“Meateater” Holden Oliver Armstrong
Her dress streams around her, following the dandelion seeds that run off in the breeze—white and dainty, like porcelain with ruffles. Her mottled hair catches in the breeze, and she shuts her eyes to feel it. She’s skinny, and the soft wind is dragging her body across the green of a huge lawn somewhere, somewhere she’s never been, in the country probably. It’s silent, just birds and breeze and the fecund mystery of nature. It’s the silence of the natural world: so much noise, but so little of it noticeable because all of it is beautiful. This is silence to her, and she can barely hear it. She’s not used to a symphony of this sort. Weightlessly spread across the sky, she spins across every color of flower, crushing none of them. They hold her, gracious hosts, and lift her above their cities. They know her, and are inside of her. She and the flowers live through each other, and their petals kiss her feet as she floats off, without worry. Her dress expands on the ground as she lets herself fall into it, rooted, almost. She sits on her knees listening to the silence of nature, so much melody she can barely hear it. She opens her eyes to a quiet blue that’s hushed by the world below it. She looks down to an infinite green expanse, peppered in the motion of color: pink, blue, yellow, all dotted and winding, flowing in harmony with the soft, warm wind of somewhere. On her knees, she does some unseen thing with her hands, maybe clicking two stones together with her fingers, while a bouquet of fresh flowers rests in the base of her right hand. She fiddles around by her knees, both of them draped and sheltered in the white of her dress, flowing, still, from wisps of the breeze. She lies back as fingers of grass massage her, envelope her in their green blades, waving. Every piece of the ground
loves and knows her. Her hair spreads out behind her, almost as long as her dress. The flowers she’s holding slip from her hand and roll down a mild slope, pushed by the breeze every so often before finding a rough place to stop and stay. The bouquet unravels, tucked in a small divot, and rattles in the wind. Blood follows it down the slope, weaving between the unfettered blades of grass, seeping slowly into the dirt as it churns toward the bottom of the slope, and she opens her eyes, starting to feel the sting of what she’s done, happy with it. She smiles as her wrists let out the soul she’s kept inside so long. It’s dark crimson mixed with the pastels of the world, and she smiles. It throbs as her pulse pushes more and more of it out, losing a steady stream of her life. “Ha,” she thinks, and it keeps flowing forth from her as her eyes slowly close. The sun is leaving her, and the flowers won’t know until it’s too late. “Put it in my mouth.” She’s giddy, somewhat coherent. A pint or so of blood has trickled down this stream. The sun and breeze warm her face, and she can barely feel them with how much blood she’s lost. For all it’s worth, she’s excited—happy and glowing. Despite the blood she’s lost, her face is somewhat flushed. She chuckles as she hears him again. “Slower. On my tongue.” She would burst out laughing if she weren’t so tired. Blood must give you energy, she thinks, and she’s running out of both. Her pale skin is losing its muster, turning from white to death as what’s left in her body trickles down the hill, meeting with the bouquet at the bottom. Where did those flowers come from, she wonders, so manufactured compared with what’s around her. And she gets her answer to the sound of lips and licking.
“Mmmmm. Go on. I’m done,” he belches, and the crinkle of the wrapper wakes her from her daydream. He lies there, basically strapped to the bed, not quite obese, but working steadily towards it. Shirtless and somewhat hairy, he lies, dismal and mayonnaised, watching whatever’s on tv. She’s free of him until he gets hungry again, and then it’s time to feed. She whimpers out of the room, tucking the wet wrappers into their brown mother bag. She shuts the door behind her and wishes the death of her dream was so easy. She’s crying, tucking the bags together, avoiding his spit, and dropping them in the trash, her head bowed. She wants to vomit, but doesn’t remember the last time she’s eaten. She knows she’s hungry, but she can’t eat anymore. Five times a day she feeds him, puckered and bulging, the crisp rasp of his voice controlling her. If there was anything inside of her it would have left by now. His hairy expanse, curly and thick, resides in her mind, permanently, showered in red ketchups and typical yellows, steaming from yesterday’s lunch, hard with mayo. Her hand comes to her mouth as she thinks about it. She tries to imagine something more positive. How long has she been here? How long as she been a slave to this monster? It’s not getting any better. He tells her she’s too negative and maybe he’s right. She tries to find some bright message in all of this, but it all leads to dry heaves, and her trembling body isn’t ready for that. There is nothing for her. In the house, there’s his room, with a plush bed and oversized television; the main room, where she lives, soaked in white and drear and nothing else; the kitchen, mostly dirty and unused because his tastes are solely fast-fried; and a bathroom, kept immaculate because she’s the only one who uses it. For him, she
