Parasite

We meet via friends. Always theirs, never mine. A small knot of misfits and losers desperately clinging to each other as though they aren’t dragging each other down, when that’s all they’re capable of. Sharing a broken camaraderie that strokes the one thing they all have in common, the crushing boredom of their isolating loneliness.

I can taste their wounds. Each and every one of them. These inept creatures kid themselves into thinking they have done a good job of hiding their pain and inadequacies. I’ll tell you something for free, the more one of you lot tries to hide something, the further you highlight it. Cradling it in your arms, and cravenly offering it up to me to feed upon. 

You are so stupidly self-destructive! A stinking lamb to the slaughter. I smell the stench of your fear and your shame, and I sense the mile wide gap in your defences even before I go looking for it. The space I will occupy inside of you. A place you’ve prepared for me to play my game.

And my game is as simple as it gets. My game is my game and only I know the rules. The first rule of my game is that I always win. I am the house and the house never loses. 

Life is a gamble. For me, the trick is to find the worst gamblers going. The ones that are already on a losing streak. I slip into their midst and then I wait. I smile my smile and dangle my bait. An anglerfish, looking out at a sea of prey. Soon enough, a sad fish that thinks it is tired of life will swim on up and attempt to smile a smile that they hope makes them pretty. It does not. It cannot hope to. I see their fractures and the foul wreckage beyond. Wounded and limping. I do the world a favour in seeking out the stragglers at the edge of the herd, taking them somewhere secret and tearing them slowly apart.

I tear them apart ever so slowly and they let me! They lie there, welcoming me with languid, open arms, immobile and in a stupor of pain that grows with every moment we spend together. They encourage me to feed. And they deserve every moment of that pain. Just as I deserve every corresponding moment of pleasure. Their pain is after all my pleasure. An addictive hit that I will never tire of.

This world is perfect in its imperfection, and I am perfect for it. I am perfect. My prey limps forth willingly. Satisfied with the crumbs I provide. Craving anything I give. They are lazy and lax. Deserving of what is to come. They think me one of them. Broken and pathetic. In their fear, they sell themselves short. Too afraid to be near healthy and complete people. Too anxious to be exposed for the inadequate specimen that they are. I mirror what they are becoming and when they see this reflected failure, they sell themselves to me all too readily. Then I lead them by the nose from the illusory safety of their fellow losers and I begin.

I am a god. I see what you cannot. I see beyond the lies you have told yourself so often you are blinded by them. I see your true nature and that is what I use. I sit back and I hide in plain sight. You all disgust me. Your lives are tawdry. You clamber about in your own filth. You deserve everything you get.

There is a purity to me and what I am. I watch. I have learned. Unencumbered by the nonsense of emotion, I have only the righteous anger that is rightly mine as a god. I use my form to entice, ensnare and feed. You are fodder. Mine for the taking. If you can see none of this, that is on you. You are weak and limited. Just as the beasts of the field are. They know not of the slaughterhouse. Their violent end is of no concern to them. 

So why should I care?

I led her away from her self-centred friends and I allowed her to see promises that I never made. I observed the change in her. That thing they call love, when there is no way a person can love in those early stages of knowing someone. No one can know another so swiftly. There is no way to discern intentions. The heart is safely ensconced in the chest cavity and it never gives up its secrets. This instead is a self-induced stupor. A lustful fantasy that does more damage than I ever could in such a short span of time. Even now, I marvel at the propensity of people to launch themselves at their intended target and render themselves insensible. Oblivious of the dangers of their state.

People readily sacrifice themselves to something they call love. This is the biggest lie going. They are lemmings, but with a survival rate well beyond anything a rational being could anticipate.

This before I ever took her to my bed. I reeled her further in as she dialled up that lust of hers. More crumbs sprinkled along the trail. Sex is the understudy for love, and it plays the part well. A broken person, yearning to be loved, attributes so many lies to physical contact. They make it into something affectionate. 

I make sex good. This comes easily to me. They are an extension of me. They are mine. I possess them in every way and sex is my in. I burrow my way inside them, and I am forever there in their world. I draw them into my world and there is nothing else. I play with them. I taste them. I use them in every way possible. The satiation of my hunger is exquisite. I grow stronger with every moment I take from them, and they become weaker. More helpless. More mine.

