We are reminded of Egyptians killing their servants to wait on them in the afterlife, to lessen death's bitterness. Even in death, the exalted pharaoh, the wealthy man, the miscellaneous functionary will find life not so different from what they always enjoyed. In the hillbilly's case, by granting his food a new role (that is, the same old role) in the beyond, he finds that he can go on.
And lo! It's not only hillbilly heaven. The pig, the chicken, the turkey, and the cow will be food forevermore, dawn to dusk, eternally, world without end. From their cloud, they smile upon us, secure in their spot in Heaven's blessed stockyard. They bear the hillbilly no ill-will. To the contrary: they owe him everything! Before he dispatched them, they were stuck in the reeksome, foul mire the rest of us call life. But now! Now, freed from the stinking burden of their existence, they attain the opportunity for the state most craved by "food" animals. Not life after death, but something even more precious: death after death.
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