The Grave Eater Alana I Capria

I decide that it is time to choose my own aura. Everyone I know seems to have that glowing light. The husband and I are jealous of these colors. We look at our hands and see nothing. Together, we visit an astral photographer. She takes our picture to see how our auras blend and merge. When the picture develops, she stares at it for a long time. There is nothing there, she says and shows us. The picture is complete dark. To test the camera, she takes a photograph of her own hand. We can clearly see the green and purple bands emanating from the hand. She puts the photograph in the garbage and tries to take our photograph one more time. It still comes out black. The husband and I leave.

We close our eyes and see everything as an aura. A group of schoolgirls come towards us. We see them as brilliant red and purple auras. A group of boys is orange and blue. The colors grow and diminish. The husband and I gasp in wonder. We look at each other and see nothing. I touch the husband's face to assure myself that he is still there.

What is wrong with us, I ask. The husband shakes his head.

Perhaps it is something to do with our immortality, he says. The gods approach us. We can see them. They are surrounded by a bright white light. I was wrong apparently, the husband says.

Hello, the gods say. They shake the husband's hands and kiss my cheeks.

We don't have auras, we say.

The gods shrug. That's because you're dead things, they say.

Yes, but shouldn't there be some form of energy within us? You're dead and you have an aura, I say.

The gods laugh. They slap their thighs and laugh into our faces. We aren't dead, one of the gods corrects me. We were just never alive. Besides, we're gods. We have to have an aura.

We were never alive either, the husband says.

The gods shake their heads. But you two have been playing house for millenniums. You've pretended to be human for so long that you might as well have been human. Your auras are gone, if you ever had any to begin with. Besides, you subsist on the dead. There goes your aura right there, another god says.

Although I do not want to, I have no choice but to reach over and take a handful of dirt off the floor. I eat it slowly, trying not to display how ravenous I am. The husband pats my back lightly. We know we will never be human, the husband says.

It doesn't matter what you know, the gods say. They pat their stomachs and look up at the sky. Looks like it's almost dinner time. What are you making tonight, the gods ask.

The husband sighs. What would you like, I ask.

Mashed potatoes. And some gravy. Oh and roast beef studded with garlic cloves and impaled by a carrot. Make sure it is rare. We don't like our meat cooked all the way through, the gods say.

In the kitchen, I try to ask again about the auras. The gods hang over my shoulders as I cook. If we are very nearly human, shouldn't we have an aura? Every human has one. I don't understand why we are the only creatures that don't have an aura, I say.

The gods each take a clove from a fresh head of garlic and eat it raw. They shrug their shoulders. To be completely honest, do you actually think that we care that much about your lack of aura, the gods ask. Seriously. You're like the walking dead. You should be concerned with more important things. Like whether or not your cemeteries will run out of dirt eventually. Or that maybe you'll be stronger if you don't spend all your time eating dirt and focus on consuming some meat. That sort of thing. An aura is nothing. It's just light. It doesn't do anything but make for a pretty picture. No one will ever know whether you have an aura or not.

I throw the roast beef at them. They catch it in their mouths and tear the meat apart. So good, they sigh.

I want a goddamn aura, I shout. The gods pause in their eating and sniffle.

You don't have to be so rude about it, they say.

Oh, don't do me any favors, I say.

We're not. We're doing ourselves a favor because if we give you the damn aura, then maybe you'll stop complaining and we can get our damn dinner. Do you know how irritating it is to come here for a meal? You take hours to cook and get the food ready. Don't you know that you have poor hostess skills, the gods says.

They bring the husband and me into the bathroom. They pour hydrogen peroxide into the bathtub and wait for the solution to finish sizzling. When it has quieted, the gods point to our clothing. Take it off, they sigh. I strip naked and so does the husband. Now drink the peroxide, the gods say.

Why do we have to be naked to drink peroxide, I ask.

Just do it. The faster, the better. We want our mashed potatoes and gravy. We've been waiting all day, the gods say. The husband and I lean over the bathtub and drink the peroxide. My tongue tingles as I drink. We lick the last puddles up and turn to face the gods.

Good enough, the gods say. They turn to walk back into the kitchen.

What about our auras, I shout.

Give it a second, the gods say. I look at my hands and see the suds coming out of me. The husband and I gasp. We are covered in white. We close our eyes and see our brilliance. We are divine. We are no longer aura-less. The gods clap their hands. Dinner, they prompt us and I run to the stove. My aura follows me.

This year, the husband and I will celebrate Christmas. We are used to the pagan holidays and fondly recall dancing with the Bacchus-like gods in the nude. While everyone enjoyed their mass orgies, the husband and I sneaked into the nearest graveyard to eat dirt together. We chased it with gritty wine and laughed in each other's ears. But that was years ago, back when the earth seemed warmer and no one minded walking around without their clothing on.

And so now we will adopt Christmas as our own holiday. The husband brings me plywood. I make a chair. I do this for many weeks, adding another piece each day. Finally, the chair is done. I stand up on it and see the creatures in all the rooms. They wear horns on their heads and have curled tails. I scream and run. My pockets are heavy with meat. The husband watches as I sprint around the house and then outside. The creatures follow me. I throw the meat over my shoulder. The creatures turn away from me to chase after the meat. I run while they eat.

The husband builds a fire. He unlocks the door and opens the windows. I drag the chair behind me as I run. I make it up the front steps and across the foyer. I throw the chair into the fire just as the creatures make it through the front door. The chair burns and the creatures stop in their tracks. They pant loudly. I bend at the waist and try to catch my breath. The husband pats my back. The creatures stomp their feet against the ground and pull their horns off. They toss them into the fire and wander away.

The husband presents me with a straw doll. He draws a face on it with black marker. I take the doll and hold it to my breast. The doll irritates my skin. It makes me sick to the stomach. I grunt and groan. I hold the doll with two fingers. I hate it, I gasp and the husband hands me a lighter. Are you sure, I ask, taking the lighter from him.

The husband nods. It's a doll of all your misery, the husband says. I set the doll on fire and throw the flaming carcass into the fire. The flames rear up and lick against the ceiling. The husband waves his hands until the fire settles back down. Everything is scorched black. Fire comes out of the doll's face, highlighting his eyes and mouth. I clap my hands.

This is fun, I say. Ash settles on the husband. He tries to wipe it off but the dust will not come free. I give the husband a switch and an extra-large black garbage bag. He flicks the whip in the air and it makes a loud cracking sound. The creatures wince at the sound and cover their heads with their paws.

It hurts, they yelp. It hurts.

The husband pulls on black boots and a large black furred coat. He dresses in blackened rags. The husband snaps the whip again and again. I pull the creatures' horns out of the fire and help secure them on their heads.

