The Sandwich – A Romance

I haven’t posted any of my own fiction for a few years. Here’s something I wrote a while back. It’s a little bit disgusting. I hope you enjoy it.

The Sandwich

Pascal Smith found himself in the position most dreaded by 16 year old boys. He had been caught wanking. His mother, assuming that Pascal was studying, had opened his bedroom door to deliver a basket of clean laundry only to find her son abusing himself, his mickey in one hand, a wad of toilet paper in the other. She fled in embarrassment and bumped into her husband on the way down the stairs. They later discussed the event between themselves and determined that any and all steps to prevent Pascal from befouling himself again ought to be taken.

There wasn’t very much they could do. Pascal was briefly chastised by his stepfather and his room was searched for pornography, but other than this, the only consequence was a new rule prohibiting Pascal from keeping any toilet paper in his bedroom. If he needed to blow his nose, he could do so in the bathroom.

Although Pascal was mortified by the experience, he was 16 years old, and while he managed to keep his hands out of his pants for the rest of the day, by the next evening he was back at it. He contemplated sending his wet little parcel out the window, but he was afraid his neighbours would see. He ended up using a sock. While it might seem more appropriate to further dirty a soiled sock, Pascal opted instead for a clean one. His mother collected his laundry weekly, and any cumstains in a sock would be less noticeable if it had since been worn.

He became more careful about masturbation. He’d make sure the coast was clear before beginning, and if he heard even the slightest creak from outside his room he’d zip himself up. It was a good thing too because, despite her initial embarrassment, his mother had become no less likely to barge in without knocking. In fact her doing so is largely to blame for the curious events that later occurred.

Pascal was really drawing one out. He had heard from a mate that a wank would last longer if he’d occasionally tug on his bollocks. Doing so felt awful, but it did seem to be having the desired effect. Pascal was approaching his climax when he heard his mother’s gentle foot upon the stair. He shoved himself back in his pants, threw the sock into his laundry basket and swiveled his chair towards his desk so it looked like he was reading. He was so efficient that he had a good 5 seconds to spare before his mother entered the room.

“Your father won’t be back until 6, so we’re having dinner late. I made you a snack, just a couple of slices of bread and butter.”

“Thanks mom.” he replied, annoyed that she was referring to his stepdad as his father but also reluctant to say anything that would cause her to stay longer.

She took a look at the books on his desk and gave him a smile as she laid the plate next to his notebook.

“Alright sweety. I’ll just take your laundry and let you study.”

As she was crossing the room, Pascal briefly worried she would notice the obviously clean sock on top of his dirty clothes, but before she had gotten to it, he realised that this wouldn’t prove anything. He took a measured breath and waited for her to leave.

This interruption had lasted less than a minute, and Pascal was still very much in the mood to finish what he had started. It took him seconds to get back to full speed, and it wasn’t until almost the moment of orgasm that he realised he had not replaced his cum-sock. He gave his sack a sharp tug, and although it made him wince in pain, it did nothing to slow things down. No, this was happening no matter what. He glanced at his desk. There were two potential receptacles, his library book, a biography of Hitler he was using for a school project, or his buttered bread.

He grabbed a slice and managed to jam it down on top of his nob just in time. The greasy texture wasn’t something he was used to, but it certainly wasn’t bad. Pascal came like a bastard.

Moments later, he was feeling very conflicted. He had just experienced perhaps the greatest orgasm of his life, but now he felt like a butter-dicked pervert and his snacky-poo was ruined. He certainly couldn’t eat it anymore, and he wasn’t sure how he could get rid of it without causing suspicion.

He thought about this for a while and then realised he had only ruined one of his two slices. “In for a penny, in for a pound”, he thought as he geared up to ruin the second slice. Doing so took him only 3 minutes, no sack pulling involved.

