Big Macs and Small Mouths

I had no idea what to expect. I had seen plenty of footage online, but this was the kind of thing you had to attend to really come to terms with it. I don’t remember doing anything else that day, I must have slept in on purpose. The train ride out there was half an hour, so I gave myself another thirty minutes to cover the walking distance. It was July, and 30℃, so I barely threw on a tank top and shorts. Bare skin central. Tossed in my tote bag were my phone, wallet, keys, and book. The organizers suggested we bring as many liters of water as possible but since this was my first time, I swung by the corner store next to the metro stop and bought two 50ml bottles. I read the entire ride there, trying to forget where I was going. I almost missed my stop. When I did get off, I found myself standing in front of the faregate, which kept regurgitating my metro card back at me. I figured I had three options. Turn around, cross the train tracks, and head back home. Jump over the turnstile and make a run for it. Or do the civil thing and ask for help. So I walked over to the information booth and followed a cranky old security guard jangling her keys and swearing under her breath.

I followed the street signs that pointed me towards what on weekends served as the grounds for the farmer’s market. The closer I got, though, the more I began leaning on my sense of smell to get me there. Pungent does not begin to describe the fumes that permeated every last corner of that neighborhood, and which would linger on my clothes as I lay in bed that night, crying myself to sleep. It was familiar in the way you can still recognize your aunt’s perfume on somebody else, but utterly unrecognizable in its suffocating presence - its inescapable, claustrophobic nature. People tell me all the time, food is memory. But don’t we remember a dish by its smell? Isn’t smelling the closest we’ll ever come to teleportation? Most days I wish that weren’t the case.

As soon as I got there I wanted to leave. Hell, I wanted to leave as soon as I stepped out the front door. But people were already gathered around and I felt inclined to meet them. Some of them wore masks, others gloves, but for the most part people didn’t seem to care. They warned us that if we stood too close for too long we ran the risk of getting sick; one of the organizers had been hospitalized for food poisoning earlier that month. What had I gotten myself into?

Once I exchanged some names and shook some hands, I joined everyone in turning our attention to the double-decker truck that stood before us. Even though it was still broad daylight, it was pitch black inside the truck. I could taste the musty air well before I was able to focus on anything. It is true what they say, some things you can never unsee. Once you lock eyes with the terror-stricken gaze of someone who knows their death is imminent, you might as well have watched them die. 

This was a truck full of females. No one knew how long they’d been in there, under the scorching summer Sun. They had run through all the water within minutes, and I, with selfish embarrassment, kept my two modest bottles to myself. One of them on the lower deck was collapsed and hyperventilating, the others stepping all over her in a dazed shock, splashing urine, blood, and feces all over each other. I gave my stomach some time to settle itself before reaching in between two of the bars and scratching 4465’s snout. She licked my hand and nuzzled my palm. 

None of us could see, much less reach, those above. Every now and again they’d start stamping and screaming for help and I have never in my entire life felt as small and insignificant as in that very moment. I regretted never having learned to pick a lock, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. They wouldn’t have made it half a mile before getting run over, or shot, or stabbed to death. It was there and then that I realized their very existence is manufactured; their freedom an illusion. They are hostage to our ideals.

But so are we.

Some time around 11pm my body found itself seated on the train back home, staring at its own reflection on the window, caked in dirt and cow kisses.