The creatures yelp again, It burns, it burns. The husband leads them out the door. He stomps loudly. I follow them. The husband slips in and out of the surrounding houses. The creatures run in front of him, baying loudly. The husband's footsteps punctuate their howls. His garbage bag grows. I place my ear to the thin material and listen to all the yelling within.

Get us out, the children shout. We don't want to be stuck in here. Get us out. Please. What did we do? What are you going to do with us? Are you going to rape us? Are you going to kill us? Please, let us go. We want to be back home with our parents. Please. It's Christmas. You can't kidnap us on Christmas. This is supposed to be the happiest holiday of the year.

I giggle and kiss the husband's ashy cheeks. He hugs me quickly and moves into the next house. I sit on the curb and listen to the scuffling inside. The children scream loudly. I hum softly. The creatures sit beside me, their ears back and heads cocked to the side.

Krampus Claus, Krampus Claus, he's going to kill us all, I lead the creatures in song. They join in. Krampus Claus, Krampus Claus, he'll run us up a wall. Krampus Claus is here, bringing lots of beer. He'll rip you up and tear you out and it'll bring a year of cheer. Oh, Krampus Claus, Krampus Clause.

We clap our hands. The husband comes out of the next house and bows. What will you do with them all, I ask as he bends at the waist and pulls the bag after him. The creatures follow behind, snapping at the bag's contents.

The husband pauses at the next corner and turns to look at me. I have no idea, he says. I guess I can just feed them to the creatures. There's no point in putting them back. That would just make me seem less fearful. Carrying them off and bringing them back. There's no fun in that. The creatures howl in agreement.

Just make sure that you don't eat them yourself, I say.

Never, the husband says. You know that I never eat meat. Especially not belonging to a child. They smell badly and cook up even worse. I tried it once, years ago before I knew you. It was the worst meal I had ever had. It tasted like rancid deer. Absolutely terrible. The creatures would love it though. You know how much they enjoy the most fetid meat.

The creatures howl again. The husband puts the sack down. Are you hungry, the husband asks. The creatures paw at him. The husband opens the sack and lets the creatures in. The children scream. The husband snaps his switch.

I dress in chains. I would like to be one of those women that everyone is fearful of. I want to emulate all the evil queens and malevolent stepmothers, the hungry witches and the jealous mothers. I want to eat little girls' hearts and beat the virgin princesses into submission. I think it would be fun. I would keep the husband as that silent king and husband. He would always adore me. He would choose me over those girls.

And so I wear the chains. I keep them over my favorite ball gown. I wear a cape and a tiara. I walk through palaces with my eyes closed and my hands clenched. I see the girls darting past me and I throw poison apples at them. They drop down dead. I walk up to them and step on their throats. The girls choke. Their eyelids flutter. They're so pretty, the husband says, looking over my shoulder.

They're so very dead, I say.

The husband and I walk away. I keep several girls locked up in a tower. I make them beg for their bread and water. Please, they gasp. Please. We're so sick. We're so hungry and thirsty. Won't you give us something to eat? Can't we have something to drink?

I don't like their voices. They are high and piercing. They whine. I kick them several times before feeding them. They drink with bloodied mouths and eat with groping hands. The husband looks at me pleadingly. Couldn't we let them out for a little while? Let them get some exercise. Maybe a little fresh air, the husband asks. I slap him in the face.

No. They're not allowed. I don't want them ruining anything for me, I say. The husband and I leave the tower. The girls wail after us. I pick up an ax and a sword. I walk through the courtyard, chopping girls' heads off. I throw the heads into glass coffins and leave them for princes to find.

Can we marry them, the princes ask. I throw daggers at them.

No. They're not allowed to get married, I say. The princes sob for their beauty. I drown them in a wishing well and let their faces float free of their bodies. They hover on the surface, blinking up at me.

I make little would-be princesses work as scullery maids. They sweep everything with their hands. They pick thumbtacks out of the heated cinders. They cry themselves to sleep in the cold. I only allow them tattered rags for their wardrobe. They are not allowed blankets. I give them curdled milk for every meal and season it with Thai ghost chili. The girls sob as they eat. The milk tastes sour and the chili is mouth-numbingly hot. Their only saving grace is that the milk dulls the heat slightly, just enough that they can bear to take another mouthful. I watch them eat. I make them lick up every drop. If they cannot finish, I rub chili seeds into their eyes and do not let them near a sink to wash their faces off. The husband stands off in the corner, painting a portrait of their suffering. I make him paint them with graying flesh while my image is in vibrant color. The husband sings so that he cannot hear the girls' suffering. He feels bad for them. He would like to help them but has sworn he would not get involved. I love him but I would beat him mercilessly if he were to go against my wishes. When the girls are done eating and wipe their tongues with cloth napkins, I go to the husband and whisper in his ear, I love you so much, darling.

The husband and I live in a cottage in the woods. The husband has two children. Every day, they mock me by poking at my womb. I grow tired of them. They are ugly little children. I would like to take a hammer to their faces. But I do not. The husband does not want acts of violence committed in his household. I lead the children down a forest path.

They sprinkle breadcrumbs and candy sprinkles. I have the creatures follow after them. They lick up the pieces and howl. The children look this way and that. They have a terrible fear of wolves and other howling creatures. I pull the children up the trail. They look back at the husband. They call to him. Father, Father, they cry. The husband turns his head away from them and goes back into the cottage. He plugs his ears with wax.

I glare at the children. They cover their eyes with their hands. I have no pity for them. They take hold of my sleeves and pull at them. Will you have us die, they ask. I smile down at them and pat their heads.

Of course, I whisper. I hate you. I drag them along. There is an oven in the clearing. The children can already smell the burning firewood. The creatures shriek behind us. There is no time to fatten you up for the creatures, I say. They'll just have to eat you as is. I'm sure there is more than enough meat on your delicate little bones. They'll make do. They'll manage. I laugh and push the children into the oven. They burn. The children cry as they roast and char.

The creatures come towards the oven and paw at the hot iron. Is it ready yet, they ask. We're starving. They drag the children out of the fire and eat them. Their flesh is white hot. The creatures eat every scrap and then swallow the oven whole. This is what we always do. I let the creatures eat the princesses and the dutiful daughters. I let them beat them with a whip until the girls bleed. I allow them to castrate the boys and make them sing. I eat the dirt that is left over. I savor every bite. There is nothing more flavorful.

The husband and I decide we would like to be the wooden statues on the front of ships. The husband complains about the salt air. It corrodes me, the husband moans. It does not feel good on my splintering flesh. I feel ill. I am falling apart. Pieces of the husband fall into the water.

My breasts are exposed. My hair is tousled and long. It just covers my nipples. The sailors hoot at my figure. You are beautiful, they whisper. Wouldn't you like to come to our cabin and enjoy some time together? We would very much like to touch you. They try to grab hold of me but their arms are not long enough. The more they struggle, the closer they come to falling overboard. Finally, they walk away and work on unfurling the sails to catch the wind.