As enjoyable as they were, Pascal knew that these were small, single-use slices. He wasn’t going to get another go out of them, and he didn’t want to make a habit of this. His balls were drained, and he was thinking clearly now, but he couldn’t figure out a palatable way to get rid of the evidence. He ended up smoothing out the slices as best he could and then placing one on top of the other, wet sides inwards. He put this repulsive sandwich into the drawer of his desk and lay down to have a nap. He would deal with the removal later.

He forgot the sandwich was there until bedtime, when it was too late to do anything, so he again put it off. The next day he had piano lessons after school and genuinely forgot. When he got home the day after, he noticed a funny smell in his room.

There were a few black spots on the sandwich. It was mouldy. Although he was home alone for an hour after school and could have used this time to throw it out, Pascal didn’t. He felt a bizarre mixture of shame and pride. He knew he was a sandwich-fucking degenerate, but he also liked the idea that something that came from his own body was helping to create new life. He moved the plate and its contents to his wardrobe and placed them behind a stack of board games.

The next few days were unremarkable. Pascal would take a peek every now and then, and although he was masturbating regularly, he refrained from interfering with the sandwich again. It wasn’t until the weekend that he noticed anything truly odd.

He woke up on Saturday night after hearing a soft groaning noise coming from his closet. Assuming that some small rodent had been at his sandwich and poisoned itself, Pascal picked up his cricket bat and approached the wardrobe. He put his ear to the door to listen for scuttling but heard none. He lifted the bat in preparation to strike and quickly threw the door open, but nothing moved or scurried out.

“Myeeeeeyah”

There it was again, the noise that woke him. Clearer this time, it was coming from directly in front of Pascal’s eyes, but it was dark and he couldn’t see much of anything. Confused and quite afraid, Pascal turned on the light and returned to the wardrobe. He bent over, hovering his face just inches from the putrid sandwich, looking for an intruder and considering how best to get this mess out of his room when the noise came again. This time he was certain. It was coming directly from the sandwich. He knew this because he had seen a ripple of movement along with the sound. Perhaps some baby mouse had engorged itself on rancid butter and cold cum and was now too bloated to escape from the inside of the beastly butty. Pascal nudged the bread with the tip of his cricket bat, and it responded with a soft moan.

“Weghhhhh!”

No, this didn’t look like there was a creature inside the sandwich. It looked like the sandwich itself was groaning. The furry gray crusts were quivering open and shut, and a repulsive susurration was uttering forth.

Pascal stumbled backwards, shutting the closet door in the process. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that he was afraid, but he was disturbed. His vision of reality did not include meals that could groan. Part of his brain told him to ignore it and go back to bed, and the rest of his brain was easily convinced. This would be best dealt with in the morning when he could be sure that he was entirely awake.

When he awoke the next morning, he went straight downstairs and had breakfast. After using the bathroom, he came back to his room and went straight to the closet, feeling more and more certain that his experience during the night had been a dream or hallucination. He picked up the plate holding the sandwich and brought it level to his eyes. After peering at it for a good 20 seconds, he felt entirely sure that whatever had happened the night before had largely occurred in his imagination. Although the sandwich no longer seemed disturbing, the patterns of sporangium spreading on its surface drew Pascal’s attention, and it was as he was examining these that it happened again.

“Wuuuuuuuuuugh”

Pascal froze. This was no dream. The moldy bread sounded like it was vocalising. He set the plate down on his desk, opened his window and sat down on his bed. This was really happening. An uneaten meal had somehow become alive. This freak occurrence in a teenage boy’s bedroom could potentially change everything that scientists understood about evolution. Pascal thought about this, and for this very reason knew that he could never tell another soul. If any scientist got their hands on his sandwich, they would quickly find out what had been the life-giving catalyst. No, this wonder of nature was for Pascal’s eyes only.

Pascal understood enough about biology to know that all life needs food to sustain itself, and that the mold on the sandwich was actually eating away at the bread and its contents. If he wanted his creation to live, he would need to feed it. He walked down to the kitchen and opened the fridge. As he stared at its contents, he wondered what kind of food a sandwich would most like to eat. He discreetly grabbed a slice of ham and returned to his room, rolling the meat into a salty cylinder as he ascended the stairs.

