Arm The Animals

Trigger warning: this piece mentions very serious and sickening matters, but I believe it's in everyone's best interest to face the reality we live in.

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I woke up one day, and felt scared.

Scared for those innocent souls who have to suffer at the benefit of human life, merely for being unable to pick up a weapon or speak a sentence.

I buried my fears, slipped into my scrubs and headed to work, witnessing the negligence first hand—a dog with hair so matted, skin so irritated, and teeth so diseased, he had lost all joy for life. I swallowed a curse and did what I could to help him, as little as that was. Because I knew there would be much more to face, always new pets to treat, more animals to save.

I held back tears during the euthanasia of a four-year-old tom cat who had been in urinary blockage for days, unbeknownst to the owners. He hadn't had any tools at his disposal to scream, or cry, or externalize his suffering in any way, and had lost his life to it.

I went back home and cried myself to sleep, because I knew the injustice didn't stop there.

Far from it.

That night, with my eyes puffy and my pillowcase wet, I fell into a world-altering dream.

The truth is, reality is ugly, and it's time we all take off the blindfold. This is our own doing, and denying it is futile. The only way to get things to change, is to face it all.

It's got me thinking, what if the roles were reversed?

Through the bay window of a family home, a handful of cats kept us on leashes, overfeeding us to the point of obesity and pushing us off the couch during movie night. "You better not scratch the couch," they snapped at us, annoyed. We curled up on the carpet, settling for another surge of solitude.

Down the dark city streets, we were abandoned and left confused, heartbroken, hopeless. We wandered for weeks, not able to find a real meal or proper shelter, and felt our skin touch our bones. When we tried to get help, we were misunderstood, often times even kicked down to the ground. Injured, emaciated and alone, we had no choice but to give up on life.

At the Kentucky Derby, we were forced to train to the point of exhaustion. Someone poisoned our food overnight, most likely a horse preemptively trying to eliminate the competition. Sick and drained of energy, we were brought into the starting gates—the cheer of the crowd rang in our ears and the gates woke up old claustrophobia. We panicked, but the horses misinterpreted it as fervor for the race. We were kicked in the gut, whipped again and again. It hurt, and when we lost, the pain only carried on.

In the zoo, tigers and giraffes armed with tranquilizing guns kept us locked behind bars. Animals passed by our cages and waved, laughed, threw scraps of food and inedible items at us. They banged on the glass to scare us; demanded we entertain them. We paced around the small plot of plasticized land, finding nothing to do but swing our heads left and right, from sunrise to sundown.

On the most anticipated circus tour, we found ourselves mistreated behind the red curtain, and exploited in the spotlight. Elephants with eerily wide smiles took pride in controlling our every move, threatening to stab us if we wouldn't listen to orders. Every day was a nightmare, one that didn't end.

Down in the vast forests of the countryside, life seemed better, and for a few months, we dared hope. But from September to November, our families were inhumanely hunted down with shotguns, rifles and crossbows. Our mothers died to protect us while our fathers bled to death on their own, taken as trophies for the hunters' homes.

On the outskirts of the city, we were met with the epitome of horror. We were stuffed into trucks where the metal was so hot, it burned the skin right off our feet. We were denied any water, then shoved inside what could only be described as hell itself: the slaughterhouse. We saw countless of our kin murdered before us, terrified yet unable to escape or even beg for mercy. Because no one cared.

In the wilderness, we lived what seemed like a peaceful life of independence, up until the day we were taken away. We were killed, one after another, so snakes and coyotes could skin us and use it in that twisted world they called fashion. What was once part of our own bodies was turned into boots, purses and clothes, and we had nothing to say about it.

Farm life was nowhere near better. Our mothers and daughters were bred without rest, their breastmilk forcefully collected and sold off to the wrong animal population. After giving birth, the silver lining of a painful and tiresome journey, their child would be ripped off their breasts, and no amount of screaming would get anyone to listen to their misery.

And up in the mountains, monkeys kept us in cages. They monitored our every move, shaved our heads, purposefully injected diseases into our bloodstreams to test the latest vaccine, medication, or even beauty product. They burnt our retinas, blinded us, made us hate ourselves even more than we hated them.

We deserved justice, but no one was willing to fight for us.

I woke up, drenched in sweat, but feeling strangely hopeful. Because...

Maybe we deserved it.