The Cannibal Who Only Ate Himself

He does it slowly, of course, because he does not want to die today. He does not know when he wants to die. He doesn't want to die at all. He just loves the taste of his own skin. The soft tear as it parts from his body. He especially loves the area around his navel. He saves that for lonely Saturday nights. He lights a few candles in anticipation of the time alone. He reads some poetry, and then he dines.

Because he never eats his entire self, he gets the rest of his sustenance from fish he catches himself. Fish oil makes his skin so smooth. He cannot remember when he started this habit. It was when he was young. Perhaps born of a nervous tendency to bite the skin around his fingernails. At age 6, on a Thursday in January 1980, he tripped while finishing the stairs without the aid of a light. Down he went, and off came the tip of his tongue. The tip stayed in his mouth and was accidentally swallowed and even more accidentally, enjoyed. If he had hair on the part of his body he wished to snack from, he always shaved it. Even to cannibals, hair is disgusting on food.

One day he ate too much, and yelped, "Great Scott, I'm going to pass!" And he did.