Amidst the clamor surrounding the Cavel horse slaughtering plant’s apparently imminent shutdown, I received a letter of curious origin.

As it is dated March 29, 2027, I am not inclined to take it too seriously, but at the same time, it presents a few disturbing ideas which I feel compelled to share with my fellow NIU students.

I urge you to judge the contents for yourself.

– Ken

Dear 2007,

I have gotten away from the horses long enough to send this desperate message. They have finally gained enough momentum in Congress to rewrite the First Amendment to read “four legs good, two legs bad,” and the Declaration of Independence to read “all horses are created equal.” I am one of a scant few who have managed to evade their anti-human death squads this long.

We could never have known the closing of the Cavel plant in DeKalb due to the USDA’s inability to inspect horses for human consumption would result in such nightmares. At first, the great surplus of horses seemed amusing and fun – the overabundance of them caused the market to bottom out so more people could afford to buy them off their overburdened owners. Northern Illinois University even got its own polo team and went to nationals.

Soon, the bubble burst.

Without the necessary culling the Cavel plant provided, the horses soon became numerous – their owners, unable to feed and board them, simply turned them loose into the landscape where they became feral and mated uncontrollably.

The state of Illinois went so far as to loosen gun ownership restrictions and pass out free horse-hunting licenses after the wild beasts ate DeKalb’s entire crop of corn one autumn.

Nothing could stop them. Before we knew what happened, some among the horses had gained some small order of intelligence and demanded to negotiate with officials.

By 2020 they had gained the vote – it was not long before they granted suffrage to girls ages four and older, thusly securing an unstoppable voting bloc that would carry them into every elected position all across the country.

We accepted our equine masters with jubilation at first… but I knew the truth. It seemed as if I woke up one day and everybody I knew was suddenly slaving in the fields growing carrots and oats, or harvesting sugar to be formed into cubes. Soon, we were hitched up to large carts and forced to run for hours without rest as the horses rode in comfort and made fun of us.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have prevented this dark future. Whoever finds this, please know that you have little time to alter the course of a disastrous history.

You must rise up now! You must…

The letter ends there, oddly shredded. I don’t know what to make of it, and now is not the time to be thinking about it, since there seem to be quite a few horses on my lawn right now….