Mermaids swim past us. They have beautiful colored hair and long tails. Every so often, they sit on top of a coral reef or sandbar and sing. The husband applauds. They have lovely voices, the husband says. I frown.

Are you sure that that's the only thing about them that you think is lovely, I ask.

The husband is quiet. The mermaids face the ship and sing loudly. The sailors run to the railings and look over. Several leap into the water and swim to the women. The mermaids stretch their long fingers out and grab hold of the sailors. They pull them towards them. The men smile and rest their heads on the mermaids' naked breasts. The mermaids lower their heads and bite the sailors' necks. The men scream. The husband and I close our eyes. We are not interested in seeing the flesh being torn. We open our eyes again and the waves churn around the mermaids. The water is bright red.

The boat strikes against the rocks. The ship sinks. The husband and I pull free of the stern and sit beside the mermaids. Are you hungry, they ask, offering us pieces of the sailors.

Oh, thank you but we don't eat meat, I say. The mermaids shrug and go back to eating the sailors. Several dozen sailors wash up on the shore, their bodies bloated from all the seawater. The mermaids pick them out of the tide leisurely and eat them slowly.

I pick up a handful of the coral and eat it. It is not dirt but it is close enough. I eat many pieces of coral before the husband pats my back. Why do you travel on these ships, the mermaids ask. Now that we can see them face-to-face, I realize that their faces are very similar to that of the creatures. They have long, pointed teeth and their eyes are sunken into their heads. They have wide, large foreheads. The mermaids wait patiently for me to answer. Several have arms sticking halfway out of their mouths. They gnaw silently.

We enjoy being different things. Wood and witch. Murderess and adulteress. It allows us to see the world in various ways. It helps us pass eternity. We have existed for too long already. We have reached the point where we need to play games to retain our sanity, I say. The mermaids nod. They exchange arms for legs. They eat the sailors down to the bone.

We can understand that, the mermaids say. We have spent many generations in these oceans. Day after day, we drink the same water and see the same fish. We used to live on seaweed. But that grew boring. There were only so many varieties for us to enjoy. Our palates become numb and overused. So we needed something more . Of course, there were the fish but how could we eat them? They are like our closest friends. We needed something more. Something we could distance ourselves from. So we chose the sailors. They have enough meat to sustain our appetite. And the ones who look at us lustily are the ones who deserve to be eaten. We eat no man who proves his loyalty.

The husband stares down at the ground. The mermaids eye him. Do you love your wife, they ask.

He nods and takes my hand. He kisses the back of my hand and holds it to his cheek. The mermaids sigh and put their food down. We believe him, they say. He looks like a kind man. Does he feed you when you are at your weakest? Does he ensure that you do not fade away into the nothing?

He does, I say. The mermaids sigh again. They toss the cleaned bones into the water and make an entirely new reef. The husband and I watch as the reef grows. It is bleached white. The collecting salt turns it even whiter. When the sun hits the bone reef, our eyes burn. Even the mermaids cover their eyes to block out the glare.

Oh, they say. It is so painful. We've been making that reef for years. Whenever we finish a reef, we prick our hands and rub the blood over them. We all have a different color within us. It's beautiful. Sometimes, we breed in the hopes of having a child with an entirely new hue. Like painting. Only... genetically. Romantically. The mermaids sigh again and clamber up the rocks. We follow them. Our wooden shards scrape off of us and land in the water.

The mermaids look back at us as the splinters fall off of us and hit the water with loud splashes. Do you spend a great deal of time in the water, the mermaids ask.

Barely any. The majority of my time is spent in cemeteries. I eat the dirt. I eat the graves. That is how I live. My best companions are a pack of creatures. They are like dogs, only not. They eat what I discard. They eat the flesh I cannot bring myself to swallow. The husband remains at home. He has no true purpose other than to spend his life protecting me. He ensures that nothing can hurt me, I say. The mermaids coo.

We like you, the mermaids say. Please come back to visit us. Whenever you like. We would enjoy it. Your presence makes us happy. They dive into the water and swim away. The husband and I gaze at one another and fade into the coral.

I have strings tied to every part of my body. They lift my arms and spread my legs. They pull my genitalia apart and open and close my eyelids. I am a marionette. A man guides my every movement and supplies the words mouthed by my empty mouth.

The husband comes to every performance. He is interested in seeing how I react on stage. The puppeteer dresses me in a ballerina's tutu and has me dance across the stage. I pirouette and leap from side to side. I skip and twirl. The husband applauds. You are so beautiful, he says, wiping at his tearing eyes. I do not like to dance. When the music is fast, the puppeteer makes me dance too slowly. When the music slows down, the puppeteer forces me to pick up speed.

The puppeteer did not put any underwear on me and so when I spread my legs and kick into the air, I flash my vagina to the audience. The husband covers his eyes and peeks out between his fingers. He will try to make love to me later. The puppeteer uses his other hand to bring out my stage lover. He is a brawny prince wearing a leotard and feather cap. He tries to touch my bosom and the puppeteer spins me away. I would like to eat this wooden figure and vomit him back out. The puppeteer does not let me close enough to open my mouth and swallow my wooden lover whole.

The puppeteer demands that the puppet and I act out the love scene of Sleeping Beauty. I dance around the stage, coming dangerously close to the spinning wheel. There is no witch. It is simply a golden wheel that spins on its own. I close my eyes. The strings pull on my arm, causing me to press my fingertips to the top of the spindle. I hold this pose, one leg stretched out behind me, displaying my nudity. The puppeteer snaps the strings and I drop to the ground, my limbs askew. The strings are tangled around me. One falls into my mouth and I try to spit it out. It sticks to the edge of my tongue.

The puppet hops towards me. It uses a wooden sword to slice through the air. The puppet sings. It fights against a paper dragon and skewers the reptile through its midsection. The puppet dances towards me. It lifts me up by the small of my back. It touches my forehead. I turn my head away, pretending to be in the midst of a terribly restless slumber.

The husband watches the scene with narrowed eyes. When the puppet gets too close to me, the husband raises a pair of scissors and cuts one of the strings. First, the husband focuses on the puppet's mouth and groin. Then he severs the strings to the puppet's legs. The puppet hangs miserably by its arms. It looks like a hanged man. I look closely and imagine that the wooden face is beginning to turn blue. Finally, the husband cuts the arm strings and the puppet falls to the stage. The puppeteer screams and reaches down to lift up his puppet.

I take this opportunity to dance off the stage. The puppeteer grabs my tutu and yanks me back. You will complete the dance, he shouts. You will complete it because I have told you that you must dance. Dance, damnit. Dance, you bitch. The puppeteer strikes me in the face and drags me across the stage. I kick my legs and try to hit the puppeteer in the face.

