Now I am far more inclined to use that blade to exact Daisy’s revenge. So why the change? It is simple. I visited an abattoir.

I recently went to the house of death (that’s what I am calling it now despite the unpopularity at dinner parties) to become informed. I wanted to answer the chic, but essential modern questions, where does my food come from? And more importantly, how did it get there?

We all know the first bit. The animal is birthed through the regular mammalian process, it lives, it eats, it is killed and we buy it in neatly packaged anthropocentric convenience.

It is the grim details of the how, the process of slaughter that will take the cow’s severed hoof and beat your ignorant bliss into awakened activism.

Hundreds of crowded cattle are fed in excess to quickly fatten them up so more can replace them, constantly driving up abattoir’s profit margins and satiating our carnivorous desires.

Mass production is inconvenient when you show off your new vintage coffee table and one of your guests says “Wow, I love that, bought one a few weeks ago.”

It is a bleak reflection of human excess when the items of production are feeling and breathing animals with personalities.

Abattoirs will tell you that mechanisms are in place to ensure the animal experiences minimal suffering. The way the abattoir is designed means the cattle can’t see what is going on in front of them and won’t get stressed. These are convenient utterances used to sooth the animal lover’s distress.

Cattle are bunched together along an S-shape path to death. They undoubtedly become aware of their imminent demise. Daisy who is in the front enters a tiny box restricting all her movement. It’s at this point that Daisy’s kinsfolk start frantically trying to backpedal. They’ve seen and smelt it. They know it is coming. And they are thinking for the loathing of beef stroganoff how do we escape?

The stun-gun shoots Daisy into unconsciousness. The loud thud of her body will crush the brazen carnivore out of you. While still alive, but stunned, Daisy’s ankle is shackled with a crude chain. She is then hoisted onto the production line. Her throat is slit shedding 16 litres of blood from her still warm, maimed and undignified body.

A small blade whittles away her skin. Before the process is completed patches of brown hang loosely from her fleshy mass. Her tail limply sways with the changing motion of the knife.

The saw’s electric shrill sounds Daisy’s last moment of being if not alive, at least whole. Metal teeth hungrily feast along a straight line splitting her in two. She is neatly packaged and ready for your bloodied pleasure.

If it sounds violent, inhumane and reprehensible, it is because the way winged and hooved animals are kept and slaughtered is exactly that.

Consider the person who jumps out of airplanes weeping with self-righteousness that they are saving the rhinos. Another kisses his little pups and kittens as if they were one of the family. They both sit down and talk about how wonderful animals are while they commit a treacherous unintended irony. Mmm Daisy tastes good.

Originally appeared in The Witness.

Getting the back of your car smashed by an unlicensed and uninsured driver hardly seems a likely source of hope for humanity, but strange things happen.

A little while back I was heading for a romantic lunch with my betty, yes betty, on the Midlands Meander. I stopped at a yield sign to let someone through. Suddenly we felt our necks snap back in unison before the sound of screeching tires registered.

My shaking hands reached for the door to climb out and question what the hell just happened. A very apologetic man in his early 30s said he was really sorry, he was to blame and we will sort this mess out.

Being a permissibly untrusting man in this situation I would not let him leave until the police had arrived.

Two guys, the peeps I yielded for, stayed until the police came because they, like the rest of us have learnt trust usually results in pain or money loss.

The police came, after a long wait, and added little value to the scene. I had to direct them to check the crasher’s license, which he did not have and show them the crumpled and expired license disc on crasher’s car.

The po-po put him in the back of the van, which I feel really bad for now, and we all went to the station.

The contextual ramble is now finished and the grand optimism in people can begin.

This man, the crasher, phoned several times to check on my stiff-necked woman and what we should do to sort out the car.

He is a teacher in a rural school in Kwa-Zulu Natal, is getting married soon and plans to have a child only a few years after marriage to spend more time with his wife, whom he deeply loves.

After numerous phone calls he sent good news. His bank loan of R13 000, the damage was  severe, was approved and he could pay the panel beaters.

I have third party insurance, he has none. But he as he had promised sorted everything out.

The real pain from all of this was my guilt at showing such distrust for people. We are entitled to be so defensive and suspicious, given daily news reports and stories from family and friends.

But it just so happens that every once and a while, people respond to situations how you believe, and hope you would.