A few days ago, I visited a large reptile pet store.

Many people dislike insects and cold-blooded animals. I used to feel the same. But after watching them for a while, I started to find them beautiful.

Not because they became cute but because I finally allowed myself to really look.

Most fear is simply unfamiliarity.

The snakes lay quietly coiled behind glass. The lizards’ skin carried delicate patterns. The spider’s legs, under the light, looked like a piece of precise machinery.

They weren’t noisy. They weren’t trying to please. They weren’t asking to be liked. They were simply alive.

But is taking wild lives and turning them into pets really a good thing Their survival conditions are unforgiving, temperature, humidity, light, companionship. Every detail has to be calibrated, like attending to an empress.

One small mistake, and they don’t die suddenly. They fade, slowly.

And then I saw the freezer. An entire freezer filled with white mice. Already dead!! Inside plastic bags, identical bodies, labeled XS / S / M / L / XL. Five per pack. Neatly arranged. Next to it were plastic boxes, cockroaches, maggots, insects bred on purpose.

Their only reason for being born was to be eaten.

At that moment, everything went quiet. Not fear. Something closer to an unnameable grief.

In times of poverty, when there was no choice, eating whatever was available was survival. But this is not that time.

The total amount of food hasn’t decreased. It has simply been dismantled, processed, packaged into an entire industry of being eaten.

And along with it grew cruelty, counterfeiting, opportunism. Yet— without demand, there is no harm. But without demand, there is also no civilization.

Everything is caught inside this contradiction. And those who have already climbed to the top of the food chain, those who have tasted privilege, will never willingly come back down.

Standing in front of the glass case, for the first time, I couldn’t tell whether I was an observer or a co-conspirator.



—— XC Scribbles · 陸拾捌 LXVIII ⚖️