Where am I? Part II

Leg lock

The question entered, not so much as it blasted into my head. It fired through my nerves that screamed out in pain. My knee was not meant to bend this way!  After I tapped him twice on the ribs, I began to regain the sense of the rest of my body. I felt his grey pony tail on the side of my foot.  My knee was locked in between his knees. His hips were pushing into my thigh and his ankle was lodged into the bend in the front of my hip. My back was in a pool of sweat on the mats of the gym floor.

The sweat couldn’t pour out fast enough. This was somewhere in the second hour of my second session of jiu jitsu training in an old goat barn. The rock and mortar walls of the barn had been there long before the pine floor had been set down on tires to mitigate the impact of throws and takedowns. The man who was one good crank away from separating my knee was an nth level Black Belt of multiple martial art disciplines who ended up in Bulgaria after pursuing his craft all over the world. 

Stuffed peppers for lunch? Yes please.

Every night after training a tasty meal is hot and ready for us from an British ex-model. We sit down share scratch spread with a ex Royal Navy officer who rounds out this quiet expat compound in rural Bulgaria. After dinner comes cold beer and a gorgeous view to ease into the night after a day of work and training. It’s hard to believe only four hours of work a day could get me all this.  I am here due to a reference from and internet work/holiday network, but the immediate explanation only gives a weak a basis for the answer to the question.

The Bird

“You know what they say about a chicken with its head cut off,” he smiled. I looked back up at him, he continued but I didn’t hear anything. I could only see on the blood that had splattered on his glasses and cheek.  The chickens head was at his feet, the contours just visible in the fresh crimson blood.

I was glad it was over, mostly for the chicken. Ten minutes before, I had been chasing the doomed cockerel around his pen. Finally he cornered himself and I snatched him.  I held him by his legs and hanging that way, he finally settled down. “Grab him like this,” and he showed me with his thumb and index finger, “right behind the head. Hold tightly and stretch him as far as you can. Give the neck a quarter turn and jerk it sideways until you hear a ‘crack.’”

Cruel and unusual punishment would only begin to describe this bird’s demise. Chased around, and paralyzed after two attempts to severe his spinal cord, it was only over after two hacks with the hatchet. “It takes practice.” the woman would later assure me.

"Get that one. He picks on the others."

I had plenty of time to contemplate the whole event, not to mention the whole concept of raising, slaughtering and consuming meat while I plucked the bird. I sat in midday sun in the garden pulling against the grain as I was instructed. I think it was when I was pulling the feathers, still covered in half dried blood, on the front ridge of the bird’s wing, when the question came to me. 

It came first as a rumble in my stomach and then as a tightening of my throat and finally wafted around in the air with buzzing flies and the smell of chicken innards. As more feathers came off, the question subsided. Eventually the bird had more in common with the ones you see in the supermarket freezers than the one that had woken me at down that morning with his persistent call.

Conscience/ body separation was not enough ease my mind from this task. It was only when I rationalized the situation by accepting that the bird had made metaphysical change of form that I became hungry for the chicken chili at lunch. I guess it’s good that I didn’t have to gut and clean it before I ate.