be a big speech and such.

“Oh, sure.” Yes, man! “My father’s family has been farmers for centuries. And so, meat became what we got on special occasions. Mostly one of our pigs, my father’s favourite. This one is a special…”

But I don’t want to hear more of it. Especially not the details of the pig.

“I always knew your father made good food. I followed him a little already.”

Now she grins a little. But no worries, that will fade. “Oh, how cute. But my father is not engaged into the industry anymore.”

Oh, how right she is.

“No, that’s not what I mean.” Did my voice break? Confidence, man! “I mean he made good food not as in production, but in being good food.”

And then I pull out his watch from my sleeve and hell breaks loose.

It’s not easy leaving hypocrisy uncommented. All those people claiming they love animals. Building pet sanctuary brands to save the stray dogs, but then being responsible for raping, killing and finally eating other cute beings. So, if Alice Crester loves animals so much that she decorates herself with the reputation of being the organisation’s leader, while engaging in animal farming, then she can also love and eat her dad at the same time, right?

Apparently not, since her scream is higher than the sky. People at the table seem to now get it for the first time. They gasp, one vomits right on the floor.

And I’m just there, holding the steak knife against Alice Crester’s neck from behind.

“You have to make a promise, leadership.” I whisper in her ear. Although, I don’t actually whisper, since I want everyone to hear what I now say.

“You can either step back as head of Animal Life org. Since you seem to not care about animals enough to prevent them from being eaten, you are definitely the wrong one to lead this organisation.”

Tears stream down her face, wet my hand, which gets instantly slippery on her soft skin. But I have to go on. This last thing.

“Or, you do what your position demands and finally care about animals for real. Do everything to save the animals that are suffering already. And with everything I mean exactly that. With what I’m doing now I should have defined the border of what is possible well enough.”

I don’t expect her to choose. I don’t even care what she does. My work is over. People break loose as soon as I stop talking. I feel a knock on my head. Risky, given how close my knife was to Crester’s throat. But it’s okay. Maybe someone was hurt, maybe not. As I go under in the mass, slowly giving my life to some deity out there, I can finally laugh freely. I don’t want to turn everybody in this room to vhange their life in an instant. I just do what is right. WHat has to be done. And in that case, there is no border for what is justified to save that tons of animals killed here every single freaking minute.

The only thing I would have liked to know is if they actually find out where I hid him. The real him.