Hansel and Gretel are lost in the woods, but they come across a small house. Gretel says that they have become a metaphor of the human condition, finding refuge in the midst of despair. Hansel says nothing, because his mouth is full of gingerbread. The door of the house swings slowly open. A smiling face peers out. The metaphor continues. [Click ‘Random Post’ above – be astonished] … [Read more...]
“Just Like Chicken” / Memorable Fancies #17
“Just like chicken,” the waiter said, but you’d never know it for all the sauce, too sweet for my taste, chewy meat. I wasn’t sure it was real Human, either, in spite of hype and fame, reviews in Dining Guide and word of mouth and all, until I saw the eyes. [Click ‘Random Post’ above – be astonished] … [Read more...]
“Taste” / Memorable Fancies #732
Survivors of the disastrous meteor strike barricaded themselves in forts, lived in giant public compounds where secret murders would be impossible. When the danger of mass starvation became too great, a portion of the refugee population was slaughtered by lottery, and a few volunteered, to be fed to the survivors. It was terrible, revolting, don’t think about it - but it was either that or all would die. And that’s how it began, how we developed a taste for … not … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – XXIII” / Memorable Fancies #608
(with Jun Yan) In a starving world, convicted criminals are sentenced to “donate” body parts to the State so that the masses may be fed: left leg for a first offense, right for a second. Some jurisdictions take the effort to make the punishment fit the crime: a hand from a forger or a groper (called a “hand-off”), lips from those who utter sedition or disagreement with official policy. In justification, authorities point to the ancient Middle East practice of amputating the hand of a … [Read more...]
F567 “The Cannibal Variations XX: Sprouting” / Memorable Fancies #566
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden, / Has it begun to sprout?” – Eliot, The Waste Land] That was Philip. Yes, as soon as the last frost was gone I caught the ground heaving one day, just a little, and a tiny finger poking out, the nail still soft and fleshy. A week later a few more parts of Philip sprouted, and the fingers had grown almost to full size. I poked the ground gently with a thin pole, and yes, Philip was growing healthily, the flesh firming up, the gaping … [Read more...]
“The Second Body XII – The Restaurant” / Memorable Fancies #561
[In the year 2030, having a lab-grown second body is the latest style must-have. “Twos,” they’re called. They can be very helpful, but....] Wednesday was Paul's regular day to have lunch with Sally. They found a table at The Meating Place Restaurant and ordered. Paul made small talk, but Sally was obviously distracted. "Isn't that funny?" he said. "Isn't what funny?" "What I just said." "Sorry, I wasn't listening. I’ve got some issues with my Two; it … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – XIX: Our Favorite Restaurants and Dishes” / Memorable Fancies #476
The Homovore’s Dining Guide has recommended its favorite – Restaurants – Eat Your Heart Out Best Buns Alimentary, My Dear Watson Flesh in the Pan Chew the Fat Crackers (munchies from the U.S. South) What’s Eating You? Our Own Flesh and Blood And dishes – Baby-back ribs Celebrity roast Finger food Bleeding hearts Blood and guts Cold hands, warm heart Cut and dried [hube-jerky] A foreign tongue Hotwogs Huburger Whites Meat Knuckle … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – XVIII: The Travel Brochure” / Memorable Fancies #471
“Experience Mombasa on this special tour. Browse for native crafts as our highly trained security forces accompany you. (And not to worry; we hire only vegetarians for these jobs.) Best of all, Mombasa’s centuries-old mix of nationalities and races allows you to sample a wide variety of flavors and textures of the various native groups. Before you know it, you’ll be able to tell a Hadimu from a Sukuma with one bite!”<END> If you liked this post, please tell your friends and share … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – XVII” / Memorable Fancies #468
At first, only the newly dead were eaten, and even then only accident victims, for fear of disease. But gradually, accusations were made that not all these “accidents” were accidents, but people killed for their meat. Little by little, meat from human beings was introduced in restaurants and in the home because other animal protein had become very expensive and virtually unobtainable in any case. – This new food source was politely called “domestic protein.” Protestors carried signs reading … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – XVI: The Importer’s Dilemma” / Memorable Fancies #464
