THE DIFFERENT PERSONAS OF X

CHAPTER I: THE FLESH-EATER

CHAPTER II: THE HEART-EATER

CHAPTER III: THE MAN-EATER

CHAPTER IV: THE SOUL-EATER

CHAPTER V: ORGASM

September 19, 2006

20:42

Dear journal,

Today, I encountered X once more.

I awoke in a country surrounded by sand, and shortly after wakeful cognition impregnated the sleepy fog imposing upon my cranium, I had to wipe some of the stuff from my mouth. I was parched, and when the men came to drag me to my humid sanctum I could do nothing but blink weary eyes and watch as the sun cracked like an egg behind steel doors.

I stayed there for twenty years or longer before X made his grand appearance. I was fed hefty scraps of jerky-meats coated with a rocky surface of sea salts, along with a cracked biscuit and a modest pitcher of water twice a day. When my door opened once more, I imagined it was a guard here with my meal or perhaps a well-aimed kick to the ribs; I was surprised to instead feel soft paw-pads dragged affectionately across my cheeks.

When I looked up to see X, I can only imagine the look upon my face - hope, disparagement, betrayal, confusion, excitement - and I could see the roundness of my eyes reflected clearly in the unadulterated blackness of his own. He smiled at me and winked, and offered me a slice of meat that was caked with salt to a lesser-offensive degree.

When he withdrew his claw I raised my shackled fists and held him close, but before I knew it, he was gone. I would see him nine hundred and eighty years later.

When you are alone for such an extended period of time, you tend to have crazy ideas and racing thoughts incomparable to even the most violently opinionated spasms of manic depression. My room had no windows, and no light escaped betwixt the metal hinges of my cell door; I began to have hallucinatory delusions regarding some fictional source of illuminations, and soon I had drawn the conclusion that my own eyes would have to go. I had thought about it very thoroughly, and my ultimate reasoning was along the following lines:

Eyes are very fragile organs, and without a single component they will cease to work in any matter of time. The structure of the eye is efficient in a morbidly precise sort of way - one mistake, and vision becomes a fleeting memory that dances like silver shadows on a waterfront. There is only one external component that the eyes rely on, and that is light. I suppose it can be argued that light is not necessary for the eyes to work properly, but an eye without light is as functional as an eye without a cornea. I began to wonder that if, perhaps, in this case, my eyes were preventing me from seeing anything. Maybe if I did not have eyes, my body would follow the natural course of evolution and I would grow something ugly and foul that smelled of human desecration - something capable of seeing in the darkness of this prison.

Maybe if I popped my eyes, light would pour out alongside optic fluids and nestle in the wrinkles of my palms, and as I felt the walls with my egg-white hands I would find an escape route nestled painfully obviously along the bricks. It would have been excruciatingly easy to find, if only I had done this earlier.

But as I retreated further inside myself to continue pondering the fate of my vision, a scrap of meat was thrown at me and the fragile male psyche relying on sex and food was satiated. I was sane once more, saved by the grace of beef like so many men on Super Bowl weekend. I did not have a similar recurring thought.

I woke up from a nap plagued by particularly penetrative dreams, surprised to find myself nestled in bed and cocooned in my blankets like a baby. X was sitting on the side of my bed, nibbling on a piece of beef jerky and shooting me his million dollar smile. He was wearing the uniform of a prison guard: long grey trousers with golden trim, double-breasted black blazer festooned with intricate stitchings and eight large brass buttons imprinted with the crown of that far-away kingdom.

After furiously ripping myself from bed and ignoring the ripening-plum feeling in my cheeks due to my unexpected nakedness, I hugged my toilet and vomited.

I was home, and only ten minutes had passed.

