I worried that I wouldn’t be able to eat meat after seeing the turkeys die. Like after getting to know it would make it less edible. Instead, I found that a turkey looks more like a turkey to me when it’s dead and plucked than when it’s alive. In fact, I bet when it’s cooked it will look even more familiar. That said, I ate strictly vegetarian that...

Animals Are People Too  All four turkeys were slaughtered that day. I “watched” one be killed, and then went to work at the clothing store. All day I looked at the furs we have for sale and reconsidered my stance on them. “Well, they’re already dead, so it’s like recycling,” I reason to customers. “It’s kind of like they serve as an organ donor when...

Miles  Ever since I got to Vermont, my mom’s been telling me about Miles, the young man who my mom hired to slaughter the turkeys. She keeps saying that she wants me to marry him. “You mean, you want me to marry someone that kills things for a living?” I asked her. When I thought about it a little more, I realized that my thinking was kind of ignorant. After...

Distraction  I kept my computer open in the dining room, so I could run in and jot down notes over the course of the morning. The last time I ran in before the slaughter began, I arrived at my computer to find this message from my friend on GChat: Matt: You ever wonder where they get off calling it Great Britain? I know people from there, and a lot of times...

The Killing  The turkey flapped its wings, and that’s all I saw. That, and Miles crouched next to him, and Tom standing over, watching. I saw Miles’ arm move back and forth at the turkey’s neck. Then I saw red. Lots and lots of red. The truth is, that’s all I saw, because I watched from my bedroom window, which is on the second floor and a good 15 yards away...