Poetry for Palestine

A Short Story

The Club of Veggies and the Hundred Meat Balls

A group of non-alcohol-drinkers and vegetarian friends decided to come together weekly for a vegetarian meal with non-alcoholic drinks, prepared on rotational basis by the individual members.

They called their group the Club of Veggies, with membership open to any non-alcohol-drinking vegetarian.

A group of alcohol-drinking meat-eaters, who nonetheless identify themselves as non-alcoholic vegetarians, writes to the club requesting membership, all the while insisting on bringing alcohol and meat dishes when it’s their turn to cook.

The Club of Veggies refuses to grant them membership on the basis that their requests violate the rules of the club.

The meat-eaters start picketing the club because they feel persecuted, accusing its members of discrimination, bigotry and meatophobia. They then organise themselves and begin a regular demonstration to celebrate their meat eating and to condemn the Club of Veggies for being such hateful persecutors. Later they further intensify their campaign, lobby the government and demand legislation that will allow them to join the club while being meat-eaters who identify as vegetarians.

The Club of Veggies declare time and again that they have no issues with meat-eaters or alcohol-drinkers, they can eat meat as much and as often as they like. They emphasise that they do not wish to force vegetarianism on anyone, all they want is to have a club where they can cook and enjoy vegetarian dishes together.

Meat-eaters lobbies persist for years until one day their efforts bear fruit and a new law comes to pass: the Club of Veggies must not only accept membership of the meat eaters, it must also provide the space and funding for meat-eaters to cook a hundred meat balls every day, to be offered to the Club members with a selection of alcoholic drinks, all with the financial, physical, and moral help from the Club of Veggies.

By law, the adults in the Club of Veggies are not required to eat the meat balls or to drink the alcoholic drinks, but for the sake of teaching tolerance and acceptance, their children are required to do so.

The world cheers hooray and celebrates the great victory.

The End

PS: The author of the story has since been prosecuted for meatophobia, bigotry, and for inciting hatred against a victimised group.

Filed under: Satire |