Fable of the Vegetarian Beef Farmer

There once lived a beef farmer in the land of Far Away not so long ago. Unfortunately, he was rather unhappy becuase he loved his cows. He loved them just as he loved all animals, from the furry mice of the field to the fierce hawks that would soar spectacularly down to eat them. He'd loved animals since he was a very young child, too young to understand what happened to his friends who went with his father into the large building and didn't come out again. Back then, his parents had told him (quite accurately) that they had sold his friends and would get him some new ones. They also told him (rather unaccurately) that the cows were getting old and had to move on, that the family needed the money and no harm was done to them, really. The very young boy believed his parents because he was young and loved his parents more than he loved the cattle, although he never understood why none of his friends that went on vacation ever came back, just as he never understood why the fresh meat his family would eat always seemed to appear just after one of his friends disappeared. He decided that this latter mystery could be explained because they couldn't buy meat until they had the money, and so he would eat the food put in front of him with gusto, thinking it was the most he could do to honor his lost friend, even if the meat didn't taste very good to him.

Then came the day that he went on the internet to look up where meat came from and read one horror story after another. He read about cattle filing into huge granite factories where they were slaughtered and gutted and packaged into little containers then sent all around the world for people like him to eat. He was only about six at the time and the stories he read horrified him so much that he vowed right there in front of his family's little computer screen and keyboard that he would be a vegetarian for the rest of his life. His chest swelling with pride in his noble stance against a world that was harsh and cruel, he went to tell his parents.

"Mom, Dad," he said in his rather high and shrill voice, though to him it sounded deeper and more heroic because of the great announcement he was about to make. "I don't want to eat meat anymore."

"Nonsense," his father said while leaning back in his chair sharpening a huge carving knife.

"Preposterous," his mother said as she took the sizzling steak from the oven.

"It's unhuman and barberic," the little boy replied, suddenly feeling very small.


"Nonsense," his father said, carefully looking over the knife and running his thumb along the edge.

"Ridiculous," his mother said as she placed the oozing red meat down in the center of the table.

"My father worked this land," the boy's father said as he cut into the steak. "And his father before him. You know how much they made selling corn and beans? Nada. Beef is where it's at, my boy, and no son of mine will disrespect the glorious animal that God Almighty gave us in order that we might eat it and chop it up so other people might eat it and give us money to buy computers and chairs and knives with which to eat His delicious creations."

"Amen," said the boy's mother.

"Amen, said the boy's father and then they devoured the heaps of meat that sat in front of them while the boy looked on with wide, horrified eyes and touched not a bit of beef. He wanted to say that eating meat was "grotesquely immoral and unethical" like the article, but he knew it wouldn't do any good, so he made due with refusing to eat any of the meat that was placed before him for twelve years until he was old enough to leave home. Then he was happy for a little while in college studying to be a barber, until the terrible day he heard that his parents had been killed in a terrible accident. They'd been crossing the street in town when a truck carrying cattle from their own farm for the beef factory suddenly rounded the corner and hit them. The young man was greatly grieved by this news because this meant he now had to go back and take over the farm or else all his dear friends would be sold to the factory and the land would be taken over by a corrupt man of industry who would probably turn the place into a palace of sin and violence, otherwise known to people who weren't him as a beef packaging facility. His parents' death was sad, of course, but then they had tried to feed him meat for twelve years, so he soon got over them.

He then spent the next several years in absolute misery. He could not think of a thing to do with himself, or his friends. He couldn't sell, nor could he keep them. He made some money by having friends come over to have him cut their hair. Then when he had cut the hair of everyone within a fifty radius, he started inviting them to bring their animals in for a trim. He hadn't been trained to cut the hair on animals, but it was the only way he could see to practice the trade he'd gone to college for and still make money, so he gave it a shot. He'd never wanted to be a farmer anyway. He'd always wanted to be a barber and he loved it. Nothing in the world pleased him quite so much as the snip-snip-snip of scissors cutting away and the sight of hair tufts upon the floor.

One day, he was visited by an old man. He had never seen this man before, so it might even be said that this elderly person walking up to his gate and leaning upon a staff was rather mysterious. The old man stood by the fence for some time while the farmer was cutting the hair on one of his cows and watched him for some time. The farmer didn't really know what to make of this so he pretended the old man wasn't there, although that long, gray, scraggly beard was one of the most inviting things he'd seen a long time. In his mind, he imagined what the beard would look like if he could just comb out all the snarls and trim it so that it was a little bit more even. Perhaps he could even trim it so that it came to a point. That would look marvelous, the farmer thought to himself.

"Say there," the old man waved his stick and whistled. "Over here!"

The farmer turned to look at him.

"Yes."

"I say, my car has broken down just down the road and I was wondering if you could come help."

"I don't know anything about repairing cars. I'm sorry."

"That's fine. Fine."

Silence for a long time as the farmer finished cutting the hair on that cow and moved on to another. The old man continued to stare at him. At last the farmer turned back to him.

"Why is that fine?"

"Because it hasn't so much broken down as gotten stuck."

"Stuck?"

"Yes."

"Stuck where?"

