Humans Anonymous

It's been three weeks and five days since my last shave.

Am I doing ok?

I guess so.

The first week had been insanely itchy, but I embraced it and told myself it was for the best.

Linda, my girlfriend of five years, had walked out on me to be with an accountant, as my current form of employment 'boxed' us in and didn't allow for the little luxuries that a women of her taste required.

It soon became apparent that my sacrifices - leaving my family, changing my eating habits and convincing myself I enjoyed bottled grape nectar with fermented cow cubes, had been in vain.

'Why must you be so tall.' she would often moan, as I towered over her friends at the various parties she had dragged me along to.

Friends that would look at me with awe and a little fear. I didn't want them to be scared- just wanted to fit in. Even if my seven-foot five inch frame made it almost impossible to do so.

So I stooped, uncomfortable with my height. Wearing suits that chaffed, in shoes so tight that I was one event away from my toes clawing free in all their hairy glory.

I refused to shave my toes.

So Linda made me promise to keep them covered.

'Whatever would people think?!' she'd mutter, eyes riveted to the furry digits when catching me coming out of the shower.

My act of rebellion would be eating drumsticks and walking around our apartment barefoot when she was at work or out with friends.

Until she caught me.

'What have you done?!' she had cried looking at the plate of chicken bones that I had sucked clean-my hairy toes curling into the shaggy beige rug in shame.

'Those creatures were once ALIVE Eric! Must you torment them in the afterlife by eating their dead flesh!'

'Do you think they know I'm eating them?' I whispered, looking down at the half eaten drumstick in my hand, as if the tormented chickens in the afterlife could hear me.

'Honestly must you be so backwoods!'

***

That was the issue in our relationship. I was backwoods and she was chic cafe's and designer Italian shoes.

I loved the outdoors.

She detested it.

I hated the smell of the city and the towering structures with their dead eyes that overlooked streets filled with bustling bodies.

Bodies that never stilled to view the world they spun on.

I missed the smell of the forest, the dampness of the earth after a heavy rainfall- and the quiet.

The city was a constant shout in my ears, fading to a dull ringing as the years went past.

The simple truth was, I did not fit the life I had been knocked into.

But like a puppy begging to be tossed its favourite toy, I had begged Linda not to abandon me.

Her smell had tantalised from the moment her legs had stepped out of the car. Not just the expensive perfume that she wore religiously- but a heady sweet musk that had me salivating.

The petal soft smoothness of her skin had bewitched me, from the moment she had touched my rough hand and asked if I was OK.

'She won't do Eric...a life of meat free unhappiness awaits.' my mother had warned, shaking her head in disbelief as I told the family I was leaving home.

'The deer don't need meat to be happy. ' I argued, as I'd packed up the small number of belongings I kept at my parents dwelling.

'That's because the deer are the meat.'

My dad, with his odd cryptic wisdom, had chewed on his pipe as he rocked back and forth in the big chair his grandfather had built. Another reason it was best for me leave. I had tried to be what they wanted. But like the chair. I rocked to my own rustic beat...a tempo that left my family confused.

'I don't like deer meat dad...I love Linda and if it means eating plants so be it!'

My mother had gasped, her brown eyes filling with horror.

'I curse the day her car knocked you over!' she'd cried before stomping from the room.

'You'll need to...SHAVE!' my brother had almost choked on the word as he sat at the kitchen table tucking into a plate of squirrel stew.

'So be it!' I'd growled, love for this female making me willing to do anything to be with her-and that heady smell.

So I had shaved -gaining respectable employment as a security guard for an electronics warehouse.

Not as exciting as I thought it would be- I drank a lot of coffee and checked out random noises.

Then a week ago she had come home, looked at me in that oddly disgusted way and declared-

'I've met someone else. I'm sorry, but this situation has run its course.'

I knew the money had become an issue...but she had been on me last night screaming my name.

'I'm not sure I understand.'

Sighing, she'd stepped forward and patted my face with her small perfectly manicured hand.

'I'm setting you free- go home.'

***

'So you just packed up and left the city?'

I stared at Joy in her chair across from me. She was one of the new ones that had started last week.

This was the first time she had spoken.

I knew how hard those first few words were.

I'd started coming to the weekly H.A meetings when I moved back home. There were six chairs that made up our little circle. Two more than last week.

Humans Anonymous had given me purpose again. From the moment Linda had knocked me over with her car, my life had changed.

Not for better or worse.

Just different.

And I needed to heal.

City life with the humans, for all its modern comforts, had been hard.

'I came home, found this place and the words to start over.'

'What words?'

I smiled, stroking my furry face.

'My name is Eric and I'm a Sasquatch.'