The Cannibal Within

by Mirabello, Mark

  In other nightmares, I had visions of diseased phalluses— ribboned with purple lesions—assaulting me without mercy.

  The phalluses were always diminutive in size—as long as a finger and correspondingly thin—but their aggressions were infinite. Erected by my misery, they squirted blood instead of seed.

  The dreams were so real—so graphic—that I began to doubt reality itself. What if life itself is a dream—I thought—but we notice the dream only when we are asleep?

  Even more horrifying, what if I did not exist? I could be a fantasy—a hideous nightmare—the product of some insane mind.

  I cannot remember my birth, so how do I know I was born?

  Eating Filth

  Trapped in a steel cage, my health deteriorated. Living with death—pelted by the urine, feces, vomit, and other droppings of the babies caged above me—I was plagued by ulcers, pneumonia, septicemia, and diarrhea.

  I was given regular doses of loathsome drugs—usually through injection. The drugs were not to make me healthy, but to suppress obvious symptoms and keep me alive as a breeder.

  I was also given pesticides to eat. Apparently designed to kill flies and other parasites, the pesticides passed through my body and killed insect larvae hatching in my excreta. My usual food consisted of putrid rations delivered by a mechanical feeding system. The system, a kind of automated feeding trough, made a hellish sound when operating.

  Year after year—feeding after feeding—the food was always the same. A kind of meat paste, it was composed of flesh torn from human corpses.

  I initially resisted this horrid diet—I tried to subsist on spiders, lice, and raw worms—but eventually I came to accept the cannibal way. I remembered the words of the Jesus, ‘except ye eat the flesh of the son of a man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.’

  The evil-smelling meat paste, which had a revolting flavor, was always mixed with dried human feces. Since humans, like most animals with one stomach, are inefficient digestive machines—we defecate, for example, about one-fourth of the protein present in rice and potatoes—the dung was fed back to us.

  Human farmers are known to inflict the same atrocity on their farm animals. In all worlds, the lower fauna are abused by the higher.

  Thoughts On Death

  Tormented by life—hounded by suffering—I often thought about death. Called ‘the flight of the alone to the Alone’ by Plotinus, death is indiscriminate. ‘All beings are destroyed when their time comes,’ declares the Shiva Purana, ‘whether they are gods or mosquitoes.’

  Death—inescapable death—is the great mystery. Freud said we cannot imagine our own deaths—whenever we try to do so, we actually survive as ‘spectators’ watching our own funerals—but still the phenomenon obsessed me.

  I knew that approximately 100,000 people perished somewhere on Earth every day, and I wondered what happened to them. What happened after the final breath?

  Did the dead evaporate and rise to the heavens—perfect summerlands of light and fragrance—did they descend to a loathsome pit called hell—the eternity of which is stressed in 27 separate Koranic verses—did they return to Earth— reincarnated through the hazards of chance or the so-called ‘laws of karma’—or did they join a listless herd of nomadic dead—a horde of unhappy translucent ghosts wandering on the other side?

  Or, did the dead simply die? That is what the Bible claims— ‘The dead know not any thing,’ says Ecclesiastes 9:5, ‘neither have they any more reward.’

  In the long run, was man only ozone and fertilizer? To discover the truth, would I have to ‘die and become’? ***

  My misfortunes had turned me into a quasi-atheist—if gods exist, I thought, they are too powerless, too indifferent, or too autistic to help us—but I was not prepared to deny the afterlife.

  Most atheists, of course, believe there is no post-death existence. If there is no god, they argue, humans simply share the squalid death of animals.

  I was certain, however, that the constipated logic of the atheists was flawed. If natural life does not require gods for its existence—if the first organisms, the ancestors of all flora and fauna, emerged spontaneously in the primordial mud— why should afterlife need gods?

  Yes, I thought, if life does not require gods for its existence, neither does afterlife. Both are engendered by nature.

  Afterlife may not be forever—perhaps a soul lingers only for a time, like the smoke outlasts the fire—but I believed it was a natural process. It was real.

