How I Became a Vegetarian

I was dreaming again.

The place was as I remembered it, though I had forgotten I'd been here before.  A vast, empty plain of tall grass, night sky, cool breezes whispering through the grass in waves.  I inhaled deeply: it smelled clean, pure, bracing.  If wonder had a smell it would be this.  I could get drunk on such air.

As before, in previous versions of this dream, I trudged across the grassy plain.  Hours?  Days?  Years?  I could not tell – but I never slept, I never grew thirsty or tired.  But neither was I bored, for time itself seemed different here; despite my long journey it seemed to only take a moment.

Soon the air smelled of ozone and moisture.  The sky split into sheets of black and grey, distant forks of lightning bisecting them against the horizon.  I counted to myself, the flashes against rolling thunder, and determined I was headed right into the heart of the storm.  Soon the stars hid themselves behind clouds and the wind tore at my clothes. I felt the occasional droplet spatter my face.

Ah, shelter.  It loomed ahead, a vast dark finger accusing the sky.  That rock.  

I remembered the rock with vague unease, for the first time wishing I could wake up.  But my steps drew me ever nearer, my fate inevitable: I existed only to meet whatever dark force awaited me at that giant rock.

Oddly, the weather calmed as the rock hove into view. I spun 360 degrees and noted a solid wall of grey storm clouds slowly spinning about me clockwise.  Lightning still tested the ground from above, but far away from me, perhaps even past the horizon.  I was in the eye of the thing, and here calmness prevailed.  

And a new scent: musk.

I remembered now.  I remembered him.  He who lived here, at the rock.  I was suddenly terrified, but as is the case in dreams, I could not run; my legs refused to move.  So I stood there, maybe 50 feet from that rock, dreading his inevitable appearance.  I stood for a thousand years, trembling.

And here he came now, the ancient one.  The one I feared, he whose name I could not remember but whose terrible familiarity I could not forget.  He was with me always, it seemed.  I'd just forgotten how to remember him.

He was there, in an eye blink, atop the rock.  Sitting.  100 feet tall, even seated, and now I realized the rock was not a rock, but a throne.  A throne cleverly fashioned from rock, wood, grass, and flesh.  He himself was cast from the flesh of a thousand beasts, each extremity representing a different kingdom: water, earth, air, space.

His left hand was a pink lobster claw, clutching a gnarled wooden staff in its pincer.  The staff was as tall as him standing, its top lost in the clouds.  Lightning flashed and strobed about its unseen top.

His right hand was human, but massive.  Five thick, hairy fingers lay gently upon the arm of his throne, each the size of my forearm.  The nails cracked and dirty, as if he'd been digging at the earth, gardening with his bare hands.  His right-arm was muscular, threaded with bulging veins.

His left leg was that of a predator dinosaur, or perhaps proto-bird: it had talons and a wickedly sharp backwards-facing claw, the reptilian skin fading smoothly into salt-and-pepper feathers hiding a powerful jumping leg.

His right leg was a coiled tentacle, clearly from a species not of planet earth.  It writhed and pulsated, coiled and uncoiled, emitting a slick goo that dripped.

His four very different extremities warred for ownership of the torso: it was a horrifying mashup of rhino skin, feathers, chitin, bare human flesh, and hair.

And above it all, his head.  Oh, god, his head.

It was the head of a buffalo, its nostrils dilated and snorting.  Tiny pig-eyes gazed at me, narrowed in contemplation inset beneath thick brows covered in a waterfall of long, greasy black hair.  Multiple, unmatched sets of antlers sprouted in chaotic masses from all aspects of his head, and long donkey-ears stood at attention, flicking forward and back to catch every sound.  The mouth was wide and flat, a rhino's mouth, a slit hidden by buffalo-fur, braced on either side by boar tusks.

He looked away, snorted, shook his head.  Turned his gaze back to me. But somehow I knew he was always watching.  I never escaped his attention – the very concept was impossible.  

He spoke without moving his lips.  His voice was the earth itself, tectonic plates grating against one another:

Do you remember me?

I threw myself down before him, unable to bear the weight of his voice.

"Yes," I shouted.  "Yes!  I remember you."

Then name me.

I wanted to weep, because I did know him.  I did!  But I could not recall his name.  I shook my head in frustration.  "I cannot."

He stood then, held his staff aloft, calling lighting down in shuddering belts of fire.

I am every living creature!  I am life itself!  I am… The King of Beasts!

I remembered it then.  How could I have forgotten?  I felt like a child at the foot of a parent as I whimpered and tried to make myself invisible.

And you!  Do you know why you are summoned?

I shook my head.

Behold!

And he gestured with his staff, off to the distant horizon.  I turned to regard the spectacle of many, many animals moving my way, approaching with deliberation, as if in a processional or parade.  They all marched together, to an internal beat I could not fathom.

I looked back to him, but he only had eyes for his beasts.  I somehow knew he wanted me to pay attention, so I turned to regard them more closely.

The herd appeared to be mostly cattle, with occasional rows of chickens and pigs breaking up the monotony.  They all marched in time, the chickens taking several steps for each cow.  Some of the cows gently held dripping, writhing fish in their jaws.  Some of the chickens, I noticed, held shrimp in their beaks.  Above them flew an army of buzzing insects.

I looked back to him, my confusion evident.  I sensed his disgust.

These represent those you have eaten, I felt pushed into my head.

Oh my.  I looked even closer, and noticed the occasional dripping squid, the rare swooping duck, the odd deer—

"Say, is that… a house cat?"

Silence from him, but by then I'd already forgotten the cat because—

"Dogs?  And horses?  I've never eaten those."

Chicken McNuggets. They're mostly chicken.  Mostly.

I shuddered, then realized what the cloud of insects above represented and almost vomited.  I turned to face him, now re-seated on his earthworks throne.

"I get it now.  I really do.  It's horrible to eat the flesh of other living beings."

Lightning cracked and exploded with his evident frustration.  He howled at the sky before turning back to me.

That is not the lesson!  Life itself consumes life; with every breath you incinerate billions of microbes and even the lowest grasses of the field feed upon the flesh of the fallen.  YOU MUST EAT TO LIVE, AND ALL FOOD IS DERIVED FROM DEATH.

His words blasted through me, and I almost fell again.

This is the lesson!  All that I require from you: that you acknowledge their sacrifice.  Know, do not deny, what you are.  And LIVE.

Just then, I noted the end of the parade, the end of cows, chickens, fish, and bugs all ponderously tromping off to the horizon.  And at the end of the procession—

"Say is that…?"

Aunt Kathy and Uncle Doug.  Yes.

"But… they live someplace in Europe now.  Don't they?"

Do they?  His eyes bored into mine.

Ohgodohgod… those pork steaks I knew were in dad's freezer.  Also, the most delicious cuts of veal I'd ever tasted.  Hundreds of pounds of meat, all carefully vacuum packed in plastic.  Dad said he'd been to Costco and couldn't help himself.

Couldn't help himself.

Aunt Kathy waved at me sadly, and I fell to my knees, the grinding laughter of him shaking me to my core, as if enduring an earthquake.

Then I woke up.  I always wake up then.  Sometimes I'm screaming.

That's the dream, and I always seem to forget it before I'm completely awake.  But this time I remembered just enough, and went out to the garage where the freezer is, and checked for myself.  I had to break the padlock off to open it.

Hundreds of pounds of pork and veal, all vacuum packed in plastic.

Dad and I are going to have a talk.