Something Else
I didn't have time to write a new entry for Dead Right this week, so I have something else instead. It's something new, still fleshing it out in my head. Hope you enjoy.
Joe wanted Out. He knew it would be soon, when they meat started coming down here they took him and some of the others out. He might get to have the Other too. Joe wanted out now.
He grabbed the mesh of the cage and growled. Maybe if the meat saw him, saw It, she would give him the Other. But she kept not looking at Joe.
"Step back." Joe pulled away from the caging at the new voice. Another meat stared at him. This one was not like the first. This meat smelled different and Joe remembered from others he'd eaten that ones like it had harder flesh.
Joe did not want the Other with this meat.
"I said step back," the meat said again. It stared at Joe in the eyes and Joe quickly looked away. When meat stared Joe in the eyes it agitated him. And when Joe was agitated he CLAWSCRATCHBIT. When he CLAWSCRATCHBIT meat ran away and the bangstings came. Joe did not like the stings.
"I said step back, motherfucker." Joe did not like that last word. He didn't understand most of them, but this one upset him. Joe did step back, his hand fingering below his collar. He used to wear something there that had been important. People wouldn't speak to him like that back then.
Joe shook his head. He did not like remembering. The thoughts confused him and he saw people who weren't there. They weren't meat like the ones he saw now. They weren't real at all. They were--
"Memories," Joe said, his finger still at his collar. Something hit the floor at his feet. Joe bent to pick it up--that was the other thing he was still good at, most of the others could barely use their hands--and puzzled at it between his thumb and index. It was small and round at one end and smaller and flat on the other. It looked like it belonged in the collar and he tried shoving it back in a hole he found in the collar, but his hands weren't that good. He stood and walked back to the mesh to show the meat in the pen next to his. The other that had been there had CLAWSCRATCHBIT and the meats had hit it with the bangstings until it stopped moving.
He waved it around, trying to catch the meat's eye, but the meat was dragging water around on the floor with a stick. Joe moaned to get the meat's attention.
"Joe, what the hell?" the meat said. He banged his stick against Joe's pen and water sloshed off the bottom on his feet. Joe looked at the meat, holding the small thing in his hand. The meat stared him in the face and Joe looked away again. He dropped the small thing, wanting to CLAWSCRATCHBITE, but knew he couldn't do that. Joe made fists, but the feeling was already out. He dug his fingers into the collar and yanked at it, moaning again. He yanked and yanked until something snapped.
Joe's collar came open. His first thought was to try to show the meat again, but meat never paid attention. This wouldn't help him now, he was still in a pen. Joe closed the collar and opened it again. Closed. Opened. He could do it anytime he wanted.
Joe sat down and did something he remembered doing from the time before.
He smiled.
