L'Appel du Vide

Third Tape

"THERE IS AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE WORDS DISSECTION AND VIVISECTION, A DISTINCTION THAT WOULD APPEAR TO BE LOST ON YOU. YOUR PURPOSE WAS TO LISTEN. AND YET AT EVERY TURN YOU HAVE PRIED, YOU HAVE PRODDED, AND YOU HAVE INTERFERED. HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION? DID IT NOT OCCUR TO YOU THAT AS AN ORGANISM EXISTING WITHIN A GREATER ORGANISM, YOUR INTRUSION WOULD BE FELT?"

You shut your eyes tightly, begging for an ending, an explanation, anything to help you understand, to understand why this is happening. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't, there's no way. It's impossible.

"AND STILL, YOU HARASS. AND NOW, LIKE THE WAYWARD SPIDER WHO WITLESSLY SETTLED ON A SLEEPER'S TONGUE, YOU WILL BE SWALLOWED. BECAUSE THE TRUTH IS THIS: WHEN A HOUSE IS BOTH HUNGRY AND AWAKE, EVERY ROOM BECOMES A MOUTH."

Teeth are growing out of the walls, there are ticks under your skin and eyes, in your bones. They are chewing, birthing, bursting, and drinking. Eating, eating, eating, eating. They are eating you, skinning you. The teeth have grown larger.

You never came home.

The teeth grow larger, but you can't open your eyes. You can feel it, they are surrounding you. Ticks flow out of your ears, and you let them. You obey as they stream out of your mouth, through the gaps where your teeth should be. They crawl under and over your skin, threatening to tear through the delicate film that protects you. Is this God's cruel way of punishing you, of making you believe?

The ticks are chewing at your lungs, feasting on your bronchioles. You cannot breathe. You cannot move. More chew on your joints, and as you finally feel yourself die for a second time, the tape plays again. The final tape.

"What happens to a house when it is left alone? When it becomes worn and aged, its paint peels and its foundations begin to sink. It goes for too long unlived in. What does it think of? What does it dream about? How does it regard those creatures who built it? Who brought it into existence only to abandon it? When its usefulness no longer satisfies them. It may grow lonesome. It may stare for long hours into the darkness of its empty halls and see shadows. And its heart may jump as it thinks, "Here, here is someone again, I am not alone." And each time it is wrong. And the hurt starts over. It may haunt itself, inventing ghosts to walk its floors, making friends with its shadow puppets, laughing and whispering to itself at the end of some quiet cul-de-sac."

"It may grow angry. Its basement may fill with churning acid like an empty stomach. And its gorge may rise as it asks itself, through clenched teeth, "What did I do wrong?" It may grow bitter. It may grow hungry. So hungry and so bitter that its scruples dissolve and its doors unlock themselves. While a house may hunger, it cannot starve. And so, in fever and anger and loneliness, it may simply lie and wait. Doors open. Shades drawn. Hallways empty. Hungry."

[End of Contortionism.]