"The Horrible Suffering Of Plants"

by Daedalus

The day began as any other Saturday would; a trip to the laundromat and the grocery store. I loaded my car and began the morning. Upon my arrival at the laundromat, I sorted my colors and my materials, set four loads to wash, and went to buy food. I had no idea that a trip to the supermarket would change my life.

Pushing a cart down the lane, I began to plan dinner for me and my girlfriend. Bordering on vegetarianism, my girlfriend often vetoed my choices of meals. I settled on my infamous tuna-macaroni salad. She still ate fish, and the eight different kinds of vegetables would keep her happy. It was a great recipe, perfect for summer days when you didn't want to cook . . .

Thinking it strange that someone could lose their shoe in the supermarket, I looked closer. And there they were, three tiny droplets of blood, almost invisible against the leather. My eyes widened, my breathing deepened, and I unconsciously squeezed my other hand. I felt paper fold and bend. Looking back at the leaf, I found that someone had written upon it in red ink. I checked the other leafs - they bore similar marks. Placing my shoe in my car, I read the leaves.

"Hark, you cruel destroyers of the vegetable kingdom! Hail, those savages who raise up the tender roots of corn and wheat to the light of the sun only to barbarically slice them to pieces for their grain! Take note, those of you who refuse to perform this indignity on your own kingdom, unwilling to harm animals, insofar that you limit your ravaging to those who cannot begin to defend themselves! "This message is for you!

"The days of the innocent plants being destroyed are nigh unto over! Yea, we can see you there, forgoing meat of your own kinds, which you have all around you, to go out of your way for a slaughter-salad, filled with as many species as you can find: little lettuces, tender tomatoes, caring cucumbers and carrots, young yams, and simple sprouts - what insanity is this? At least those of you that eat meat only eat one species at a time, not like this multi-leveled genocide!

"Have you not heard that you are what you eat? Well, eat what you are! Are you vegetables? Are you filled with energy by none other than the noble earth, the proud sun, and the dewy wholeness of water? Then why do you eat those that do live that way? Eat those that you resemble - the cattle, the foul, the fishes! And at least they have a chance to defend themselves! The cows you slaughter have horns and sharp hooves, the chickens have beaks and claws, the fish have teeth and an edge in evasiveness.

"Oh, yea, I tell you now - the revolt is coming! Put down your forks, lay down the salad dressing, put aside the croutons! The corn are opening their ears, the potatoes finally using their eyes, the cabbage is beginning to use its head, and the whole vegetable kingdom can see the merciless cruelty bestowed unto its royal lines! Grown for no other purpose than to be killed! At least your animals serve other purposes - the fleeced sheep retain their lives! Your chickens evade death in handing over their eggs, many cows avoid the knife by giving forth milk.

"What is a plant, in your eyes, other than a foodstuff? Something to be killed to make your dinner, something to be killed to make your homes, something to be killed to make your clothes, something to be killed to be displayed, somehow proudly, in your homes as decoration, or given to one of your females as a gift of beauty! Beauty indeed! Nothing says “I Love You” more than a handful of lovely, dying roses, madly cut off from nurturing roots, shoved into a refrigerator, until sold, barely alive, only to await further death! The few of us who are kept, alive, inside your homes, never last long - victims of pets, children, poor lighting, and their own overwhelming terror of the incredibly alien place they are forced to try and grow in.

"So I say to you, stop the senselessness! Stop the piracy! End the miserable suffering of millions and millions of innocent lives awaiting the grimmest of reapings! Eat your chickens, your cows, your fish, your insects - even each other - to prevent the senseless and almost invisible violence happening each and every day! You can make a difference! It only takes one person to begin change - let it begin with YOU! End the violent suffering of the Vegetable Kingdom! Plants - It’s NOT What’s For Dinner!"

I could do nothing but stand there, stunned. Was it someone's idea of a joke? It had to be. No self-respecting man could ever believe ... As I was disparaging what I had just read, my eyes fell upon the shoe in my cart. To the three drops of blood on the leather, then back to the red ink marring the leaf. Abandoning my cart in the aisle, I dashed to the front of the store. I had to get out, tell someone about this! A cashier looked in my direction, waved as she saw me leaving, and said, "Tell Sue I said 'hi'."

I stopped. More to the point, I was suddenly unable to move. "Excuse me?"

She looked at me more intently. "Sue. Your girlfriend. You know, Sue." She shrugged and dragged a bagful of peppers over her scale. My eyes followed the motion with some pain. "I didn't get a chance to see her before; she was on her way out when I was on my way in."

My jaw hit the floor. "She was here? Today?"