Hunger

The video camera was hidden in the crook of two branches of a hundred-year-old elm tree on the side of the park. It was pointed toward a perfect view of the playground. Day and night, the camera ran, capturing every child, every parent, every passing person in its glassy, flattening embrace.

Over the years, the camera changed. It began as a camcorder, nestled precariously in the tree some 40 years ago. At that point, the camera had been large enough that in order to hide it, the operator had to use the cover of leaves, which meant that the view was partially obscured. But over the years, the camera shrank. It started as an obvious block of black plastic with a tape inside, surrounded by a plexiglass casing to protect it from the weather. Slowly it warped and decreased until finally it was nothing more than a tiny rounded oblong with a fisheye lens, unobtrusively recessed into the wood of the tree branches, sending Wi-Fi waves of silent data to its destined viewer.

40 years of visions passed through quiet elm leaves.

The playground equipment had changed over the years as well. Sun-heated metal bars and springs had given way to brightly-colored plastic shells that seemed to devour small children and then propel them out the other side. Occasionally a child would stay in the tube, as though stuck in its craw; the ever-present risk of feeding upon something small and bony.

They trotted and climbed around the playground, children filled with bright blood and tender viscera, moist and delicious. Sometimes they would fall, and rise with bruises coloring their skin with purple, unspent juices. Crying, they would run to their mothers or fathers or older siblings, showing off their wounds as though proud of them. And the mothers and fathers and older siblings, all flavorful in their own right, would hush or scold or comfort them.

In the evenings, teenagers came to the playground to smoke and flirt and tell each other lies while draping themselves over the bright equipment. They were delicious as well, though not as much as the children. Many of them tasted of drugs and prescription medications, infused with hormones, chemical on the tongue and troublesome to digest. Still, a teenager made an excellent meal. The screams were delightful. Screaming only became more and more delectable as a human grew older; little children shrieked because they didn’t know what was happening to them, but older children screamed because they knew perfectly well. They’d had time to imagine it in detail at night in their beds after years of horror films and books about monsters. They were young enough to believe, but old enough to doubt. Exquisite.

That, however, was nothing to the pleasure of adult screams when one had cultivated a palate for them. Adult screams were rare and special. Adults knew what was happening, but were shocked by the terror of something that they had convinced themselves wasn’t real, long ago in their jaded consciousnesses. That shock of realization that the world was not as they had defined it for themselves rendered their fear especially choice and savory.

Young couples sometimes shared the benches during the day or evening, kissing and touching each other as though each was aware of the other’s enticing tastiness. Eating two lovers was always a treat, but you had to be sure to maim one before eating the other one, so that the second morsel couldn’t get too far away while the first one was being engorged upon. Lovers would scream so prettily as they watched their loves being devoured. And there was a delightful mellow piquancy to their shame as you watched them realize just how much more frantic they were to save themselves than their partners.

The elderly, unfortunately, tended to be tough and far less robust in flavor. However, their brittle bones would fracture quite appealingly between your teeth while dining, revealing the spongy marrow, and that almost made up for it. Besides which, they were quite easy to catch.

Occasionally a pregnant woman would appear, and that was always a moment of salivating anticipation. A fetus was a tempting delight, a bit like a tiny appetizer before the true meal of the mother-to-be, who tended to be fatty and quite free from any unpleasant chemical aftertaste. And the screams of the mother-that-would-have-been as you ripped her incipient infant from her body and ate it in one gulp before her eyes were a unique delicacy.

All in all, the park presented a positive banquet of opportunities to gorge yourself to bursting.

That is, if you could get to it.

The camera, that tiny, relentless, all-seeing eye, brought the beast all of these visions. For 40 years it brought them, and the beast watched the endless feast of flesh and terror materialize, drift like a nectar of ambrosia across the viewing screen, and then disappear forever. At first, the tapes came and were switched out, which gave some temporary relief when the visions paused. But now there was no respite. The camera was always on. The screen was always filled with food, even sometimes at night, and the beast must catch its infrequent moments of sleep as it could.

The beast would never be sated, never fed. Yet it could not bear to look away.

It sat in its cell, drool puddling on the floor as it groaned and whined gently at the food that was so impossibly close and yet far. It rattled its heavy chains and tore its own fur. It could not starve, could never die, but it could suffer. It could plead and cry and pace forever.

It couldn’t remember whatever terrible crime it had committed to warrant this sentence of torture.

But the Master, though cruel, was wise. Surely the beast would be forgiven someday. Then it would be permitted to feed voraciously. And so, it waits.