The husband shouts and hurries onto the stage. He eats the puppeteer in one bite and pulls me away. I sit on the husband's shoulders. He eats my puppet lover and runs towards the exit. I pat the husband's back. Wait, I shout. I would like to play the role of puppeteer. It would be fun. Let us see how well the living man can dance.

The husband turns back. I walk to the puppeteer and secure strings to his body. I climb behind the stage and up a ladder. The man stands in the center of the stage, staring at the audience sadly. I lift his arms and legs. He dances this way and that. The husband removes the man's pants and sits back down in the audience. The puppeteer whimpers. But this is my show, he pleads to me. I look down at him. The top of his head is bald. It is a small patch but it catches the stage lights and reflects it back into my eyes.

No, I say to the man. Now it is my show. I am the puppet master and you are the wooden stooge. Dance for me. Dance for your audience. Let them hear the tale of the man who turned into a donkey because he was a fool. Let the audience see how the donkey was so much wiser than the man. The man dances and prances across the stage. The husband picks up the wooden puppet and hands the strings to me. I secure them in my other hand.

Look, I say. It is your lover. Dance for him. Show him how much you love him. I press the wooden doll against the puppeteer. They dance a slow waltz. The puppet leans in for a kiss and the puppeteer looks away. Is that any way to treat the man you love, I chide and force them together again. The puppet smiles broadly while the puppeteer struggles to untangle the strings around him. Dance, I command. Dance. The man bends over to show his buttocks to the audience. He bends the other way to show off his genitalia. The husband looks in the opposite direction.

Bow, I say. The show is at an end. The audience gives you a standing ovation. The puppeteer and the wooden puppet both bow at the waist. The husband stands and applauds. I wind the strings around both their necks, pulling tight until there seems to be no end or beginning to the threads. They both choke. I spin the strings just right and scream, Off with their heads!

I eat spiral staircases. The railings taste like dirt. I enjoy swallowing them step by step and rail by rail until my stomach fills. The husband counts the flights of stairs and their individual landings by poking at the many ripples beneath my skin. He always skips the thirteenth step, the thirteenth flight, the thirteenth landing, and the thirteenth floor. The husband is somewhat superstitious. I eat the number thirteen and sigh over its sweetness. It tastes so good. Like the condensed milk my friends used to enjoy. Like the bits of muscular fiber that slowly dehydrate until they have that sweetness of a meat jerky.

My favorite spiral staircases come from old grandparents' houses. They are the ones that have vinegar soaking into the woodgrain and carpeting. When those are not available, I sneak into churches and eat their spiral stairs. Those taste like communion wafers and red wine. I do not care for either taste separately but together, they make my tongue twitch. There is an interesting tang to their flavor that I have yet to find in any other food source. Not even the dirt. Too often, the dirt is bitter. When it is not bitter, it is salty or sugary. Never tangy. Maybe it tastes of mushrooms, of soy sauce. But not of vinegar. Not of different herbs building up to fill my mouth.

The husband fears my eating such steps. He is afraid that along with the wafers and wine, religion has seeped in as well. He envisions me sitting at altars and bowing until my head rests against the fabric-strewn marble. He thinks I will dress in black and white and pretend to be a nun. He imagines me with a four-legged cross growing out of my forehead. His deepest fear is that every other word out of my mouth will be Miracle! Miracle! He knows that the majority of things are simply coincidence. Even the gods know this. They don't play a hand in anything involving humanity. They simply sit back and watch. The miracles were simply bound to happen regardless of divine or mortal intervention.

I like staircases that use metal buffers on the edge of each step. They clack when I am walking up and down. When children fall, they inevitably cut themselves on the offset metal. No one cleans the blood off. It simply dries and becomes a part of the step itself. That is what adds to the tang. It is a human taste. I suck my injured fingers all day and taste nothing. My blood tastes like water, not copper. The husband's tastes of milk. There is nothing pungent about it in the slightest.

What if you simply ate children's fingers for the taste, the husband asks. You could swallow the digits and spit them back up. They wouldn't miss anything and you would be allowed to taste the blood. Even as he says this, the husband knows that I will never do anything of that nature. I do not put body parts in my mouth. I swallow nothing that is living or otherwise. I do not ingest blood. I only eat the dirt and now the stairs. Inanimate objects. I cannot help how the metal tastes.

The creatures run up and down the staircase while I eat. They run up to my teeth and then turn the other way. They wait until I am at the last step and they have nowhere else to go before leaping off and landing on the husband's head. The husband pulls them off and throws them to the floor. I grow tired of your games, he hisses at the creatures. They hang their heads and slink off, their tails dragging across the floor. I watch them go.

You shouldn't yell at them, I say. They're only creatures. They like to play. They don't know any better. The husband glares at me. I shrug my shoulders and turn to the next staircase.

There is a house we go to that is made of nothing but staircases. Some are not the spiral variety but I devour what is available. These are stairs that go into walls and windows. Stairs that wind around and around for hours but only bring you fifteen inches higher than the original landing. I like these stairs. I eat them hungrily. I devour them quickly. I do not care if anyone is standing upon them. I eat what I can, flick the people off, and continue consuming.

The husband pries off banisters and hands them to me. His goal in life is to keep my stomach full. Several of the staircases have mounds of dirt beneath. The husband collects this dirt in wheelbarrows and brings them to me. I spread my arms and collapse onto the piles. They smell warm. They smell earthy. I swallow them greedily. The husband pours the dirt into my mouth. I simply keep my lips parted and swallow. My neck is like a tube. Dirt can pour down endlessly. My stomach digests and passes it on. I take breaks between wheelbarrows to vomit the dirt back up. I do not take what I cannot give back.

The creatures run back into the room dragging floor mats behind them. I look down at them and raise an eyebrow. What is this for, I ask. The creatures point at the mats.

We hear that they are delicious. People track dirt into the house and wipe it off on the mats. It is a collector. It is a connoisseur. Eat from the mats. You will be filled, the creatures say, nudging the mats in my direction.

I pick a mat up and swallow it whole. My tongue twitches. It is so tangy. I eat another and another. This is amazing, I gasp. You're right. I have never tasted dirt in such a manner. The creatures smile. The staircases cringe. I finish the mats and swallow the stairs again. They scream. I will force all the spiral stairs to behave.

The husband and I are screaming corpses. We are hideous. Our mouths hang open to reveal our gangrenous tongues. Our eyes are sunken in and hidden beneath the folds of our foreheads. Strangely, despite the seemingly wooden nature of our bodies, we are still mobile. The husband and I walk up and down cavern hallways, pulling mummies off of the walls and throwing them into a great lake. We make bets to see whether they will sink or float. The husband always thinks that they will float and I always say that they will sink. I cheat by slipping bricks and stones inside their chests. It is so heavy, the husband grunts when throwing the bodies over. I try to smile at him but my mouth will not change from its seemingly surprised look.

