Friday 11 January 2013

Taxidermy and Other Stuff

     I saw a film earlier this year that contained a scene of a man performing taxidermy on a duck. The bird was killed only to be torn apart, emptied, and sewn back together. Primped and mounted, the taxidermist makes death beautiful. Now the bird is displayed in a museum or hung on some hunter's wall as a reminder that in the battle of fowl versus firearm the gun wins every time.
     I look at the duck with it's glass eyes, posed in the act of a futile takeoff, and wonder why we don't preserve people this way. Why don't we gut and stuff our Grandparents and nail them above the fireplace? Then they would never have to leave us; we could see them every day dressed in their best clothes with smiles forced on their faces, their kyphosis corrected, always willing to look us in the eye.

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