The Home of Forgotten Stories

The restaurant was called Xperience, and Joey could not wait to try it. David never recommended restaurants, that had always been strictly Joey’s area of expertise, so this was a rare treat. It was silk shirt night, absolutely.

It wasn’t the only thing that David had been doing differently lately. He’d actually lost a few pounds as well, something he had always stubbornly refused to do before for fear of messing up his metabolism. He had always been a big eater. These days, David picked at his food, eating a fraction of what he once did. Joey didn’t know what had caused such a change, but he was grateful for it. He wanted David to live a long, healthy life.

David had suggested the new restaurant rather shyly, which was yet another rarity. David never did anything shyly. This place must mean something special to him, or else he was nervous that Joey wouldn’t like it. Joey had asked him, “What kind of food do they serve?”

“Oh, just… American food. Bistro type stuff I guess. But you’ll never see food the same way again.” David blushed slightly.

Joey was highly intrigued now.

The restaurant itself was sumptuous but subtle, its classiness apparent in the fabric of the napkins and tablecloths, the sparkling cleanliness of the silverware, the quiet aptitude of the servers, and the unassuming but excellent food. Joey was delighted. While David picked aimlessly at his simple green salad (what on earth was with him lately?), Joey ate a salad, had roast chicken with grilled spinach and garlic and a baked potato, and drank an entire bottle of chardonnay. A light, fluffy slice of peanut butter pie for dessert. All very simple, but all exquisitely delicious.

He invited David in afterward, but David declined, saying, “I’m a little queasy from the wine.” Joey kissed him and wished him to feel better, and they departed at the door.

It wasn’t until Joey was lying in bed that he tried to remember whether David had even had any wine. He didn’t actually think so. But why would David lie? Unless it was a herald of a breakup… Joey frowned. They had only been dating four months. It seemed the wrong time for a breakup; not short enough for an immediate disliking, and not long enough to really get to know each other’s faults.

Stop thinking about it. You always anticipate breakups that never happen, and are then surprised at the ones that do happen. Just go to sleep.

Joey took his own excellent advice, and went to sleep.

The first dream began strangely. He was curled up tightly, locked in a shell, aware of nothing but the urge to get out of it. He must get out. Locked with him was a store of something dun-colored that he knew was food… he felt the urge to eat the food. It would give him strength. He must get out! He began to eat, and with every nutrient he devoured he became slightly larger and stronger, until he finally felt the shell split, and he was out!

Everything was dark, but he could sense warmth above him. Up. Up! He had to go up! He pushed, and kept pushing. There was still food left in the splitting shell, and he continued to eat as he pushed, becoming larger and stronger. The stuff around him was damp, and he was able to drink as he grew. Taller he became, and taller, until finally he burst forth into light.

The light was suddenly everything to him. It was everything he had ever wanted or needed, and he was desperate to have more and more of it. The only way to get more was to become bigger, and so he did.

He grew up and out, sprouting broad, flat arms that drank in the light, while his feet spread down and drank the unending water from below. He felt himself become what he had always meant to be; the many-armed, many-legged creature, light-craving and mobile and healthy. He felt that he was beautiful. Everything was right.

One day, just after the cusp of his adulthood, he felt a vibration in the ground. It came closer and closer, and suddenly, he was gripped in a kind of spongy claw, which pulled him up. My feet are still buried! he thought frantically, but the claw did not care, it pulled and pulled and he felt his feet begin to separate from the rest of his body. It wasn’t pain that he felt, exactly, but there was definitely a sense of something being incredibly, grievously wrong with his body now. Without feet, he couldn’t drink! Now the top of his body was moved. It was the beginning of a long and torturous journey. For much of it, there was no light, and it became so cold that for long periods of time he felt his life slow to a crawl. Without light, he could not flourish. He felt his remaining limbs begin to weaken. There were others like him, and he pressed against them, but all he could feel in their midst was their shared agony. None of them could help. They were all trapped. When the journey ended and they were finally still, they were in a cold, dark place. He waited for light. He yearned for light.

Not long after, he felt a new spongy claw close around him, and he was lifted up, separated from his cold companions and brought out into… it was light! Glorious, beautiful light! If only he had water, but… then there was water flowing over him, and he tried to drink with his arms as well as he could as he continued basking in the light.

There was a sound. An awful sound, a kind of horrible crunch, and suddenly, his arms had been cut off from his heart. Again there was not exactly pain, but a feeling of this is not supposed to happen.

In agony and confusion, in pieces that were falling apart from each other, he died.

Joey woke up, a sob stuck in his throat. What a terrible dream. He turned on the light and sat up, pondering. In the dream, he had been able to see and hear and feel, but none of it had felt like the same kind of sensing he was accustomed to. It had been as though he was some kind of an alien. An alien that lived just above the ground, and fed on light and water. With more than a dozen broad, spreading arms.

He turned the light off and lay back down.

