Making ends Meat

The man on the side of the highway was trying to show me something he had on a tray.   It was that time of the evening when the early dusk renders everything in shades of grey and I couldn't make out what he was carrying.   We were both dwarfed by juggernauts moving livestock, lumber and sugarcane down the long road to Johannesburg.  I was alone in my hire-car and had a three hour journey ahead of me: we hadn't moved in ten minutes. 

  
He came closer and tilted his offering towards me.  All I could see was a pile of something gleaming in my headlights.  Then he was at my window and I was looking at a dark heart, a pair of lungs and a shiny, coiled intestine.   Artfully arranged on a steel board.  My stomach clenched in a moment of pure horror - and then I realised: we're in cattle country. 

I smiled and shook my head and he laughed:  of course not. A crowded taxi pulled out of the traffic onto the shoulder and he turned towards real customers.  Clamouring for the offal.  He gave me one last smile and plunged into his negotiations. 

  
A true entrepreneur.