I am not a hunter.
I have never tracked and stalked prey, never set a trap outside the vinegar soap traps when the fruit flies invade my home every summer. I've never shot an arrow. Never fired a gun, save for the bb gun I used to kill that lizard when my cousin and I were kids.
I still feel remorse over that unnecessary death.
I used to fish. Simply, from the shore of the Pacific or off a pier in a bay. I let the creatures I caught suffocate slowly on ice, then took them home, gutted and descaled and fried up their bodies. I tried not to think about their lives that I took from them. I never did kill them directly. Not with my bare hands and not with any weapon.
But I haven't fished in years.
I once killed a mouse. Drowned the terrified screaming animal in the toilet because I couldn't peel it off the glue trap without peeling off its skin. I told my parents we couldn't use those traps anymore, that they were a torturous death and I wanted no part of it.
We let the cats do the killing after that.
I live a privileged life. I never see the animals I eat while their hearts are still beating. Nobody's mate or parent or child dies by my hand.
I don't even know where my vegetables come from. I don't garden, don't harvest, don't forage save for the occasional sprig of rosemary or fuyu persimmon I pluck from a neighbor's yard.
I don't know the colors or faces of the thousands of hens that have given me eggs. I don't know the names of the people who pick my blueberries or even what language they speak.
Don't ask me how those oats came from halfway across the continent to end up in my dog's food bowl. I couldn't tell you.
I wander the earth, exploring her beauty, idealizing my connection with her...
and I don't even know how to feed myself.
This is my entry for the #monomad challenge, held daily in the Black and White Community.
Give it a try. Go out and shoot something with your one-eyed gun.
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