Men and women come to visit us. They gasp over all the mummies. They touch the little girls' braided blonde hair and pat the little boys' on their heads. They gaze up at the beautiful virgins and bow down before the mighty men. When they reach the husband and me, they scream and scramble away from us. They are so hideous, they scream and cover their eyes. The husband and I laugh. We throw pieces of glass at their backs, trying to tear the flesh open. We wonder what might happen if these visitors bled in front of the mummies. Would they come back to life and rush to eat? We never throw the glass hard enough to cause any damage. It is simply a game to pass the time. The gods come down into the caverns to visit us. They poke the stiffness of our limbs and laugh into our faces.

What did you do to yourselves, the gods ask. We come down from the walls and walk beside them.

It seemed like something to do. We heard that these tours get a lot of visitors. We wanted to see how the living react to bodies that are so obviously dead. Its been fascinating. They say that every body in here is some form of a miracle. To be honest, it gets annoying. We want to tell them about climate and body conditions but there would be no point. They think we're so ugly that they can't bear to even look at us for more than a second, I say.

The gods shrug. You are sort of hideous. I mean, look at the two of you. You used to be pretty good looking. And now you just look... dead. It's kind of disgusting. You look like rotting went wrong, they say.

I try to glare at them but my eyes refuse to narrow. The gods laugh and skip stones over the river. The rocks strike the surface and immediately sink. What's wrong with the water, they ask.

Nothing. The husband and I have been playing a game called Sink or Float. We throw the bodies in and if they sink, I win. If they float, then the husband wins. The river is just filled with bodies. You know that there were thousands of them down here. It was getting to the point that we had to squeeze past all of them in order to move. We decided it would be a good idea to make a little space, to get things a bit more orderly, if not just for ourselves, then for the visitors. Did anyone ever think of the health risks of coming down here and commingling with the dead? It can't be sanitary. I mean, look at them. They're just rotting away. And then some of the kids are stupid enough to touch them and then put their hands in their mouths, I say. The gods groan and cover their mouths.

I hate children, one of the gods says. The god reaches into the river and pulls out a waterlogged leg. Wow, the god says and drops the leg back in. It splashes and wets us. The husband and I jump in a circle, trying to dry the moisture before it can damage our bodies.

The gods hand us dry rags and help pat us dry. Aren't you getting sick of it down here? The air is so stagnant. It's like a really bad church. Or a cave that was just opened, another god says.

It was just opened, the husband says.

The gods exchange looks. Fantastic. You're down here in some musty cave, pretending to be the more frightening corpses that have ever existed. What are you getting out of this? A new respect for death and humanity? Please. You keep thinking that humanity is this wonderful thing when it's really not. You're forgetting how important you both are. Tell us, how are the cemeteries? Who is eating the soil and vomiting it back out? It is like rotating the crops. You help aerate the soil so that the corpses can breathe. That is what you are meant to do. Why do you try to change that? When was the last time you even ate dirt, the gods ask.

I stare at them. I haven't had dirt in quite some time, I say.

Of course you haven't. Look at you. You're starving and that is why you look like that. Even the husband looks terrible because he is starving as well. He starves because of you. It is so sad. Such wonderfully immortal creatures and you can't be happy, the gods say.

One steps forward and offers me dirt. I stare at the mound. I look behind me and examine the corpses lining the walls. I hate their putrefied flesh. The husband nods at me. I take the mound of dirt and eat it. A warmth travels down my stomach. Our flesh softens. Our faces relax. I blink. I open and close my mouth. I touch the walls and feel how clammy they really are. The gods applaud. Finally, they say. They turn around and eat the spectators witnessing the transformation. We tire of this cave. Can we leave, the gods ask with full mouths.

The husband leads the way out. We across the water. We drag the bodies with us.

I enter the serial killer's house. It is like a movie. There are bodies everywhere. Several are stacked together to mimic furniture. Five women's skeletons make lamps. The light bulbs are stored at the backs of their jaws. The wires travel down their backs, creating the illusion of a charred spine, and disappear into the wall. I take my time entering this house. First, I look through the windows. They are covered with transparent plastic tarps. When the wind pushes against them, they make a loud banging sound that hurts my ears. I wait until the tarps settle before picking up a corner and peeking through. The shadow of someone's back passes me and I drop the tarp and duck down. The person hums and stops in front of the mirror. I do not stand up again until I hear the footsteps retreat.

I make my way to the front door. I pause on every step and look through, making sure that there is no small body beneath waiting to poke my legs with a stick or knife. On the front porch, I press my back to the siding and wait. I hear footsteps and then silence. I slip through the keyhole and run into the living room. I stand in the shadows in the hallway. An old man sits on the flayed torso of a man. The flaccid penis pushes against the man's side. He pushes it down every so often. I dart past him. Chandeliers made of bone hang from the ceiling. I hunch over so that I do not strike the bones. They are spaced just right that any disturbance would cause a wind chime effect.

Someone laughs outside. I cock my head to the side and hide inside the staircase. I watch the front door. Several car doors slam. The laughter grows louder. Hello, someone shouts and knocks on the front door. The old man jumps up from the couch and runs past me. He opens the basement door and disappears down the dark steps. I consider following him but opt to remain between the steps. The front door opens and two young women and a man step inside. Hello, they shout. Anyone home?

I hear footsteps above my head. Downstairs, the old man whispers. I turn around to see exactly what is kept beneath the stairs. It is hard to see and so I light a fire in the palm of my hand and hold it at shoulder height. The stairs lead into a very small room. It is filled with various tools. Handsaws and chainsaws. Hammers and pocket knives. Even vises. There are boxes containing an assortment of nails. If it were not for the bodies displayed so evidently around the house, I would think that I was in a handyman's home. I open a tool chest and see nearly a dozen broken pelvises packed inside. I close the chest and extinguish the light. I look back out through the stairs. The kids break into two groups. The two girls go off together and the boy wanders into the living room alone. There is still laughter coming from outside. Screams interrupt the laughter.

Where did he go, the girls asks, coming out of the kitchen. The old man fidgets downstairs. I slip into the floorboards and sink into the basement. It is a dimly lit room with rocky walls. There are several work benches in the room. The old man pushes the boy onto one of the tables and straps him down. The old man is very strong. The boy struggles but cannot get freed. The old man pushes a rubber gag into his mouth and leaves him. I crawl beneath the tables, getting closer to the two males. Dirt drops from the old man's shoes as he works. I stare hungrily at the mound. It looks delicious. I can smell it. I wait until the old man turns the other way before snatching the dirt. I bite down slowly and exhale. It is some of the best-tasting dirt I have ever had. It has vanilla accents and a hint of grass just managing to edge out the immediate copper taste.

