(Osaka, November 2018)
Dad, said Sola, my eight-year-old daughter.
Yes, Sola?
Please don’t tell me how they suffer. It makes me feel bad.
She said these words in front of the building where the «Small Animals Café» has its second branch in town. The other one, which we have fortunately not visited yet, is themed around arachnids and reptiles.
I quickly forgot her phrase and spent the next two hours seeing Sola & Luno walk the narrow halls of the 5th floor cramped and acrid-smelling café, picking “small” animals out from plastic and metal cages.
My two daughters, ages 8 and 6, who live in a large city made mostly of metal, glass people and concrete, lots and lots of people and lots and lots of concrete, love this kind of places. We have been together to zoos, farms, aquariums and animal parks. They love to see, touch, hold and interact with animals big and small, and this time wasn’t the exception.
The café, a small animal prison where drinks & food are served, offers the patrons the possibility of enjoying a Strawberry milkshake and a meatball sandwich while watching, holding and playing with one or a couple of small mammals on their specially-designed wooden table.
Inside the cages one can find guinea pigs, porcupines, weasels, chinchillas, prairie dogs, rats (yes,white, grey and black rats), hamsters, rabbits, meerkats, mice, squirrels and two colorful birds. All of the small animals, many of them just months-old babies, look sad, stressed, tired and lethargic.
Richard is a 6-months-old miniature prairie dog. The little guy broke my heart from the moment I saw the evident signs of his sorrow and distress. The first time we visited the place, Richard incessantly bit the metallic bars of his cage. While the rabbits and guinea pigs stared quietly at the excited patrons as they carried them and played with them, Richard seemed impulsive and aggressive, so no one chose him. The second time we went there the scene remained unchanged. I fantasized for a while after our first encounter about buying Richard (400 USD + the price of the cage), taking a cab and then a train and setting him free in the nearest mountain or forest. This time, our third in the past months, his behavioral pattern had changed. He kept climbing the back wall of the small enclosure, walking on the roof, dropping from it to the mesh floor and repeating the same motion over and over again.
While my daughters played with a Guinea pig and an Angora rabbit, I asked one of the clerks, a young girl with a tongue piercing and a head of indigo-colored hair, to let Richard be on our table. Luno, Sola and I build a tunnel with plastic and wood toys and asked the blue-headed girl to lend us a running wheel.
Richard seemed notoriously excited. He explored the bright blue tunnel and ran on the wheel several times. He stood in his hind legs, looked around the room, ate some grass, ate some dried fruit, allowed us to caress his back, sniffed our hands and fingers and tried getting into my backpack.
I want to believe that he was somewhat “happy” during those 40 minutes. Hours later, I am still thinking and writing about little Richard.
About him and about Sola’s phrase.
“Please, don’t tell me”. These four words came as a revelation. Sola knew in her heart of hearts that the caught, imported and imprisoned animals suffered, but she wished to momentarily forget or block that knowledge in order to be able to enjoy the moment.
Which made me think about Luno’s reply each time I explain her during our meals together that bacon is made of the skin and meat of dead pigs and nuggets are panned chunks of dead birds; “to leave it on my plate is a sign of disrespect to the people who cooked it”, she says, something she most likely heard from her mother or grandmother.
This same week, when I asked my colleague JCS if he didn’t feel bad eating animals he simply said; “I don’t even think about it, for me, humans must eat meat to survive, like do the lions in the wild”.
My friend DS, when discussing the subject over some wine and pizza said; «damn, I know its wrong, but I just love my steak»
Please don’t tell me. It’s a sign of disrespect. I don’t even think about it. I just love my steak.
And I, who proclaim to be a vegetarian and caring for our animal brothers, take my daughters to this kind of places because I want them to smile and be happy, blocking for a while the unquestionable suffering in front of my eyes, eat fish in rare occasions to avoid offending the colleague or customer sitting in front of me at the table, don’t even think about the dead animal when I go to buy shoes or belts or gloves for my working clothes, leather being the prevalent option, and eat unpasteurized cheese from time to time because, well, like DS would say, I just love my wine with cheese.
We all seem to have our reasons, malleable arguments that feel and sound intrinsically valid to our own conscience, to enslave, harm, torture, exploit, kill, eat and even drive to extinction other species.
It’s past midnight now. I hope that little Richard is doing fine.
