sagawa
The dwarf before me grills the meat with fervor.
The middle-aged man is nearly a foot shorter than I, but thirty years ahead in time—a man with a malicious gaze, teetering on the edge of old age.
I decided to call him ‘It.’ For a year, the dwarf has never once bothered to correct that indeterminate pronoun.
The man’s skin is more wrinkled and sagging than others of that age. Though it is far from a White Christmas, the dwarf’s once-black hair has lost its original color, now shrouded in a sheen of white silk. That repulsive, slippery texture must be drenched in the stench of grease.
“Eat.”
A sickeningly commanding tone. The man’s voice is the weak, wheezing rasp of an old tiger—one with missing teeth and claws that are either broken or nearly ripped out, relegated to a back room. Yet, I could not resist.
Even if broken, the jagged edges of those claws were still larger than mine, sharp enough to draw blood.
I couldn’t ask if I really had to eat it. I couldn’t reject the single piece of meat the dwarf placed before me.
As I sat frozen, staring, ‘It’ says: “Swallow.”
How ridiculous. At those words, I obediently picked up my wooden chopsticks and began to gnaw on the meat. The morsel was certainly well-cooked, yet this small, tough lump that refused to yield to my teeth—why did it reek of something as foul as armpits or rotting feet?
The dwarf moves those jaw muscles with a look of pure bliss. The man’s face resembled the viscous fluid hanging from a lolling dog’s tongue in the sweltering heat of an August midsummer. Yet, the dwarf’s bite seemed far superior to mine. The middle-aged man possessed a full set of natural teeth, not even needing a partial denture. I, on the other hand, had three cavities, left neglected because new teeth wouldn’t grow back if I pulled them now. To be honest, the burden of dental costs played a part as well.
“And the critique?”
The man’s half-closed eyes surely desired the elegant and justified critique of a gourmet. Or perhaps they were merely the dimmed, hazy eyes of the elderly, struggling with failing vision.
I could not bring myself to say it was ‘delicious,’ nor could I ‘swallow,’ even as a lie. Whether it was because my jaw ached from the gristle or because of this inescapable banquet, tears began to well in my eyes.
A week ago, this middle-aged dwarf returned from France, where the man had lived for over six months. The dwarf brought back several lumps of frozen meat, claiming they were a gift for me.
Yet, the one truly elated by the gift was not the recipient, but the giver alone. Perhaps that is why, for seven days now, as we emptied the last Tupperware container, the dwarf insisted on snatching the tongs and scissors from me to grill it with such perverse devotion.
The taste and smell remained a failure. With every passing day, the meat in the freezer had succumbed further to decay.
The dwarf savored the stench of that viscous visage, whistling with a joy so profound its depths were unfathomable. The sound was called a whistle, but in truth, what leaked from those feeble vocal cords was nothing more than the metallic rasp of a lung cancer patient, thick with phlegm.
In rhythm with that sound, the jaw muscles that had been moving so busily just a moment ago gulped down into the dwarf’s throat. The man looked like a grotesque clown performing a ridiculous dance, yet singing with haunting proficiency.
It wasn’t funny, nor was it amusing. I simply focused on the single point within my mouth.
“At last,” ‘It’ wheezed, “I have truly become ‘Maggie Anderson’.”
That utterly incomprehensible delusion was the five-foot-ten height the dwarf had always craved; the flowing, natural blonde hair; and that decadent beauty reminiscent of Eva Green, whom I had only seen in photographs.
A look of ecstasy washed over the dwarf. I did not care what the man felt. My entire nervous system was concentrated on trying to sever this stubborn piece of meat with my teeth. Even knowing it was impossible.
When the dwarf succeeded in hunting a woman larger than the dwarf’s own self—something that seemed impossible—what did the man feel? And when the dwarf hacked the flesh into pieces, joint by joint, with a machete and packed them into Tupperware? What does the man feel now, as ‘It’ shoves the very last morsel into that gaping mouth?
I was curious, yet I did not want to know. I had to succeed in swallowing this ‘grilled woman’ today, lest I be the one served on ‘Its’ next table.
So, please, let it break. For the end of her agony, and for the preservation of my life.
