Sarah�s First Selection

Sarah’s first selection By Sarah

Sarah and the rest of the new hu-cows were nervous. Today was the first time they would be able to go thru the selection process, after turning 18. They had seen the selections happen before, but this was their first time participating in it.

Hu-cows, or the human cattle program, was started back in the early 21<span class="ord">st</span> century, after some terrorist thugs set off some bio-weapon that destroyed all the farm animals humans had come to depend on for food. The nations of the world had come together to destroy the terrorist thugs, but they had managed to capture the geneticists who had cooked up the bug. 

With these scientists help, the world governments started to alter human reproduction, to create more women on the planet then men. This action led to the birth rate of about 10 females to each male. Naturally, men were thrilled, but soon there were debates raging over what to do with the increased human population. The world governments decided that the only way to both feed the masses and to control the population was start a meat lottery. Women who were unmarried, over 23, or were not the first born into a family, were collected, and designated “surplus”. These surplus women were then moved to huge farms outside most major towns, where they were allowed to be fattened, milked, then on a given day, a set number were to be butchered for meat. Once the initial collection process was done, governments began to pay the men of each family to donate any excess females to the meat farms, once they were 4 years old. This age allowed for the surplus women to be given the best health care around, and still allowed them to have some basic motor skills taught. Once the girls were 4, they were taken to the local hu-cow farms, where the women in the herd would raise the girls to be cattle. Sarah was one of these hu-cows. After the hu-cows were placed in the receiving docks by the depositing family members, workers would tag each hu-cow, and then a special paint dye was added to their skin, coloring them for life as cattle. Then the hu-cows were released into the pens, to be raised by the older hu-cows.

As the selection process began, the first to be sorted out were those hu-cows who were over 40. These were loaded into a cattle car first. Then the workers took the remaining eligible hu-cows, and made them run around in the ring. Those who couldn’t or refused to run were loaded into the cattle train. Sarah and about 30 other hu-cows were running around the ring. Workers would periodically take a hu-cow out of the mass, and put them over their knees, to be spanked. This was to test the meat, or so the workers told the hu-cows. In part, it was true, but the workers also liked to see the hu-cows bottoms turn red from the spankings. After a time running, the hu-cows were split up into three groups. One group was led to the cattle cars, the second to the milking bays, and the third back to the main lots. Sarah was led along with a few hu-cows, to the cattle cars. As they climbed up the ramps, the doors were sealed shut behind them, and the train started moving. The hu-cows all started to moo in a scared fashion, since they couldn’t speak. The train gathered speed, and soon, the farm was long gone.

The train pulled to a stop at a warehouse, on the outskirts of the city. The hu-cows were unceremoniously whipped and prodded into the giant facility, where each was hoisted up by their ankles.

Photo courtesy of dodge10

As the line moved forward, each hu-cow heard the sound of the cows before them squeal then stop suddenly, and each started to panic. The workers at the meat plant were used to the struggling hu-cows, however, and paid them no mind. As each hu-cow got to the end of the line, a worker with a bolt gun would approach each hu-cow, and fire a bolt thru its head, killing it instantly. Then the lifeless hu-cow was moved forward, where another worker would gut the carcass, and divide it into parts. In short, it took less than 10 minutes for the hu-cows to become meat for the waiting families in the city. Sarah was no exception. Soon, her meat and the meat of the other luckless hu-cows was on its way to the local delis and supermarkets, where the next generations of hu-cows were already being fed and bred for their time in the yards.