I'm an animal.

Since no one seems to be particularly alive I hereby allow myself to ponder freely upon whatever I feel like. For example, inspired by my dad and Ape’s family: The immorality of mixing meat from different animals in one sole dish.

You should know, that for the Ape family it is something of a challenge to put as many different animal meats in the same dish, and get away with it (something which they don’t always manage). As for my dad, he brought me disgust and inspiration when telling me of an extravagant dish consisting of a large turkey, in which there was a goose, in which there was a chicken, in which there was dove, in which there was a quail. And in the quail layeth an egg. Yeah, an egg in a bird, in a bird, in a bird… Or something along those lines. This is something that the old Romans used to eat. According to my dad.

Like the Janssons, I love food-related challenges. And like some of the more spoilt Romans, I adore gluttony. But there is something absolutely unethical in putting meat from different animals in the same dish.* I say we lose a portion of our humanity for every bacon-enfolded chicken breast we cut into.

Let’s say I was killed for food. I died for you. Then at least make me the star of your meal. I gave my life for your fucking jambalaya, don’t throw in a damn chicken next to me! Or a pork sausage. Or something else dead with a potential soul that isn’t mine. And don’t you dare eat me on weekdays. At least not my good parts. You're just shoving me right into your mouth without really tasting. Have my intestines for a hasty Tuesday tv-dinner, but damn you if you consume my fine buttocks in front of Days of our Lives! See me, see my value! Invite your friends to indulge me. Or better, have them watch you indulge in me. Make a sauce béarnaise to go with my inner thighs or smoke my cheeks with juniper berries. I don’t care exactly how you prepare me, as long as you do it with love and devotion. Think of me, who laid down my life to satisfy you.

One dish, one meat, one life, one soul, one love.

*Some of you out there might consider it absolutely unethical eating animals in the first place. And let’s not forget, we do have a former vegan in our midst (however, these days she’s *only* militant). I too, find it a somewhat weird and questionable custom, killing for food. But it is how I was brought up. The problem is that meat and the animals who bring it to us are way underrated. Cherish the meat, cherish the animals.

fire freely or lose the game

I'm leaving the countryside first thing tomorrow.

So it all started when Moa the dachshund disappeared when mother and I were out taking a walk. The sun was setting, it was cold as ice and the dog ran off. We tried to find her by following a track of blood through the woods. You see, Lisa - also known as The Stupid Dog - and her master had been out earlier that day, taking down two roe deer. On our way out we had met Lisa coming home from hunting. She had a lofty way of carrying her head and she willingly let Moa smell her bloody nose before running inside the house to rest. I later figured this had made Moa somewhat bitter, remembering the good old days when she was the one being out killing creatures with the help of father’s rifle. Now she was reduced to a simple pet, out strolling with unarmed women who very seldom left the imagined safety of the forest’s main road.

Now Moa was gone and we had for once left the road and were running around following red stains and paw prints on the frozen white ground... Read more!

Eventually we came to a dark wall of large pine branches that we forced our way through, only to reach a small black river around which the winter had not yet gotten its freezing claws. We had to turn back. It was getting dark and we didn’t want to risk not finding our way back once the blood track was hidden in darkness. Also, we didn’t know how far away her goal was – the spot where they had taken out the intestines of the deer. Moa the old dog was blindly hunting something already dead.

- If she dies out here, it’s your fault.
- I know.

We got on our way back, feeling extremely deprived. At home, we told the Hunter what had happened and that we feared for the dog’s life. He refused to help us, claiming that she would find her way home. I went to tell my baby brother the sad news.

- Oh, H. I have to tell you something (embracing him).
- What?
- It’s Moa. We lost her.
- What? How?
- She disappeared. There was a lot of blood…

After having failed at gaining sympathy from either man in the household, mother and I went back into the woods, this time in a car. Half way there, we met Moa. A now cold and fantastically fat little creature, walking towards our searchlight. And I was happy.

However, as I later celebrated her homecoming by making pizza, the damned dog started to puke. And what came out of her wretched little body was what I imagine vultures wouldn’t even consider for an entrée. From there on she was put in quarantine, in the enclosed space of the hallway. We put Lisa there as well, seeing as she was part guilty. Then we had our pizza.

As we were sitting upstairs a couple of hours later, watching a film, we noticed that the entire interior of the house had started to reek. First it was a sort of faint fart smell, which later that night grew in density and became like a fog of horror and rot (and we had been watching The Mist).

- God, I hate dogs!
- Don’t say that, she can’t help it.
- They’re only fun for a while. These last years are ugly. They grow old and eat too much and puke and fart and smell bad.

It was one thirty in the morning and I decided to go to bed. The stench made it impossible to watch another x-files episode anyway. I was just about to place my head on the pillow as it struck me the quarantined animals had no water available in their designated cell. So I headed downstairs, towards the smell. How I cursed my decision when I saw what Moa had done on the floor. There were half-digested bodyparts lying around and there was no way I could go to bed without cleaning it up. I know that dog. It would soon wake up and go and re-eat what it had just puked out. And judging from the size and texture of it, Moa would probably die if she seriously tried to digest it. So there I was, cursing stupid dogs, dead deer and weak stomachs, dressed in plastic bags and armed with a hundred tissues. Constantly gagging, I had to focus real hard on not throwing up myself, causing tears to come out from my eyes. I held in my hand what I took to be a roe deer liver, still stomach-warm and smeared in a dog’s brownish gastric acid.

I lost a piece of my soul that night. And I caught a glimpse of Hades.

I also watched the whole second part of Arrested Development season 3. All in all, it was a good day.