Cannibal Manifesto

A little disturbing, so beware if you have a weak stomach.

I feel real bad, I only had twenty-cents in the car today. Giving so little is almost an insult. “You’re so pitiful, here, take this single chicken nugget’s worth of metal.” Of course I’m not the only one giving them change. I guess twenty cents does matter, they kind of need anything they can take, I mean you have to be pretty bad off to be that ugly. Christ what the f**k is wrong with me, that man doesn’t have a home.

Living up here isn’t as bad as the reputation makes it seem. Most people just keep to themselves, and you have to think of it as just privacy instead of rudeness. They don’t open doors or ask you how your day was because, simply, they don’t care, and they don’t want to act like they care either. I don’t understand the whole problem people have with the north, I mean, I’m from the south, I understand that there is a difference, but it’s not that bad at all. There are a******s no matter where you go. You just have to get used to it really.

I was born in a small town in Mississippi. I was decently quiet as a kid, at least around my friends; I was a little more comfortable around my family. I was always surrounded by a big family, I don’t have any siblings but my mom and dad seemed to have rabbits for parents. They always made me feel like home. I could tell stories or anything else I wanted to say. When I was that age I looked like a damn chipmunk with the big teeth and cheekbones that stuck out of me like pink mountains. I had long, blonde, curly hair; it looked like someone painted a bush gold, I swear, and if it grew longer it got even more dense and started looking more like someone pissed on a cloud. Now I’ve finally got it cut, but it used to get real bad.

Until I was about 18 I loved the south. I loved staying out late at night with the stars above me and the grass all around, swaying to the music of whistling wind and George Strait. That’s one thing I loved about the south, country music, everywhere. No matter what station number it was, in Mississippi there was always an old soul singing on FM or AM about how sad he was about his lover or his dog or running out of chaw or anything, it was the best whining music there ever was.

But, people change. I began growing old of those stars and the grass and the music after high school ended. I wanted to move right after high school, but my parents weren’t having that. “You need to finish your education,” they would always say. I miss them, I need to call mom soon.

So, after graduating second highest in my class at the university, I moved up to St. Louis. I got an internship at a law firm there in the inner city, just menial stuff like answering calls, etcetera, nothing too hard. I got hired as a full time employee after about a year and I actually fit well into the company dynamic, I was up for anything. Then one night, it was, I think, Shelley’s birthday? Yeah it had to have been, no one else could have afforded it, and I was one of her close friends since I started interning there.

I pull into the parking lot of a place I had never heard of before called The Alleyway. I arrive with a pretty nice suit on; it was a classic black with a tiny shade of blue, it looked like night back in Mississippi. It’s gotten some red stains on it since I started eating so I haven’t worn it in a while. Anyway, I walk in, and I sit down, and I start talking to Shelley. “Happy Birthday Shelley,” I said, followed by “Aw thank you darlin’.” She seemed a little busy greeting everyone else, so I just went and sat down at one of the tables. The walls were painted a deep black, with all the furniture a blood red and white cloths covering the tables. It actually looked pretty nice, it had a great contrast going on. Then, after about 30 minutes, they wheeled out a few platters of salad and some grilled chicken and such. But finally, they brought out a big platter, with the cover being a deep gold this time.

Two waiters released the steam out of it and we all waited for the smoke to clear. Finally, the platter was able to be seen, and on it was an arm! A goddamned arm! You should’ve seen my face, wide open and hollow with my eyebrows furled as the surrounding crowd clapped and oohed and ahhed. I stayed in that chair as I watched Shelley take a huge bite out of the forearm, causing blood to seep out of her mouth. All of the onlookers laughed and giggled and helped her wipe off the blood on her lips with a black napkin. The muscles seemed to still tense up, even though it was not connected to anything to make it do so. I was mortified. Then I was just baffled.

The idea of eating another human is so, for lack of a better word, human. It’s mostly the adrenaline instead of the taste (which, if you’re wondering, is a lot like well-seasoned veal, if it’s cooked long enough). It’s just man returning to primal instincts; eat what you can. We’re running out of other s**t to eat anyway.

I went to a few more of Shelley’s parties, and I started asking her about it. It’s actually is a lot easier than a lot of people think, and a lot more popular too. It does come with a decent price though, with the custom orders, but even more expensive than that is getting to know the right crowd. You have to go to all these parties and dress perfectly and talk to people that most of the time you don’t even like; a lot of that crowd is at least a little creepy(I mean, obviously). But once you know the right people to call you could even get home delivery.

