The Yellow Feast

The envelope was thick, expensive and unmarked except for their name in looping, old-fashioned writing. There was no return address or postage. It had been slipped under the flat door like a secret.

Inside was a single card with gilded edges, the paper heavy as bone.

You are cordially invited to an experience unlike any other.

There was no restaurant name or contact details, but there was a date, a time and a location that they were unfamiliar with. Below that, a single tantalising promise:

Flavours beyond human understanding. A meal that will change you.

The critic frowned. It reeked of gimmickry. It was probably some avant-garde chef desperate for attention, another tedious attempt at gastronomic theatre. They had seen it all before, deconstructed nostalgia, edible smoke, dishes served with whispered riddles from the waiters. 

They ran a thumb over the embossed letters. There was something about the phrasing. It was pretentious, yes, but also knowing. The kind of confidence usually worn by those who had already won. 

They told themself it was professional obligation driving them to accept, a duty to expose whatever overindulgent spectacle awaited and dissect it with the precision of a scalpel, leaving it bleeding on the page.

Beneath the cynicism, though, something sharper gnawed at them. It wasn’t quite hunger, and it wasn’t fear. Curiosity, then, or pride. The unspoken rule of their profession. No matter how many accolades won or ruined reputations left in their wake, a true critic never turned down a meal.

#

The room flickered with an unsettling glow. The golden light was as thick as honey, clinging to the walls, ceiling and faces of the diners like something living. It didn’t flicker like candlelight or hum like fluorescence. It was steady and absolute.

The tables were draped in heavy cloth and their surfaces were pristine and untouched. There was no clinking of glasses or quiet murmurs of conversation. The silence seemed expectant. The other guests sat unnervingly still, their eyes fixed on their own empty plates and their expressions taut with something close to reverence. They were all just waiting.

A figure glided out of the golden haze, wearing a wide smile. Dressed in a deep saffron colour, the maître d’ exuded a rehearsed warmth, like somebody who had spent a long time studying human behaviour without quite mastering it.

‘Ah, our esteemed guest of honour,’ he purred, hands clasped as if praying. ‘It is a rare privilege to welcome one such as yourself.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘You must understand,’ he continued, his voice rich and syrupy, ‘this is not just a meal. This is an honour. A privilege extended to so very few. By the end of the night, you will understand why.’ He stepped aside, gesturing towards an empty seat at the long, silent table. ‘Please. Be seated.’

The first dish arrived in a bowl the colour of old parchment. It was a thick golden broth that shimmered in the light. The scent was intoxicating, a mixture of saffron, turmeric, honey and mustard. Each note was rich and distant, but layered into something far more complex.

The first mouthful melted into their mouth, rich with spice and warmth, a perfect balance of heat and sweetness. As they swallowed, the room around them blurred. They heard a burst of high and childish laughter. They saw a birthday cake, golden and flickering with candles, and tiny hands clapping in delight. The critic almost smiled at the memory, but they had never been this child or sat at this table.

The second course was a delicate arrangement of what appeared to be fish, its flesh pale gold and glistening. A drizzle of amber coloured sauce pooled around it, thick as resin.

As the first bite slid down like silk, water suddenly surged up their throat, cold and crushing. There was darkness above and below, pressing in. Their lungs screamed for air that wasn’t there. A hand - their hand - reached out, broke the surface, then slipped back under.

They gasped and the dining room snapped back into focus. Their fork was still in motion, lifting another morsel to their lips.

More dishes followed, and each one held a memory that didn’t belong to them. A luminous paste smeared across the plate like crushed sunlight took them to a forest. Their breath was ragged and their legs burned. They heard the snap of twigs behind as something chased them. No escape, no escape, no… 

The flavour of each course unfolded in impossible dimensions. Silken at first, then gritted with something like sand, dissolving into a syrupy sweetness that clung to their teeth. Under the textures and the carefully balanced flavours they could taste a trembling sorrow, bitter and raw. Panic, metallic on their tongue. The slow, aching warmth of love lost too soon. Each taste carried weight, an emotion pressed into the fibres of the food itself, absorbed like marrow into bone. Along with the seasoning and spices, suffering had been steeped deep. It was layered between honeyed richness and golden warmth, waiting to be devoured.

