Resilient Idea

Trailers of Tears: They drive at night, not to be seen.

Somewhere in Oklahoma, a Greyhound bus pulls up to a filling station around 1 am. There it is, at the farthest gasoline pump of all: a truck loaded with life, with calfs whose minutes on this earth are running out. I grab the camera, jump off the bus and take pictures as I approach the trailer of tears, but the driver sees me and hastily pulls off before I can record those tiny snouts sniffing through the barred holes. A blinking eye throws its little light into the camera, before it all blurs and gets devoured by the dark of night.

In Germany, we still sometimes see these truckloads of agony in plain daylight. America is one step ahead. Here, they drive at night, not to be seen. I am a vegan because I see and feel these pictures before my inner eye constantly. These snouts, sniffing in search of their moms from whose sides they have been ripped. These eyes, little stars, that (will) have seen nothing but misery. These tiny bodies that will be served to someone as “veal” tomorrow, while their mothers’ milk will have been mixed with cocoa and served at breakfast.

Vegans are just extremists.