Steak

Sue grew up in a posh inner city suburb with all the benefits of the western world; a wonderful family in a safe community. Sue grew up healthy and strong.

When she was three years old her mother told her that carrots grew in the ground and apples grew on trees.

“Where does Steak grow Mummy?”

“Well, it grows on cows Sue”

“How does it grow on cows?”

“Steak is a cows muscles”

Sue thought about this for a while. She thought about all the cows out there that had had all their muscles eaten off.

“I don’t want to eat cows muscles Mummy. I just want to eat vegistables”

And Sue became a vegetarian. At school Sue got teased about her un-trendy lettuce sandwiches. But she didn’t care. Somewhere there was a cow with all its muscles and it was thanks to her.

Sue was eight years old when she realised that cows actually had to be killed to make steak. That just proved to her that she was right all along - eating meat was barbaric.

The more she thought the angrier she became. What gave people the right to steal a bee’s honey? What gave humans the right to take away a Sheep’s baby for its skin?

And Sue became a vegan. At University everyone laughed at her plastic shoes and her soy yogurt. But Sue didn’t care. Somewhere an animal was able to feed its offspring and it was because of her.

When she was 23 Sue found that yoga calmed her mind; she practiced twice a day and meditated for half an hour every morning.

The yoga retreat centre was miles out in the country - on a farm where people lived in harmony with nature. It really was a retreat in the truest sense; the air was fresh and the whole world seemed to be at peace. Here mans cynical ideas of ‘Survival of the fittest’ seemed but a bad dream.

Sue took deep long breaths as she headed towards the food ashram. Several people welcomed her with a traditional Indian greeting as she filled her plate from giant bowls of wonderful food.

The young man serving himself in the queue next to her smiled and joked

“This looks great! Where’s the steak?”

Sue glowered back.

“Oh come on!” said the young man “You’re too pretty to be one of those lettuce sandwich eating, plastic shoe wearing vegans”

When she heard this something inside Sue snapped. All those years of caring when no one else cared came back at her in an instant.

She picked up a fork and stabbed it through the young mans throat.

It wasn’t until he was lying on the floor, blood streaming from his wound, that she realised what she had done.

His tee-shirt had a picture of some farm animals and a slogan that read:

“I don’t eat my friends”

The young man was a vegan too.