Cultivating meat

After a warm lunch as usual, my son and I went outside the house to relax a bit. At that time, he was only 4 years old, but his mind was advanced as if he was twenty. He took a small piece of tree, and started digging in my small garden outside the house. At first I did not like the idea because he was damaging my garden and it was summer. “Why are you digging over there stubborn little troll?” I angrily barked to him.

“I am just trying something with this bone!” he replied with ashamed face and biting his nails.

Trying something with that bone?... I couldn’t understand why and what he was doing with the empty bone from our lunch, and I asked him to throw it away: “That is rubbish. Instead you’d better put in that basket for garbage. And do it right now. Ok?”

“Oh, right. But I was trying to implant it in this garden’s soil so that we shall come back later to collect meat, Papa!..." the poor boy replied with an appeasing voice!

My anger melted like a candle exposed to flames, and then I asked him slowly : “What do you mean by that my small angel?”

“I realized that most of what we eat is the product of what we have cultivated. Even the flowers my mother uses for decoration are from this garden.” He said. “Then I am convinced that as long as I love eating meat, I should cultivate this bone, then grow it, and later we will have a lot of meat to cook and eat without buying it from the supermarket.

“Oh sweetheart, we only get the meat from the butchery after slaughtering those domestic animals like cows, goats, etc…” I replied. “We don’t grow them in the garden, poor boy!” I was explaining even while I was deadly laughing.

I was not able to convince him, and he continued his dreams until the rain disturbed him. While he and I were running into the house because of the rain, the little boy went back to the garden to pick up the implanted bone. He brought it in the house as well.

“Oh my Goodness! Where are you taking this rubbish, Tresor?” his mother asked.

“Just protecting it from the rain, because Papa and I had to run into the house because of the rain. I could not leave this bone alone in the garden and then let it get wet. I thought that is unfair to do so.” the boy replied to his mother.

Then a new idea came into my mind: How often do we care about what we like?

………XXX………