She was different. Which is to say that I was different. The gods sometimes took the form of animals to seduce a human that they desired. The game I played with this one was a different game and I rejoiced in the sport of it. A cat playing with a mouse before the inevitable occurred. 

It wasn’t her. It was me. I sensed it was time for something different. Then, as I played the game differently, I had a divine revelation. I saw where I was headed and I wondered why I had waited so long for something so obvious. 

I suppose it was my disdain for these creatures. The creatures I so loathed, but was compelled to feed upon. Being around them disgusted me. The price I had to pay for a secured supply for my addiction was always too high. Living with a cow in order to drink milk and eat steak. No wonder I hurt the dumb animal more and more as time wore me down. 

That part fascinated me. I burrowed deeper and the pain I caused was so intense that it must have been obvious what I was about. Yet not one of my victims joined the dots and came back around towards me. I saw the clumsy cogs in their minds clunking around, but they never got far enough to reach the obvious conclusion. So limited! They fail time and again, their fear dominating them. The best they can do is reach two erroneous conclusions…

“It’s my fault.”

“The world is a cruel hurtful place.”

Oh! They look at me, and they resent me. Resentment is what I want from them. Resentment is the vomit I spew upon their repugnant flesh, then I stomp upon them until I have a fine stew and I lap it all up.

In their pain, and the maelstrom of their confusion, they look upon me and they feel a mix of terrible emotions, but then they turn those emotions inwards upon themselves.

Why?

Because they don’t see me! There is no me to see. I am safely ensconced deep within. I am a god that they could not possibly begin to comprehend. All they see is what I allow them to see and what I give them is them. All they see is a poor reflection of what they are. And in seeing their own image, they ceaselessly blame themselves.

It is a simple trap. A perfect trap. There is no getting away from themselves and so, even as they have the urge for flight, they freeze and they atrophy and I feed from their growing fear, pain and anxiety. Best of all, I taste their shame and self-loathing and experience a thrill that is better than the increasingly rough sex I inflict upon them. In no time at all, even the sex is an obvious case of my taking and never giving.

I love my game! I treat them mean and they are as keen as mustard. There is a constant space between us. Always was, and always will be. I give nothing and I take all. I watch them try again and again to fill that void. Becoming more and more invested in the darkness. They fascinate me. The human spirit is an incredible supply. But then it frustrates me also. Quickly I become bored of the same meal again and again. I just want to extinguish this one and move on to something fresh. Something different. I would kill them all if I could, but instead I have to become creative and find as many ways to play my game as is possible. Alter my strategy. Go harder. Take more.

Things were different with her. I played a longer game. Not at first I didn’t. If anything, I was full on. I had this desire to crush her. I delighted in raising her spirits and then pushing her so effortlessly for the most painful of falls. I saw her anguish and more than once I thought she may deprive me of herself by ending it all. A maddening rage at her for daring even consider cheating in such a way, but as she relented I gorged on the tragedy of her.

Deception is a weapon I effortlessly wield. My aim is to provide a sense of betrayal that breaks a mind into two warring factions. I expend so little effort on my game. The beasts of the field do all the work for me. This is a cerebral martial art. I am the master. I use my opponent’s momentum against them. They call it cognitive dissonance. I call it winning. A state of madness that delivers a constant source of pain. It creeps up upon them. They never see it coming. But that’s because they choose to look away.

They all look away.

I’ve seen my victims look upon their fate and try to articulate it. I’ve even willed them on. They entertain me in their struggles. If ever I picked unwisely and saddled myself with someone capable of seeing enough and finding words to describe it, they would fail so totally and utterly at the next hurdle.

No one would believe them.

Everyone looks away. It’s not that I am invisible. It’s that I show them what they want to see and because I give them what they want, they are satisfied and they are comfortable. 

Whereas my victim? In their hypervigilant and agitated state? They stink of fear and of madness and they create such high degrees of discomfort that they are shunned by all. The beasts are truly ignorant, they ignore an injured member of their own herd. There is nothing to be done for one so injured, and so they turn away and hope that they will not hear the cries of misery. The painfilled wails as the weak one is ended.

Go home.