As he brought the slice of ham towards the sandwich, its rotting lips parted, and Pascal did his best to slide it in without having to touch the bread. This proved impossible, but Pascal was surprised to find that the sandwich had acquired a warm rubbery texture, and it left no observable residue on his fingers afterwards. Once he had fed the slice of ham about halfway in, he experienced a soft tugging sensation coming from inside the sandwich. Although he was warming to the idea of having a pet sandwich, the sensation of it moving was too much for him, and he placed the whole thing back in the closet and left his room.

On returning, he saw that the mold had spread rapidly, and even the half inch of rolled ham that was sticking out of the bread was fungified. He couldn’t tell for certain, but it seemed as though the sandwich was aware of his proximity as it started to groan as he neared. Although his recent experiences had left him feeling confused at several points, the first time he felt actual revulsion was when he saw the protruding, mold-sealed roll of lunch meat flapping up and down like a hideously limp and dislocated tongue.

“Luuuuuuuughluughhhhl”

No. That had to have been his imagination. He could accept the notion that the process of decomposition might produce sounds. Chemical reactions could produce gas that could squeak as it was released, but this sounded like syllables. Surely it wasn’t possible that a festering sandwich could speak.

“Meeuuuuuyhleeeughhhhl”

The pronunciation was way off, but Pascal’s gut told him it was calling his name.

It didn’t stop. For the rest of the day and the following night, the sandwich would gurgle whenever Pascal came close to it. He was torn over what to do. The sandwich was both an abomination and a miracle, and he hadn’t the heart to throw it out or show it to anyone else. He spent most of the weekend staring at it.

By Sunday evening, he thought that it looked a little worse for wear. It had been a rotten sandwich for its entire life, but it was really haggard now. The ham he had fed it had transmogrified into a tongue instead of providing it with sustenance. He had tried to feed it small spoonfuls of peanut butter, but it wasn’t interested, and its grumblings had now turned to desperate, soft moans that tugged on Pascal’s heartstrings. Don’t forget that he had given it life, and he was starting to feel like a parent watching their child waste away.

Suddenly he knew what to do. He ran downstairs and rummaged through the pile of magazines on the sitting-room coffee table until he found the Sears catalogue. He snuck it back to his room and got to work. He had been so preoccupied with his new pet that he hadn’t had a wank since Friday, so it didn’t take long. Seconds before reaching his climax, he moved in towards the sandwich, pointing his glans at its dry gray lips. Sensing that sweet nourishment was close, the sandwich opened its mouth like a very weak, yet very eager baby bird. Pascal’s eyes rolled back as the first spurt of cum blew out of his dirty knob. Through waves of ecstasy, he could hear a repulsive gobbling. As he shook his dick at the sandwich, flicking the last few drops over it like an aspergillum wielding priest, he noticed that it already looked rejuvenated. He could sense its happiness, and this made him feel good too.

He went to bed that night feeling rather pensive. The sandwich, while no less rotten than before, was somehow looking stronger after 3 hearty meals. It seemed to be in a better mood, and this filled Pascal with optimism. The strangeness of having a freak of nature living in his bedroom had taken a backseat in Pascal’s troubled teenage mind. He was more concerned now with his relationship with the sandwich. Was he its father or its lover? Pascal was an unpopular virgin, and never in his wildest wank fantasies had he thought he’d end up with a pal with an insatiable lust for his cum. It wasn’t his ideal girlfriend, but it was better than anything he’d had before.

The next two weeks were busy but fulfilling. Pascal fed his pet several times each day and started changing its plate after he noticed that it was actually discharging small gray pellets from the side opposite its mouth. It had somehow formed a simple digestive system, and although it was a rotting luncheon Pascal could not bear to see it wallowing in its own waste.

