A (very) short story.

It wasn’t so much the way it was looking at him, but more the way he felt obliged to avoid its gaze. He paced the room, trying to ignore the evil way in which he was drawn, unwillingly, time and again, towards it. He had to be strong, to resist being dragged into its lethal trap. It had the power to hypnotise, to bewitch its unwitting victims. His breath was coming fast, he felt powerless confronted with the temptation. Would he go to hell for this? Surely not. And what would be the penalty for resisting? A lifetime of agony and what ifs.

It was decided. Slowly, biding his time, he turned to look at it directly. Tentatively, he stretched out a hand. He felt the sweat dripping from his forehead and trickling down his shirt. Nearly there. Keeping his lower body as far as possible from it, so that he looked like a frightened ski-jumper, he snatched at it, and suddenly, without fully comprehending what he had just done, he realised that there it was, in his grasp. His, and his alone. No time bomb had exploded. The apocalypse had not come early and he, he was the victor. Gently, with the softness of a nervous lover, he lowered it towards his moistened lips, slowly now…

A groan of pleasure escaped him. It was the strongest, hardest, firmest, most exquisite cube of mature cheddar cheese he had ever tasted.

For some time now, he had been educating himself about the pleasures of indulgence in food, rather than in mere eating. He had precious few indulgences in his life and this had become almost a ritual. He would deny himself with food laid out in front of him, and when he could bear it no longer, he would choose with care and savour slowly the taste that he was about to experience before the morsel even touched his lips. It was a game at first, private and enjoyable, but now, something was beginning to change.

It had started without his being aware, but he was too addicted by this time to put a stop to his once innocent fun.

He had begun to anthropomorphise his food. What made it significantly more disturbing was that even though he was clearly not a cannibal, he was indeed a vegetarian. And now, he had finally reached the point of no return with the cheese. He was starting to feel concerned. The fact that his own food was watching him defiantly didn’t inspire guilt or fear, but a niggling paranoia which he fought against, telling himself it was his imagination. Unfortunately, he was coming to realise that it wasn’t imagination. Far from it. The night before he had got up for a glass of water and had heard voices coming from the kitchen. Odd, at three in the morning. Odder still, given that he lived alone. The voices were whispering, and his first thought was burglars. He stopped outside the kitchen door, armed with nothing but his dressing-gown belt, straining to hear.

What he had heard confused him. Three different voices hatching a plan, plotting. But it didn’t make sense. We’ll get him back…taste of his own medicine…tomorrow night…

With a sudden burst of energy, he had leapt into the kitchen, flicking on the light and brandishing his belt. No-one. Silence. Breathing more easily, he had looked around. Deserted. He must be tired, or stressed, or just hungry and he was hallucinating voices. He had filled a glass with tap water and had gone back to bed.

Finally finishing the succulent nugget of cheese, he almost laughed aloud at his ludicrous paranoia. Almost. Because the noise that actually left his throat was more of a choke. As he retched, he saw with surprise the entire cube of cheese leap out of his mouth and roll across the table from where it had landed towards the fridge. He moved to where it lay, immobile. Staring at it warily, he opened the fridge, in order to get another piece. There was no time. Suddenly, and with a battle cry worthy of Amazonian warriors, carrots, chocolate, eggs, mushrooms, half-opened tins of sweet-corn, unscrewed jars of ragú all flew from the cabinet onto his face, his arms, his ears, up his nose and between the folds of his shirt to his belly button.

It occurred dimly to him that cheese and chocolate didn’t really mix, and as he mused with a foggy satisfaction that at least he wasn’t mad and hadn’t been imagining things, the entire contents of his fridge set about devouring him.

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Episode Five: Turns of Phrase