I was awestruck; this guy’s job consisted of throwing frozen cow hearts and blood into a grinding machine. For some reason this made me hate my job even more, it was disgusting! But then I remembered, it’s better than throwing these parts into the garbage; life is lost, we might as well use all of it. Interestingly, it wasn’t as bad as some of the things I’d seen in my life - power to the internet - bringing all of life’s experiences to you.

It’s a good thing I didn’t eat hot dogs; that’s where these entrails were going. Later I mentioned this experience to my new friends; they were just as apathetic. We went on - attaching marinated meat to millions of racks - menial and useless. To my generation idols I was a waste of skin and education.

I wanted to leave, the day was almost over. One more break and then the home stretch. As the horn gusted the entire factory headed to the change rooms. Changing quickly, I walked into the lobby.

All day I thought about quitting, wondering what I got out of this job. There was now only one benefit, that being I was in contact with the other summer students. I’d never talked to them before so I figured I’d use this as an opportunity to say something. Not saying too much, just the usual. ‘Hello, how are you doing?’ ‘What do you think of the job?’ You know small talk, the easy stuff.

Around the corner I could hear a loud lugging sound followed by mechanical shaking, then grinding. Curiously I took a look to see what was going on; what I saw would scar me for life. Standing there was a worker and a bunch of boxes; there was text but it was unreadable, it must have been the label from the slaughter house. The worker opened a box, then pulled out a plastic bag filled with frozen red liquid and solid white chunks.

He removed the bag and poured the frozen blood into the grinding machine; a cornucopia of red and white guts jumped up into the sky and then fell back into the grinder. The ground up stew was poured into a bin and rolled to the ‘meat’ mixer, where it would become part of a recipe. Interested in what I was seeing, I decided to get a little closer and figure out what was in the boxes.

The boxes were very vague and didn’t say much about their contents. There was a Canadian food producers stamp and the name of a farm; most likely a factory farm. Mmmm, my favourite. I decided to ask the worker about the blood and guts, but then realized I didn’t need to as I got a closer look. The white chunks were hearts, the white was actually fat surrounding the hearts, hum unhealthy cows, the red was blood, but I knew that part already.

writers strike

Heading to work, I thought I left at a good time; I was wrong and late. It was only 7:05 not too bad, but it was late, late enough to miss the tour. After ten minutes a new manager arrived, saying in a stubborn and displeased tone, “I’ll take you on a tour.”

After ten more minutes he came back and guided me to my work station in the factory, not new but different in the sense that I’d never seen it before. It was on the other side of the mysterious sliding doors I’d seen so often before.

My new job consisted of placing marinated meat onto racks for smoking; it would be beef jerky in the near future. The bucket was massive; it had its own wheels so it could easily be moved around. The manager demonstrated the job; with a large pitchfork, he stabbed into the bucket and scoped out a mess of meat onto the table.

The workers picked through, sorting out the pieces and placing them onto racks in an orderly fashion. That was it, my task for the day. I didn’t mind the work but found it exhaustingly boring; it wasn’t something I wanted to do for long or at all.

The next morning when there was a little light I decided to head downstairs to a real bed, with the darkness gone there wasn’t anything to be scared of. I was reawakened by the sound of my cell phone buzzing; I was surprised, I didn’t think I’d left it on. Opening the bag and reaching around I found my phone but was too late; it had stopped ringing but there was a message waiting. The message was from dad, he said “Sandy your mother just called, the Meat Factory needs you to work tomorrow. I’ll be there to pick you up in the afternoon.”

This pissed me off; my great vacation was quickly coming to an abrupt end, but there was nothing I could do. Not having much time, I figured I’d make the most of my situation, so I headed to the garage and found a bike; after confirming it was functional I went for a ride. Along the way I noticed the numbers on the road were nearing 300. Reaching 333 I looked toward the house; there was a massive pit taking up almost all of the lot. Around the pit workers watched in awe as something happened inside; I got a flash of imagination and figured something bad was going on. Maybe the hole was for hiding bodies.

When I got back to the house I decided to take the dog for a walk, ironically after 20 minutes she stopped and wouldn’t move for anything. I was worried, was there something wrong with her? She was out of shape, but this had only been a short walk and I wanted to walk more. After a little pushing she got up and we walked back to the cottage; I couldn’t handle another rest of hers.

I packed my bag, including the strange movie, and sat down to read until dad showed up. On his arrival, I threw my bag into the back seat and the dog and I jumped in. We headed home and around 6:00 pulled into the driveway. I was pissed; I sure as hell didn’t want to go back to the meat factory, especially in the morning. I hate mornings.

It was Sunday and everyone except me had work on Monday; my dad needed to come back on Tuesday to do some chores so I had the opportunity to stay until then. Thinking about it, I decided to stay. It would be an interesting experience as I would be free. After everyone had left the sun was still in the sky and there were no clouds; I decided to smoke a joint. After rolling it on the kitchen table, I walked to the water and sat in one of the wicker chairs.

Watching the sun set, I lit my joint and smoked it; it slowly burnt away and the smoke rolled across the water. Smoking during the day in the warm sun is a million times better than waiting till the coast is clear at midnight.

That night, I felt free and enjoyed the idea of not having to go back to work, hoping it would last a little while longer. Eating some dinner I sat on the couch reading a book about The Enlightened Path and thought about the path I was walking. As the night rolled in and it got dark I started to get scared, not of anything but the idea of isolation and darkness, what if something happened? I was all by myself.

I stayed on the couch and tried to sleep with some success; I was too scared to go downstairs and sleep in my usual bed, as I heard scratching at one of the doors. I wasn’t usually scared of the dark but the unknown made things much worse, even thought I knew there was no reason to worry.