empties a bedpan several times daily, so the toilet must be clean and in proper order, or else her retching would be twice as terrible. The smell lingers in the main room, even after the bags are tucked neatly away in the kitchen trash. She’s tingling and dizzy and has to sit down. On the floor, she rocks, weeping as quietly as possible under the roar of audience applause. Her body is fragile, once-beautiful and decrepit, lingering on for some reason. Constantly in her head she hears and feels his chewing, over and over: chewing, and it smells. She tucks herself into the corner and falls asleep crying, trying to ignore the sound of his labored breathing as he fights to stay awake through commercials in the other room. She wakes up to an alarm, her face wet and still streaming. It’s volatile in the house, and almost time to eat. She has just under twenty minutes to get what he wants and be back to feed him. It’s unclear why she returns, but there’s nothing for her in this life, and maybe that’s reason enough. Maybe eating is reason enough, though she never eats. With his scrawled list in her hand, she mumbles to the drive-thru what he wants. Soaked in extra grease, she hopes, and still wet, rather than dried from the vacant heat lamps she’s grown to hate. The stale food they leave behind will be the death of her, she thinks. She pays and looks at the line of cars festering behind her as she leaves. Business must be booming, she mutters, looking at the bag, stuffed with ten times the calories of her monthly diet. She can’t bear food at this point. He’s waiting, even though she’s early. She sits at the bedside chair and takes one deep breath to prepare herself. She opens the bag and pulls out a hamburger. His eyes are wide as she unravels the paper, moving the top half of the bun so it sits correctly over
the double patties. She smiles, or else, and wraps her slender fingers around it, sloppy and waiting. Some sort of noise leaves his mouth, and she knows he wants it. Shreds of lettuce fall from the sides, no pickles, as she holds out his first bite. He takes it, and she pulls back, watching him out of the corner of her eye. If she watches she’ll vomit, but if she doesn’t, his next bite will be late, and that would be worse. It’s a loud, constant gurgling as the once-heavy burger deteriorates. His eyes are closed, and his mouth is flavored with strings of yellow spit, yellow mustard spit. It’s enough to make her gag, but she hides it. He’s done with the first burger and onto the next, followed by fries, each handful accompanied with moans of delight. His semen must be fresh with onions, she thinks, immediately gulping back bile. Her imagination is too vivid to be subjected to this. What she sees is enough to make her puke, let alone what her mind creates. His gut heaves with admiration at itself, joyous in its girth and madness. Yellow ejaculate is all that enters her mind, and it’s too much. She hurriedly feeds him the last handfuls of fries, bites so massive professional eaters would choke. He groans in satisfaction, and she runs out the door, wishing there was something in her to throw up. Some feeling of release would be nice. She sprawls on the floor, picturing verbenas, but the hard carpet doesn’t comfort her. She closes her eyes to escape, but it’s his black urine in her mind. She opens them, and then it’s just that white room, its stench peaking. She closes her eyes, praying for something more serene, but once again she regrets it. It’s his back as he’s turned over on his side, sprawling with lumps and coated with the stench of fungus, caressed in sweat
from a thousand nights lying there, eating and waiting, and eating and waiting. She plummets in sick laughter imagining the house setting fire, his fat soaking into the sheets and mattress as he burns, the rolls exploding on impact as pillars collapse, and her skeleton laughing as it burns away, too. For once, a happy thought, she thinks, and rolls over into slumber. She dreams of meadows, drenched in her blood. It’s the blood of a million fruitless dreams, all the times she’s wanted to die and soak the earth in herself. It’s the blood of freedom and wars won and lost. If only Her Founding Fathers knew her plight. If only God knew her sorrows. She’d given up on those dreams long ago, though. For her, there is nothing but feeding and waiting. There is no escape. The stench of his unused feet creeps into her nostrils and she wakes, wet with sweat instead of blood. She can feel his control, his overseeing presence, and she looks to the clock. It’s early in the morning, and she doesn’t have to feed him until he wakes around noon. She crawls to a corner of the room and pulls up the carpet, revealing several dollars saved from his missing change, money she’s hoarded small bits at a time. In her mind, she can hear an ominous orchestra behind her, just timpani and bass in slow succession, egging her on. She doesn’t dream anymore, but she does plan, and now she has enough money. She falls back to sleep easily, and is quickly awakened by the clock, his clock. She spits into the bathroom sink and flushes her mouth with water. When she comes out of the bathroom, she can hear the tv and his muffled, fat laughter. Her lips quiver with shame and sickness and rage. She creeps past his door to avoid any chance of confrontation and picks up the list he’s already prepared for today’s breakfast.