He also managed to train it to communicate. It didn’t have lips or teeth, and it would be a stretch to say it could speak, but it learned to make different sounds that corresponded to its different needs. A two syllabled “Beeughleeughl” was its cry for attention. To anyone else, this would have sounded like a choking geriatric, but to Pascal it sounded like his name. “eeeeeeagh” was how it called for food. It made an aggressive grunting noise when it was didn’t like something. Most surprising of all was its “peeeeugh” noise for when it had passed waste and wanted Pascal to change its plate.

As his caring bond with the sandwich strengthened, so too did their sexual relationship. Pascal no longer jerked off into its mouth. Now he was quite content to let it blow him. He grew to love the sensation of its slimy tongue working its way under his foreskin. It got to a point where he was no longer fantasizing about girls when he was with the sandwich. It was her he wanted now. If he ever masturbated without it (which he didn’t) he would have fantasized about her decaying bread flaps. After a while, he even built up enough confidence to try putting his dick in the sandwich’s ass to spice things up. She didn’t like it at first and she groaned and complained, but Pascal found her more receptive if he fingered her rear open while he was fucking her mouth. It was still a tight squeeze, but they both enjoyed the novelty of it. He’d always take it out of her shitter and put it back in her mouth before he came though. He knew that sex was more than just fun for her. It provided her sustenance.

Months passed, and their love grew. Pascal withdrew from his small circle of friends and spent more and more time in his bedroom, making sweet, dirty love to his vile cum-sandwich. One morning, after serving up a hot breakfast bukakke , Pascal lay on his bed with the sandwich in the crook of his arm. Pascal asked his lover what she wanted from life. “Weeughlweeughl eeeeeeagh”
“You want to eat? But I just fed you. You’ll have to wait a few minutes.”

“Hnnnnnnghh! Weeughlmeeughl eeeeeeagh. Beeughlweeughl eeeeafh!”

Parents are able to understand the speech of their children before anyone else, and at this moment, Pascal understood his baby perfectly. She wasn’t saying that she wanted to eat. She was saying that she wanted Pascal to eat her.
“No! I couldn’t do that. I love you!”

“Weeughlweeughl eeeeeeagh. Weeughlweeughl eeeeeeagh!” Her groans became manic. She had never been refused anything before, and she was panicking. Unable to see his love in this state, Pascal picked up her and bit off a small green morsel from her crust. He started to wretch as soon as the fungused bread turned to salty powder in his mouth, but he somehow managed to swallow it down. Still the sandwich shrieked. EAT! EAT EAT!

Pascal couldn’t handle the situation. He put her back on her plate and ran downstairs. He loved the sandwich, and he didn’t want to imagine not having her in his life, but he had heard the desperation in her voice, and it hurt him to think of her not getting what she wanted. She was a sandwich after all, and it made sense that a sandwich would want to be eaten. He didn’t come back to her until the next evening, and when he did, he picked her up, brought her inches from his face and said “I will give you what you want, but not just yet. Let me love you one more time.” Then he fucked her gently, cherishing the feel of her decaying hide as he pumped into her putrid maw. When he was sure she had climaxed and felt that he was close to orgasm himself, he brought her to his mouth and kissed her, his tongue passionately wrestling with her animated flap of gray meat. “I’ll love you forever.”

Although he had been pumping it with cum, the sandwich had shrunk considerably since its birth, and Pascal was able to fit the whole thing in his mouth. As he chewed and his mouth attempted to dilute the repulsive flavour with a flood of hot saliva, Pascal fought to keep his gorge from rising. To avoid the thought of regurgitation, he focused on the pleasure building in his phallus. This was real love. This was romance. He was viciously jerking his cock, but as he chewed he could feel parts of the sandwich’s innards actually pumping inside his mouth, and all he could do to avoid wretching was to increase the sensations elsewhere. With his free hand, he began fingering his own rotten ass. It hurt, but it took his mind off the taste, and it reminded him of other intimate moments with his lover. As he prepared to swallow, he felt his oncoming climax building. His lover’s body was becoming one with his own. As he stood in his room with his cock in his hand, his fingers up his arse and his decaying lover in his mouth, Pascal Smith achieved the momentary state of unity with all existence that only the most powerful orgasm can deliver.

