What If We Made Meat Illegal?
Narrated by a teenage boy living in the year 2058.
It’s Friday night in October. The air is brisk, and the full moon is illuminating the fallen leaves. Our high school boys football team just finished their game. Everyone’s now at one of the many after parties happening around town.
My two friends and I are squished together, sitting on an old couch in my friend DJ’s parents garage. We’re each sipping on a cold bottle of beer, one of many that we’re carrying in our backpacks. It will likely be the last cold beer of the night.
On the other side of the garage, I see three guys from school I don’t know too well. They’re standing together near the back door, their sharing a bottle of liquor. Every time they take a shot little spill on their flannel shirts. I try not to stare as they look stronger than me and much more intimidating.
I look around the room, and I notice a chatty group of girls. They’re my friends, except for one girl, she’s new. She must be a friend of Shannon’s. Shannon’s always bringing her dance friends to our parties.
The new girl is beautiful. Shit, I thought. She seems to already have a liking for one of the three guys near the back door. Specifically, the one with the backwards snapback and silver chain around his neck. I can tell because she keeps looking that way.
The new girl’s friends notice she’s crushing on him. Then Shannon says something to her. I can barely make the words out, but she says something like,
“Don’t, not that guy. He…”
That’s all I can make out.
I don’t need to know what she said to her because in the back of my mind I know what she said. The whole high school knows what those three guys do.
A few seconds later I notice the one guy tap his friend beside him on his thigh. He secretly whispers in his ear. The three of them murmur a few words to each other and then sneak out the back door.
I knew that they were off to do their thing. I get curious.
I nudged my friend Austen that was beside me on the couch,
“Hey man, can you hold my beer. Just going to take a quick piss.”
“For sure man” Austen replied.
Of course, I didn’t have to piss. I quickly snuck out front of the garage underneath the partially closed garage door.
I could make out the three boys off in the distance near the end of the gravel driveway. Just shadows with loud voices. I followed from a safe distance.
The boys turned right at the corner at the end of the drive, then paced quickly down the empty neighboorhood road. A few moments later, they cut across the street to another house.
They stopped for a second before they reached the driveway of that house. The one boy checked his phone to send a text. I assumed he was letting the person they were meeting that they had arrived.
A few moments later, he put his phone away. I watched as they walked together down the dirt driveway of that house.
Should I follow, I thought?
I was contemplating whether I should go any further. I could get in a lot of trouble if I did.
I chose to follow.
I’d heard about deals of this sort but never seen one in person. I decided that tonight was going to be the night.
As I crept along the fence line of the adjacent property on the other side of the laneway, I noticed an artificial light radiating from a shed in their backyard. Inside were the three boys, I recognized their voices. There was also mystery voice. Another man. He sounded pretty young and very well spoken.
I was listened carefully, doing my best to block out the noise of the party I just left just a few houses down the street.
“How much do you guys want?” asked the mystery voice.
“Can you do three pounds?” asked one of the boys.
I think it was Ethan. His nickname was Ferg. He was the twelfth grader the new girl had her eye.
“You guys are killing me!” exclaimed the mystery voice, “Fine, three pounds is $100.”
No one said anything for a few seconds. I assumed the boys accepted his offer and they were now exchanging cash.
“Thanks, boys. Have a fun night!” said the mystery voice.
“Thanks,” “You too man,” “Cheers bro,” said Ferg and his boys in synchrony.
Then they left. I heard the footsteps of the boys moving on the other side of the fence I was peeking in from just a few feet away.
“Man, this is going to be some good shit!” said one of the boys.
They all agreed.
“Want to have some now?” asked Ferg.
“Sure man,” “Yeah, why not?” the others replied.
They stopped walking right in front of me on the other side of the fence. I heard some rustling of some packaging. Then as a peered through the crack between the fence boards, I saw them do it.
They reached into the bag, each pulled out a chicken wing and ate it. It looked pretty good I thought. For a moment, I began to understand why people do it.
After they ate a few, they licked the delicious looking sauce off their fingers, and through the bones in a nearby bush and took off back towards the party.
I better get back too I thought. Austen will be wondering and likely be telling all the girls I’m shitting instead of taking a quick pee. I contemplated in my head what I had witnessed as I started back towards the party.
I’d never ate meat before. Since I was a little boy, I have been told never to try it.
I knew that my parents had tried it 20 years ago but then stopped after our Government implemented its “No Meat” rules and regulations.
Since then I’ve heard of people taking vacations to countries where they didn’t have these policies. Although they’d deny it, I knew they were travelling there so that they could try it too.
Five years ago, when I was in the seventh grade, our Government made it criminal to buy, distribute, or eat meat. If the police caught you, it meant you could do 20 plus years in our prison system.
In the back of my head, it didn’t seem fair. At the same time, I understood why my government and so many other international bodies made these policies.
A few years before I was born, the state of our planet was spiralling out of control, environmentally, politically, and sociologically. All of the issues we’re correlated I had learned. I had also learned that a considerable part of the problem was due to much of our world was dependant on meat for protein. As our population grew, the resource-intensive meat industry began to take a significant toll on our planet. Thus influential people abolished the meat industry for good. All that’s leftover is a black market.
At the same time as many Governments implementing their “No Meat” policies, a company called FitX became rich. They created a synthetic alternative to meat protein in vitamin form, and much of the world now gets their protein this way. I take one once a day.
A minute later, I arrived back at the party.
I snuck underneath the partially opened garage door and took a seat beside Austen on the couch. He passed me my warm beer.
“What took you so long dude? You take a shit or something?” Austen and my other buddy Josh on the other side chuckled.
“Nah man, I got sidetracked. I watched Ferg and them make a deal. It was pretty crazy.”
Austen replied,
“That’s sweet. I wish I saw that”.
“Yo!” Austen added, “Let’s go with them next time. I mean we should try it, everyone does at some point. You down?”
I shrugged my shoulders, finished my beer, and cracked another warm one from my backpack.
Become a writer for us…
Submit your stories here
