Consume

In 1998, I was in the back of a brown jeep parked in my family’s garage playing with blocks of wood. At four years old, simple shapes were enough to keep me entertained and engaged. I did not need much. Some soft inoffensive foods. Quiet during sleep. The love of my parents. These were enough to keep me full.

In the back of the Jeep, with me, were three black widows, shiny ink like shells with the red hour glass painted on them. I offered them a block to play with but none of them seemed interested. They must have been full themselves. One did proffer its hoof in acknowledgment though, a sign of appreciation.

When my father came to check on me, he panicked at the site of the spiders, smote them, and brought me back to the soft carpet of the living room floor where I continued to play with my blocks.

As I grew so did my stomach, and I became ravenous for new flavors. I sat in front of the glowing block and ate dinosaur chicken nuggets with purple ketchup, watching commercials for the sacred Lunchable that came with a rare treat. A peanut butter cup. Or a snicker. And that delicious Capris-Sun. A well-balanced meal indeed.

When I finally obtained the Lunchable I realized how big of a fool I was. I had munched on the crackers too quickly, leaving me with no bread to balance the ham and cheese. I saw now that the crackers and the ham and the cheese were all well rationed to make perfect portioned little cracker sandwiches. Although a real cracker sandwich would have a top and a bottom cracker. This was a small tragedy that I did not linger on. For a perfectly packaged meal must come with perfect rations.

As I grew, my palette complicated, and with that, all of reality. My blocks became action figures. I started to be able to handle more complicated stories on TV with things such as plot and character development. I also noticed the tension between my parents. And how long time felt if you stopped to notice it passing.

I developed the habit on Christmas to prepare Santa a feast. I would clear off the length of the dining room table and place empty plates atop. I would then fill these plates with biscuits, sugar cookies and all the sweet breads that I had access too. Then I would pour a big cup of cold milk with a little sugar mixed it, since I was personally prejudiced against the taste of plain whole milk.

At the end of my arrangement, I would sit at the end of the table admiring my festive feast awaiting to be eaten. And since I only half believed in Santa Claus, I would dig in just a bit. Experimenting with different dunking techniques. Finding the textures between brittle and dry and soaking with milk.

Then I’d fill the milk back up and leave it for Santa just in case he did exist. And hopefully this deity would see my tribute and would reward me with a gameboy, or legos or something I didn’t even know I wanted. How I craved to open those mysterious clean boxes and tear into the hypnotizing perfect paper they were all wrapped in. I would rip the paper asunder and glimpse in and take in the sight of that thing that I wanted, nearly in tears with excitement, unable to control the energy in my body, dancing in place or running around in circles.

After I finished my plate of cookies, I remember looking out the window and wondering why snow falls so slowly. It doesn’t seem to want to reach the ground. But when it does, my goodness, how it accumulates.

In the spring, my brother and I were rolling through the yard in one of those fake cars that you scurry along with your feet to make move like in the Flintstones. We swerved through the grass going from the treehouse to the shed to the patio. Sometimes we were going on errands, mimicking our parents’ shopping routines.

We stopped by the hill and picked up a half dozen rocks for the month. Then down to the driveway to stock up on twigs. And then up to the trees just to gander at the wares.

I’d pick up a pine cone, “Ah this one will do nicely.”

Or my brother would pick up a branch. “Exactly what we needed.”

Then when we went round the yard, we decided to rob a bank.

“Put all the grass in the bag!” I’d yell, as my brother who doubled as the bank clerk tore into turf to fill a grocery bag with grass and clumps of dirty roots.

As we left the pretend bank, we noticed in our path a garter snake. It was a small thing, but it was a snake and I knew you could not appeal to its sensibilities with money or dirty grass. We were doomed. We let out blood curdling screams ready for it to consume us with reckless abandon. Surely it would. But in its mouth was a toad, bigger than it seemed like it could swallow, and it slithered on, which was of little comfort to my brother and I who wept and whimpered, now that we were all worked up.

That night I had a dream. I had a dream of that time in the backyard. Except I was the snake. And when I saw those two human babes, I licked the air to whet my appetite and set to work to eat myself and my brother and the entire plastic car whole. But now that my hunger was piqued it was too late. I ate grass of the yard. And the tree house. And the shed. And all the sugar cookies in the house. And the house itself. And the video games, and action figures and the legos. I ate all the lunchables in every fridge and every spider in every garage. I ate the town I lived in and then the city next to that and then the whole continent. I lapped up the ocean and in one yawning bite put the entire planet into my gullet. And even after all that, I was still ravenous.