When he recovered from his staggering climax, Pascal reached out for a clean sock to wipe the cum from his belly, but he stopped short. His first dalliance was over, but it had changed him. With a stooping gait and a wet tummy, he shuffled down to the kitchen…

The Compost Bin – A Short Story

The world is in trouble. We’ve all known this for a long time, but conservation efforts are no longer only made by bearded liberals. Here in my country, we have state mandated recycling programs. In the basement of my apartment building, we have separate bins to sort our used cans, bottles, paper, and even old clothes. My favourite bin though, and the subject of this tale is the compost bin for our food waste.

I was overjoyed when I first saw it there. I like the idea of saving the planet, and food in the garbage often stank up my apartment, especially during the summer when it’s hot. A big grin could be seen stretching my lips on my return journeys from the basement after the compost bin showed up. It was the satisfied smile of a man playing his part for the environment.

About 2 months after this big brown bin appeared, something very special happened.

It was an exceedingly hot day, and the bowl I used to collect my food scraps was emitting an unpleasant odor. It contained the carcass of a rotisserie chicken and half a withered red onion. This fine feast was topped with some rancid yoghurt that should have been thrown out months before. When I found the yogh-cartons at the back of my fridge, I emptied their contents on top of the chicken skeleton and proceeded to rinse out the cartons so that they too could be recycled. As I carried the bowl of compost downstairs, its powerful stench waves assaulted my nostrils.

The air around the larger compost bin downstairs was worse. Every breath within a 5 meter radius of it tasted like a mouthful of hot, rank soup. After the slow process of emptying my bowl and all of its slimy contents, I was starting to feel nauseous. I hacked the phlegm from the back of my throat and voided my rheum into the compost bin.
I walked away feeling upbeat and refreshed. On my way up the stairs, I wondered about the fate of the phlegm and spittle I had left atop the stinking pile of rot. Slowly but surely, it would become an indistinguishable part of the slurry, its molecules mixing with those of the chicken carcass, and those hybrid molecules would go on to mix with the remains of the vegan curry that I had earlier smelled cooking in my neighbour’s apartment. After the mixing would come decay, but after sufficient rotting had ensued, the compost would be spread on a farm, and crops would be grown from it. My loogie might go on to become part of a carrot, and due to my faith in the cyclical nature of the universe, I felt it fairly likely that I should be the man to eat that very carrot.

What a reward! I had become an active participant in the circle of life. From thereon, it was a rare occurrence for me to take out the compost without leaving a little of myself in the mix. Mostly it would be a little spit or a large crispy snot, freshly picked, but sometimes I would go further and merrily give a a handful of toenail clippings.

I quickly became fixated on giving myself to the task, and little would be emitted from my body that would not end up in the brown bin downstairs. My compost bowl that I used leave on my microwave could often be seen housing a mushy tissue or a piece of skin picked from my foot. Once every few months, it would cater to the needs of my freshly clipped hair, both cranial and pubic. I once gave it my beard trimmings, but they were a nuisance to get out of the end of the bowl after mixing with the sickening sooly that lurked there.

Now every man has his limits, and while I am a dedicated conservationist, I also have my dignity. I refrained from ever putting my feces into the compost bin, not for any moral reason, but because doing so should properly stink out my kitchen. Yes, I refrained from doing so, but I can’t lie and say I never thought about it. In truth, it became a fantasy of mine, and you can only imagine my mirth when my stars aligned and there was a plumbing failure in my apartment building that took away our running water and prevented the toilets from flushing.

I was lucky. My toilet was clean and flushed when the failure occurred, so my house was not immediately effected. The landlord hired a portapotty for my neighbours and I, but it was not sufficient defense against the army of bowels in need of evacuation in our building, and this facility was quickly rendered unusable by a veritable mountain of dung that peaked well above the toilet lid. Only a contortionist would have been able to use it without making a repulsive mess of themselves.

