I scurry from the cage as soon as it is opened, but they grab me before I get too far. My hooves are reduced to useless stumps as they grab me, string me up, ignoring my pleas. They don’t speak my language anyway; never have. My parents used to tell us stories about people like this and here I am now, following in their footsteps. To be slaughtered. They mock me, laughing. I am nothing more than an animal to them, food for them. Which is unfair, because they are not my food, and I cannot speak.

They drag me down the assembly line. I see others of my kind here, in this warehouse, all moaning for comfort, to be released. They will meet their death here just as I will. And I will resurface, with them, in a supermarket somewhere, neatly packaged as if I was not once living. My scurrying meant nothing to them.

The slaughterhouse is a murder machine for the perfect murder.