25 February, 2012

Something Else I Cannot Eat


Today I arrived at the conclusion that I can no longer stomach the prison's Salisbury steak. The sight of it — a brownish, oblong, near-gelatinous slab — draping in a lewd curve over the tray's dome of rehydrated potato flake was enough to make me think twice about allowing it anywhere near my mouth. It wasn't even trying to resemble meat, just something meatlike. Only in some parallel nightmare reality, where fourth generation vegans held uncontested control over the world's food supply, might someone look at these patties and suspect they were made of things once living. The only birth they appear to have undergone was through the machine tube that extruded them as uniform ovals onto the chain conveyor whose perfect pattern of equidistant dimples offer the steaks' sole textural element.

Well, okay, if you want to quibble, these steaks do have plenty of bone fragments. One only encounters those, however, if one is inclined to chew. It's generally accepted wisdom that the less time a patty spends in your mouth, the better. For this reason, I contend that few ever actually notice those grains of shattered skeleton. I certainly won't anymore; the next time Salisbury steak appears on the menu, I'm requesting a vegetarian meal. It's hard to mess up beans... mostly.

2 comments:

  1. Sandy Skrinjaric28 February, 2012 14:44

    I just learned of your case from a friend who I met through our involvement with the West Memphis Three. I am just one small person but I have asked my friends to read your story and consider getting involved in whatever way possible. You're a wonderful writer. I look forward to hearing more from you and hope that someday soon, we will all be able to read your thoughts as a freed man.

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  2. LOVED this. Very funny! Good decision to choose beans =)

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Byron does not have Internet access. Pariahblog.com posts are sent from his cell by way of a secure service especially for prisoners' use. We do read him your comments, however, and he enjoys hearing your thoughts very much.