Burnt Offerings

When I stopped eating meat, I had no regrets, and still do not. But every so often, of a summer afternoon when my neighbours are barbecuing steaks or burgers, the smell of charred flesh reaches my nostrils and I inhale the sweet smell of the burnt offering as Abraham’s god must have done, savouring the aromas without ever actually tasting a morsel. I will not eat meat anymore, but I still salivate when I smell it cooking. It is a strange thing, this self denial, this knowledge that what I do is right, knowing that I am not tempted, that the taste of a well-done piece of beef will not seduce me; but the aroma is heavenly. I cannot resist the urge to inhale, to take in the particles that drift on the afternoon breeze from my neighbour’s yard to mine.