Insatiable Hunger (Part 1)
I was always so hungry. It didn’t matter how much I ate.
My parents said that when I was a baby they would often come to see me in my crib, attempting to chew on my fingers with my toothless gums. Not sucking on them, but savagely chomping down, all the while crying in ravenous, hungry pain.
It’s only in the past few years that I’ve realized why I’m always hungry. And that I’ve learned how to fix it.
I want to stress now the fact that my parents are not to blame for why I am the way that I am. They were great: loving, doting, and they certainly never withheld food from me. In fact, if I were to say they had one flaw it would be that they let me eat as much as I wanted. When I was a baby, it was more and more milk every time they found me chomping on my fingers and crying. As an older kid, it was entire boxes of cereal and all the snacks in the kitchen; at birthday parties my mom would sneak me snacks from her purse when no one was looking to make sure that I didn’t eat all the food. No matter what, I was still hungry.
The doctors didn’t have an answer for my appetite, or for why I hardly gained any weight despite eating over 10,000 calories a day. They ran all kinds of tests, and while their best guess was that I probably had some metabolic condition or a genetic disorder, there was never anything concrete.
My parents were just told to monitor me for other symptoms and that I would need to come in for a checkup once a month until they found out what was going on. They were given no instructions on how to handle my diet. The doctors were just as perplexed as my parents.
For the most part, my parents and I handled my food issues just fine. I ate as much as I felt I needed, and they never failed to provide. We got used to our lives. And they got used to a food budget more befitting of a large orphanage than a one child household. It only became an issue again when my parents were called in for a conference with my third-grade teacher after school.
Mrs. Hoshka was a young and energetic lady who was probably only a year or two out of college. Looking back, her partner must have been rich, because she was always giving us books and toys and, most importantly, snacks. All the kids loved her, and she cared so much about us.
“I want to start by saying that John is one of the smartest students in the class,” she said. “He’s been doing great on all of our vocabulary tests, and last Friday he finished first on our weekly times table game,” she looked at me with a subtle, comforting smile.
“Thank you,” my dad said.
My mom nodded as she stared down at her hands.
“And I know that y’all are great par—
“Is this about him eating so much?” my dad asked. He sat up straighter and squeezed his hands together as my mom put a hand on his forearm. “You think we aren’t feeding him?”
“I understand that times are tough,” Mrs. Hoshka continued. “And I just want to—”
“He eats as much as he wants,” my dad replied.
“The doctors don’t know what to make of it,” my mom continued. “And neither do we,” my moms voice quickened as she shook her head and leaned forward. “Mrs. Hoshka, if you saw how much food he ate in a day you wouldn’t believe it. I mean, what can we do?”
Mrs. Hoshka apologized profusely before saying, “I just wanted to ask what his favorite snack is. I’d love to stock some just for him.”
“Mrs. Hoshka,” my mom said. “He doesn’t like eating.”
“It just makes his stomach hurt less,” my dad finished.
#
My parents were right. And I can’t imagine a curse worse than insatiable hunger. I don’t understand why so many people seem to think it would be a blessing. Everything tastes the same to me. Bland and boring, like chewy pieces of ice. Just thinking about eating normal food makes me want to throw up. The monotony of chewing, the disgust in knowing that the peanut butter is mixing with the jelly and it's all mixing together with the bread and my spit and the remnants of everything else I ate that day and getting stuck between my teeth. Then having to swallow the amalgamation, forcing it all to stay with me even longer as it travels through my body, all the way to my ass where it comes out as a thick black log, or pebbles, or a brown slimy sludge that stains the inside of the toilet. A toilet that would then need to be cleaned. Cleaned by me, once again having to deal with the same food that I never wanted inside of me in the first place.
For me this process was never-ending. Eat and shit. Eat and shit. All day, all night, the chewing, the swallowing, the shitting. Knowing that some of what I ate was going to stay with me forever and become a part of me. Literally becoming the skin on my body. The fat on my stomach.
The only thing worse was what happened when I didn’t eat. When my stomach wasn’t full it was like I was sinking into an endless void. An Ouroboros consuming itself from the inside out.
To consume or be consumed.
As I got older I became better at hiding it. In middle school I started sneaking snacks in with my school supplies: cheez-its squished into a ziploc inside my pencil bag, entire sandwiches and cheeseburgers hidden inside my backpack. I’d gotten so fast at eating that I could dip my head close to my backpack, as if searching for something really important, all the while fishing out a cheeseburger and eating it in two bites. Every once in a while someone would notice, but as long as it was only every so often they wouldn’t think I was a freak.