I had staggered to my feet, aged mentally far beyond what a human should ever have to experience. I retrieved a pair of boxers and shakily drew them to my hips; laced a pair of sneakers, the tactile experience of looping a bow powerful enough to make the hairs on my forearms rise; pulled on an argyle sweater and ratty jeans. Today was essentially the same as any other day (maybe a bit boring to a more ornery audience,) but I felt as though my innards were actively rotting. I was almost sure if I did a standard Y autopsy cut, I would discover mice chewing upon a grey shred of intestine and cobwebs lacing each aorta. It did not seem as though I should be alive. Humans were created for a certain amount of wear-and-tear, and in the last quarter-hour I had far extended what I was born to experience. I did not know if there was a breaking point for these sort of things - would I shrivel and die within the next twenty minutes? - and I was somewhat fearful that God or X or whoever ordained how many hours a human heart was allowed to beat would demand repentance for my involuntary cheating.

To his credit, X did notice my obvious distress and pulled me to my loveseat, pulling my head into his lap and lacing thin pulp-white fingers (he had adopted hands for convenience while circumnavigating the human world) through my hair. He was as fetching and pretty as the last time I saw him: his marble eyes shone and glanced in a location unbeknownst to anyone other than his lonesome, and his black spiral horns folded past his ears in a lovely, ram-like pattern.

He explained to me that he had created the world for fun. The locals were particularly violent and the food was scarce; royalty was determined between mace-wielding duels to the death. It was not uncommon for the King to be missing an arm, an eye, or three toes, and the Queens would eye their husbands with masked contempt. Citing his reason as ‘for science,’ he had locked me away for a thousand local years - ten minutes in time on earth. He proceeded to explain my responses were both amusing and endearing, I had not lost my head, I was a dependable source of stability and an excellent rational thinker. I had expected for him to chide me for wanting to pop my eyes between index finger and thumb like warm concord grapes, but he was merciful and seemed to cast a blind eye to my major faults.

“I think it has made me fancy you even more, Atticus,” he had mused, winding a strand of my hair around a delicate forefinger that could be snapped as easily as a twig. “If, in the future, you wish to categorise this into some dusty folder of reason, let it be known it was punishment for forgetting me.”

I opened my mouth to tell him I remembered him quite well, even wrote about him in my diary, but instinct whispered to maintain silence.

“Now, what I did to you was a horrible, horrible thing, so listen closely as I explain how I can fix you. All I request is you fast for a week; you may eat fruits and vegetables in their purest and unaltered states, but nothing more.”

“What about nuts?” I interrupted, and X pursed his lips for a moment.

“No, no. A nut is not a fruit or a vegetable. It falls into the food group legume.”

“Legume is not a food group,” I replied. His fingers paused in tracing soothing patterns into my scalp, and I lamented the loss.

“Says who?”

“Well, there are only five food groups: grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, meats and proteins, and fats. Nuts would fall into the protein category, I’d imagine.”

“Why is it necessary that such things are stuffed into such a few amount of groups? I mean, honestly. Who is to say cake should not be considered a grain? From now on, you will refer to legumes as the sixth food group.”

“All right,” I answered, languishing beneath the regained movement of his massaging fingertips.

“You may fast for either six or seven days: if you cease on the seventh, you will have no recollection of your encounter, and will revert back to a state of ignorance. If you choose to go back to instant ramen and fruit concentrate a day earlier (don’t think I am unaware of your nasty eating habits,) you will have a mild recollection of your years in solitude, although it will be of a low enough caliber to allow you to sleep soundly at night. If you choose a six day fast, you will be a pretentious human clinging to any extraordinary occurrence with greedy, grubby, instant-ramen loving little fingers; if you choose a seven day fast, you will be a coward that will most likely be senile by age seventy and crossing your fingers in your lap whilst enjoying the tidelike motions of a rocking chair. Of course, this is only an estimate based on your lazy character. I will be watching, and choosing the nature of our relationship based on your decision.”

I blinked, startled by the sudden onslaught of pertinent information. “And if I do not fast?”

“Then you will be plagued by memories no single human is strong enough to carry on ones’ back, and eventually collapse under the weight and spiral into an inescapable fire-pit of insanity.” X smiled, and I admired the startling whiteness of his straight teeth.

“I will go with the six day fast, then,” I stated boldly, “because in that hell lies a visit with you, which seem to be so short and far-between.”

