I don’t want to kill. I stopped eating most meat over 14 years ago because I didn’t want to kill animals, and I thought that if I weren’t willing to kill a critter, I shouldn’t eat it. I do occasionally eat fish; I have gone fishing and thus know that I have been willing to kill what I consume. Still, it’s been a very long time since I’ve gone fishing, and I wonder if I’d still be willing to whack the head off a perch. In fact, I’m pretty sure that my fish-killing credit has long since been exhausted, and that if I were really honest, I probably wouldn’t kill a fish today. The conclusion, of course, is that I should stop eating fish. But I haven’t.
And I don’t want to kill what I wouldn’t eat, either. Here, I’m talkin’ about bugs. A couple of weeks ago I had a couple of flies in my room, and I tried to shoo them away rather than actively attempting to flatten them. My benevolence has been rewarded with more flies, and a more constant irritation with them. Now, when I’m outside, I figure it’s everyone’s and everything’s territory: I don’t stomp on ants because, hey, we all gotta live somewhere. Inside, however, I am murderous. I celebrated the visit by the monthly exterminator (gel, no sprays) at my last apartment because it meant I could look forward to another month of roach-free living. I kill ants, potato bugs, and those horrific hairy multi-pedal monstrosities which skitter out of unseen cracks in the floorboards. I don’t kill spiders because I consider them allies in my anti-insect quest. I don’t look for the bugs, and many times I’ll try to ignore them. But when pushed, I squash ’em.
I don’t want to kill. But I do.
AbsurdBeats 