The Silence of the Flies

"I looked up at the top of my old bookshelves. There, dusty and unread for years, were all the animal books of my childhood. I'd love these books. They were rich with wildness, escape and adventure. But I hated them too. Because the never had happy endings. Tarka the otter was killed by hounds. The falcons died of pesticide poisoning. A man with a spade beat to death the otter in Ring of Bright Water, vultures tore out the Red Pony's eyes. The deer in The Yearling was shot, the dog in Old Yeller died. So did the spider in Charlotte's Web and my favorite rabbit in Watership Down. I remember that awful dread as the number of pages shrank in each new animal book I read. I knew what would happen. And it happen every time." - Excerpt from H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

I am more afraid of the silence that follows

Rather than the screaming

The stillness rather than the thrashing

The nightmares don't seem to end because

We refuse to see the beauty in others

Only in ourselves

What does it mean to be humble?

The last word, Charlotte wrote

On her web, the one she used

To save some pig from being killed

The same one she used

To catch flies and consume their insides

There is beauty to it though

Yes,

All life must come to an end

But not like this

No,

When spring time comes

There is only silence

Like Helen Macdonald, I grew up loving animals, reading, and watching stories where they were all the heroes; Charlotte's Web being my favorite. But in most of these stories they almost always wind up dead. I'd quickly accept that death was natural and part of life; something that was okay to be sad about but not angry. So I went back consuming meat, eggs, and milk; never questioning how these things ended up on my plate. It wasn't until I was nine, when I saw my first factory farm video and learned that it was everything but natural.

That day, I swore that I hated all humans and that the person I hated the most was myself for being too stupid to make the connection to my love for animals and what I was doing. As the years went by, I continued to expose myself to the harsher realities in life-like reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which talked about the indiscriminate use of a pesticide know as DDT that caused damage to wildlife and the environment—and tried my best to live a life that agreed with my values. I will always hold those fictional stories that I've read when I was little close to my heart but after learning the truth I've also added a few new favorites to the list...