A beautiful sunny day in the middle of December. The snow crunches underfoot. The geese chatter in the barn. People enter it, people they know, who have lovingly looked after them all their lives, that is, they have given the feed and cleaned out the barn. They are so-called happy geese that can be fattened with GMO-free feed and run around, have space and could build social structures. They came here as little babies and grew up here. All their lives they had seen nothing but this stable and pasture. What a joy when people visit them who take care of them. They run towards them, greet them warmly. How well the geese are doing compared to their fellow sufferers in intensive animal husbandry. After 12 weeks their neck is turned around. Not to mention those who are plucked alive or maltreated for the foie grass. The geese that run so eagerly after people here can live for 26 weeks. A huge increase considering that their life expectancy is 20 years.

The geese know the people and trust them. That is why they are not afraid to run after them into the room where one after the other their throats are cut. Soon the room is bloody red. What an idyll, but the geese had a happy life. They certainly don’t mind being cheated on for 19.5 years of their lifetime. Apart from the betrayal that people commit on living beings, who have given them their trust and which they may have just lovingly stroked just before, like the father who hugs the daughter and later rapes her. Of course, the comparison must not be made, because after all, in one case it is about people, in the other only about animals that would not be alive, we would not eat them and also want to stuff them down into our jackets. Nevertheless, they are also living beings who want to live. Respectively wanted. You don’t notice any more of that when you buy the clean, bloodless body under the name meat. Corpse, carcass would be more appropriate, but we like to use euphemisms. We can also carry our heads higher because we eat the meat of happy geese. It was very expensive, but if you know where the meat comes from, if the animals have had a good life, then you don’t need to have a guilty conscience. This is told again and again, especially if these damn animal rights activists want to convince you that not even that is okay. Everybody only buys the meat from happy animals, it is said. There is no meat from happy animals, because if you buy the meat, the animal is dead and can no longer be happy. Quite apart from the question of who then only buys all the cheap meat from intensive livestock farming. If you believe the assurances, nobody apparently does it. This disappears all by itself from the shelves, which are packed with exactly what nobody officially buys.

On Christmas Eve, for the feast of love, the whole family is gathered around the dining table, which is decorated with a dead bird. Everyone is happy and in good spirits, because you have always behaved properly, have been polite and kind, obedient, especially towards the traditions, which are also reflected in the eating of the Christmas goose.

„Mommy, what are we eating there?“, asks the little daughter.
„Only the Christmas roast, honey,“ the mother replies evasively.
„Is that a bird? Did you make him dead?“, the daughter continues undeterred.
„No, sweetie, he was already dead and he liked to die so that you could be full and we could celebrate Christmas,“ the mother explains patiently.
„But won’t his mom miss him?“ says the little girl, undeterred.
„It was just a stupid bird and it is there that we eat it“, the father now interferes in the conversation, „And I don’t want to hear a word about it anymore. Please be pleased and be happy. It’s Christmas. Or should I take your presents away from you again?” The father’s voice took on a threatening undertone, enough to silence the daughter. In silence she eats what she was given on the plate. Only she doesn’t touch the dead bird.