In high-school I came up with my best idea. A temperature controlled gallon water bottle that I filled with home-made milkshakes every morning. Between this and a sizable breakfast and lunch, I could get through the school day without anyone noticing a thing. No one seemed to notice me at all, actually.
Until I met Sophie.
And everything changed.
#
In my Junior year of high-school I had three classes with Sophie: 1st, 3rd, and 6th period. We were the two quiet kids. We both sat at the back of the class reading under our desks, occasionally popping our heads up to make it seem like we were paying attention.
I’d had the biggest crush on her for the past year. She had jet-black hair and her skin was pale in that beautiful way of a cartoon fairy. I remember how badly I wanted to know what color her eyes were, simply so I could daydream about her in further detail.
I noticed that she liked to read a lot of books by Stephen King and Clive Barker. For months I thought about approaching her, telling her that I loved the book she was reading and that she had good taste. Even in my dreams I was never more daring than that. I suppose even subconsciously I knew she’d never be interested in me.
But one day right before spring break Mr. Jenning was late for seventh period biology. Everyone was talking. I’d just finished a book I’d been reading for a few days and I looked over at Sophie, praying that she wouldn't catch me again. She was reading The Silence of the Lambs, my favorite book ever.
I stood up and walked over to her.
“Excuse me,” I said.
She used a finger to hold her place in the book as she looked up at me with a small, nervous smile and wide eyes. “Yeah?” she whispered.
“S—Sorry. Um, do you have a pencil I could borrow?”
“Mhm,” our fingers briefly touched as she handed me one from her backpack. “You can keep it.”
Our eyes locked for about half a second before I looked away. “I love your book by the way. It’s actually my favorite. I have it in my backpack right now, I’ve probably read it like, ten times.”
She smiled, this time a little wider. “It’s really good.”
“Thanks for the pencil.” I held it up as if she might not know what I was talking about, then walked back to my desk.
Hazel, I thought as I sat down. Her eyes are hazel.
A few days after spring break she was the one who approached me before class.“You were right,” she said. “That book was really good.”
I gestured at the empty desk next to me. “You can sit down if you want.”
She did.
“What’s your favorite book?” I asked.
She replied instantly. “11/22/63 by Stephen King.”
“I’ll read it,” I said.
I already had, but that didn’t stop me from grabbing it off my bookshelf and bringing it to school with me a few days later.
We started sitting next to each other every day. We didn’t always talk. In fact, most days we didn’t. When we did it was just about books. Sometimes I’d say something about the one she was reading, sometimes she’d ask about the one I was. Every once in a while we’d both look at each other at the same time. When this happened I’d quickly look away then glance back at her to see her smiling down at her desk as her cheeks turned red. It didn’t take me long to realize I was in love, and to think that, maybe, she felt the same way.
But at the same time that our love was growing, so was my appetite. It had been apparent for a while, but I’d been able to get by with my milkshakes and by increasing the size of my other meals. Maybe it had something to do with my growth spurt that happened around the same time. At 17 I went from 5’9 to 6’3 in the span of one school year. I probably would have been scouted for sports teams if I didn’t weigh 130 pounds soaking wet. Regardless of the reason, it had gotten so bad that if I went more than 30 minutes without a meal I was in agony. That sinking, claustrophobic feeling that I was falling down a hole that was getting smaller and smaller the further I went, yet never so small that I couldn’t keep falling.
“Are you okay?” Sophie asked me one day during English.
I was holding my stomach with one hand as I fished through my backpack with the other. “Yeah… yeah. Just hungry.”
“Are you sure that’s all? Is there something else?”
I found a protein bar and started unwrapping it. “What do you mean?”
“It just seems like you’re always eating. And well, is that a milkshake you’re always drinking? Because um, you’re not… fat… like, do you… eat enough? At home, I mean,” I tried to speak between bites of the protein bar but she started talking more quickly. “Because you can come to my house if you ever want to eat dinner with me and my parents.”
“I eat enough,” I said, my face burning. “It’s just… complicated. But I’d love to come see you outside of school… maybe on Friday if that’s okay?”
She smiled. “I’ll give you my number.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.”
“So uh, how did you know it was a milkshake?”
“Well your breath always smells like ice cream, and… the other day I saw you wipe it off your chin,” she paused before adding, “Don’t worry. I don’t think anyone else has noticed. I mean, I only noticed recently and you don’t talk to anyone except me.” I must have looked embarrassed because when I looked down at my feet she said, “John?”
“Yeah?”
“I like the smell of ice cream.”