"In the swamp, just down the road about a half mile."

"Oh."

The farmer knew the spot well. It was in fact a sort of trap he'd set for any large truck that might come to take some of his friends away. During the better part of a week he had carved out a slide in the side of the road that any very large vehicle unfamiliar with the area would end up driving over, with the result that the wheels on the right hand side would end up sloping down while those on the left stayed level on the road, tipping the vehicle towards the right. He'd also made sure that the ground stayed permanently wet so that the wheels would continue sliding until the truck went straight into the swamp. Very few truck drivers came back to trouble him after doing that once.

"Are you from a beef factory?" He asked suspiciously.

"Of course not," the old man haughtily replied. "I detest the very thought of those places. That is why I am a vegetarian."

The old man instantly become the farmer's favorite person in the whole world. He walked forward and held out his hand.

"Very good to meet you," he said. "I'll go fetch my strongest bulls."

The two men stood a little while later at the edge of the road looking down at the old man's car. It was a smart car, the farmer noticed, very environmentally friendly, which he approved of, however he was puzzled how a vehicle so small managed to end up in his trap. He decided not to ask as he hooked up his animals as if they were going to plow and then began to creep down the slide toward the car holding his rope. He was about half way down when one of his feet went out from under him and he fell into the mud and slid all the way down into the swamp at the bottom. He still kept tight hold of the rope, however, and soon he was clambering back out, muddy and filthy but not beaten. He tied the rope to the rear bumper and shouted up to his bulls.

"Walk!"

They did, or they tried to. He heard them groaning and straining, all four of them, but the car stayed put. The farmer was puzzled. These same four bulls had pulled trucks out of here before, without the trailers of course, but they had certainly pulled far heavier objects than this car. Perhaps they needed a little extra help. With that thought in mind, he got in front of the car and pushed as the oxen pulled from the other side. Slowly, very slowly, the small car began to move. It rolled and bumped up the hill and the farmer moved with it, pushing every inch of the way. Sometimes, he would lose his footing and fall back down into the swamp, but every time he would get up again and go back to pushing. Soon, the car was back on the road and the bedraggled farmer was standing beside it.

"Thank you very much!" said the old man, wringing the farmer's hand with both of his so that the exhausted young man thought his arm might fall off. "Now, what can I do for you?"

"Pardon?" The farmer barely understood what the old man was saying. "Oh. Some water would be nice."

"Come now," the old man said. "You must want something more than that. Didn't I mention I'm a wizard?"

"No." It occurred to the farmer later that he probably should have been more surprised, but at the moment, very little of what the old man, or wizard, rather, made sense, so he just went along with it. "Does that mean you can get me water without having to go anywhere?"

The wizard made a clucking sound with his tongue, waved his hand in the air and then passed him a crystal cup brimming with liquid. As soon as the farmer took a sip, he felt himself revive instantly. Holding the cup carefully in his hands he took it to each of his bulls and allowed them to drink also. It had an immediate effect on all of them, as it had on him. It seemed as he watched that their sides that had been oozing with sweat a moment ago reabsorbed the lost moisture and became dry and comfortable to the touch. The bulls no longer hung their heads wearily but held them upright and pawed the ground as if to say: "that wasn't so hard. Next time get me something even bigger and haul that up in HALF the time. Yeah." The farmer turned back to the beaming wizard and asked in a stammering voice: "could you? Do you think... perhaps... would you... make me a barber?"

"Of course my lad!"

And so it was done. The two of them set up a barbershop in town with the cows and called it The Golden Scissors The two of them cut the hair of anyone who came in while the cows lowed outside. The wizard even taught them to perform in a choir so while people were having their hair cut they could listen to bovine renditions of Mozart, Bach or Beethoven. It was the happiest time of the former farmer's life. Finally he had everything he'd ever wanted: his friends and his scissors in one convenient setting where everyone was happy.

However, it was too good to last. After a couple months, the cows all went on strike, spurred on by the young bulls down the street that had been working in an antique shop. The bulls felt stereotyped because the customers always thought they would break things, and the cows felt that just because some cattle had been lowing in a certain song about a human infant lying in a feeding trough, that didn't mean they should low all the time. The two groups set up the Bovine Union, but soon broadened their range to include mistreated animals of all kinds while the former farmer looked on unhappily, proud of his friends, yet sorry to see them go.

The wizard left soon after the cows, mumbling and occasionally singing about a lifelong desire pf his to be a woodsman. The vegetarian beef farmer was then left all alone to cut hair and shave beards and not eat meat as he chose. He was no longer as happy as he had been with the wizard and cows, but compared to how he'd been before, he had to acknowledge that there was an improvement. Thus he lived mostly happily most of the rest of his life as did the cows and the wizard.

~Brendan

The Liar

I spin for you a lie,
create for you a fantasy,
a protective web
to wrap you in.

You must believe
that here is safe.
You must believe
that this place
is special
because it is to me.

There can be no pain here.
I cannot let mine show.
I must be always happy
so you will think
I always am.
You must believe
that wrong does not exist here,
that no harm can be done here,
and so I must be fair
with both you and me
so that here can always be
a safe community.

-Brendan