I started with only eating extremities, the rest was a little too fatty. I like the way the fat feels between my teeth now, stretching as I pull it out of the meat, but back then it got a little too much too fast to really be enjoyable for a beginner. It’s almost like how the most high-end cheeses are a little too, well, cheesy for casual cheese-eaters, but as they grow experience, they start to understand the eccentricities of a nice Caciocavallo Podolico, you know?  Now fingers, those were my delicacies. The muscles are as red as saffron and, Lord Christ almighty, those little bits of bone left from the crack, still to die for. You see, when the finger is cracked off the hand, it’s bent back until it’s nice and loose. Then the butcher cuts it off nice and softly with little to no trouble, it sounds like cutting construction paper. But, most of the time, there’s a little bit of bone left in the meat, and you have to suck the meat out of it like a crawfish head.

The first party that I ate at I went to alone. I walked into the murky New York City alleyway, trembling and wide-eyed to find a plane gray door . The door had a piece of paper pinned on it with the words “Come and Eat” sprawled across.  I opened the door, and I was welcomed by a woman in the fetal position in the middle of the table, I must’ve been a little late. She was a slight shade of yellow, except for her feet which were a tinged purple, but nothing too rotten. She had an apple in her mouth and she was surrounded by the lettuce like grass and was sitting on a clean, silver platter. I sat and enjoyed laughter when someone would go for the stomach and a little blood spurts would get on their white shirts or, heaven forbid, stomach acid on their black suits (you can never get the acid out of black, never). The splatter was preceded by a beautiful noise like rubber being torn.

I waited, partly because I knew no one would take the fingers and toes, but also because I was a little nervous. But when everyone was laughing louder and louder with every dissection it eased my senses up a bit. Some of the people I knew told me to “dig in,” with a giggle and such things like that: a little morbid, but oh well, just trying to break the ice. It was about 30 minutes before I could even see the woman again.

When the crowd scattered and revealed thin, stretched ligaments lying on the platter, I got up and got a metal plate. I started at the head. The apple was lying on the ground and it had a bite taken out of it. The woman’s mouth was stuck open and I could see her slightly browned teeth. Her hair was tied in a bun and, her lips were pale and her breasts hung down like spikes from a ceiling. Her arms were stretched and tied around her back. I reached for them, pulled, and heard the crack of her elbow, and a small bit of the bone stuck out of her skin with some blood dripping down it. It was quite beautiful actually, a red iceberg dripping with life.

I put her palm up towards the ceiling and felt the lines of her palm. I wondered how old she was. I wondered how she died. I wondered how she was. I bet she was some sort of sporty girl; she had quite a toned and fit body.

And after I got past the fact that she used to be a person, I ripped her finger off of her hand, leaving only splintered bone and some skin hanging off, grasping for a grip. After I put her finger on my silver platter, I move down to the legs. She had thighs like light posts and very toned calves. Her ankles were thinner but still quite muscular. I grabbed her ankle, and looked at her toes. I poked and played with her big one; it was little bruised, probably from the crowd jokingly fidgeting with the body, playing with what they don’t eat. Oh well, people don’t usually eat those parts, I understand.

I chose her middle toe because it was the longest that could be taken off without too much trouble. I wrapped my fingers around it and tightened my knuckles, then pulled as hard as I could, like cranking up a lawn mower. The pull was cleaner this time, causing less splinters and a shorter remaining bone shooting out of the toe. I put it on the platter, and pulled the two lesser toes off with even more ease. I grabbed some punch and some salad, sat down, and ate.

That night I accepted a big part of being this way. I have to either ignore the eaten’s humanity completely, or I have to accept it. I mean, I eat people, who had lives. That’s something pretty difficult to live with. Most of the time I go with the latter choice; I am the way I am for some unbeknownst reason just like all of us, I can’t help it, and it’s not my fault that they’re being eaten. I tried quitting, but it was like cutting heroin cold turkey. I got dizzy everyday at certain times and my eyes would always be red, I got fired twice before finding this desk-job that I have now. Which doesn’t really seem fair since they didn’t even ask me, but I understand, I would fire someone who was looking like that too. And I guess you could kind of call it using.

The one rule I have is to make sure that the bodies are found or taken with good cause-- no murder or immoral tendencies involved. Most actually are within the community themselves and volunteer their body once they die.

So now, almost 30 years later after Shelley’s party, I’m still eating, and I’ve gotten a lot better at it too. I don’t really have to tug anymore, just a slow, graceful and twisted pull does the job. I’ve always wondered if I’ll be caught. Yeah, it scares me a little, but I can’t necessarily worry about it since I can’t stop at this point. I either get caught or I don’t. I hope I don’t. I’m happy. I could live like this forever. Work all day, order some leg or arm, whatever I’m in the mood for, go home, wait for it to get there, and eat it whenever I’m in the mood for something special. This is the life; the life I want to live, and what’s wrong with that? Nothing really.

Author's Note

It could seem like I am making this gross for no reason, but I can defend it; I do have a reason, but it takes a little mental wandering to find it. Thanks for reviewing and don't hold back.