Better for the madness to be contained within the walls of the victim’s home. Only that place ceased to be a home when I was invited in. Now it is my domain. My lair. 

Welcome to the parlour. Sit yourself down in my web. Here, let me wrap you up in something warm and snug…

I let her go.

I let this one go.

Only I didn’t. 

Of course I didn’t.

With this one, the game was longer and more interesting and far more intense. I milked her and then I bred my own, special source of supply. A logical progression. Another possession, only this time I was there from the start and there was a magic in this.

The first two years of my possession’s life bored me. I am not patient. Show me a god who is prepared to wait! I had to content myself with the changed dynamic with my old, and increasingly tired supply. Thankfully, as is always the case, she was the gift that kept giving. Motherhood and her inability to deliver it with any semblance of success gave another flavour to my meals. I took my opportunity and I used it well. Dividing. Always dividing. I presented her with my successes. Seemingly looking after her child when she was not there. I started my work from the outset. This child was mine. Never hers. Mine to possess. Taking it away from her mother little by little and bit by bit. A further void for the incompetent woman who thought it was a good idea to bring another version of herself into this world. That woman saw what I wanted her to see, as I fed on her despair, as she failed to bond and care for her child.

When my possession began to talk, it all changed. I cleaved it closer to me. An extension to myself. We both watched the woman who dwelt under our roof with undisguised greed. Revelled in her confusion as we reigned chaos down upon her. 

The time was coming for a change. Nothing lasts forever. I have heard of those of my kind that entrap a source of supply and feed upon them for several decades. This is beyond me and I take it with an entire salt cellar. These people must only be people with godlike traits. Not the real deal. Not special like me. Most of my supplies have lasted two years, three at most. The one I chose to bear my possession was a dried husk soon after that. I indulged her as a nursemaid and when she was no longer required, I helped her along her way.

In the end, her end, it was fittingly her fault. She tripped. The clumsy ox that she was. I heard her cry out. Seeking attention. Always seeking attention. You’d have thought that she would have learnt her place. That she would have worked out that I was the one who was to be given attention. Never to bestow it. 

Later, as I deigned to leave my room and gift my presence to other areas of my domain, I saw her laying in an untidy heap at the bottom of the stairs. There was something fitting about the untidiness of her demise. Her ending was a natural conclusion to the travesty of a life she’d inflicted upon me. I hated her for the effort I would have to go to. But at least I saw her death. As did my possession.

I stepped over the twisted woman. No mean feat as she took up the entirety of the last two steps on the stairs. I joined my possession at the foot of the stairs. Both of us sat cross-legged on the floor and stared into this pathetic woman’s eyes.

I saw something in those eyes even then. Not comprehension. But a ridiculous form of hope. Her mouth was moving. Forming silent words. I wouldn’t have listened were they to have mustered any sound.

This was her time. We all knew that. My bum grew numb as I waited for her to die. Even then she made a hash of it. No warning. No sign. She robbed me of that, and my disdain for her made me want to hit her cooling corpse. Smash it to pieces to match the destruction I had wreaked inside of her. Instead, I poked her open eye. Confirming what I already knew; utterly useless. Devoid of anything I could ever have wanted. Processed. Tasteless. A bland waste of space that was decaying before I ever set eyes upon it.  

“This is what you get,” I said to the dead woman, but those words were all for my possession. My possession needed to know. I turned to look down at the small form that was all mine, and I smiled a smile that it did not see. Never would I bestow a smile upon this thing. That was not how it was done. Deprive, and create a growing painful and dark need. 

I waited for the possession to cease staring into the dead eyes of the creature that had brought it forth into the world. When it looked up, I let it know that things had changed. That now it was only us and I had plans for it. Pain-filled plans that would feed me for many-a year and teach it how to be exactly like me. 

Time to up the ante, and train my possession how to be. Love it as only I can. Tell it our truth. A secret that only we will ever understand. Steep it in the belief system of my religion. Become its god for ever and ever. Pass down the special, dark gift that sets me apart from the stinking dregs of humanity.

Your turn, I thought even as I spoke the words, “we’re the same, you and I.”

And we would be. I would make this thing in my own image and then I would send it forth into this woeful world to feast upon the doe-eyed flesh that it teems with.