Happy New Year everyone! We were celebrating last night and I was obliged to finish this morning instead, so this missive greets you a bit later than usual. I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Years Eve. Our first with Jack was an amazing blessing, he and I co-held a roman candle (his first!), and we were all in bed before midnight.
Please enjoy my 52nd story. Still feels to me like I’m just getting started, and I hope you’ll keep reading into 2023!
Just Like the Real Thing
“So what does it have to do with New Year’s Eve?”
“That’s just the tradition. He’ll explain it.”
“Shouldn’t there be some kind of story about why New Year’s Eve?”
“Why do we hide eggs at Easter? Exactly, we just do. Don’t overthink it.”
“Yeah but we don’t eat them, and the ones my family used were plastic. This is actual… flesh.”
“Don’t talk like that in front of my grandpa, he’s very—“
“God, obviously!”
They were technically in separate cabs heading towards each other, since they were meeting at Stacey’s grandpa’s house, which was between their respective apartments. However, they both had gotten new implants for Christmas, and with the augmentation turned on each could see the other sitting right there beside them, as if they were in the same cab. It didn’t take much getting used to because the effect was so seamless and not at all puke-inducing like some of the earlier models.
The only time either of them was reminded that they were actually in separate cars was if one or the other driver swerved unexpectedly or braked quickly to stop short at a light, and since both cabs were driverless and connected to the street-net—and thus able to read the light timing and anticipate flow of traffic—neither of those things happened often at all. For all ordinary moments, there was no difference between this and actually sharing a cab.
“So what does it taste like?”
“Exactly the same. The lab-grown stuff they make now is based on it, you literally can’t tell the difference, it’s just cheaper, that’s how they got people to switch.”
“So then what’s the point, if it’s exactly the same?”
“My grandpa’ll explain, he gives like a speech before.”
“But you’ve heard him give the speech before right, if he gives it every year, so why can’t you just explain it to me?”
“Look I told you, you don’t have to come, but if you come you have to do it. It’s not too late—“
“No, I want to meet your family! I’ll come. Just— they’re not gonna kill it right there in front of us, are they?”
“No, it’s a giant cow, they kill it and divide it up between like a bunch of families, we don’t eat the whole thing.”
“What… part do we eat?”
“It’s called ‘butchering’ by the way.”
“Why does that sound so much worse than ‘kill’?”
“You don’t have to come!”
“I’m literally on my way! I’m okay, I’m okay”
Stacey laughed and reached out to slap her shoulder before remembering they weren’t in the same cab and withdrawing her hand. The effect was so real it was hard to remember they weren’t. Instead she rolled her eyes in the special way she did, a quick darting upward with a smirk turning up the corners of her mouth at exactly the same moment. Freya found it irresistible, as she found most things about Stacey irresistible even after eleven months of dating.
The truth was, Freya was not okay. She was, inside, somewhere between ‘freaked out’ and ‘literally nauseous’ She was just a squeamish person in general. She liked Stacy so much she had panic attacks about it, but still it had been hard to reconcile herself to the idea of going down on her. Even making out could feel overly intense, not just the sensations but the *idea* of it, that you were putting some part of someone in your mouth, on purpose.
So part of Freya wanted to just pretend that it wasn’t going to be actual flesh at all. If it wasn’t any different then it didn’t really matter. But if her grandpa was going to give some sort of speech beforehand and like really hammer home that it was a dead animal, then that was going to make pretending way harder. So she was freaked out.
“I wish we were in the same cab. I want to touch you and reassure you.”
“We’ll be in the same place soon.”
“Yeah yeah, I know, you don’t care. You’d do implant-only contact if I wasn’t so needy.”
“That’s not true, I like holding hands.”
“Do you even?”
“Okay, sometimes I like holding hands. But I do hold hands, and even make out occasionally, so you can never question I love you.”
“I notice you didn’t mention other things you do with your mouth!”
“You’re not allowed to bring that up until I’ve had at least three wine coolers.”
“I’ve got a six-pack with me, don’t worry, I’ll have one cracked when I see you.”
“So what exactly are we eating? Is it like a hamburger, or Bolognese or something?”
“Steak.”
“Wow, okay, so just like a slab—“
“The idea is that you’re not hiding it, it’s a ritual, so it only gives the full idea if it’s—“
“I read that this is like a political thing for weirdos, like people do it to prove their manliness. Your grandpa’s not like a weirdo is he? Is his speech gonna be—”
“Okay I’m honestly getting mad now. On the way to the man’s house you ask me if he’s a—“
“I’m sorry! I’m just nervous.”
Stacey had been wearing a purple wig when they first met, at a virtual meet-up for Pokemon Zeta fans. It had cracked Freya up how her fake hair had covered up hair that was also fake, at least in the sense that it was dyed. Costumes on costumes on costumes. Freya’s own dirty brown locks were arrow straight, cut shortish and never changed even in online spaces where it was a button-click away. When Freya made Avatars for games, she always made it look like herself, while Stacey always made hers the wildest combination of things she could come up with.
