Diner World

10/ AN ACCOUNT OF BEING EATEN IN A TIME OF WAR, AS TOLD BY A HAM

 I sat in the flames, roasted to perfection, and listened to the conversation of the wayward folk around me. They were a motley lot, prone to spitting and displays of rage. Many of them wore chain mail. Others had pilfered bits of plate armor or scraps of leather. Much of this defensive garb was meant to provide the illusion of protection. If they were engaged in true battle, the armor would prove to be no actual barrier to steel. Of those in the gathering, I wore the least, having little more than my skin by which to keep out the chill. In truth, I was not worried about catching the frost. The fire supplied much warmth to my being, sometimes searing my hide. The men around me laughed. It occasionally could be too much: the company, the heat, the loneliness I found in being the only one of my kind nearby. I was the stranger, of which none could relate. I could not speak their language, no more than they could comprehend the extent of my knowledge. I knew little but I knew more than they. This was the truth I turned around in my head for days and days.

I could remember my previous life, the large heap of flesh I had once been. In those times, I enjoyed wallowing about in the mud, keeping my body greased with liquid earth. It was cool to the touch, a sensation only the loam of the world could provide. It was a grounded feeling, one rooted in a oneness with nature. Men could never seek to understand this oneness, not even those who spent their lives searching for meaning through communion with the cosmic forces above. My life was already consumed with this meaning. Mine was a peaceful existence.

My master, if you could call him that, was a small, bent backed farmer with a wife and two daughters. He tended to my brethren and I as if we were an extension of his own family. He only killed to feed his family, something I did not grudge him for. He treated us with respect, deserving to feast on our flesh when the need arose. I cannot think of a nobler person in all my travels. I loved him but he died too soon, too soon for me to give him my blessing. He was murdered at the hands of a traveling thief who stole all the coin he possessed and the life he cherished. When his death came to pass, his eldest daughter took up the family helm. She was a kind girl, given to dressing in the plain attire of the peasantry. Her eyes betrayed a keen intelligence but she was not as strong as her father. The family would not be kept together for long under her watch. There was not enough courage contained within her to keep life going as it once had.

One day, on the anniversary of her father's death, the girl came out to the yard and supplied each of us with a helping of sweet cream. It was a rare treat for us to be given sweet cream. The cream tasted of sentimentality ripe with an overcoat of guilt. I saw men at the door of the homestead. They wore armor befitting the guard of a king and carried weapons in their scabbards which cut the air with violence. I knew the moment my master's daughter carried out various belongings from the house that she, as well as the rest of the family, would never return. My life would change for the worse in the weeks to come.

Several wagons carried us across the way into country new and strange to my eyes. Fields upon fields echoed down the way, while every once in awhile a solitary tree would rise in a majestic wave above us, crashing into the sky. These were the Endless Plains, the unfathomable stretch of isolation that took up much of the Kingdom. Few lived out here and fewer enjoyed it. We stopped every night, the metal clad men supplying us with our daily ration of oats and barley. I could not complain, we were well looked after and not treated as most men treat swine. Occasionally, one of the men would remind me of my old master, giving the gift of a picked flower or a pat on the head. I should have been suspicious. I was too late.

The moon was a glowing melon peel in the sky when we stopped for camp. I escaped the small fence the men had set up around us and began to wander through the countryside towards a small tower riddled with age. Two soldiers were leaning against the wall of this stone holdfast which had once been in the possession of a great dynasty. Now, the structure was a vagabond, torn apart by the ills of humanity. Several stones were scattered about its base, providing ample cover for a creature such as myself to squirrel away unnoticed. I snuffled behind one of these blocks and waited, my ears taut and observant. The men were talking. One was a large fellow who cradled his helmet in the crook of his arm, his head bald and scarred with war. He was built as broad as a working ox and could have plowed a field with his bare hands. The other man was tall, his face smooth and clean shaven, any hint of a beard had been groomed away. His hair was long and flowing, red and dark in the midnight air. His helmet was on the ground, his foot propped up against it. The building provided a foundation for his slender frame.