It’s Never a Good Sign When the Walls are Solid Metal

By Hay, Guest Contributor

I saw the cutest store in the Bronx, NY. Or so I thought. The front was painted with happy goats, rabbits, and chickens. Whoever painted this mural made their eyes smiling. What are all these animals happy and smiling eyes about in the Bronx?

I looked a little deeper – it was hot and the front was open. It almost seemed like a garage door that would come down and lock when they closed. The inside was all metal… metal floor, metal ceiling, metal walls. What kind of happy, metal-walled animal kingdom was this?

Then I heard it – a lot of commotion and noise, behind the walls. It sounded like terror and despair. It sounded like cries for help, feet scratching, hooves stomping. It sounded like fighting for their lives. I had NO IDEA what could be going on and I couldn’t see through the solid metal walls – I looked all the way up to the sky, past the painted happy smiling eyes, and there was the sign in big letters: LIVE MARKET.

Understatement – I was severely surprised and shocked this was just out in the open, perfectly accepted, everyone thinking this is perfectly normal. To me, it doesn’t even seem like it should be legal.

My mother told me a story then about when she was little. Her uncle took her to a live market. She was horrified and even still remembers it all. She wanted to buy something alive and set it free. She thought maybe she could afford just one pigeon. Reached into her pocket and found about twelve cents. She was like four years old. She held up the twelve cents and asked if she could please buy just one pigeon, and could he give it to her alive so she could set it free. The guy said no! Nice guy…

We talked a little in the car, about how sad it is we couldn’t really do anything at that moment. What would we do? Buy a goat and stick it in the back seat with me? (Although it would have been nice if she tried to buy and set free a pigeon.) At that moment, we just drove away. Very, very sad. Those sounds are still haunting me, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget them. I am going to tell this story to my daughter in the car one day, about the gruesome live market. But hopefully it will be because I am talking about a practice from long, long ago… and not because we are passing one in the car.

Photo credit: Hay