Land of Milk and Honey

by C Pam Zhang

shaved my head to deliver the warning my stature could not.

He was the world’s leading expert in the field of cloud seeding.

We’d been inoculated from rage by other, more immediate concerns. For example: how to pay rent, how to stay alive.

What did I mean by human, anyhow? Homo neanderthalensis, she was quick to remind me, had been close enough kin to crossbreed with Homo sapiens. Yet our overhunting had likely led to the older species’ destruction. That is, if we didn’t hunt them ourselves.

hate, mixed with envy,

You think we didn’t try? The real question is, what don’t they want? We donated money. They want more. We sent food. They complained that it wasn’t enough, and that they wanted—no, deserved—semolina instead of winter wheat. We shared our preliminary findings on a cultivar of mung beans that grow in the dark, and next thing you know the Italian government’s sending an armored truck to commandeer our data. Years of work, gone.

we can’t cave to shortsighted demands.

To be correct is insufficient. We must convince others to follow.

There are times to eat when you have no hunger and drink when you have no thirst.

We go too far when animal rights are upheld over human ones.

Real food is whatever cooks are proud to make.

life is finite and not all nourishment can be measured.