Day 10: Difficult Questions

The following day, everyone who had been at the previous day’s meeting reconvened to ask any questions Gabu and Mei hadn’t had a chance to address. Most of the questions were fairly simple to answer and didn’t require any extended discussion.

The first awkward question came from Leo, one of the two stags, and was addressed to Gabu. “Which animals do you prefer to eat?”

“Well,” Gabu said with an apologetic look to Mei, “my favourite food used to be goat meat, but I haven’t eaten any since I met Mei. Nowadays, I make do with whatever I can find.” Mei knew that most of the animals Gabu killed were mice, squirrels and rabbits, but since all three species were present at the meeting, Gabu was avoiding saying so.

“Good on you for giving up goat meat, I suppose, but that’s not much good to the rest of us, is it?” Sagi said. “You’ve met us too, haven’t you? Why are you still eating rabbits?”

“Gabu can’t be expected to refrain from eating animals based on who comes to these meetings or who he’s friends with,” Greta said. “Unless he chooses to, that is,” she said with a nod to Mei.

“It’s different with Mei,” Gabu protested. “He’s my best friend.”

“I’m not saying you should eat your friend,” Sagi said. “But if there were other goats in the forest, would you eat them like you eat the rest of us, or would they get special treatment too?”

“I’ve already promised Mei that I won’t eat goats anymore, so no, I wouldn’t eat them. Even besides that, it took me a really long time to stop thinking of Mei as delicious, and I don’t think me eating goat meat again would be good for that.”

Greta moved the conversation on before Sagi could say anything else about Gabu’s reluctance to eat goat meat.

After a few more easy questions, Janice asked, “How does it feel when you kill someone? I mean, do you regret it afterwards?”

“All the time,” Gabu said sadly. “I really wish there was some way I didn’t have to do it, but Mei and I have never been able to think of one.”

“In the very first meeting,” Darrel said, “you said that choosing to eat meat rather than let yourself starve doesn’t make you a bad person, even though you’re causing more suffering that way. Surely it’s up to us to decide whether that makes you a bad person or not?”

Mei, reminded of his discussion with Takkan the previous day, said, “Darrel, have you ever heard of the rolling boulder problem?” The stag hadn’t, so Mei described the hypothetical scenario in what he hoped were less upsetting terms than Takkan had used.

“I think the only right decision in that situation would be to redirect the boulder,” Darrel said. “That way, only one person dies instead of six.”

“But you’d be responsible for that death,” Frank, the mouse, said. “What gives you the right to decide who lives and dies?”

“Because if I don’t,” the stag said, “then more people will die instead.”

“The point is,” Mei said, “there is no right answer. Neither option makes you a bad person. It’s an awful situation that no one would ever want to be in, so how could you blame anyone for making one choice or the other?

“In Gabu’s case,” Mei continued, “it’s even harder. Imagine that instead of redirecting the boulder, the only way to save the six animals is to throw yourself in front of it. And every day that you decide not to throw yourself in front of the boulder, another boulder comes and kills another six animals.”

“I’d have quite a few words for whoever was forcing me into that situation,” Sagi said.

“Then you’d better take it up with nature itself, because that’s the situation all carnivores find themselves in,” Mei said.

Everyone took a moment to consider that. Mei noticed that everyone, Sagi included, now looked sympathetically at Gabu, perhaps now realising that he was just as much a victim of his own nature as all the animals he killed were.

Mei was proud of himself for explaining Gabu’s situation in a way everyone could understand, but he couldn’t take all the credit. “Greta,” he said, “would it be all right if I invited another carnivore to the next meeting?” Everyone looked somewhat anxious at this.

“Mei, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Gabu said. “I can’t tell you how many times I almost ate you when we first met. Can we really trust another carnivore not to hurt anyone?”

“I trusted you, didn’t I?” Mei said. “If I hadn’t given you a chance, we might never have been friends.”

“Mei’s right,” Greta said. “These meetings are open to everyone in the forest, should they wish to attend. It wouldn’t be right to exclude anyone based on their diet. That being said, Mei, I think everyone would feel safer if any carnivore you wished to invite made a solemn promise not to eat anyone for the duration of the meeting.”

“Or shortly before or after,” Leo added. “We wouldn’t want anyone getting eaten on the way home.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t do that,” Mei said. “I trust him.”