Cleaning up the Foal in a Can Factory
Harry was a cleaner by trade. A professional and efficient one.
He received a message from the boss, “Foal In A Can factory has closed down: dispose of products, bio-hazard warning.”
Harry has two young assistants who helped with the dirty work. It was 10:00am in the morning when they clocked into the job. The first room was where they kept the canned foals, awaiting delivery. One of the assistants was assigned to take care of this. The assistant popped open each can, dropped the squeaking foal onto the cold, concrete floor and stomped it to death with his steel capped boot. The can was then thrown into a large bin for recycling. Sensing the assistant moving into a rhythm of pop, stomp, throw, Harry moved onto the next area with his other assistant.
As they entered the sorting room, they were greeted with the sound of a thousand chirping foals and the putrid smell of excrement. Trays of multicolored foals were stacked next to the workstations where the sorting staff were working just a few days ago. Donning gloves and mask, the second assistant scooped up the foals and threw them into a large plastic bag. The foals would squirm and attempt escape, some falling out of the trays and breaking necks and limbs.
When a bag was full, it was tied off, placed onto the floor and the assistant started smashing the bag from one end to the other using a metal baseball bat. With each strike, the distressed chirping got quieter and quieter. It was not possible to completely silence the entire bag from the batting, but the assistant knew that suffocation will take care of the rest. Harry surveyed the trays and estimated a good two hours to get through them all. He nodded to the assistant and moved onto the next area.
The breeding area, Harry knew this would be the most challenging…Pushing through a set of stainless steel traffic doors, he entered a large area completely filled with breeding pods. It was eerily silent in there. As he surveyed the area, he noticed that most of the breeding mares were still alive. Their tongues must have been cut out, Harry thought to himself. Making his way between the pods, the mares would look up expectantly at him, their eyes and cheeks wet with the endless tears caused by their suffering. Harry’s swallowed a lump in his throat. Foals were one thing, sure they were young, innocent, but they were barely sentient after all, they knew nothing so they suffered nothing. These mares, legs amputated, forced to give birth over and over again. It felt like the right thing to do to end their miserable lives. Starting at one corner of the room, he detached the feed and waste pipes on both ends of the mare. It was difficult to remove as it had scored into the flesh of the breeder. For some mares Harry had to dislocate the jaw or open up the flesh using a utility knife to dislodge the piping. Freed from its bondage, the mare’s short lived freedom was violently interrupted with the knife slitting its jugular.
One by one Harry liberated the pitiful, sobbing breeders, throwing each twitching body into a large, green trash cart. Onto his hundredth or so mare, about halfway through the room, his phone beeped with a new message from his boss. “Feral herd invades the White House, get there now! 20k bonus if cleaned by end of day!”. Harry yelled for his assistants to hurry up. Starting from the next mare he cleaned up, he roughly pulled all the pipings out. He took one last look at the yellow breeding mare that now wriggled weakly at his hands, the misery and defeat in its face made him frown slightly. Breeding sector 5, pod 27, breeder number 1, Harry saw engraved on the spot he had pulled the breeder from. Carelessly he threw the yellow mare into the trash along with the throat slit fluffies. Without care or taking time to bleed out each mare, Harry tore through the clean up of the breeding area. He took a few photos for the cleanup report, gathered his tools and assistants back into the truck and drove off towards the White House. He even had fifteen minutes to spare for a coffee and donut.
