Work Text:
I housed a cannibal once.
I woke up one day, and his hunched form was sitting in the closet, watching me, drooling.
“I am hungry, doctor,” He said, “I am so terribly hungry. Will you not humor your starving guest?”
And I did.
You do not leave a guest hungry, either out of respect and hospitability, or out of fear. I don’t recall which one it was that drove me.
So I fed him.
Once every week at first, and he seemed content, Until his patience grew too thin, or his hunger grew too strong, and he begged for more.
“More, doctor. Please, feed me more, if you would be so kind.”
He pleaded, and what an awful host I was for letting my guest’s hunger grow.
So I did.
I fed him more, twice- no, thrice a week, and I watched his fragile, contorted body ever so slowly start to thrive, alongside the rancid, ever present smell of rot, and watched him crawl out of the closet.
It had gotten much too small for him.
The cannibal, seated at my desk, demanded for more.
“This sustains me no longer, Feed me more, if you would be so kind.”
I did not want to feed him anymore, for every time I watched him devour lifeless vessels with such greed I had found myself mesmerized, listening to the sounds of him ripping flesh apart from bone, and wondering how it would be if it was I whose teeth dug through the soft skin.
But I did,
For what an awful host I was for letting my guest grow so weary.
It was once every day, or was it more? After a certain time, the smell made it all too hard to keep any track of time, and my guest’s hunger seemed to grow faster, and faster, and faster.
I feel the teeth in his rotting jaw stab into my back, ripping a lump off and leaving some hanging from the bleeding wound.
“I am hungry, doctor,” He says. “I am so terribly hungry, and what an awful host you’ve been for leaving a hungry guest starving.”
So I do.
I feed him the freshest meal, for what an awful host I’ve been, declining my guest of what he had begged me for to survive.