I resolved to stay at home and to satiate my need in an environmentally friendly manner. I squatted above a large sheet of butchers’ paper (folded twice to protect my carpet) and squeezed out a hard lump of blackened gick. The process was made painful but rather tidy by the fact that I hadn’t drank anything in a couple of days on account of the lack of running water in the building. The painful mass of hideous scum that I produced was truly a labour of love.

It took but two crisp wipes with some more butcher’s paper to tidy myself up, and after doing so I placed my little parcel into my compost bowl and took it straight down to the basement. Dropping off my dropping was like seeing off an emigrant child at the airport. It was hard to say goodbye, but it was also exciting to think of the prospects of that small part of me to which I was bidding adieu. My pellet was fresh and ready to fertilise.

The plumbing was soon fixed, but I had developed a taste for leaving different parts of myself in the compost bin. I became obsessed with spreading my DNA. The more I gave, the more likely it would be that somebody of great importance might some day ingest a small part of me. I found momentary satisfaction by donating my collection of the baby teeth of my childhood, but I could feel the urge growing. My mantra became, “To live, I must give.”

One day, while preparing an offering of my toenails, I dug a little too deep and ended up with a small slice of flesh under the blade of my clippers. It caused great pain, but the agony was outweighed by the ecstasy of knowing that this tiny slice of flesh would go on to give life. I couldn’t stop myself from digging a little deeper under the next nail, and a little deeper on the next.

In the ensuing weeks I read several books on the anatomy of the human being. Using these books as a I guide, I plotted a map of the least essential parts of the human body, and over the following months I used this map to guide my trusty nail-clippers to the parts of my person that could be slowly excavated without serious risk to my survival. As time went on and I became accustomed to the pain, I began to use a pair of scissors to remove larger chunks of useless flesh, starting with my earlobes and moving on to larger, more sensitive unnecessaries. I’m not stupid though, and I have refrained from removing anything that could prevent me from making my nightly trips to the compost bin to present my offerings. Acquiring sustenance has become more difficult though, and recently I have been having all of my food delivered. I leave the money on the doorstep and collect the food only when I am sure there is nobody in sight. There is very little left of my face, and my skull is showing through several parts of my head. I fear that anyone who sees me might fail to understand why I’m doing what I’m doing. No, the layman might not be capable of appreciating the generous and spiritual nature of my sacrifice.

I feel now though that the final stage of my gift to the world is approaching. After I finish typing this manuscript, I shall take a knife and dice my flesh, leaving sufficient strands of skin and muscle to hold me together for my final journey. This slicing will be no act of masochism but a carefully planned act that should speed up decomposition. At this stage you will have guessed my destination, but do not, gentle reader, deny me the pleasure of announcing my plans. Yes. Oh yes, yes, yes. Tonight, I shall undress, wait until the coast is clear and then walk down to that big brown compost bin for the final time. With glee I shall climb inside that reverse womb and continue my journey towards rejuvenation and rebirth. Death is an illusion. I shall become life itself.

Kevin – A Short Story about Customer Service

(It has been quite a while since I wrote any fiction. I came up with an idea for a short story on my way into work on Thursday and had finished writing it before I went to bed that night. It’s based on a guy I used to work with. He was a good friend. More of this is true than you might want to believe. I hope you like it.)

Kevin, a carpark attendant at Mundrum Shopping Centre, is facing an extremely rude and irate customer. The customer is complaining about a parking coupon that she believes to have malfunctioned. Kevin calmly delivers the rote explanation of how the system works – the coupons deduct two hours off the parking, not two euros; if you’ve stayed longer than two hours, you still need to pay. The customer’s rage has overpowered her ability to think rationally, and she predictably demands to speak to Kevin’s boss. When the boss arrives, he comes down on the customer’s side and gives her free parking with a smile, apologising for Kevin’s attitude. Without making eye contact with the employee he has just stabbed in the back, the manager tells Kevin to wipe down the ticket paystations and withdraws to his office.