The boy groans above me. The old man picks up something metallic and strikes the boy in the head. He turns around again, puts the object down, and walks away. I sit cross-legged on the ground, waiting for him to leave. The old man walks up the stairs and closes the door. I poke my head out to see if there is anyone else downstairs. The boy groans again. I stand up and look down at him. Hmmmph, the boy says.

I pull the gag out. What, I ask. I don't speak potential murder victim. You'll have to try again.

Help. Please don't kill me, the boy says. I look at the shackles on his wrists and ankles. I touch the metal bolts and then examine the thickness of the table itself. There is loud rustling upstairs. The boy's eyes roll around in his head wildly.

I don't kill people, I say. I'm here just for the experience. I'm trying to learn about humanity. You see, I'm immortal. The boy sticks his tongue out and sobs.

Please help me, he cries. I hear gunshots and several screams. There is a loud thud and the sound of scraping.

You should probably be quiet, I advise the boy. That guy is going to be back down here in about a minute. He's bringing your friends along. The boy screams. I stick the gag back into his mouth. He chokes and turns red. I told you to be quiet. What's the point of you screaming like a maniac? That's not really going to help your case.

I go back beneath the table. The old man comes down the steps. Let us go, several women cry. I look out and see that he has three girls dragging behind him. He holds them by their hair. They struggle but not enough to rip their scalps free. Please, what did we do?

I am bored. I tire of these things. The old man takes his time killing them all. He peels their flesh off to reveal their bones. He spends three weeks fashioning their bones into various objects. I remain beneath the table, eating the constant flow of dirt. The husband calls to me. Won't you come home, he calls. I rise up from the table, take a screwdriver out of the old man's hand, and leave him to his new armchairs. They squirm. I don't think that they would be very comfortable.

The husband and I tire of teenage girls who believe they see floating heads belonging to our thankfully forgotten. The routine is always the same. The girls are studying in their rooms when they feel a cold breath in their ears. Their bedroom doors will be closed. There will be some sort of religious relic hanging somewhere in the area. When they get up, they will inevitably peer under the bed and then go into the closet. They will exhaust every space in the room and finally sigh in frustration. And that is it. They will immediately begin screaming because directly behind them is a woman's floating head, complete with greenish flesh, limp hanging strings of hair, and an open mouth. It is a dead woman, the girls will complain their inattentive mothers. Always. The husband and I wake up night and day, listening to those frantic screams.

Our problem is not due to the girls' fear but because of what they believe the faces are capable of. The husband and I have faces drifting in and out of the house on a daily basis. Yes, they are hideous. But they are harmless. They simply come in and out of the walls, drift down from the ceilings and move into the floor. They do not bite. They do not scream. They simply sigh and drift away.

The husband and I would like the girls to turn to the faces and simply say, Go away. We are tired of you. If we can't help you with anything, then leave us alone. And if worse comes to worse, to at least be able to say, Fuck you, face. Of course they never say any of that. And to curse at the poor heads would be rude. But do you think that the teenagers might be willing to pause for a moment and at least make a general inquiry? They never do. They simply scream and run from the room, leaving the face behind. What do they think the face does then? Eat their wallpaper? No. They simply stare after the retreating body and sigh. They drift through the closet and are gone.

Every so often, the husband and I make the heads a cup of coffee. They enjoy coffee. They drink it black with no sugar. They like the way bitterness settles on their dead tongues. What makes you sad about the girls' reactions, the husband and I ask.

The head dips down into the coffee and comes back up. I am sad because they run from me. I would like to talk. I would like to learn of what they know. Perhaps they could tell me something about my demise. That is what I would like to know. Why I hover. Why I have lost my body. Why I am condemned to living in a house I would rather forget all about. But they don't stay long enough to tell me. They simply stare at me, scream, and run. And so I have no choice but to drift this way and that, weighed down by all the answers I am not given, the head says.

It dips back into the coffee and comes back out again, dripping. The head sighs. The young ones are the only ones who can see me. I try to go to the babies but they can't speak. They can't help me with anything. So I ask the teenagers and they run from me. They're the only ones who can help me and instead, they fail me. And so I suffer. I am tired of floating. I would like to rediscover my body and find myself again.

That is there tragedy. Too often, we are not visited by heads but various limbs. The arms are constantly pulling themselves up stairs and breaking apart. They lose fingernails in the progress. They break their wrists. They tear a number of muscles. They open and close kitchen cabinets and throw the cutlery around. They pull television cords out and plug them back in. They are invisible arms. People walk past them without knowing that the arms rest on the ground, outstretched, or that they hang from the ceiling, ready to drop down. They constantly find themselves in bed with the living. They strangle them with a single hand and only release them when the living start to pray to those abstract gods.

It isn't a fear of religion that makes these limbs go away. It is their certainty that this time, the gods will catch them and swallow them whole. There is no eternity inside the gods' bellies, only several painful moments of digestive activity and then nothing. Maybe the slow rumbling of acid washing against the lining. But nothing else.

Where the arms are dangerous, the legs are simply a nuisance. They leave bathmats on the floor. They track water into the bedroom closet. They stomp up the stairs without any regard to who happens to be listening. The husband and I rarely invite them over for dinner. They will not eat anything that is not in jam form. I cannot stand to touch fruits. The sound of their peels squeaking hurts my ears.

But no one screams when they see these beings. The arms and legs are always around, always trying to scare everyone. The faces are simply the ones who can't help their condition, who float endlessly in pursuit of their bodies. The husband and I capture them in mesh nets and give them to the face. When they do not drink coffee, they dip arms and legs into warm milk and suck the beverage off. Because they cannot control the length of their teeth or the pressure administered by their jaws, the muscles are also stripped as well. The limbs jump in the face's mouth until the husband must reach over and steady them.

Maybe some of those limbs belong to the face. It will never know. The teenagers will not stay still long enough to answer the lingering questions. We do not bother to help them. The husband and I do not concern ourselves with paranormal matters.

I decide I would like to see how humans behave around the dead and so I join a ghost hunting group for an investigation. The husband refuses to have anything to do with such extracurricular activities and stays home feeding the creatures treats of dried meat stuck to old bone. The group I travel with is comprised of men. There might be one other woman in the group but she is nameless and faceless. The men hold my hand as we walk through abandoned buildings. A historian walks with us, explaining the significance of broken windows and doorway latches.

We walk into a prison cell. He was corned in here by his fellow inmates. They tore him apart with their bare hands and then ate the flesh. When the guards pulled them off, they tried to eat them, too. Now, whenever people are down here, they say that they hear him screaming, the historian says. The ghost hunters place cameras in various corners and write notes on a small pad. They drag cords behind them.