#
After school that day we texted all night. It started with me asking her what day I could come over for dinner, but then we ended up talking about books, music, movies, and our dreams. She told me that she wanted to be a journalist, and I told her that I wanted to be a writer. She talked about traveling the world and I said that I wanted to, too. I didn’t tell her that I just wanted to go wherever she went. Eventually it was time for bed and the conversation wound down to us just asking each other questions. “What’s your favorite food?” “What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you?” “What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you?” Really, it was just that we didn’t want the conversation to end. But eventually the three dots that told me she was typing never went away, and I knew that she was sleeping.
That Friday I left school early for my monthly checkup. I told Dr. Ramon that things seemed to be getting worse. I was starting to be tired all the time, and my hunger was ravenous more often than not. He pulled up the results from my last tests and told me that everything looked normal.
“No diabetes, no thyroid issues, no….” he listed on and on the same things that he did every week. The things that weren’t wrong with me. I started counting in my head just to pass the time. I got to 75 before he asked me, “are you sure it isn’t in your head?” When he saw the look I gave him he continued. “The increased hunger, I mean. Obviously I’m aware of the issues you’ve had since birth. I know they’re real. Are you dealing with more stress than usual? How are you sleeping? It’s possible that things only seem worse.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Fine except for the fact that I’m so hungry I can’t go to sleep without waking up every hour for a snack. Fine except for the fact that I need to hide food in my pencil bag and drink a gallon milkshake everyday just to get through school. Fine except for the fact that I sleep 10 hours a night and still have to nap every day. Yeah, I’m fine. Everything’s fine except I’m violently hungry no matter how much I eat and you can’t tell me why.” I glared at him, hoping that somehow he could understand just how fucking pissed I really was.
He just looked at me with sympathy, then seemed to choose his words carefully. “You know John, the human mind is capable of incredible things. Sometimes interesting, crazy things can happen when we don’t know how to deal with trauma. Hallucinations, for example. Do you think, maybe, it’s time that you see a therapist again? Do you think you’re ready to talk about what happened to you?”
“I promise you that he has nothing to do with the way I am,” I said. “And fuck you.” I stormed out of the office, pushing Dr. Ramos out of the way as he tried to stop me.
By the time I reached my mom’s car I’d calmed down enough to act like everything was fine. I made an extra effort to close the door gently behind me as I hopped into the passenger seat.
“Everything fine?” She asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Same old same old.”
I must have seemed upset because she put a hand on my arm and said, “It’s going to be okay. Do you need to stop at McDonald’s on the way home?”
“Yeah,” I said, sighing as I looked down at the phantom pain that lived in my stomach. “And do you think you could drop me off at a friend’s house for dinner at 7? We planned it a few days ago but I never got around to telling you…”
“A friend?” she asked, her unusually high pitched voice betrayed the casual attitude she was trying to exude.
“Mom…”
“I mean,” she paused for a second. “A friend?” she said it as if imitating a high-school jock, nodding her head upwards and speaking in a deep, monotone voice.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Just a friend, Mom. I swear.”
“I don’t recall you ever asking me to take you to a friend’s house before,” she countered. “Boy or a girl… not that it matters, I mean, your father and I love you either way.”
“She’s a girl mom. Her name’s Sophie, but we’re just friends.”
“Okay,” she said, but her smile didn’t waver the rest of the ride home.
#
At Sophie’s house, I stood in front of the door for a good two minutes, practicing what I was going to say if she answered: “Hey Sophie, how’s it going? Your house is so nice!” What I was going to say if her mom answered: “Hey, Mrs. Ellis, thank you so much for having me over!” And what I was going to say if her dad answered: “Hello, Mr. Ellis, nice to meet you (while shaking his hand with a firm grip and maintaining eye contact). Thank you so much for allowing me into your home.”
In the end, Sophie opened the door before I could knock.
“Hey So-”
Her cheeks were red and she was smiling and sucking in her cheeks in that way you do when you’re trying not to laugh. “We have a ring doorbell… you know, like, a camera. We were all waiting for you to ring the bell.”
I must have looked panicked, because she reached forward and grabbed my arm like she was trying to make sure I didn’t run away. “Don’t worry. My parents think it’s endearing. And they’re nice. They’ll pretend they didn’t notice.”
“Okay,” I said, And followed her into the house.
Mr. and Mrs. Ellis were nice. Mr. Ellis went for a fist bump instead of a handshake and told me that he loved my watch–”used to have one just like it.” Mrs. Ellis told me that she could tell I was nice, and that she was so happy that Sophie met a nice boy.
“Mom, it’s not like that…” Sophie said, but I knew that she was secretly happy that her parents approved.