They—or at least she and Stacey’s avatar as seen through her implant—were passing into a gated community, one of the richest in the city. All the gates were automatic, just a red light outside that went green as the gate scanned her implant and matched her to the pre approved list. The gate slid down into the road silently and she glided on. The transition from the normal city she was used to, with its dirty greys and loud noises and lack of greenery, into this lush and manicured landscape, jolted her.
The same feeling of nonspecific revulsion came over her that she often felt when she tried to go to a club or bar. It was an overwhelm brought on by the unreality of everything. The totally controlled environment, the meticulous outfits, the studied looks passing between groups of friends, seeking status-raising connections with attractive outgroup members. Here it was the perfection of angles between pavement and rockery and grass, the spotless siding and endless rows of plumb and straight windows, the firehose of money that kept all possible entropy at bay. But her reaction was the same.
Then she remembered that eating animal flesh was actually the ‘real’ thing if anything was, and the stuff she was used to was artificial. The vat-grown ‘meat’ she was used to was the manicured lawns and the perfect windows. Until less than a hundred years ago, nobody had worried about animal suffering or carbon emissions or antibiotic resistance. They were hungry and they liked the taste and that was that.
Was it just her preference then, and was she refusing to take responsibility for that? She loved to walk alone through the city at night, but were the concrete ribbons and mixing storefront glows really any different than some dingy lesbian bar, to say nothing of the online meet ups that were her actual chosen social milieu. Was she about to go do something barbaric, or was this the most real moment of her life, and everything else was just some navel-gazing experiment in self—
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“That’s how you answer when you’re not okay.”
“That’s passive-aggressive.”
“When you’re actually okay you explain what’s really going on and why you got that staring-deep-inside-your-own-soul look in your eyes. When you just announce you’re okay, you’re definitely not okay.”
“If I get there and I just literally can’t do it, how mad are you going to be?”
“I mean, I’m not gonna be happy.”
“What does that mean?”
“Are you trying to pre-negotiate my emotions with me?”
“Um… no?”
“Talk about passive-aggressive.”
“I just—“
“I should’ve told you to bring your own wine coolers for the car. This is how you were before you went down on me, too, and that was fine, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t literally eat you though, like if you just need me to lick the steak, I can—“
“I don’t need you to do anything, you’re the one who wanted to be here.”
“Now you’re mad.”
“I told you that already. Now I’m giving you one more chance to back out and I’m telling you, if you can’t keep from being weird, you should leave. This is an important thing for my grandpa.”
Their cabs pulled up at the same time outside one of the rich houses that looked exactly like all the other ones. They got out and were suddenly face-to-face with each other. Stacey’s arms were crossed, one of her eyebrows arched. The question on her face couldn’t have been any clearer.
Freya dropped her eyes, feeling sheepish but also scared. She couldn’t stop thinking about that cow, killed probably earlier that day or the day before. She couldn’t stop thinking about it being carved up and packaged, to be delivered to a variety of rich families on New Year’s Eve. What the hell did it have to do with New Year’s Eve anyway?
But then she looked back up, and saw Stacey’s piercing blue eyes. Those were real. She’d thought they were contacts or gene edited at first, but Stacey had denied it, and since she never hesitated to say something was fake or acted embarrassed by it, she was credible about her eyes. And they were mesmerizing. Worth doing something gross for.
They went in, and Freya went silent while she was introduced around except for the ritual phrases of being happy to meet people. She tried to smile, tried to be charming, tried to laugh without self-awareness at their jokes, but she knew she was failing. Stacey didn’t seem bothered but she never did unless she wanted to.
Still, Freya was determined to make it through this for the sake of their relationship. She knew it was silly to think that if she left here, Stacey would leave her, when Stacey had said the opposite a dozen times or more. It wasn’t important to her, but it was important to Freya somehow. For some reason she couldn’t articulate this had become a test of her commitment to the relationship, whether she was able to muster up the courage to go through with this.
“Who are you again?”
“I’m Stacey’s girlfriend. Freya. I mean, we go to college together. You’re her uncle, right?”
“And what do you study?”
“I’m majoring in Art History.”
“Really? Why?”
“I find it interesting.”
“Why not study something real? Something useful?”
“I don’t, uh…”
“Engineering, now there’s a major. Why don’t you do that?”
“Well I didn’t take the intro classes, so—“
“Have you eaten meat before?”
“Uh, no.”
“Oh just wait, it’s fantastic. Incredible taste.”
“I thought it was identical to lab-grown meat.”
“Of course not, it’s real. Don’t be stupid.”