They start out of the cell. I step back inside and stare at the ghost inside. Did it hurt, I ask. He looks up. He is a naked skeleton. He crosses his arms over his chest and steps towards me.

I don't remember, he says.

Why are you still here, I ask.

I just want people to remember me, he says. I pat him on the head.

Those men are going to try to talk to you, I say.

I know. They're not the first ones. They always ask the same questions. Are you angry? Are you here? Why did they try to kill you? Blah, blah, blah. It gets annoying. Sometimes I don't feel like talking. I just want to throw things. I want to make them suffer. I hate them because they think this is just a joke, the ghost says.

So... what were you in jail for, I ask.

Rape and murder, the ghost says. I had fifteen victims. And four that I almost got. I was really depressed about that. I force a smile and slip out of the cell to rejoin the group.

We walk down the hallway. The historian pauses to point to a corner. People have heard a little girl crying over here. They don't know if she was a victim who followed her murderer here or if maybe she was raised here. Several women claim to have seen her. She has blonde hair and wears a pink dress, the man says. The ghost hunters touch the brick wall and set up a tripod on the opposite side of the hall. I look at the little girl.

She smiles up at me. You're very pretty, the girl says.

What are you doing here, I ask.

The voices. I followed them. There were so many and I got lost. I didn't mean for it to happen. I walked through the walls and couldn't find my way back out. So now I'm here. I don't mind it. I have company here. They're all much nicer now that they're dead. They take care of me. They tell me bedtime stories, which makes me happy. I laugh a lot, the girl says.

I watch as the men start down the hallway. They talk loudly. I look back at the girl. She cringes and covers her ears. They're too loud. I don't like what they say. It scares me. Who are they, she asks.

They're trying to see if you exist, I say.

Of course I exist. You're talking to me. How could I not exist, the girl says.

I hug her. She sighs into my side. I'm immortal, I say. I'm not a human. I can see all of you. They can't. They don't even know that I am talking to you right now. All they see is me standing behind them, nodding along with everything that they say. I could dance through them and disappear into the walls and they would still think that I was standing still. That's my gift.

The little girl turns around to stare at the men. I still don't like them. Do you spend a lot of time with them?

No. It's just this one time. I want to understand their motivation, I say. She nods and turns around. I walk back to the ground. They run cables past my feet and set up several more cameras.

The lights go out. The men hand me a tape recorder. I hold it in front of me but do not speak. Is anyone here, they ask. The ghosts circle around me.

Any chance you could tell them to leave us alone, they ask.

I wish. They really want to meet you all, I say. The ghosts sigh. They hiss into the microphone and step back into the walls. The husband pokes his head through the brick.

I just wanted to make sure that you're okay, the husband says. I kiss his forehead.

I'm alright, I say. This seems as though it might take a long time. I've learned many things though. I've learned that they come to these places because they're so afraid of death that they need to surround themselves with it. They need to know what is waiting for them.

The husband nods. I don't like how the group leader looks at you, he says. He touches my shoulder. Will you tell them about the afterlife?

I shake my head. No. What would be the point? They would be afraid. I don't think that they really want to know. I know that they talk about it but I honestly don't believe that they do. Would you want to know? I would be so afraid that it was a lie. Talk about disappointment, I say. The husband nods.

I'll see you at home, he says. He disappears and I stare at the group. They raise their voices.

Speak into the red light, they shout. The ghosts cover their ears. They look at me. I lean forward until my mouth is directly above the mouth. No one looks at me. The ghosts whimper.

Hello, I say and the light flashes.

I bathe in a fountain of molten mercury. The mercury comes up from the ground in a steady stream. The silver beads up and glides over my skin. I catch the beads in my palms and splash them onto my face. There is mercury in my eyes, mouth, and nose. It is cold. I sigh. It smells slightly metallic. Men and women come to watch as I bathe. They whisper and point.

The fountain is beautiful. It has many levels of flat slate plates stacked one on top of the other. The mercury comes up from a hole in the ground and collects at the top of the slate. When the slight indentation is filled, the mercury spills over and cascades down the dishes to a wash basin at the bottom. I stand against the last dish. The mercury falls over me. Everything is silver. My hair. My skin. As the mercury absorbs into my body, my eyes turn silver as well. It is hard to tell my pupils from my irises. The white of my eyes changes color as well.

Children try to climb into the fountain with me. They are mesmerized by the way the mercury shifts between fluid and balls. They gather handfuls of the metal while their parents scream at them. Get out of there. Don't you know that that's poison. Get out of the mercury. It's dangerous. You'll get sick. You could die. Please. Please, get out, the parents shout. They do not lower themselves into the fountain to reach their children. Instead, they leave over the edge and extend their arms helplessly.

I approach the children. They are already becoming sickly. Their hair falls out. Metal oozes out of their pores. I place my hands on their shoulders and extract the mercury from their skin. They gasp. The color returns to their faces. I help them out of the pool. I turn my hands over and over, letting the children see the way the mercury balls begin at my wrist and rotate around me. Mercury beads up on my pores and slips down my skin.

Soon, I am producing more mercury than the ground. It comes out of my ears and mouth. I stick my tongue out and it drips from my throat. It wells up on the bottoms of my feet and puddles up on the floor. I laugh and clap my hands together. The children watch. Look but do not touch, I warn them. I can't die from this. But you can. Their parents huddle over them, touching their hair, their foreheads.

I walk away from them. The mercury splashes around me. I grow hungry. I touch the mercury to make dirt. The mercury bubbles but does not turn into anything other than mercury. I stare at it and grimace. The husband appears beside me. Are you hungry, he asks. I nod my head and he picks up a handful of mercury. Staring at it, he waits for it to become dirt. It beads up and spills out of his hands. Oh dear, the husband says. He picks the mercury up again and holds it before my face. What if you eat the beads, he asks.

I stare at the rippling silver. My stomach growls. I accept the mercury. It takes a moment for my tongue to grow accustomed to the taste. I work the mercury around my mouth, letting it rest on the roof of my mouth and the back of my tongue. The husband watches me closely, afraid. I swallow. Are you alright, the husband asks.

I blink. My stomach no longer feels sickly. I lean down and take another handful of mercury. I drink it quickly. The husband waits. It is delicious, I say. It is almost as good as the dirt. The husband sighs in relief. He helps me swallow the mercury. I drink quickly. The mercury begins to slow down. The husband opens the ground more. The mercury comes up quicker. I fall to my knees in front of the fountain source and drink from the spout. The husband rubs my back as I drink. The children cheer. Silver pours over me. The husband catches the droplets that roll off my shoulders and drinks them.

It is very good, he says. He drinks from the fountain slabs. I help him lick the slate dishes clean. Each one is filled with mercury. The husband turns silver as well. I place my arms around his neck and hold onto him. Our bodies are liquefying. We are mercury. I whisper.