She pulls up to the drive-thru: Sunday morning church, she chuckles. The order is massive, like always, and she curses the people in front of her. She only has so much time to get the food and be back, and she still has an extra stop to make. After these errands, she speeds to the house and rushes in the door. “I’ve been waiting,” he says, cottonmouthed. She’s three minutes late, and when she takes her place at his side he hits her, surprisingly hard for his invalid nature. She mutters something like “sorry” as the smell of extra cheddar subdues him. He sweats and drools like a wild dog closing in on easy meat. “Pavlov,” she thinks, but doesn’t dare laugh. As hurt and used as she is, inside she’s teeming with glee, infected with anticipation. As the bag unfurls, his eyes roll back. She glances at his groin, expecting it to move, but it doesn’t, and probably can’t, she thinks. She gulps back her smile, and it isn’t hard as she strains to put the burrito in his mouth. He bites, barely missing her finger, and sucks it down. Streaming swarms of wet flesh tumble about in his mouth as he chews openly. It’s flour, beef and cheese, crushed into one mass that’s becoming more of the same wet grey with each bite. She savors it, probably as much as he does, she thinks. “Where’s my drink?” She hands him the soda, and he washes everything down black, coated in sugar. She enjoys it, feeling each gulp louder than the rest. He suckles at the straw and opens his mouth for more, staring at her, staring deep into her fading blue eyes. He doesn’t notice their color is filling back in. He doesn’t notice the slight curl of her jaw, her lip turning slightly upwards.
She’s been forced, forced to endure this for so long, and now she rejoices in the beauty of it. She feels every bite, and not like she used to. It used to feel like a bite out of her, an unwanted chewing and licking that she couldn’t avoid. Now, she wants it, feels it. Her neck tingles as he eats the third burrito and slurps it all down with what’s left of the watery molasses. She can feel her body reveling in it, wanting more of it. “Finished?” she asks, and he lies there, sleepy and satisfied, unnoticing of her tone. His body answers with a resounding collapse as he falls further into his bed, the tv fading away. His eyes fall shut, like always, and he feels the joy of satisfaction flow through himself, the pressure of release relieved. He’s happy and full and tired now. He’s gotten what he wanted from her and barely has the strength left to motion for her to leave. It’s that good, and she smiles, happy of it. She gathers the remnants of his meal and tucks them into the bag. He doesn’t notice as her hand comes back, now clutching a knife, shallow blade. He drifts back, ready to fall asleep to the tune of nameless static, unaware and unable to stop anything anyway. His dreary eyes shoot open as the knife thuds into his fat stomach. Over and over, coupled with the laughter of her ecstasy, it plunges in, pulling purple blood out with it. She’d imagined fries and milkshake would pour forth, but this is just as good. Thud after thud, it plunges through white fat and thick tissue, unerring in its appeal. She laughs, unheeding and uncontrollable. Thick, and in, and thick, and in, plopping through his heavy outer layer. She laughs. After a stomachful of stabs she steps back and looks at it. His gut still sticks out, lined with small geysers of blood that are slowly dying down. His face is squirming, soundless. His stubble shines in the light of the television, and she knows she’ll
remember those contours forever. She looks into his mouth, teeming with open space and wretched with sugar. It’s glorious. She closes her eyes and realizes the blood from her dreams was never hers. She couldn’t bleed blood that black. She laughs and drops the knife in the puddle of garbage that’s growing bedside. As disgusting as things ever were, this is Picasso, at his finest, drunk and uncaring, on anger and love. This is life. She drops the bag and makes her way through the nothing of the house. Outside, she’s free, enjoying the breeze and the jokes the tree branches are telling, laughing wholeheartedly. This is the peace of her dream, but she’s alive to live it, and the flowers all wave happily to her in rhythm with the wind. Her white, broken clothes are slightly spattered with blood: his ketchup, she imagines. God, she wishes she had a fry to dip in it. She chuckles at the thought, but suddenly pictures old tomatoes growing mold in a dumpster. That’s what was in him, she thinks. She leaves in his car, with the lockbox of money he kept under his bed open on the seat next to her. She pulls into a familiar lot and goes inside, her dress still slightly spattered with crimson dots. She sits down at a faux formica table in the corner with a packed tray in front of her, unwraps the largest hamburger they sell and takes a deep, dark bite. It bleeds, and tastes like honey. The blood of it drips from her mouth, and she knows the happiness he used to feel, because the blood was never hers.