I'm Mild

By Alex Charlton

They stretch me across the dining table, eating me alive. They have fanged mouths all over their cavernous bodies. Sliding down their throats, they have ovens, blenders, microwaves and grills in their stomachs, all filthy with digestive juices and dried bits of me.

I'm grey and oily, lumpy and tasteless, chewy and warm. Inside their stomachs, they prepare me in different ways, in vain. They've eaten and prepared me too many times, and now I always come out looking the same. I exit other mouths. I'm elastic, and as they eat me again they're pulled together, caught in a web of me.

I'm indigestible and they're insatiable. The dining room is baroque, ornate, lined with gold and velvet. The cloudless morning outside glistens through the stained glass doors. Some of it glistens on me. I'll never be enough for them, but they carry on trying to fill themselves up on me. They roll me in flour, fry me in expensive oils, season me with exotic spices. They try everything just to make me a little exciting. Sadly for them, I'm mild.

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Bio: Alex Charlton is haunted by Omino Pascal, a Cartesian Demon who makes him think that all the stories he writes are factual. He spends most of his time in the bath. He won't ever "get it".