SUBMITTED BY Aisha Zubair

A Butcher’s Daughter

When a chicken is butchered its body still moves.
When a lamb is slaughtered it screams first.
Cows have the most dignity and go in silence to the knife.
Men, however, beg and plead.
They should be more like cows.

My father now no longer does the slaughtering since we left our country, his careful hands harvest, gut, slice, and cut up the meat that he serves to unhappy rude customers. “I can’t understand you.” A red man barks when asked how he wants his beef cut. “Can you speak up!” A yellow-haired woman on the phone shouts. “Do you have someone that speaks English?” A preppy boy reading a half-hearted written order, probably by his mother, says. He’s wearing my school uniform.

But my father does speak English, I think he speaks it best out of all of us. My mother and I were taught by him so that we’d do well at the immigration office, he filled out all our papers in English, and he even used a lot of hard words. Words that had to be stretched and sliced, not carefully like a butcher, but sloppy like a dog. But what angers me, is even if he couldn’t speak English he knew 5 other languages, he knew how to skin and cut meat in minutes, he knew exactly how to slaughter an animal so that it didn’t feel pain, and taught me. Who cares if he can’t speak your stupid English?

However, at the boy’s request, the assistant my father hired at the shop comes out from the back and talks to the boy. I will admit his English was a lot better, but I won’t admit that he was good with a knife, maybe even better than me. Which bothers me as he was only a bit older. He hears the boy and then speaks in our language back to my father, who then prepares the meat as requested.

I begged to help at my father’s butchery as I did at home, instead, he sent me to the pretentious school with this slutty uniform. At least that’s how I’m told it looks on me. The girls were nice at first, they complimented my long dark hair and asked how I got so tan not realizing that this is the skin I was born in. Then they saw how the boys wanted my attention, thus diverting it from them. They got upset that the spotted face boy asked for my number, he was supposedly with the green-eyed girl. Then they cut my hair when a flaming-headed boy pulled it so I’d stop ignoring him. I didn’t know what to do. So I imagined them all as animals. When a girl would ask about my skin, no longer a complaint but comparing it to diarrhea, I’d imagine her being skinned to get the fat off, no one wants fatty meat. I imagine their bodies being held up by the hooks so that they were ready to have their best parts cut up and sold. But there were no good parts. Why, our dear customers would have salmonella poisoning, or worse mad cow disease. So then I have to get my knife and cut up their rotten bodies to be burned.

Rotten meat, rotten meat, that’s all they are, rotten meat. It needs to be cut up and burned.

Though, a more troublesome issue had started. A group of boys are tired of my rejections and have started to follow me home every day. I run but they are on bikes. I try to leave school as fast as I can, but they often skip the last period anyway and are waiting for me.

“Go away, leave me alone!” I say running. They laugh and say they can’t understand me. It makes no sense if I spoke it in English. They mock my accent as they chase me, sometimes they get close enough to pull on my jumper. I run faster till I get home.

Although there are four of them I know the one whose idea it is, I know that it is him who executes and makes sure it happens, if he were to leave me alone the rest would too. He sees me now at my father’s shop doing my homework besides the electric blade. He smirks at me and with his ugly leering blue eyes he winks. It sends a shiver down my spine. I look at the meat grinder beside me and can hear the way his bones would crunch and skin would mush if he was thrown into it. I have an idea. The boy leaves with his meat.

“Are you okay?” My father’s assistant is leaning against the display sharpening an already sharp knife. Did he notice that interaction? I nod my head, he puts the knife down to attend to another customer. I take the knife and go upstairs to my house.
The next day makes a month since the boys started following me home. My mother has started to notice how fast and disheveled I am when I get back. She can’t find out, mostly because she is my mother, and she knows too well about the pains of being a daughter. Her knees bloody from the prayers for my safety. She can’t know, especially not after today. As always I run out of the fourth period and they’re behind me, I just have to get to the river field.
“Why are you running girl!” One yells
“I wonder if she’s kosher!” The preppy blue-eyed one howls as they all start laughing, squealing, like pigs. I feel him pull my hair as I come to a stop.
“Wait,” I say and their bikes screech to a halt. They all seem confused. My heart is in my throat. I point at the blue-eyed boy.
“I want us to be alone.” The boys squeal even louder at this, he does too, and right before my eyes, as they laugh and squeal they transfigure into pigs. It was weird how my pleas to be left alone got lost in translation earlier but now to the boys, no, the pigs I was the most fluent and eloquent English speaker that ever lived. I looked at this blue-eyed pig. It noted that I was serious.
“Everyone leaves.” It spoke.
“But Mark you can’t be-”
“Go away!” He demanded of his friends. So off they went and we were alone. This boy who once seemed like a wolf was now just a pig.
“I knew… you wanted this.” It oinked as it put its arms around me.
“I said leave me alone.” I reached into the back of my skirt where its hooves were and pulled out the knife, plunging it into him. It squealed and begged as I started to harvest it. Making sure I applied every skill I’ve ever learned. This would definitely beat my father’s assistants’ clean work, I silently thanked him for the knife. The pig’s pleas didn’t end. I kept going and mumbled,
“Sorry, I don’t speak English”.