I’m in an enormous mansion, bone-white and imposing. There is a party. An elegant dining hall, the dominant colors are maroon and white and purple — strong rich majestic hues. I’m walking around, vaguely feeling out of place. One man stands out to me: I keep watching him throughout the party. The people are mostly in their 20s, 30s, but this man seems younger, in spirit as much as in the flesh. His face is a little cherubic, hair boyishly unruly. A white shirt, navy blue slacks.

Some talk, not entirely good, is swirling around about him. He’s being a glutton, it’s provoking most to laughter, some to annoyance. Shy glances turn to open stares. We’re now watching him in fascination as he tears into roasts, hams, fat legs of chicken. Beets, pumpkins, anything he can get his hands on. Not untidily, though; not with grease glistening on chin or hands, not with a mad groping for napkins. It’s an efficient machine-like devouring, clean and smooth. He turns his face to us occasionally with a shrug and a look that says: “Well, what’s to be done?” I feel pity, I feel revulsion.

Talk keeps up about him — soon we’re all yammering about this “beastly eater” — too cowardly to ask him to save some crumbs for us — He has come to the mansion tonight to gorge himself to death. I learn this straight from the man/boy himself. He is frank and unafraid as he tells me this. Now he’s telling everyone else.

We nod at this decision and several guests make comments about the soundness, the appropriateness of it. Then, since the food’s been exhausted, and he hasn’t died yet, he leaps through one of the large and many-paned windows and falls several storeys. We watch and comment on the noise of impact: its volume, its texture.

posted by Snail at 5:34 pm