What is your favorite dish? Does it have a smell? Does it make your mouth water?
Imagine if you walked into a funeral parlor, and that aroma wafted off the skin of every individual weeping over the casket.
The line between most great written works and those perceived as the insane ramblings of a madman is one of comprehension. So today I will do my best to convey to you this contention with utmost clarity. That contention is that there is an omnipresent being feeding off of the misery of all of humanity.
I call this creature the Misery Feeder, and where misery goes it follows. It’s like the holy ghost– if the holy ghost lived off human suffering.
For many, they have inherited misery as a sort of heirloom. For others, they have been gifted it by someone they knew, or by a particular occurrence in their life. Some discover it by themselves, like a ghost under a street lamp.
Ultimately it does not matter how someone came upon their own personal tragedy; The Misery Feeder feasts just the same.
I believe it was born out of necessity. Like an equalizer for humanity. A parasite with the ultimate energy source, the ultimate prey: the only species with the capacity to understand and conceptualize the nature of suffering. The only species that can write sonnets, paint paintings, and conduct symphonies manifested out of misery. Some say art is something one must suffer for– as if the act of creation itself is not worthwhile enough to be revered. It is philosophies like this that could only be conducted by the minds of men. And it is for that reason that the minds of men are the ultimate energy source for a creature such as this.
Misery is not beautiful, no. Take a look at anyone actually in the depths of despair, you won’t find beauty there. For this misery feeder, however, there is something much more than aesthetic appeal to be found– the ultimate culinary experience, a feast infinite.
Edvard Munch, for example, his tragedy of losing all he loved to disease, not only ill but tormented by lifelong dyspraxia– his only solace, the melancholy of a brush and canvas– is that beautiful to you?
His 1892 painting “Despair” comes to mind. The portrait of a faceless silhouette slouched over a bridge rail, unacknowledged, hardly even a person at all. It makes you wonder what that silhouette may have been contemplating; it makes you wonder if that fire-red sky had a sound. Edvard was a man who experienced incredible grief in his life, and I imagine that if the misery feeder ever met him, it would love him as much as it was capable, for being a man whose suffering was a thick miasma, rivaling that of even cities full of people. I’d imagine it was very disappointed to find him dead, just as one would feel upset upon finding that their favorite restaurant had gone out of business.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
My argument is one of logic. It is simple. A creature such as this has to exist, not because humanity’s inherent terror is something that could only exist independently of themselves– just the opposite actually. Misery is inherent to your race. You have evolved to feel things so wholly that you seem to have lost all sense of self-preservation in the process.
How would such miserable creatures be able to persevere if there were not some outside force keeping them alive? How would such creatures have not all shot themselves, if life is so desolate? How would such irrational, stupid, impulsive animals not have all nuked themselves already? They have the means to do so. They want to, oh how they long for self-destruction. How they fantasize. How they yearn to vanish themselves.
I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now.
You don’t make it easy, you know.
Even now, I am the sole force standing between billions of lives lost to suicide. Every week I narrowly stop a government official from annihilating a neighboring country. I have evolved alongside your species, beginning as a simple parasite, and, 117 billion lives later, I am become beyond god. Much like viruses and bacteria, the relationship between us has become much more mutualistic. It is in my best interest to eat, so it is in my best interest to keep you all alive.
Fuck. The smell these days. It’s incredible.
You might be wondering why I’m sharing this with you. I’m not entirely sure myself. Maybe somewhere inside of me, I want to assure all of you miserable little smorgasbords that even when you feel most alone, I’m there. In your darkest moments, I will always be with you. The voice in your head telling you to wait another day. The invisible hand on the dial, keeping the launch codes unseen. The gun jamming. The random text.
So, next time you’re upset, feel reassured.
Feel reassured by the fact that you are never truly alone.
Feel reassured by the fact that nuclear destruction is not imminent.
Feel reassured by me, everpresent, eternally eating you.