Dinner included meat-loaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, and macaroni. It reminded me of those families in movies that sit around a big table together. The dad asks each person about their day one by one, and then someone asks someone else to pass the gravy, and everyone’s talking and smiling and they’re all one big happy family.
Over dinner Mrs. Ellis asked me about school, my grades, my hobbies, and what I wanted to do for a living while Mr. Ellis smiled politely, nodded, and occasionally expressed how “nice,” “impressive,” or “refreshing” something was.
Near the end of the meal I mentioned that I wanted to go to college to get a degree in English. Mr. Ellis straightened his spine and glasses before pushing his plate forward, the dull sound serving to tell us all that it was his turn to speak.
“You know son,” he said. “The University of Texas has a great English program. Of course I’m biased because I’m one of the professors, but we’re ranked number one in the state—that’s above Rice or Baylor. You wouldn’t even have to move, you could commute straight from home. I’m actually trying to convince Sophie to go there, but she’s set on Berkley–”
“Dad,” Sophie interrupted, laughing.“We still have time to decide.”
“Well it’s not too early to start looking. It’s good to have a few schools you’re interested in. When you see what kind of grades you need it’ll make you actually want to study,” he smiled, showing that he wasn’t being too serious. “Anyway John, what kind of books do you like to read?”
I told him that I loved horror and Stephen King, and he smiled proudly.
“I actually taught a class: Destiny in Stephen King Literature, this past semester. It’s absolutely enthralling to speak about the themes that an author puts into their work. It teaches you a lot about life, and even more about their personal philosophies.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s really cool.” And I meant it, a whole class about the books I actually like reading?
“I’m really curious,” he continued. “What do you think about the idea of destiny in King’s work? Is that something you’ve ever thought about?”
“Ummmmm,” I started. I must have gone silent for nearly thirty seconds before something came to me. “I guess I’ve never really thought about it that much. I just love his books. But… Well, the idea of destiny makes me think of Danny and Dick in The Shining. I mean, they both shine and they just happen to meet right when Danny gets to the place where he needs someone who understands the shining to guide him. And then Dick ends up being the one to save him. That’s destiny, right? It’s like they’re… connected.”
“Exactly!” Mr. Ellis practically yelled. “They’re connected. The shining is like a string that runs between Danny, Dick, and Dick’s grandmother. She taught Dick before Danny was even born so that one day Dick could teach Danny. Everything is connected, they were all going to fulfill their destinies from the moment they were born. And, well, have you read Doctor Sleep?
I nodded, leaning forward. My eyes must have been bulging out of my head.
“Do you know who else is connected?”
“Abra!” I said. “Dick’s grandmother taught Dick so that Dick could teach Danny so that Danny could teach Abra?”
“Exactly,” Mr. Ellis continued. “And what did they do at the end of the book?”
“They beat the True Knot and burned down the Overlook Hotel.”
“Yes! Everything was set in motion so long ago, but in the end it was always going to be Danny and Abra together, defeating The True Knot, destroying the Overlook Hotel, and ultimately using the shining for exactly what it was always going to be used for."
“Wow,” I said. How did I never think of any of that? How did I never realize? That was the day that I decided I wanted to understand literature just like Mr. Ellis.
“Wow indeed,” he said. “The Shining and Doctor Sleep are the two books my class was based around, and you picked them out immediately. You should definitely consider an education at UT in a few years.”
“I will.”
“Dad,” Sophie interrupted. “Is it okay if I go show John my bookshelf?”
“Of course,” he replied, then looked at me. “She loves reading just as much as you. But I’m sure you already know that.”
“I do,” I smiled. “She has great taste.”
“You know, her favorite book was a recommendation from me. 11/22/63.”
Sophie nudged me with her elbow. “Come on!”
“Door stays open!” Mrs. Ellis called as we walked down the hallway.
Sophie led me to an average sized bedroom that was anything but average in design. She had about a dozen posters on the wall: My Chemical Romance, Panic at the Disco, and several movie posters. Above her desk, she had one of Hello Kitty in black and white, wearing a shirt with a skull on it and wielding a machine gun.
She led me to an area in the back corner of the room, just to the left of her bed. Against the wall was a tall bookshelf completely filled with books on all four shelves. A small stack of books that didn’t fit were on either side of it. Sophie had me sit down with her on a white cotton rug that was so thick and comfortable that it might as well have been a bed.
She grabbed the stack of books to the right of the shelf and placed them in front of us. “So these are the books I haven’t read yet…”
I saw Penpal by Dathan Auerbach within the pile and pulled it out. “Really?” I asked. “How have you not read this yet? This is your next read.”
