Pet Dinner

When I was a small boy, my grandfather took me to a shop. Inside were rows of cages with live poultry. He asked me to pick one out to take home. I walked up and down excitedly, looking for the very best. One chicken came running up to the cage front, looking straight at me.

I exclaimed, "This one, Grandpa! I want this one!"

So, he called the man from the counter. A huge, fat man dressed in white with a discolored apron walked over, opened the cage, and grabbed my favorite chicken roughly by the neck. A deep foreboding filled my stomach. Something wasn’t right. The fat man and my grandfather walked up to the front, but full of fear, I lagged behind. I saw that fat man lift a cleaver high and slam it down hard. Foreboding became horror, and my heart a void.

I ate no chicken that night at Grandma’s dinner.