X promptly brushed away my bangs and kissed me on my forehead, and as he murmured ‘selfish’ into my skin I lost consciousness once more.

I am considering seeing a therapist, but considering my awful state of dehydration I think it is highly probable I have been living off of salted meat for the past thousand years. My orange urine is enough proof that I have the potential to have retained a scrap of sanity.

September 21, 2006

18:21

Dear journal,

I am hungry as shit.

September 22, 2006

19:53

Dear journal,

Today, like every previous day this week, X has come to check on me and sniff my person to detect any acrid changes in my sweat that may belie meat or, even worse, instant ramen-eating. So far, I have been gorging myself on plums and nectarines. X seems to be pleased with my docility. In three days, I can eat once more, and I’m already excitedly planning what my celebratory meal might be - a cheesesteak, or perhaps linguine al dente with minced garlic? - or maybe even a Big Mac from the McDonalds down the street, in the case in which I am too weak to drive anywhere else. However, I cannot dwell on this subject for it makes my mouth water and my tastebuds rebel against the fibery pulp of a peach.

X has killed my coworker - how could I not remember this until now! - and the dreary cubicle next to mine has been somewhat of a depressant over the past couple of days. I did not catalogue her absence as anything suspicious, until one day X turned up on my couch ripping sinewy shreds of muscle from a human heart. I cast one look at him, and he gazed at me, as though egging me on to dare to ask him a question - then my fingers itched for a beer in the fridge, but I grabbed a nectarine instead and took a bite. The once lush flavour was redundant and dull on my tongue.

“I only allowed you questions during the intricacies of our deal so you would have a clear picture of what was, and wasn’t, allowed. Inquiries outside of what you may and may not do in order to retain your sanity - and thus, the fiber that prevents you from drawing on the walls with your own feces - is simply not allowed.”

X licked his fingers clean (since he was not used to five digits, and the limitless freedom of the opposable thumb, he tended to be a bit clumsy with them,) making a slight popping noise as he withdrew each from the pink depths of his mouth. He smiled at me, a smile so innocent that its falsehood would be glaring even on the porcelain purity of a Catholic schoolgirl. “Are you close to your coworkers?”

“No,” I replied, leaning against my fridge and eyeing him warily over my nectarine. I could not detect his intentions, and his unreadability frustrated me. “We rarely have days in the office, so sometimes I see hide nor hair of any of them for months.”

“They may start to disappear.” X leaned back on the couch, burying his face in one satin-ensconced down pillow. “I hope you do not mind.”

“You are free to do as you wish, I suppose.”

“Come to me,” he called, extending his arms and offering me the sanctity of his embrace. This had become normal between us; he would kiss me and remark how I tasted of fruit, and I would grunt because usually he tasted like blood or something grittier. However, he had a heady scent that gave me a physical sensation of cotton painstakingly stuffed into my skull - in the most pleasant way possible, of course. He made me feel almost nauseous with lust.

I entered his embrace and initiated our kiss. His mouth tasted of the late Nuria, and I was disturbingly aware of X’s dual heartbeats - a phenomena he assured me would be gone by tomorrow, but a phenomena that disgruntled me nonetheless. He had the sweetest mouth of anyone I have ever kissed, skin so pliable I felt it was meticulously molded specifically to please my conquests - and his body was so young and lithe that it would press against my body in all of the ways an older man could possibly crave. Physically, I was thirty-two - physically, he was eighteen - and chronologically, he was a mysteriously large or small number of years. Maybe he was a baby, a baby born with the horrible gift of precise comprehension and purpose. Maybe all children were to be feared, but only one in many billion were expelled from the womb like X. I would imagine his birth as a very bloody one, his horns ripping the tender girlflesh found only in the vaginal canal, the softest skin in the world. Destroying such supple meat has to be some variety of abomination.

“Do you still fancy me,” X had breathed, withdrawing from the kiss with a thin string of spittle connecting our sinfully swollen lips. “Even though I have devoured the heart of a woman you have worked with for seven years?”

“Are you allowed to ask such questions?” I murmured, kissing him again. He folded beneath my arms like the finest coffee jelly.

to be continued