His world is under observation
We monitor his station
Under faces and the places
Where he traces points of view
3:45 A.M. March 13
I am awakened from my restless slumber by the sounds of terrified screaming, blood-curdling, spine-chilling cries of horror. I turn my head towards the window, groggy and in a dreamy space, tuning into the sounds of death not far from my house.
And then I realize – it´s a pig being slaughtered. As the villager drives his knife through the pig´s heart, it bellows out in horrific protest, obviously waking up the entire village.
Slowly the moans of death subside and I settle back into a fitful sleep, interrupted 5 times that night by the sounds of rats scampering on the rafters.
12:50 P.M. March 13
I am standing at a large table in a classroom full of politicians, school teachers, the village queen, and local leaders. It is a day of celebration for the inauguration of a new classroom just built.
There are no chairs available so we are all standing around the table, which is used for lab experiments by the high school. In front of me is a plate full of huge slaps of pork, a high pile of white rice, huge kernels of corn (“mote”), steaming yucca and an itsy-bitsy portion of tomato and onion.
Everybody ravenously digs into their pork. The entire table is silent as the villagers inhale the slabs of freshly slain flesh. I unceremoniously push all my pork to one side and devour the carbs instead. Then I rush home and down a liter of free-range, organic milk to make up for my loss of protein.
March 16. 1:15 A.M. The sounds of rats running along the rafters wakes me.
2:23 A.M. The rats are chewing the rafters. I hear their teeth gnawing at the wood.
4:29 A.M. The rats scamper happily all over the place, pissing me off.
March 16. 2:00 P.M. I make the fateful decision I have been agonizing over for the last 4 weeks (As a former card-carrying member of PETA and Farm Sanctuary, should I kill the rats or not?). Consulting with the storekeeper, I purchase “Campeon” rat poison, mix it with cornmeal, and hire a local child to place the mix in the rafters.
March 20. 10:30 A.M. I hire a local child to climb into the rafters and retrieve two rat cadavers. I take the bodies to the riverbanks, douse them with gasoline and incinerate them, wishing them a peaceful afterlife.
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