  Of course, it may be the exception rather than the rule in nature—like the phenomenon of a mongoloid baby, perhaps afterlife was a rare occurrence—but it still was real.

  ***

  George Gurdjieff taught that survival was the fate of an elite. Ordinary people perish with their bodies, he argued, but extraordinary people lived on after death. Could that be correct?

  And if—as Gurdjieff argued—some special people did survive, what made them endure? Was there, I wondered, an elusive boon that bestowed life after death? If so, could it be stolen or purchased like any other treasure?

  Or were some souls, I thought, simply stronger than death? If so, what made them stronger?

  Human emotion was a potent force in nature—we know that faith can heal and fear can kill—so was passion the answer?

  If so, what focused that passion? What invested it with its prowess? Was it the power of virtue? The force of evil? The need—the insatiable craving—to exhaust every variety of pleasure?

  What could it be?

  Thoughts On Suicide

  Trapped in my coffin-sized cage—covered with festering sores—tortured by a monster species—I often thought about death. And—given my predicament—I became infatuated with suicide.

  I have never been obsessed with life—life, as one cynic pointed out, is a sexually transmitted disease that always ends in death—so termination was a distinct possibility.

  I remembered the command of Nietzsche: ‘To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of ones own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness....’ What words of power!

  Yes, I thought, glorious self-annihilation is compelling and attractive. Since death is more beautiful than love (the immortal Octave Mirbeau said that), self-destruction would be a brief, almost autoerotic free-fall into a great velvet darkness.

  *** Had not the great Yukio Mishima killed himself with a dagger? Thrusting and wet—his hand one with the weapon— Mishima called suicide the ‘ultimate masturbation.’

  In my night dreams, my suicide was always maternal and affectionate. Nestled like a plump baby in my mother’s arms, I parted my lips to suckle a pink nipple rubbed with black poison.

  There was a slight acrid taste—a moment of discomfort— and then peace. Smiling sweetly, I rested in bliss.

  In my daydreams, my fantasized method of suicide was different. I imagined a radiant death—pure and clean—I died like the incinerated moth that flies into the fire.

  How I longed for a dignified end—I could almost smell the funeral pyre of scented wood—but it was not to be. Although I wanted to die—without fear and without anger— I could not. It was not possible.

  My hate—incandescent and pure—kept me alive. And my desire for vengeance—a passion that burns hotter than lust— gave me purpose.

  Vengeance gave me the reason to continue.

  Chapter III How I Found Freedom

  ‘It is your duty to learn from the enemy.’ Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 17)

  My Escape: The Day Of Blood

  My escape occurred swiftly and unexpectedly. After years in the hellish, labyrinthian world of the monsters, I found my freedom.

  On the day I escaped—the time of blood atonement—I was transfigured.

  In my early life, I had always been an anvil. Now, however, I became a hammer.

  An Omen Of Doom

  My blessed day began inauspiciously. I had a nightmare— a bizarre lucid dream. Curiously, i
n the dream I could see only when my eyes were closed.

  At first I was happy in the dream—I was rich, powerful, and celebrated—I was desired by women and admired by men— but then I looked down and saw a corpse.

  The dead body alarmed me. Shaped like a cuddly little pet— a quadruped called ‘the Lamb of God’—the body was actually Dogma, the corpse of Truth.

  ‘When the cadaver no longer smells,’ hissed a voice, ‘the soul is gone.’

  Frightened, I tried to flee, but I was stopped by twin sisters. Named Pornography and Blasphemy, they were naked and white, and their mouths were red from feasting on their own children.

  ‘Violence is the key,’ hissed the sisters. ‘When you are reborn in paradise, all your victims will become your slaves.’

  The sisters forced me to eat a certain book—I could not see the title—but it was about the amoral worship of beauty and force. ‘Nazism for the Iron Age,’ I think they called it.

  Devouring the book, which was sweet in my mouth but bitter in my stomach, made me afraid. This was a lucid dream, and I knew that eating books in dreams is an omen of doom.

  ‘I can’t die now!’ I shouted enigmatically in the dream. ‘I want to be the first into the future!’

