So we are working in the darkened shop, illuminated by our lanterns, waiting in the cold for the boys to start arriving to collect their rounds. Outside a lorry passes and we hear a familiar yet unfamiliar noise. It is a guttural noise, borne out of fear and pain and suffering as if the creature was aware of its impending fate.
“What was that?” asked the Missus
“That’s cattle going off to slaughter,” I reply and we both grimace in the darkness.
Later, at our temporary accommodation, we have been wondering what this continual popping sound is. I’ve heard the noise before and it sounds like a car back-firing. Initially my mother thought there might be a firing range nearby but then the origin of the sound is made all too apparent by that familiar scream we’ve heard earlier.
The popping sound is a bolt-gun and the scream is the cattle lined up at the slaughterhouse on the horizon, waiting to be dispatched. As I am writing this, I can still hear the screams.
I feel like Iggle Piggle, but this time it is a nightmare within a nightmare…

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