The Moment of My Death — Becoming See

This post is for mature audiences.

There probably comes a time in every young writer's life where they feel inadequate to the immensity of their subject, incapable of conveying the gravity of their experiences.

Now is that time for me. Yet the experience was so profound, such a staccato moment in my life, that to fail to at least try to write about it would be to rob myself of a challenge I need to grow as a writer, as a person.

Today, we killed two turkeys. I pushed the knife behind the wind pipe of the first one, mimicking another kill method I had seen some weeks previously. My work was insufficient to end the suffering of the animal quickly, so Grey stepped in and finished, slicing the artery. This turkey bled out quickly. We plucked it, removed the crop, pulled out the innards through a hole cut in the anus, cut off the head and feet. We spent the day butchering the rest of the bird, cutting off pieces for the dehydrator and munching on a leg for lunch. It was relatively quick, if a technically botched slaughter.

Another student dealt the killing strike to our second turkey. He slit the artery on the neck, attempting the type of stroke that we had witnessed from Grey. The turkey kicked loose from the cord securing it upside down to a cross-branch and flew out of the bag we had placed around its body. Grey told my friend to let the turkey go to avoid injury, so the turkey was free to wander about with a line of jewel red blood streaming from its neck. We all decided that to try to stuff the turkey back in the sack and tie it up again would be too traumatic, so we let it be.

This turkey spent six minutes dying in front of me. It walked around for a bit, uncertain of what had transpired. It settled on the ground in front of me, legs tucked up underneath. I sat down in front of it. Five feet. Five feet between me and the dawning realization of death. To watch that awareness grow, to watch the life fade out of a creature over a period of minutes, this experience is an order of magnitude harder than the impersonal death of a fish or crab, the quick death of a rabbit--or the far removed death of a human.

Grey asked us if we wanted him to grab the turkey and slit its throat to speed the process. I got the sense that it was more for us than the turkey. The turkey seemed content to lie in the dust, among the feathers of his recently plucked brother, and die quietly. We turned Grey down.

The turkey's nictitating membrane slid over his eyes and back again with each rapid breath, looking like a translucent silver curtain--that turkey could protect itself from my gaze with that third eyelid, but I could not protect myself from his. He never once made noise. I wondered if the absence of noise meant the absence of pain. I cannot know.

We thought he would lie down as he continued to bleed out. He and I gazed at each other until he stood up and staggered a few steps, the blood still trickling down. He settled down again, recognizing, it seemed, that to move was to speed the process of death, to pump the blood out faster. We continued staring at each other, eyes locked. Woman and turkey, both of us dying.

We waited. We watched. He breathed. He bled. When he had grown calm, Grey reached over and slit the other artery. He thrashed. He died in moments, his head pressed against Grey's calf, wings beating down against the earth, dust and brown-white feathers whirling in a wave around him.

The only certainty in life is our own impending death. The time of death is utterly uncertain. How then shall we live*?

This truth penetrates my soul as I watch the turkey die. I wonder if he lived a good turkey life. I wonder whether his fellow turkeys notice that he's gone. I wonder what it means to explicitly raise an animal to be consumed by humans--what gives me the right to decide when and whether another animal will die.

What will my own death look like? Will I see it coming, will I have six minutes to prepare myself? I could only hope to be so lucky--so many people die in a split second, a car crash, a concussion from a fall, an overdose. It doesn't take much. Humans are fragile creatures.

To know this truth is to face a reckoning, immediately. A wall rushes up and smacks me in the face and I stagger back, clutching the blood dripping from my forehead into my eyes. The day-to-day seems petty, small. This moment is all I have for sure. I am not the person I want to be.

*With apologies to Stephen Batchelor