She grabbed her backpack off the bed and stuck the book inside. “Fine,” she laughed. “But it’s a ‘To Be Read’ pile for a reason.”
She put the rest of the stack back in its spot before grabbing the other stack to the left of the shelf. “These are the ones that I didn’t finish. Mostly my dad’s recommendations.”
I shuffled through the pile and saw The Turn of the Screw, Frankenstein, and Dracula, among other books that I didn’t recognize.
“Fair,” I said. “But I thought Frankenstein was pretty good.”
She immediately moved it over to her “To Be Read” pile. “I didn’t give it much of a shot anyway.”
“It’s worth another shot,” I promised. “Anyway, your parents are so nice. Do you like them?”
“I guess,” she said. “I mean, yeah—I love them. They’re not mean or anything, but they always act a lot more caring when other people are around. I don't even think it’s that they don’t care, but it’s more like when other people are around they remember that they’re supposed to show that they care. I didn’t know that my dad knew what my favorite book was, but I guess he’s known for a while and remembered, because I haven’t mentioned it anytime recently.”
“Parents are weird like that, I guess. I mean, mine love me and they worry about me. But sometimes I just feel like I’m an extra burden to them. They have their own lives outside of me and it’s like they’d rather focus on that. But then something will happen and it’s like they remember that I’m their kid and I’m supposed to be their priority.”
“What makes them worry about you?”
“Well it’s my… condition, I guess.”
“Your condition?”
I nodded. “It’s why I eat so much. I’m always hungry. If I don’t eat, my stomach hurts really bad. Only my parents know about it. And some doctors, but they don’t really understand how bad it is. One time one of them told me that I was lucky, because I can eat however much I want and I never gain any weight.”
“That’s so sad. Your stomach must hurt all the time.”
“I don’t even like food,” I confided. “It all tastes the same and I just hate it. It’s like torture, but I have to eat or it just hurts so bad.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Do you need anything to eat right now?”
“I’ll be okay,” I said. “Actually, sometimes, when I’m around you it doesn’t hurt so bad… um, distractions are good I guess.”
Her cheeks turned red and she looked down at her hands, playing with her thumbs.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, I thought. Why did I say that? That’s so embarrassing she’s gonna think I’m weird.
“Isn’t it funny that this is the first time we’ve talked about something besides books, movies, and school?”
“Yeah,” I said, still cursing myself.
“John, you know that I really like you, right?”
My heart was beating so hard that I could hear it. “I like you too.”
She leaned forward and hugged me, resting her head on my shoulder. I buried my head in her neck, savoring the embrace.
But as I smelt her skin from only centimeters away—that natural scent that I knew only she had—a different feeling came over me. A kind of need that was somehow demanding and pleasurable at the same time.
I wanted to bite her.
I wanted to sink my teeth into the soft skin of her neck and tear away the flesh, revealing the beauty that I knew was inside. I wanted to let my teeth pierce her skin, find her fat, her muscle, and then her organs and bones and anything else I could have. Any more of her that I could get to fill the void inside me. To numb that empty sinking pain that never stopped. I wanted to tear her open, starting at her neck and then going down her body, consuming her piece by piece until the pain was gone. Somehow, in that moment, I knew that she was the piece to complete me.
If I could just fucking eat her, then everything would be okay.
My stomach growled and she pulled away, laughing. The feeling was gone. Replaced with a phantom pain that was stronger than ever.
My hands raced to hold my stomach and I doubled over in pain. For a second, everything went black, the void that lived in my stomach was finally consuming me, the burning fire that lived at the bottom roaring as it was stoked by the realization that the piece that could make me whole was just out of reach.
“Oh my God, John, are you okay?”
“Agh, yeah.” I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Just… hungry.”
“I’ll go get you something from the kitchen,” she said, standing up.
“No, no.” I reached into first my right pocket, then my left, pulling out a crumpled up bag of gummy worms from each. This’ll be enough until I get home.”
“Are you sure?” She was crouched on the balls of her feet like a catcher, using one arm to balance herself.
“This is normal,” I lied. “Don’t worry.”
I ate the gummy worms and Sophie tried to talk to me a little more, but I couldn’t focus and everything was just wrong. I could tell that she was worried about me, but I had my own problems.
What the fuck was that? I thought as she tried to carry the conversation about some band or another. An intrusive thought? But what kind of intrusive thought makes you want to eat someone?
Sophie tried to hug me again before I left, but I faked a sudden burst of stomach pain and avoided it. I didn’t want to know what would happen if I got close to her again. I could tell that I hurt her feelings, but there was simply nothing else I could do.
#