Squid Ink Incorporated

Xmas is obviously good for me, this is the second flash I have thrashed out in one day, both on a xmassy theme. This is my entry to @chuckwendig’s flash fiction challenge, ‘Christmas in A Strange Place’.

*

    I open my mouth to allow a silverfish to slowly swim inside, little morsels such as this have become my only sustenance, for the weight of the rubbish had trapped my limbs some time ago. After twelve months here I have begun to merge with my environment, the damp newspapers, the rotting food and the everlasting crisp wrappers.

This is what I wanted, life had become to cruel for me to bear, and so, one year ago today, while the rest of the country celebrated with their family or loved ones, I walked into the municipal waste facility and allowed myself to sink into the landfill.

Now, here I lay, every day I sink a little further, I am human waste, used up, thrown away and left to decay.

It’s Christmas Day, I know this must be so as there are no trucks today, no sounds of rubbish crashing onto the ground, no clanking of machinery or shouting voices, just me and the gulls. This is what I wished for, to just give up, to take root in the rubbish that will one day become soil, regenerating the Earth.

A gust of wind, the temperature drops and something disturbs the gulls, they caw and flap their wings, wheeling up into the cold grey sky. I see a figure walking towards me, a woman, the way she holds herself reminds me of the way I had walked here a year ago. Body distorted, back bent, head down, as if the sights and sounds of the season, the bright coloured lights, Slade on the radio, was weighing down upon her shoulders.

She walks over to me, looking down at my head, now just peeking out as if I were treading water in a sea of decomposition.

‘Hello’ I say.

‘Hello’ she replies nervously, ‘Is it everything I hope it will be?’

‘So much more, for the first time in my life I feel like I belong somewhere. The gulls don’t judge me, I want for nothing and my body is weightless; I feel at peace’.

She takes off her shoes and works her feet into the rubbish. Breaking the surface layer she begins to slowly sink, first her ankles disappear, then her calves, her thighs, her hips.

She looks at me and smiles, ‘it’s nice to meet someone who understands’ she says.

I smile back; smile for the first time in… years.

Cold, white drops of snow begin to fall upon my face.

‘Merry Christmas’ I say to her softly.

‘Merry Christmas’  she replies, as her lips draw level with mine.