‘Hunger. It’s all I’ve ever felt. Sadness? Love? Happiness? Nothing could shadow the overwhelming feeling of hunger that cursed my every waking moment.
Hundreds of doctors, always the same 5 words ‘must have a high metabolism’. It was more than that.
It started as a baby, my Mom still has the scars from the bite marks whenever she would try to pull me off her breast. I would cry. According to my family I never stopped crying, I wasnt happy until I was chugging down milk- it just got worse as I hit solid food.
Fast forward 7 years, I got a pet dog for my birthday along with a load of cake and snacks from my parents to quench my hunger. Or atleast try to, my parents spent hundreds weekly on food for us all, mainly me. It was never enough, I needed more.
5 years later, parents are at work and I’m home alone. Im sat in a pile of chip packets and chocolate wrappers, my stomach grumbles and I waddle to the kitchen and clamber onto the counter- out of breath as I hauled the grotesque amount of fat onto the counter like a slab of dough. I open the snack cupboard, empty. Canned, empty. Each cupbaord, one after the other. Empty empty empty. The only thing left was a packet of pre made lasagne sheets. I hungrily snatched the packet of lasagne sheets that had been left at the back of the cupboard for way too long. I made my way onto the broken tiled floor and ate the sheets of pasta, it broke off into shards into my mouth and cut up the inside of my mouth- I cried as I ate them, blood dripping out my mouth. It wasnt enough, I scanned the cupboard under the sink and grabbed the vat of dog food and raked my hand through the thick jellified lumps of suspicious looking meat and shoveled it into my mouth. My dog made her way over and tried to eat the food out of my hand, I kicked her away but she kept making her way back. Anger built up in me, especially after I finished the food. I looked at my dog and licked away the meat flavoured jelly that coated my lips. My stomach grumbled as I looked at them and that was where it began, my first taste of flesh. The weirdest part? That was the first time in my life I ever felt full.
I was taken away from my parents, put in a home for special children. Life was lavish. I was fed meal after meal whenever I demanded, before I knew it I was over 300 pounds but they didnt care. They just wanted to keep me fed and shut up. As good as the food was, nothing was as good as the first taste of flesh I had. I craved the feeling of feeling full again, even if it only lasted a few moments- I needed it.
Years passed once again, I became a parent to a beautiful little girl after many failed attempts due to my weight. I was still always hungry, I had better control of it and ate healthier foods more frequently and lost a ton of weight. I was a good mother, occasionally caught myself picking at my daughters food and scoffing her leftovers but I never over ate, not like I did before.
But I was still hungry.
Work became more stressful, my daughter had hit a stage where she became a nuisance, my partner became and alcoholic and would take his rage out on me. I began to stress eat again, but this time was different. Flesh. I craved flesh. It wasnt a want anymore, it was a need. The overwhelming feeling of hunger began to eat at me, I couldnt eat any normal food anymore. I needed to feel full again, I needed to quench my hunger. I became like a skeleton. My skin got greener in colour and my eyes became sunken, I was like a zombie. I tried raw meat, it helped for a while but I craved something more, I didnt get as much of a thrill from eating processed slabs of meat from the local grocers as I did when it was alive and squirming.
So the horror began. I would go out at night and sneak into the local farms and eat away at their live stock like a ravenous wolf on the prowl for their next meal. Soon enough it caught the attention of the media and local newspapers and everyone became more wary. Rumours spread, theories began to rise and soon it became a world wide mystery. The majority sided with the theory of ‘coyote’ or ‘wolf’ but of course rose the conspiracy theorists who believed it was a werewolf or a monster of some type. Maybe they were right about the monster part.
My husband suspected I was cheating as I snuck out the house every night and didnt come back till 6 o’clock in the morning. He took out his suspicions and anger out on me of course, so I ate him. God was it good. A little tainted due to the alcohol and cigars he puffed like a chimney, but so much better than cow or pig.
It kicked off yet another phase in my hunger. Cannibalism. I traveled out every night once again, this time not for farm animals but humans. It wasnt easy, I had to lure predatory men to where it would be easier to cover the evidence of the leftovers of my meal. I wasnt too fond of bones, I tried making different recipes out of them but instead would bury them like a dog in a large field and would soak the soil in essential oils to wear off sniffer dogs. Wasnt long till people linked the missing humans to the farm animal carcasses. Luckily none of the evidence pointed towards me, but that wasnt how I got caught.
2 and a half years ago, that when it happened. When I ate the entirety of India. The reason I am where I am now.
We were snowed in. Typical Canadian weather, luckily I had emergency meat in the freezer. Wasnt as nice but it was better than nothing. That was until I realised nothing is all I had. The panic kicked in and so did the hunger, my stomach growled and sweat dripped down my body. I began to hyperventilate, I hungrily searched through the cupboards- pratically ripping off the doors as I threw any inedible item in my way on the ground. Shoving whatever I found in my mouth, I didn’t even bother taking it out the packaging. Chewing on plastic, and even glass just to stop the hunger. I sat on the floor covered in blood from the broken glass I knawed through in an attempt to quench my everlasting hunger. It wasnt enough, I began to claw at the kitchen tiles with my nails, taking off little chunks and shoving them into my mouth. That’s when I heard her sweet little voice, she was the calm in what felt like a storm.
“Mommy?” I look up, and there was my daughter looking at me in pure horror and fear. “India, sweetie go back upstairs.” I told her, wanting her to get far away from me when I was in this state. “G-go upstairs and lock the doors, dont come downstairs until I tell you.” My stomach rumbled loudly, my body shaked with hunger as I looked at her. India still stood there in fear. “GO!” I screamed at her and she ran upstairs. I held my stomach, I tried to stand but I wobbled. Loud groans escaping my stomach, it felt like my body was eating itself and my head pounded. I grasped the handle of the door and with all my might pulled down the handle and ripped the door open, the last thing I saw was an avalanche of snow which encased me before everything went black.
When I finally came back to my senses I was being carted away by the police, everything was in slow motion. Everything was flashing red and blue. I was confused, bewildered and lost as to what had happened. Then they told me. They told me that I ate her and when they entered the house I tried to eat them too. That was the day, I ate all of India.
Now here I am, in a mental institute. Hungry. I’m on my 3rd mattress of the day, I weigh over 400 pounds. They told me that if I keep eating the bed I’ll be made to sleep on the floor, but I don’t care. I’m hungry. I’ll never stop eating. Not until I can taste it again, I just want to feel the slimy, rich tasting meat in my mouth one more time. My plot to eat the nurse didnt work, I now receive food through a little hatch under my door and all doctors consolations are online. I pass out atleast 4 times a day without it and its unbearable, I’d rather die than never eat flesh again.
I stood infront of the mirror and stared at the monster I had become, but when I looked at myself for once I didn’t see a monster, I saw the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes on. Iwas like a lightbulb went off in my head and suddenly I knew everything was going to be okay. I wasnt just 400 pounds. I was 400 pounds… of flesh.’
I shut the Diary of the Girl who Ate India, leaning back in my seat as I puffed through the cigarette which hung over my pale, thin lips. I always wanted to know what happened to my daughter after the day she was taken from us. This wasnt the update I was expecting, as a Mom no one ever wants to see their child turn into a cannibalistic, family eating monster.
Well, I guess she took after her Mother. Only, I never got caught.