It is so strange, I say. I've never been mercury before. I've never been any kind of liquid. I am so afraid. The husband holds me tighter.

I'll protect you, the husband says. I look up at him. I touch his silver forehead. The mercury ripples and smooths back out. I press my lips against his and pull back.

You don't understand, I say. I am afraid for you.

The husband pulls away from me and stares at his feet. I place my mouth against his neck and drink the mercury from him. He closes his eyes and pretends he can feel nothing. I whimper as I drink. It hurts, the husband says. You are taking everything from me.

I make soft cooing noises as I drink. I am trying to be careful, I say. I cannot help my hunger. I do what I can to survive. I finish drinking from him. He is flesh colored again.

I am afraid of you, the husband says. The mercury makes you hungrier. You cannot get enough. I do not want to be around you. He places his hands on the sides of my head.

I am afraid of myself, I say. The husband whimpers. He tries to hold me. His hands slip through me. They come away slick with liquid mercury. I smile at him. I am transforming into a monster, I say. I can barely keep my shape anymore. I am okay with this though. It is time. I grow tired of myself.

The husband whistles. The creatures come running. I swat at them. My hands go right through them. The creatures sit over the mercury spout. They lick up the rest of the liquid. I feel myself solidifying. The creatures bite my semi-solid self and begin dragging me away. I kick my legs. I cannot get free. The husband waits until the creatures have pulled me to the side of the fountain. He picks dirt up off the floor and pours it into my mouth. I swallow and sigh. The silver drains from my body.

The gods appear in front of me. This is fun, they say. They kick at the mercury. They drink it up and spit it back out. I watch them. Leaning over, I vomit the dirt up. The creatures stare at the mound and look at one another. They leave my side to eat. The husband picks me up.

You have had enough, he says. I look at my hands. There is a faint glimmer of silver beneath my fingernails. I rest my head against the husband's chest.

Bring me dirt, I say. The creatures come forward with buckets of material taken from the cemetery. I eat. I am full.

I am covered in eyes. They are all over by body like the hundred-eyed beast in mythology. I have more than one-hundred eyes. There are at least one-hundred eyes on each of my arms alone. I am a million-eyed beast. The eyes seem to be more like gems than eyes. They are every conceivable color: deep reds and vibrant pinks, sickly yellows and watery blues. They are the most beautiful eyes anyone has ever seen. The husband stares into each one for a day and sighs into the lashes. Oh yes, they are complete with long, curling lashes. The husband is constantly touching the lashes lightly with the tip of his finger.

I must be careful when I move. If anything pokes too hard, all the eyes close up and squeeze out tears. It is painful. I cringe and hunker down into a ball while the husband tries to soothe me without touching my flesh. It takes several hours for the eyes to have calmed enough to open again.

I do not go outside when it is windy, despite my loving the wind. The breeze is too much for the eyes. They squint and tear until I cannot move. Instead, the husband goes outside with a glass bottle and captures some of the wind for me. He opens the bottle on the opposite side of the house so that I can hear the breeze and feel the slightest zephyr. The eyes enjoy this. They widen and take the breeze in.

I do not eat dirt when I have eyes. The grains would hurt me. The husband spends those days collecting dirt into the cabinet beneath the sink so that when I am ready to grow a mouth again, I will have something to eat. He brings me dirt from all around the world. There are mounds of dirt from Croatia and Greece, from Germany and Spain, from Antarctica and Argentina. Each tastes slightly different. I cannot name a favorite because they all nourish me in a wholly individual manner.

The eyes do not last forever. Eventually, the lashes grow brittle and translucent. They fall from the eyelids and onto the floor. They make the sound of dry pine needles falling. The husband sweeps them up and stores them in the closet. The eyes fade into my flesh. They disappear, one by one. This is a process that takes more than a week because there are so many eyes. They enter my flesh and then mouths push out.

The husband is always fearful when I am covered by mouths. Then I am ravenous. The mouths are larger than the eyes but still numerous. The lips part and pucker. The tongue juts out. There are white teeth rimming the interior. The husband must sit beside me and feed each mouth dirt separately. They scream and cry his name. Husband, Husband, Husband, they chant and wait to suck the dirt from the spoon.

When the mouths first emerged, they tried to eat the husband. He would not feed them after that. The mouths pleaded, We are sorry, Husband. Please, feed us. We'll be good. We won't bite you again. You are the hand that feeds us and we were wrong. And so the husband revisited his role as caretaker. He gives the mouths all the dirt in the cabinets. The mouths on my left arm prefer dirt from the European countries while the mouths on my right leg enjoy the dirt from the Middle East. The mouths covering my pelvis would rather eat all the dirt from the North-West of Africa moving into the Mediterranean. Because the husband has all the bottles labeled, it is easy for him to give each mouth a bit of its specified taste.

I don't mind the mouths. They only eat dirt. My problem with them is that they are always talking and eating. I feel weighed down. My entire body is sore. The mouths talk about everything. The weather, sports, politics. They talk about hurricanes as if no one had ever heard of such storms before. Every sports championship is the cause of an hour-long rant.

When it snows, the mouths want to be outside. They force me to stand outside the house. They stick their tongues out. I turn them this way and that way so that they can each catch a snowflake on their tongues. I do not like when they want to do this because my skin gets too cold. Sometimes their tongues stick to their teeth. They try to convince me to press up against a steel pole so that they can see if sticking their tongues to the metal will actually cause them to stick in place.

The mouths never last as long as the eyes. One moment they are there, clamoring for attention, begging the husband to feed them, and the next, they are gone, sunken back into my flesh and hidden beneath all the muscles. Only then can the husband touch me again.

Sometimes I am faceless. I have no eyes, no mouth, no nose. Not even ears. I am the prototype of a human's body. I look at no one, I hear nothing, and I cannot taste. I simply exist. I have no real color to my flesh. Everything is a solid gray color. Pale. Boring. I am numb to everything. The husband tries to caress me but the smoothness of my flesh frightens him. I don't even have fingernails. I can barely feel him. Eventually, he lies down beside me and does not try again. I try to whisper but there is nothing for the sounds to come out of. I am not a woman and I am not a man. I exist. It is frightening.

The husband brings me a mirror so that I can see myself. I turn my head in its direction but do not know my own reflection. I can see nothing. I know what I would see though: that smooth gray face. There would be a bald head because I have no hair. I have nothing. Only the beginnings of a body. Nothing buds. I am in a purely ambiguous state.

When the features grow back, the husband starts to cry. I can see him. I can hear him. I can kiss him. He touches my hair. I blink at him. He feeds me dirt and I smile. He whispers in my ear and the sound makes me laugh softly. I am whole again for a short time. We are both afraid of the eyes reemerging. We enjoy the little time I have left.