The Infant

Part One: The Infant

        She awoke hungry.

        She cried but no one came.

        The body, it smelled like food, and hunger was all she'd ever known. And so she crawled up to the body and ate.

        The meat was sweet and filling. And cold.

        And she slept.

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        She awoke and was hungry.

        And again she cried and no one came. She did not understand why no one came. She understood that she was hungry and that something wasn't right. But she did not understand why no one came.

        She ate again and was full, but there was no one else, and she cried because there was only her.

        She could sense other food, which glowed warmly to her. It was a glow that was not a glow -- an inner mind-glow that told her that warm food was near.

       She noticed something else after she ate: there was light and then there was darkness. And one followed the other. There were other things -- the house was cold but had warm things in it. The body was cold and changed slightly in smell and taste from one day to the other, but still remained sweet.

       She slept.

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        She awoke hungry and ate more of the body. Light came and then faded into darkness. And she stopped crying because she'd realized that no one came.

        Light became dark which became light again, and she felt hunger many times. And so she ate whenever she was hungry. And the body, it was cold but it was there. It never made a sound, just stared blankly upwards.

        Other sensations came to her. The smell of dust, the smell of the warm, inside-her-head-glowing and living things that scurried and crawled in the walls. The sounds of things (animals) that chirped and barked and ran about outside of the house.

        She discovered the soft thing next to her. It was large and flat, and felt almost good. It felt like it should be part of something that was right, but she did not understand how or why.

        After many lights-into-darks came and went, she felt something new: a desire to see new things. But she was hungry, so she ate and then crawled away from the body. There was a great big opening that looked straight and tall, and she crawled through it. More dust was on the floor. She crawled over it and saw a great many tall and straight things. But nothing soft and no food.

        She crawled a far distance, but got hungry again, and so she crawled back to the body and ate.

        And she fell asleep again.

        The things in the wall left, and so did the warm, inner glow that she sensed from them. She cried for them to come back but they didn't come back. She cried again, but not for them. She cried because there was nothing here but her and the body. And the body was just food. And she wanted...what? She had no way to explain it. She wanted...warmth. And something that she dreamt about -- a warm body that held her and fed her. The warm body would make comforting sounds and would shush her when she cried. But when she woke there was no warm body, just the cold body that she ate off of.