The service corridors that run behind the carpark walls are almost always empty. There’s a turn at the end of one of these corridors that leads to an emergency fire-exit. About 3 metres before this turn, there’s a door to the garbage-collection area. This small section of the corridor is a safe haven for slackers. There’s no security cameras, and on the off-chance that an intruder enters this realm, the echoey nature of the corridor will provide ample warning to the truant worker and allow them to escape in the opposite direction. This little patch of land is where Kevin has established his snail farm.

Every now and then, a car drives into the carpark, sheltering a snail under its fender. Sometimes the snails fall off and end up on the carpark floor, and whenever Kevin finds one of these forsaken gastropods, he takes it to his snail sanctuary. There are 7 snails on the wall here, growing fat on a diet of mayonnaisey lettuce from the turkey sandwiches that Kevin buys in the shop upstairs. He feeds them every day.

Sitting on an upturned shopping basket, facing the creatures he considers his closest friends, Kevin comforts himself with a large bag of crisps. He does his best to ignore the rancid stench from butcher’s dumpster that’s just around the corner, a stench exacerbated by the hot weather. Kevin is thinking about the events in his life that have led him here – dropping out of high-school, emmigrating in the hopes of a new life, taking the first job he was interviewed for and staying in it despite it making him unhappier than he has ever been. This job is awful. Not only are the customers cruel and the shifts long and dull, but Kevin is 350 lbs and the heavy steel-toe leather boots he is required to wear are Hell on his feet. Daily bouts of prolonged mental anguish and physical pain have recently been leading him to thoughts of suicide. He concedes to himself that tonight might be the night that he goes home and overdoses on pain medication. He doesn’t want to face another day at the carpark.

He gets a call on his radio telling him to help a customer that has gotten stuck at the exit, but the radio signal is bad in this corridor and after a delayed response, he takes another five minutes to journey to the exit to free the distressed soul. He opens the gate without question and waves the car on. The exiting driver rewards Kevin’s effort with a vulgar comment about his weight and mental capabilities.

Kevin is called to the office afterwards and the boss asks him where he was when he was being called and why he had taken so long. Kevin claims that he had been using the toilet. “You have to ask before going to toilet!”, the boss informs him. Kevin later jokes with his younger coworkers about how he would promptly soil himself if the boss ever denied such a request. He claims that he would gladly disregard his own discomfort and hygiene and finish out the day’s work with a turd in his britches if doing so would cause offense to the customers and dismay to his boss.

There’s soon another rude customer, this one is looking for his car – “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve already checked Level 1.” But Kevin does know what he’s talking about; he goes through this routine several times an hour. He tells customer again that his car is actually on Level 1M, the level between Level 1 and Level 2. The customer informs Kevin that it is stupid to have two Level 1s. He’s right, but he’s speaking as if it was Kevin who had been in charge of naming the levels of the car park. Kevin, doing his best to maintain the appearance of sympathy tells the customer that he will show him a shortcut to the right level. They head into the corridor that leads to the snail farm. When they are near the end of the corridor, Kevin points to the door that opens onto the garbage-collection area and tells the customer to go ahead. As soon as the customer has his back to him, Kevin takes the shoelaces that he has removed from his heavy, leather boots from his pocket, lunges forward and swiftly wraps them around the customer’s neck. Pulling tightly, in an act of seething, malevolent hatred, Kevin’s face reddens in synchronicity with the customer’s. His eyes are open so wide that they seem to be stretching his sockets. His greasy lips are pursed tightly in a delirious grimace. After 30 seconds of intense struggling, he has to remind himself to breathe, his conscious mind overcoming his self-loathing and extinguishing his deathwish vicariously through the demise of his victim. During the attack, Kevin’s mind is aflame. He acknowledges to himself that what he is doing is terribly wrong while simultaneously contemplating the factors that have led to this – is this the end-result of not being breastfed as a baby? These thoughts follow each other in quick succession, the idea of breasts encouraging his already growing erection. It has been a long time since he has been this close to anyone. The tinge of sexual excitement now fully unhinges his mind. “Mama, Mama!” he whispers in the dying man’s ear, his breath still reeking of cheese and onion crisps, “I just want you to love me. Please, Mama, I need you to love me!”