Joey was just on the verge of falling asleep when he figured it out. I was a plant. Some kind of a plant. His eyes opened in the darkness and he chuckled. Wow. My brain has gone some wild places before, but this is impressive. Still, the dream was unnerving, and he hoped that the rest of the night would be dreamless.

It wasn’t.

The next dream he fell into was of being in a shell again, almost exactly like last time… there was food, and he ate it and became bigger and stronger, until the shell cracked and he struggled out of it, crying out. He became aware that he was surrounded by others like him, and some of them were panicking and cruel as a result. There were shrieks and calls for help. Several times he was struck, until his legs finally cooperated and he was able to run from them. Once his skin was dry, he ran among the others. At first he moved at random, and then he began to realize that they were in some kind of enclosure, and he began to systematically search for some way out. There wasn’t one. But he kept searching, because he knew deeply that he was not supposed to be here. He called for help that did not come.

In one location he stepped, his feet were wet. There was water! Water meant life! He drank.

Suddenly objects were raining down around him, small things that he didn’t recognize. He screamed, he ducked and ran, but he saw that the others were running toward the objects and not away. Then he smelled one of the objects. Here was food! Food meant life! He quickly ate one, then two. It was difficult at first with the others of his kind getting in his way and fighting him for each grain of food, but the food continued to come until he was able to eat sufficiently.

Life continued in this way for a long time: eat, drink, shit, sleep. He grew larger and his body became covered with spikes that ended in soft petals that had to be almost constantly groomed to stay in proper place. He spent much of his time doing this. But always there was the constant feeling that he was not meant to be here, that this was not a good place, that he had to get out somehow. He never entirely stopped looking for a way out. Many of his companions tore out their spikes or attacked each other in frustration. He nervously avoided them.

One day, when he was well grown, a strange thing swept through the place he lived in and he was swept up with it. He was dropped into some kind of a tunnel, buffeted and bruised by it as he was moved along it by a powerful rush of air. His spikes became unkempt, and it was all he could do to keep breathing. With every breath he managed to capture, he shrieked in terror.

Finally he stopped moving, and was deposited into a new place, crammed together with others of his kind, all screaming and shoving and trying to scatter, but there was no place to run to, and then the sky closed upon them and there was no way to move or do anything but scream and struggle.

He was determined that if the sky opened, he would struggle his way out. He waited.

But when the sky opened, some Thing was ready for him. It grabbed him and as he tried to bite and scratch, it shackled his legs into some kind of a hard claw. Upside-down, he felt himself move, and then he saw a pond of water. He didn’t want to drink right now, but he was being lowered into the water quickly, and then–

There was something wrong with the water. Terribly, terribly wrong with the water.

His body shook with a sudden agony, twitching and spasming. Then it was over, and his entire body was somewhat numb. He could barely tell that he was out of the water now. He could barely sense anything. But he sensed the moment that they cut his throat.

Joey woke with a scream locked in his throat, scrambling out of bed and trying desperately to turn on a light. He knocked the lamp over. He nearly screamed for real then, but he forced himself to sit still and calm down for a moment before picking up the lamp, feeling for the switch, and turning it.

Light flooded the room, but the dream still felt dreadfully real. This time he had been a creature that could see the others around it, so it took him much less time to realize what he had been.

A chicken. I was a chicken. What the hell was that part with the water?!

He left the light on, and didn’t fall into a deep sleep again. Every time his eyes closed, he could feel his throat being cut, and they would snap right open again. He finally got up and went to the kitchen to make some tea. He didn’t sleep again that night.

The next day, he was groggy at work, and barely functioned until lunchtime. He went to lunch at the diner on the corner, and the moment he saw the chicken sandwich, he felt ill. The green salad wasn’t quite as bad, but still not appetizing in the least. He decided to order some eggs and bacon and toast. Once it arrived, he nibbled at the toast, and left the other food alone. His appetite just wasn’t there.

In fact, he was eating almost the same way he had seen David eat. Picking at his food, looking somewhat disgusted and put off…

… you’ll never see food the same way again…

No way. No effing way.

He slowly pulled out his phone and called David.

“David.”

“I’m sorry, Joey.” David sounded ten shades of awful, and Joey’s stomach sank with a dread he had never felt in his life.

“David… please don’t tell me that… I mean. I had some dreams last night.”

“You see, they told me… they told me that if I brought someone else with me that they would stop. So I brought you with me, but they didn’t stop, Joey. They’re worse than ever.”

“The… dreams?”

“The dreams, Joey! They don’t stop! Anything you ever eat, anything at all… I mean, fruit isn’t so bad, and sometimes I can handle a vegetable if I try not to sleep that night, but wheat and corn are insane, and meat… meat, Joey! It’s torture!“

Joey felt the room growing dark, and the phone slipped from his hands.

“Hey buddy, are you okay?” The waiter was a dim roar in his ears.

“I’m… I’m fine.”

The waiter looked at him speculatively. “What you need is some iron. A steak, that would help you.”

Joey shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t.”

And it never would again.