Meat eating is a blood sacrifice. To eat meat, one must be willing to kill the animal. Note the ‘one’ to soothe my guilt as I hesitate to pull the head off this downed dove.

All animals hunt, herbivores for tender leaves – carnivores for tender limbs. This bird hunts… my rationalisation is pathetic. By what right does my hand tighten now? The same fingers pulled the trigger.

As the stricken bird blinks at me I sever my conscious sympathy from my god-like hand, and justify my mercy killing on this bloody altar.

That severance of thought… our thought. One’s thought.