Leaving it as late as possible, Kevin calls into his boss at 9.30 pm and reports a potential gas leak by one of the fire-exits. At this stage, all of the customers and most of the mall’s staff have gone home. A few carpark attendants are kept on site to help cinema-goers and restaurant diners as they exit. The boss is about to head home but decides that a potential gas leak sounds serious enough to necessitate a check. He reluctantly follows Kevin into the service corridors, bringing his stuff from the office so that he can leave directly once this is sorted. Once they get to the snail farm and the boss notices a large mound by the wall that has been covered with a tarp, Kevin takes the fire extinguisher from its mount beside the fire-exit and uses its rounded edge to viciously wallop the back of his boss’s head. With the boss’s body now lying parallel to the corpse under the tarp, Kevin slips off one of his own laceless boots and peels off a slimy, hot sock. The stench from this sock is more vile than anything he has witnessed today. He stuffs it into his boss’s unconscious mouth. Kevin takes off his other boot and sock and drops them to the floor. Next, he removes his trousers and underpants, leaving his sweaty, hairy ass completely exposed. His penis remains out of sight, hidden behind his sizeable paunch. Kevin steps one foot over his boss’s head, squats and begins to push out a hot loaf. “Please sir, may I go to the bathroom, please?”, he softly murmurs as the first log slides out solid, followed by a fart-powered spray of hot shit-chunks. He stands up and grabs two snails from the wall, quickly chucking them into his mouth and chewing violently. Shards of shell dig into his gums and his mouth fills with blood and snail guts. He lowers himself back down, suspending his head directly over the boss’s shit besmeared face and lets the disgusting mixture in his mouth pour out, covering the chocolate cake like an exotic sauce. “Breakfast is served”, he chuckles to himself as he stands up and picks up his remaining sock to wipe his horrid ass. After calmly putting his pants and boots back on, he places one foot on the dirty man’s throat and exerts all of his weight on it. The man’s trachea is crushed instantly and he dies.

Tidying up is a surprisingly simple operation. The shops are long closed, and there’s nobody about to hinder the work. Kevin strips the corpses, puts their clothes into plastic bags and then puts these into his backpack. He drags the bodies a few meters and loads them into the butcher’s dumpster. This will be collected in the morning and emptied at a depot far away. The bodies might be discovered once it gets there, but they’ll probably just be minced up and turned into fertilizer.

Driving home that night in his boss’s Mercedes, Kevin feels good. He stops off at the off-license and buys a bottle of expensive brandy. When he gets home, he orders a tasty pizza. He sits on his bed, enjoying his feast. For the first time in months, Kevin is not dreading tomorrow.

My First Attempt at Writing Short Fiction

Recently, I had to take a writing class as part of my degree, and one of the assignments was to write a short story. I’ve long wanted to write fiction, but I always felt unprepared. The class I took was pretty great though. The instructor’s attitude was; “I don’t care if you don’t feel ready. You’re handing me in a story at the end of the week, so shut up and get to work.” It was the kick up the hole that I needed.

There were no topics assigned, but it was suggested that we write about something that we were interested in. Before putting pen to paper, I had to sit down to think about what interests me. I glanced at my desk, noticed the books on aliens and black magic that I had been reading, and shrieked, “Eureka!”

Here is the story I came up with. It may not be a masterpiece, but I feel that it’s a decent first attempt, and I think that anyone with an interest in the books I review will probably enjoy it. I definitely plan to write more short fiction in the future.

Night Shift – Duke De Richleau