  One More Crime

  I awoke suddenly, and I noticed the door of my cage was open. One of the monsters—the same transhuman who had raped me and degraded me and kept me prisoner—was standing over me. In his powerful jaws, some mutilated prey—I think it was a human baby—was writhing in agony.

  The little victim reached out to me—strangely, in this hot place, his tiny hands seemed almost blue with cold—but I could not help him.

  Before I could act, the monster crushed the baby’s head between his teeth—as easily as a man would crush a grape— and sucked out the contents.

  The child shrieked—his white bones splintered—and his nose filled with blood.

  Averting my eyes from the horror, I saw fragments of a tiny skull—scattered like flowers on the ground.

  I was reminded of a sacred cauldron—a holy grail that had been shattered.

  Ancient words—harsh incantations from a dead language— spontaneously fell from my lips.

  ‘Jubela, Jubelo, Jubelum,’ I whispered. ‘Head, throat, and heart, I will avenge you, little one.’

  Mysterious Words

  Casually throwing the remains of his victim aside—only the baby’s skeleton and liver remained—the beast seized me with his powerful hands and dragged me from my cage. He was so close I choked on his putrid breath.

  As the monster stared into my eyes—a direct gaze that threatened death—he began to utter noise with his mouth. Resembling glossolalian gibberish, I still remember the sounds clearly.

  ‘Nuk Pu Nuk,’ he said slowly. ‘Nuk Pu Nuk.’

  His speech shocked me, for although these monsters are orally fixated creatures who satisfy virtually all their needs via the mouth—they express aggression by biting and pleasure by sucking—they typically communicate telepathically.

  ‘Nuk Pu Nuk,’ he repeated, this time with greater force.

  I have always believed in the power of words—all masters of psychological warfare are skillful verbal terrorists—and I knew the beast was trying to terrify me.

  ‘Nuk Pu Nuk,’ said the beast. ‘Nuk Pu Nuk.’

  Staring back into his eyes, I tried to steel my will. In my mouth, however, I could taste the fear.

  The Stigmata Of The Beast

  Dragging me some forty yards from the cage, the monster stopped and reached into a satchel of some sort. He extracted an edged device—some kind of technologically advanced branding iron—and he pressed it successively against my cheek, my shoulder, and my thigh.

  Each time, the object—which seemed to leak energy—grew white-hot for about three seconds and burned the living skin. Later, when the scabs fell off, I was left with permanent scars.

  Then I heard a strange sound in my head, and the monster forced me to the cold dirt. Wallowing in the mud, I felt degraded, humiliated, passive....

  I briefly thought again about suicide—whenever I am raped, I think about eating dirt until I die—but the self-destruction fantasy soon passed.

  Instinctively, I opened for him. As I had done hundreds— perhaps thousands—of times before, I opened my legs to accommodate the lecherous monster.

  This time, however, was different. This time, he no longer seemed interested in traditional vaginal intercourse.

  Anxiety overwhelmed me—I feared my blighted womb, ravaged by pregnancy and dried out by time—had lost all value, and I prepared for the worst.

  I imagined a red death—a violent death—and I imagined his belly full of my tortured flesh.

  A Dream About The Pit And The Worms Again I blacked out, and I had another vivid dream. It was a revolting nightmare.

  In the dream, I was in a rectangular pit—some sort of sinkhole. Covered with filth, I was standing in the black water up to my knees.

  ‘Error is like sin,’ hissed a voice in the dream. ‘The deeper it is, the less the victim suspects its existence.’

  Suddenly, I noticed the earth beneath me was moving. It was not earth at all, but a menacing organic mass—something that was pulsating and alive.

  Festering and vile, the slimy mass was made up of thousands of little worms squirming noiselessly in the darkness.

  The worms—hideous to behold—resembled small hooded snakes. Ice-cold, flaccid horrors—squirting some sort of poisonous venom—their soft flesh was as white as leprosy.

  The albino worms were flesh-eaters—hungry carnivores— and I could feel the gnashing of their sharp, little teeth, as they stripped the tissue from my bones.

