Maximum Profit

The bodies were packed so closely together, they had room only to stand, and that in the stench of their own faeces and urine. The putrid smell filled the air, along with moans and cries of pain and despair. The air was thick in this place. Gigantic beams supported acres of roofing, bearing down upon us menacingly. Thin strands of light entered through gaps in the corrugated iron sheeting, penetrating the gloom like sabers of liquid amber.

Ashley screamed and stepped back, unable to control her sudden fear, as a body burst from its confinement, splashing her with excrement. Its movements were so frenetic it seemed to hover above the floor, as it performed an intricate ballet, all the while letting out a high pitched scream of its own. It soon stopped, and the body lay still at our feet. The ballet had been the final throes of death.

The interior of the immense structure seemed suddenly silent, still in the aftermath of this display, but that was an illusion, the cries of pain and fear continued, albeit subdued. I could feel Ashley trembling next to me; I, well, I felt numb. The pretty white lab coats they had given us upon entering this, this, this ‘place!’ were spattered and smeared, not only with excrement I realized, but blood and pus from the oozing open sores on the body of the deceased. Great tumorous sores still wept at the knees and ankles, the yellow fluid adding to the almost sentient slush on the floor.

It seemed to flow with life, the life torn from these tortured souls, thousands of them, with no hope of a better future than this example at our feet. Once in this facility, death was the only escape. I placed my arm around Ashley’s shoulder. I too needed some tactile reminder of reality, a reassurance that we were not a part of this horror, that it was not merely a sick and tormented dream, though with my very essence I wished it were just a bad dream.

“Don’t mind that,” our guide said from behind us. “Every now and again one gets out.” He seemed so matter of fact about it, so casual. I could not reply, I didn’t know how to reply to such a statement. “Here comes Jimmy now” he continued, seemingly oblivious to Ashley’s and my horror. “Just step around, and we’ll let him clean away the remains.” He motioned for us to continue further into the midst of this misery. I was wrong to bring Ashley here; I had no idea we would witness this. I realize now, I had no idea at all!

A loud metallic clunk echoed in the thick air, and the sound of gushing water filled my eardrums. Looking back, I could see the body had been pulled to a chute near the wall. Two men were pushing it from sight. Jimmy wielded a fire hose, with which he flooded the entire area, forcing the cumulated excrement, blood and urine towards a drainage ditch to one side of the complex; from there, I could see it flowing toward an even larger open drain, exiting under the wall at the far end.

“What were those cancerous looking wounds we saw back there?” I finally had the courage to ask, realizing as I did, that of the bodies I could see in their cramped pens, nearly all had similar afflictions. Bile rose in my throat, threatening to choke me. I swallowed. “Oh that’s normal” he smiled, “it sets in fairly soon after we pump ‘em full of serum.” We continued past more of the same, cramped bodies anguished faces. “Seems to give them extra stamina though, until the end at least, and you saw how quick that is.” He was smiling. His teeth seemed to shine in the gloom, a row of perfect white against a stagnant festering background of pain and dimness.

Never before had I so much wanted to strike a fellow human being. But in that moment the feeling was almost too strong to control. I wanted to shove those bright shiny teeth down his smug smiling face. I wanted him to choke on them, perhaps he too would thresh about on the stinking floor, and we could step around him as the clean-up crew moved in. The air around me seemed to glow red and hot, like lava flowing. And as the molten heat of anger surged through and around me, I stood, struggling with my senses for control.

The other members of our small party must have sensed something because they suddenly moved back a step, out of my immediate reach. And that broke the spell, my rage, as suddenly, flowing into the ethers, releasing my body from the tension which had held it tight and shaking.

The guide however, seemed oblivious to us all, moving on in his casual gait, calling back over his shoulder, “don’t worry about it folks, nothing is wasted. The clean meat will be cut and trimmed and in the market by the end of the week, what’s left is ground up for dog and cat food.” As one we grimaced, following behind in his wake. “The young ones are kept separate” the guide continued, “we don’t need to pump them full of as many drugs” and he laughed. “They get most of it from the milk produced here, but with all the growth hormones we shoot into these babies, there’s so much milk, we can supply all the market can handle.” He shrugged. “The antibiotics we fill ‘em with keep ‘em on their feet. Hell, they drop so much damn milk it supplies the pig unit as well.”

He turned around to face us, stopping our progression. “You see folks, efficiency is the game here.” Gesturing around with an arm, he went on. “The smaller farms can’t compete with our production volume. We’ve got it down so every animal produces the maximum in a short time. They don’t last long enough to slow down, there’s no profit in that.” Turning once more and gesturing for us to follow, “The beef unit works on the same principles, only the barns are a lot bigger. They get a different mixture of steroids and drugs, pumps ‘em up quicker and leaner.”

“You mean to say you keep all of the beef cattle contained under roof too?” a member of the observation party exclaimed. “Oh sure” he replied brightly. “No sense lettin’ ‘em roam around loose, we let em exercise and they’re only gonna wear off sale-able meat.” Approaching the end of the huge barn, we came to a loading dock. Several semi-trailers were backed up to the dock, but they were empty. No one was in sight. As one, the group moved towards the opening, the natural light, and the promise of fresh air. As we grouped outside in the sunshine, I looked around at the faces. Most wore an expression of horror, dismay, and disbelief. Two of the woman had red eyes, from crying. I could understand that.

Picking up his comment where he had left off, our guide finished his presentation for the day. “ No, you see, this is a high production facility, maximum product for input. If we let these babies out in the daylight, they’d want to romp around kickin’ up their heels. That’d not only burn up valuable energy, but we’d have to hire on extra staff just to round em up and keep ‘em fed. This way,” he smiled “ all the feeding is done from conveyers, right into their feed trough, no fuss.”

I looked around me, at the others, at our factory farm guide. Maximum profit, no fuss. Behind me I could hear the bawling of a heifer in pain, joined by lows of mass misery. No fuss indeed. I turned from the group, went to my knees and began to vomit. Maximum profit, no fuss, indeed.