The day is sunny but there are no windows in here. It is dark most of the time and I have to continue to work. It is a strictly female policy where I work and there are a lot of us in this building so much that the space is limited to almost no space at all. I cannot turn much and I'm worked from morning to night on a constant basis. At times I don't even know if it is morning or night. My boss comes in with other men and at times they push around the employees and there is one that at times uses extreme force to make us listen. A lot of employees here have been injured here and there by the workers but they don't understand our cries and we're forced to continue to work harder than our bodies naturally allow. I often feel very alone even though I'm beside the same co-worker day in and day out and I miss the sun and the fresh smell of the wind. My legs are feeling numb standing here for so long and the machines around me are so noisy and it's driving me nuts actually. I can feel that I am pregnant and in fact most of us are due very soon with a child. Being pregnant seems to be the only natural part of my life since I don't get to do much anymore but work, work, and work. This is my first child I have and I hope I can do my best to be that mother figure and teach my child all he/she needs to be in this world. I know most of the other mothers that work with me have had their children removed from them since they have no time to raise a child because of the hours of work they put into this business. The day is almost here to have my child and I have had no rest, no time off from work, and no light duty either! I have been doing the same hours just like someone who is not pregnant and I'm now over tired and over worked! The boss won't hear my cries and my legs are killing me! My co-workers are even saying the same stuff as me and they are getting nowhere either! Even my food that they give us for free is not what I want to eat and now that I am pregnant I still don't get anything different than the rest. Where are our rights? Who will listen to our cries? When do I get a break and get my time off to raise my child when he/she comes into this world? The day has come and I can feel my body telling me that my child is ready to come out! I have been pretty well worked up to this moment and finally I am going to get the rest I deserve and the child I can raise. The boss and some other men come to look at me and they decide to help me have this baby. I can feel that my body is saying its time! I start to happily cry with the pain of having my baby and the boss and the men with him are helping me and the baby comes out! I try and turn and move but I am restricted on my movements. I cannot see my child at the moment! I want to see! Did I have a baby girl or boy? I can hear the men making noises and the cry of my baby but the cries are going away. They are taking my baby somewhere? Where? Forced back to my machine they hook me up like nothing happened and I am extremely heartbroken and in pain. I started to moan and cry for my baby but my boss and some men start to hit me to shut up! They are being so horrible to me on my first day of being a mother. Am I a mother? Did I just have a child or was I just daydreaming since I have been overworked and cannot even tell if it is day or night still. My emotions and the pain are telling me that I am still alive and something just happened though. I know I had a baby and I know they took him/her! I am overwhelmed with a sick and sad feeling I cannot stop crying for my child! My legs are so sore, swelled and the pain is getting overwhelming but my boss keeps giving me needles and medicine for the open sores and pain constantly. My body has changed a lot and I am pregnant again. How did I get pregnant if I haven't had any time to leave my job? I am here night and day and the only people that come around are my boss and a few other men. There have been other ladies here that have had some children now too and they have been removed the same way as mine. What is happening here? This doesn't seem real anymore and I want to know if the sun even shines anymore outside. It's so dusty and gloomy in here and I'm afraid to have another child taken from me! How can I get out of this horrible building? I do know some of the older workers are taken from the building and never come back but where are they going? After 6 years at my job I am exhausted and I have had about 10 children now and all have been taken from me the same way. My body just cannot take this constant pressure and stress anymore. I want to just sleep somewhere in the sun if it still shines out there. My body is so sore and the boss is coming and checking me out more often now. Maybe its time for me to go with the other ladies and finally get out of this building. The day has come and I am finally going somewhere else. I am being moved and hit to get on to this truck with other ladies my age and we keep crying out for them to stop and leave us alone. No one ever listens to us and the truck has so many of us that it has no room to move. We all travel for many hours and they are not giving us any food or even water and I cannot even sit down due to the limited space. Some of the ladies are crying and cannot stop. Where are we going? The truck stops and we are all forced off and put into a room awaiting something but what? I have made it to my retirement maybe? It feels good not have to be around that machine for once but now I feel the stress of not knowing where I am and where I am going. I want to see the sunshine and walk around in the fresh air like my body and mind tell me is natural. A new boss and men come and start poking and kicking us! Even one of the ladies was so badly injured in the drive her legs were tied and they literally dragged her out of the truck. I am scared now and don't know where I am. We were forced to walk in a single file and a door opens and one of us is forced out into a room while the others waited. The cries are loud and eerily! My turn is next and I don't know if I even want to follow those ladies who have went before me. I can smell some weird unnatural smell. The door opens and I back up trying so hard not to go through but the ladies behind me are too many and the men start to beat me to move forward. I then run from the beatings into the room and the door closes behind me. I am standing alone and I am extremely scared and painfully crying! “I am only 7 years old!” and no one listens to me. A man walks up to me and he's carrying a large object. I start to back up and I hit the door that closed earlier. This man raises his arms and hits me on the head and I went out immediately. I start to wake and my head is extremely aching! I'm hanging upside down! They have tied me by one of my legs and its just killing me with pain! My head is bleeding and dripping on the floor. Another man or is this the same man that hit me on the head? I don't know anymore but I want him to go away! “Help! Help!” I cry but no one is hearing me at all or at the least listening to me! The man comes up and he's got a knife and he raises his arm holding it and moves it across my neck. As I feel the blood draining from my body I now know whom I am! I am a cow and my life should be 20 to 25 years not 7 years. I should be in a field of grass amongst the shining sun and laying under a beautiful tree! I should be loved and raising my children who were taken from me. I am not like my boss and the men that have been around me at all! I can feel this pain, the loneliness and heartache! I can feel the loss of my children and the utters on my body have been infected for years now even though they keep stealing my baby's milk to feed other babies. As I hang here dying I feel for the people who have put me here and I wish them to feel what I have felt my little time on this planet. I deserve to live and be the mother that I so deserve to be. I have realized my children have been brought into this life where my boys have lived very short lives and were killed for veal and my daughters were pushed into rooms and lived in my footsteps. While I shake my last bit of energy from this body I just remember the life I never really was allowed to live. ** Bob Timmons is an animal activist based in Toronto, Canada. BM
