"John, would you like to stay for dinner?" Amy asked with a smile, guiding him into the house.
"I would love to," John said, thinking his luck was finally changing.
Unfortunately for John, Amy didn't so much want him to join her for dinner as she wanted him to be dinner. Amy is a mother with mouths to feed; meat is scarce, and one does what one must to survive.
A butcher can carve human flesh into thick, juicy slabs of steaks, loins, and liver as quickly as they do cows, lambs, and pigs. Who knows, we may all taste like chicken.
Cannibalism. Should we or should we not eat the flesh of our fellow humans?
First three immediate thoughts:
The Donner Party
Jeffrey Dahmer
Hannibal Lecter
There have been countless times throughout history where groups of individuals have turned to cannibalism to endure—chopping, cooking, and then eating the thigh of a middle-aged woman, let's call her Marge, who passed away in the night.
Unfortunate souls in such situations are ridiculed and taunted for their choice to feast upon a fellow member of their species. They had other options; of course, they did. They could have let the body rot while they starved to death and rotted right there beside Marge. Instead, they survived long enough to return to society to tell their story.
Something happened to the poor souls under those complex and challenging circumstances. They developed a fondness for the slow-roasted taste of a healthy, non-smoking male or female between the ages of 25 and 30.
There will always be someone who thinks and believes the exact opposite of you.
Two brothers, Buck and Gary, are staring each other down. One feels they should use the flesh and bones of the dead as food and medicine, and the other is dead set against it.
Gary tells Buck about a two-decade study of an indigenous population in New Guinea that found those who worked in preparing the corpses for consumption were getting sick, which was causing the tribe to die out. Gary claims for this reason, and conditions like Kuru, a degenerative brain disorder caused by eating infected nervous tissue, and Mad Cow disease, an epidemic in the 1980s where people became ill and died after eating beef from herds fed ground-up entrails, cannibalism is not something we should practice.
Gary is very long-winded.
Buck retorts, telling Gary how the ancient Egyptians used a powder called Mumia as a painkiller, blood thinner, and anti-inflammatory. Buck explains that Mumia is a powder made from mummies' ground-up flesh and bones. Doctors even gave it to women for help with issues connected with menstruation. The medical handbook The Merck Index listed Mumia as a cure for various elements until the twentieth century. Furthermore, Buck believes that we are running out of space to bury the dead. This could potentially save some resources and reduce waste.
Buck is a doomsday prepper.
Gary thinks about this before proposing that one might have difficulty eating someone they knew, especially if it was a relative. How would one come to terms with eating their grandmother, who read them bedtime stories? How about the mother, who kissed their forehead while they slept? Or the father, who played ball with them in the backyard?
Shaking his head, Buck wonders how it's any different from eating that turkey you've spent the past year feeding, training, and confessing your secrets to?
"Here's to Hector," the farmer raises his glass, "We're thankful for his sacrifice."
During China's Cultural Revolution, Buck continues to tell Gary to keep from starving; parents would trade children with neighbors so they would not have to kill and eat their own flesh and blood.
Nature doesn't seem to have a massive issue with it.
Julie leans back, sipping a strawberry daiquiri and smoking a joint, talking to anyone who will listen,
"Female praying mantises and certain breeds of female spiders cannibalize their mates after they copulate," Julie chuckles. "I wonder if the males know it's coming, or is this something the females keep as a heavily guarded secret?"
She continues speaking of how Polar Bears have been known to scavenge the carcasses of other bears and how Sand Tigers feast on each other in the womb, ensuring only the biggest and strongest are born.
Julie spent last night watching Animal Planet.
"There's an animal known as the Spadefoot Toad," she chats up a stranger as they wait in line to use the restroom. "It lives somewhere in the American Southwest. It lays its eggs in small translucent puddles- tiny bodies of water that can dry up at any time. Talk about providing your offspring with a frantic start.
Some evolutionary genes allow a small percentage of those tadpoles to change overnight. They grow in size, developing large jaw muscles and long teeth. Gifted with a shortened digestive tract, the Franken frogs dine on their siblings, thus allowing them to mature faster and leave the puddle healthy, fat, and looking for a new home."
Julie's not making any new friends.
Celebration and gratification.
Mark and Kevin rode on their hogs when a student driver forced them off the road. Mark's left leg was severed. Although doctors tried, they were unsuccessful at reattacking the limb. Having always been curious about human meat, Mark files with the hospital to have his leg returned. As a celebration of the lost limb, Mark invited Kevin and some other close friends to a formal dinner where they would cook up the meat from his severed limb and toast to the years they had together.
Mia reads and believes that eating can be personally gratifying. She's not known to turn down a lovely crispy French Fry. She also read that some believe that personally gratifying yourself on the dead is not acceptable. But licking your fingers as your chin drips with sauce right after your teeth peel the meat off another stack of bar-b-que ribs is?
Mia can't help but think of how eating your defeated foe might be the ultimate FU- well, eating them in front of their family or watching while you make their family eat them.
Not your average everyday thought.
"To each their own," Mia chuckles, drifting off to sleep.
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