  I could see dozens of worms twisting and crawling under my skin—the nude skin of my throat and chest—and I was certain I would die.

  The victim of silent, swarming invertebrates, in my dream I was certain I would die.

  The Taste Of Clammy Flesh

  When I awoke from my nightmare—my vivid nightmare— I was on my knees in front of the sexually aroused monster. With lowered eyes, I was forced to perform a lewd act with my mouth.

  His phallic aggression was revolting. I choked on his enormous fascist rod—swollen with sin, it seemed longer, thicker, and more terrifying than before—but the brute ignored my emotions.

  I wanted to vomit—the thought of his vile penis, only inches from my brain, utterly disgusted me—but I could not.

  Gasping for air—gagging on his clammy flesh—I looked up at the beast. I could see his eyes glowing with lust—I could see his thin lips speckled with foam—and I felt rage. Intense pathological rage.

  Convulsing with fury, violent fantasies—castration fantasies—raced through my mind. In my imagination, I dreamed of holding his severed penis in my hands.

  The monster was now moaning—grunting with animal pleasure—and he seemed too preoccupied to read my thoughts. Instead, his thrusting quickened, and he forced his huge erection—his icy nakedness—deeper and deeper down my throat.

  More castration fantasies—more lethal perversions—flooded my mind. Visions of his mutilation—his dismemberment— his vivisection—obsessed me.

  The monster began ejaculating—I could taste his grotesque discharge—it was thick, viscous, disgusting—and feelings— ghastly emotions—raced through my heart.

  In a few moments, I relived every injury and humiliation that vile thing had ever caused me.

  What happened next may sound excessive—even insane— but I will not apologize. Years of torment had incubated my hatred and made it pure.

  With manic savagery—like a wild leopard ravenous for meat—I seized his still rigid organ with both hands, and I bit down with the jagged black stubs that used to be my teeth.

  It was fine and hot.

  * * *

  The beast made an inhuman shriek—a demon-like howl— and fell to the mud like a slaughtered calf.

  Bleeding and emasculated, he strangely
reminded me of a menstruating female. A female with ‘the misery and the sickness!’

  I pounced on the monster—slashing, gashing, and mauling with my teeth and nails—cursing and blaspheming with my tongue—I instinctively knew what to do.

  I wanted to eat him—to make his body disappear into mine— so I gouged out his eyes with my fingers, scooped out part of his brain through the bloody sockets, and thrust the gore into my mouth.

  Tasting his brain tissue, which was warm and fresh and wet with slime, filled me with the unashamed will to power. ‘The proverb must be true,’ I whispered. ‘Domination is sweeter than fornication.’

  Curiously, the monster’s flesh, which tasted like raw fish, vaguely resembled vaginal secretions in odor. Eating the beast—especially the fat behind his eyeballs—therefore had a cunnilingual character.

  I tried to eat everything—I wanted to feast until there was nothing left but hard, clean, incorruptible skeleton—but at length I was sated. After devouring the soft flesh of his face and hands—after consuming his spine and testicles—I could eat no more.

  I did, however, drink some more of his blood to stiffen my resolve, and I washed my face with the same blood. The crimson fluid—a kind of war paint—glistened in the darkness.

  In the life history of any woman, I thought, her holiest moment is when she awakens from her powerlessness.

  What I Did With The Castrated Corpse

  I wanted to bury the monster face down in a shallow grave— with his mouth filled with dirt and his lips sewn shut—but there was no time.

  So I seized the remains of the brute—his dismembered body was still twitching with life—and I dragged him with great effort. As we moved, we left a trail of his blood and fat on the ground.

  Eventually—after traveling about 30 yards—I found a womblike ditch—about twenty-five feet deep. Filled with evil-smelling chemicals, the ditch produced great naked flames—over three feet high—and a large pillar of smoke— red like blood. Fortuitously, the bottom of the ditch was studded with sharpened metallic stakes.

  Recognizing opportunity—this was my chance to stab him with a metallic penis-substitute—I acted quickly. Spitting into the monster’s mouth, I pushed him into the deep, fiery abyss.