I’ve caught myself staring at the outside leaves dancing around the blades of grass again. I guess the solitude of my lone house far, far away from the parasitic waste that is other people gets to me sometimes. Despite the hatred I crave the affection, socializing, talking to somebody, or something that can talk back to me. Within the thought, I got an idea. I descended into the confines of my cellar, buried beneath the dirt encaged by wooden framing and stone. I then faced the Southern concrete wall, my personal canvas.
I took off my shirt to make it into a personal gag and bit down as hard as I could, then grabbed a bundle of hair and pulled until I felt parts of my scalp ripping itself out of my skin. Then, fingernails. I found a pair of pliers tucked away on my workbench and tore four nails out one by one. Sweat devouring me as every signal in my body told me to stop and bandage myself up, but I didn’t. After balling up the hair and teeth in a small pile I sat down beside them and took my box cutter out of my pocket. Upper left thigh, plenty of meat. Self-induced torture. I pushed it onto myself willingly. Carving and gouging a bundle of flesh. I was bleeding profusely but I wasn’t worried. I put all the parts of myself into a bundle and smeared it onto the wall.
I took the spit covered shirt out of my mouth and tied it as hard as I could around where I had carved into my leg. Suddenly I heard squelching and a loud wetness emanating from the wall, I looked up to see a mouth had formed. Flesh for structure, nails for teeth, hair to bind it. Curiously, I admired it for a few seconds until suddenly, a hoarse voice came out of the mound. Not a word, but a groan, a thing testing its own vocal ability like it had never had it before.
“Hello?”
I groaned, a scratchy voice exiting my throat. The mound copied me with its own voice, sounding higher in pitch and a little less raspy than it had been previously. I stood for the moment, paralyzed in a mix of fear and joy at my creation. I went upstairs and got a book. I read the first five chapters of Moby Dick, the mound repeating each word I said, learning quickly. By the end of the night, I felt it had learned enough to be able to choose its own name, I did not wish to call my new friend ‘mound’ forever.
“Friend, what can I call you?”
“What would you like to call me?”
I was taken by surprise, it hadn’t copied me like it had been for the last few hours and asked me a question, the voice was clear and clean higher than mine but with an identical accent. I smiled and responded, soft spoken.
“Ishmael it is, friend.”
The next few days went by much the same. I spent the beginning of my day eating breakfast by myself. Just after dinner I went down to my new friend and sat down. We read together for hours on end, getting deeper and deeper into the story of the obsessed whale hunter diving into his own destruction. By the time we got to the end of our reading session the whale had furiously struck back against its hunters. I wanted to ask Ishmael if he had any thoughts, but he muttered a sentence under a breath which reeked of roadkill.
“Why can I only speak, father?”
It was weak and sorrowful, the thought hit me that I hadn’t anticipated my guests own curiosity of the world I was reading to him about. I went upstairs without a word, snatched a spoon, returned down and stood Infront of Ishmael.
“What else would you like, son?”
“I wish for eyes to see the grass, the oceans, the light skies of blue and their corresponding darkness.
“Very well.”
I shut my left eye as hard as I could and put the spoon directly under it. I pushed in as deep as I could until I couldn’t push any further. Each small movement deeper into my skull searing with pain and drowning in tears and blood. Sounds of gore being mashed and mangled. After most of the spoon was gone, I pushed the bottom of the spoon’s handle down and with a quick motion. It popped. The cord dangling down taunting me. I grabbed it and bit it in the middle, squeezing my eyes shut and biting the cord as hard as I could partially to rip it but mostly to keep myself from screaming. Once finished I threw it into Ishmaels mouth and bid them goodnight before heading upstairs. After a quick visit to the bathroom to put a ball of toilet paper into my empty eye socket I fell into a deep, forced, dreamless sleep right on the floor.
I eventually woke up to a bird chirping on my face. Its sharp feet digging into my cheek. I shooed it off and stood up curious on how the bird had gotten in, it didn’t take long to deduct the problem. All over my floors, walls, ceiling. Pulsating fleshy tentacles covered in eye balls the same color as mine. Staring everywhere curiously but when one noticed me all of them at once turned to stare.
“Ishmael!?”
I shouted down while heading down into the cellar.
“Father! I can see. Everything. All. I can see all. I’m all-seeing, Father.”
As much as I wanted to scream at the mound, I couldn’t. Partially because I brought this entity into life, what right did I have to take away its ability to see the beauty of the world? Other than that, I was scared. The mouth had become a bulging fleshy cist bursting out of the wall. Eyeballs covering a maze of tentacles coming out of the mound like vines. Instead of arguing, or cheering, I just nodded, sat down, grabbed Moby Dick, and read. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep, I didn’t drink, I didn’t blink. I just read. Half-way through the book I realized I felt my legs growing weaker, feeling pressured, I wanted to look down but when I got the urged I got stopped by a gentle voice.
“We’ll be together, forever, you and me, never lonely again, father.”
And that was enough. I had instincts to run but I didn’t bother, It’s not like it mattered. He could’ve caught me anyways. By the time I got to the section of captain Ahab being dragged down into the depths of the deep blue by Moby, the flesh mass had reached up to my neck. One of Ishmael’s tentacles were holding up the book and turning the pages. Once the book had been shut, I acknowledged just how numb I’ve become. No capability of any motion, just a stiffness all around. Despite the urge to close my eyes and let my creation consume me, I somehow pulled together the will power to fight. I jumped and screamed and squirmed as much as I possibly could trying desperately to get my body free. Suddenly at once, I felt a rip in the mass around my right leg, I kicked, and I was free. The rest of the flesh mass fell apart with it and I ran up the stairs. Collapsing and crawling up the flight of stairs, Fighting with writhing, wet, moist tentacles that groped at each part it managed to grab. I kicked, Pushed, Ran, and crawled. Through fighting I finally made it to the door. I wanted to run outside but I knew it wouldn’t end there. Ishmael got so much power from small parts of me, If he figured out he could consume birds he could become an unstoppable force. I pushed open the door outside and ran to the shed, Leaving with a canaster of gasoline, a matchbox, and a hatchet.
“Ishmael?”
I called out through the front door. The tentacles had stopped their attack and settled down into a stationary mode. I listened carefully for a response but didn’t get one. I walked forward to the entrance of the cellar and heard heavy breathing coming down from the abyss. The cellar was surrounded with fleshy tentacles and broken wood from trying and failing to grab me. While pouring gasoline down the steps I heard a soft spoken cry.
“Father. I wish for bone and skin, I wish to be able to hold, and walk”
“No.”
As soon as I denied, he screamed. A screech so loud it would shock a banshee. I covered my left ear with my hand and ran outside with my other hand spilling the rest of the gasoline into a trail. I glanced one more time at the house before dropping a match and leaving my home in ashes.