Across the table, the other diners remained motionless, their faces half-lit by the golden glow. Their expressions were unreadable. There was no admiration or envy in them. The closest thing to emotion in their gazes was patience. Their eyes locked onto the critic, unblinking. Their hands rested neatly next to their untouched plates. Nobody else ate or spoke. They were still waiting. The critic couldn’t say what they were waiting for but, with each bite, the weight of their expectant stares grew heavier and pressed in on them.

Heat pooled under the critic’s skin slowly and insidiously, radiating outwards like sunlight trapped in their flesh. A prickling sensation bloomed up their arms. When they looked down, their veins pulsed with a faint golden glow. It looked like thin rivers of light coursing just under the surface.

The room seemed sharper now. Every colour was too vivid and sound too distinct. They could hear the scrape of a chair, the hush of fabric shifting and the wet press of a tongue against teeth.

Something else was slipping though. Their own name flickered at the edge of their thoughts, just out of reach. The restaurant where they had dined last week was gone. Their first review, their first byline, their first love - all these memories were fading, peeling away like old paint.

In their place surged forward the flood of memories brought by the food, the memories that weren’t theirs. A mother clutching a newborn to her chest. A soldier gasping in the mud. A woman whispering a final prayer as hands closed around her throat. The critic gripped the edge of the table, their hands slick with sweat. Their mind was a feast, and something was devouring them from the inside out.

The critic pushed back their chair. Their legs felt unsteady and the golden glow was swimming at the edges of their vision. The walls pulsed as if they were breathing. 

They turned towards the exit but the maître d’ was already there, standing too close. His smile was wider than before. The soft golden sheen of his skin had deepened. It looked metallic now and his eyes reflected the light like molten coins.

There was a subtle, silent movement as the other diners shifted in unison, their heads tilting. Their faces weren’t quite right anymore. They were too smooth and polished, their features losing definition as if melting into something uniform.

The critic stepped back. ‘You haven’t finished,’ the maître d’ said. The critic’s skin burned.

The final plate was set before them with a reverence usually reserved for relics. It was a shallow bowl rimmed in gold. Something trembling was cradled in its middle, a mound of some thick, gelatinous substance. A heartbeat seemed to pulse inside it. The smell of it was warm and cloying. It wrapped around them like a childhood memory. It was intoxicating and unbearably familiar. They couldn’t quite name it but they knew it in the marrow of their bones. Sweetness laced with something richer.

A ripple of understanding passed through them. It came slowly and sickeningly, sinking into the hollows of their mind like oil. Why the taste on their tongue and the scent in their nose were so familiar. They were being eaten. Their thoughts and memories, the essence of everything that made them real was unravelling, being siphoned away with each bite.

The golden glow around them thickened and pulsed. It felt like a fathomless, unknowable presence was drinking them in like nectar. The critic tried to move, they wanted to resist, but they were already dissolving. They were already part of it.

The other diners leaned forward as one, their movements unnervingly fluid. Their faces were caught halfway between human and something else. Their golden skin glistened like wax under heat. Their wide, gleaming eyes fixed hungrily on the critic. They waited for the last fragile strands of the critic’s self that unravelled with every breath. For the final flicker of resistance to fade, when their would become another gleaming thread woven into the feast.

The critic’s lips parted, a scream clawing its way up from the depths of their fracturing mind, but no sound came. Only light, a golden glow that spilled from their mouth and poured out in thick, shimmering tendrils, curling like smoke, like honey, like something leaving them forever. Their throat burned and their chest hollowed as the last of them was exhaled into the feast.

The other diners watched, rapt, and their own bodies pulsed brighter as they drank in the glow. The critic tried to close their mouth and swallow it back down but it was too late. They were empty.