“Aren’t they both real? I mean they have the same nutritional—“
“Of course not, come on now. Is a Rembrandt like a Picasso? They’re both paintings.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“You’re such a pushover! Don’t you have any opinions? Stacey, can’t you get a girlfriend who uses her brain?”
Stacey shushed him and dragged Freya away, over to their seats at the long, live-edged dining table that dominated the dining room. Freya counted twenty-eight chairs, now filling with people who looked like versions of Stacey.
Some of Stacey’s cousins were making fun of the ritual, talking about how gross it was. Their tones were low and they had one eye open for Stacey’s grandfather, but they were doing it. They didn’t seem distressed, like Freya was, just amused, like tourists about to try a foreign delicacy whose name they couldn’t pronounce.
Stacey tried to take her hand under the table, but Freya jerked away and folded her hands in her lap. Just the idea felt so overwhelming. She could smell the steaks cooking from the other room, and hear them sizzling on a grill. It smelled and sounded the same as when she cooked lab-grown at home, but there was something different about the quality of the experience that she couldn’t shake. She *knew* there was a difference, and that was enough to make one.
That knowing, that removal from her own experience by an awareness of it, was the dominant feature of her life. Sex, clubs, gated communities, and this moment, now, these smells and that sound and Stacey’s nearness, it was all mediated by her own, unavoidable awareness of its context.
Stacey’s grandfather appeared from the kitchen. He had Stacey’s same piercing blue eyes, not dimmed much by advanced age. A shock of white hair stood up on his head. His skin was tanned and lined, but supple and healthy. He stepped up to his seat at the head of the table but did not sit. Instead he looked from chair to chair until he had everyone’s attention.
“Welcome, family and friends. Welcome to New Year’s Eve. Tonight, we feast, in the way of our ancestors. For me, this is the most important night of the year. For the newcomers, I will now answer the question that always seems to occur to those who have not yet partaken—why New Year’s Eve? Why do we eat of animal flesh on this night in particular?
“Because New Year’s Eve is about the passage of time. This is our life, occurring now, and one day it will end. I have celebrated one hundred twenty-two years worth, and I feel not a day over eighty, but even for me, one day it will end, and before more goes than has already gone, too. And when I go, when each of us goes, no matter what we do with our remains, we will feed something. Even cremated, the smoke from our fires will carry particles that will settle on the earth and become dirt, and we will feed worms, or will pass up through the atmosphere and feed the stars.
“I know that there are those among you who find this ritual distasteful, or ghastly, or even barbaric. You are only here to please me, or please someone who wants to please me, and that is fine. I have no problem with that. I agree with you. For all the flavor in the flesh we will consume, it is barbaric. Something has died and we are feeding on that thing. It is ghastly. We will slice its flesh into portions small enough for ourselves to consume tidily and pleasurably. That is distasteful.
“Do not run from what this is. Do not tell yourselves it is the same as what is grown in the labs. It is not. That lab-grown shit is not us. It does not represent us. It is sterile and safe and perfected, and we are none of that. Eat of this feast that has been prepared for us, and know that the feast is eternal and unyielding, and that we are part of its splendor, not just as diners but as food. We will be broken down into energy, and our useless parts will be excreted, and time is precious. Happy New Year.”
Freya’s heart pounded. Not from the anticipation but from the speech. Her second wine-cooler of the evening—the one she’d been planning to sip right before and right after the bites of meat—seemed suddenly beside the point. If she was going to do it that way, she might as well just leave.
Stacey had been right to make her wait to hear that from the man himself. It wasn’t what he’d said but how he’d said it, the matter-of-factness with which he’d summed up her problem without even naming it. The cabs, the implants, the virtual meetups, the long, lonely night-walks through the endless, concrete city—none of it represented her. Those things were designed to resist entropy, and she was designed to embrace it. Without embracing that, even the things that felt good felt uncomfortable, like a cashmere sweater three sizes too small.
Waiters came from the kitchen with plates, each with a steak and nothing else sitting on it. They put one in front of her. It turned her stomach just to look at it. She couldn’t stop thinking about the mooing, meandering animal this had been the day before. Now it just sat there, still sizzling. She didn’t even know which part of the animal it came from. Her stomach did a backflip and she wondered if she was going to be able to get through this without retching.
She reached for Stacey’s hand under the table. Stacey took it immediately, looking up at her with surprised, wide eyes. Holding hands felt good. It would not last forever, and that made it precious. Stacey smiled at her, and Freya smiled back without overthinking it. It was just a smile, and that was what she wanted.
END
Thanks so much for reading and again, Happy New Year! If you enjoyed the story today, please help me out by liking, commenting, or sharing with others. Have a great week!
Story #52 - Just Like The Real Thing
It’s always good to remember that we’re not so different from the meat we eat.
Wow, meat has never sounded so distasteful. Good story O!