Arthur Leben’s company discussed the potential use of imported “wild” offshore protein resulting from riots, murders, wars, etc. They noted problems of unreliability of supply, spoilage, and a high percentage of unsuitable meat (from the old, the diseased, the poisonously gassed, etc.) which was nearly worthless for human consumption and could be sold only to governments for school-lunch programs in the poorer parts of town. Owing to these problems, the firm concluded that there … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – XV: Three Quotations” / Memorable Fancies #461
“Anthropophagy, the act of eating human fleſh. This horrid practice is ſaid to prevail in ſome parts of Africa and America. But it is greatly to be doubted if ever ſuch a cuſtom exiſted.” -- Encyclopædia Britannica (1769) # “Cannibalism ... dates from the earliest known existence of man on earth. It may reasonably be believed to be a custom which all peoples have practiced.” -- William Graham Sumner, Folkways (1906) # “If the Jou-Jou hadn’t meant us to eat people, He wouldn’t have … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – XIII” / Memorable Fancies #454
[The future: there’s not much left to eat but people.] Americans eating Americans? – Never! But Arthur Leben finds that an antiquated quibble, and discriminatory as well. Arthur is concerned with the balance of trade, and the associated opportunities for increasing American farm exports and reducing imports. Real American hube meat is prized in Asia – a delicacy. “Let’s eat American tonight!” That slogan should appeal to the Chinese. Eventually, hube-meat could be our leading source of … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – XII” / Memorable Fancies #450
[The future: there’s not much left to eat but people.] “…to forestall the likelihood of empathetic feelings arising in the herd, those hubes who were born in free-range ranches were not given names. Nonetheless, it was observed that they often christened (if we may use the term here) each other with sobriquets that struck observers as ludicrous and over-elaborate, considering their destination as steaks, chops, and stew-meat. “Sparticus” and “Scipio” were among the favorites.” [– … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – XI” / Memorable Fancies #443
[The future: there’s not much left to eat but people.] A special baby was born to us that day; even hardened farm hands could tell that this one was – different. They decided to risk punishment by hiding him (it was a boy) from the Harvesters, forging the necessary documents to exempt him from being used for food, at least through infancy. After that, who could know? <END> If you liked this post, please tell your friends and share a comment here or in StumbleUpon, … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – X” / Memorable Fancies #436
[The future: there’s not much left to eat but people.] Those bred to be the victims of cannibalism where themselves compelled to become cannibals, or starve. There was some objection to what was called “eating up the inventory,” and scientists warned about Mad Hube Disease being spread in this way, but considerations of economics prevailed. ['hube' = human being; generally considered derogatory] <END> If you liked this post, please tell your friends and share a comment … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – IX” / Memorable Fancy #434
[The future: there’s not much left to eat but people.] Because hubes were people, they had always been counted for purposes of Congressional representation, even if the farmers and ranchers who owned them would not allow them to vote. Massachusetts, as the last state not allowing hube-farming, brought suit in federal court to change this practice. Mississippi, as the state with the largest number of farmed hubes, defended the principles that these … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – VIII” / Memorable Fancies #431
[The future: there’s not much left to eat but people.] More far-sighted and patient than the fast-buck hube farmers, Arthur Leben’s farms spared especially choice males and females as breeding stock. He was aware of the dangers of in-breeding, but that would not appear for several generations, and by that time Arthur would have made his fortune many times over. This process was not only called “good business practice,” but “ethical” as well, the two terms being synonymous in Arthur’s … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – VII: The Squeal” / Memorable Fanci8es #430
“Nothing but the squeal,” the old factory-farm motto, applied to hube farms as well. After all the meat had been extracted, the hair, skin, nails, and other parts of the ‘Volunteers’ were processed and sold as “faux alligator,” or “nouveau bovine,” and so on. Lampshades were popular. <END> If you liked this post, please tell your friends and share a comment here or in StumbleUpon, Reddit, Face Book, or other social websites. I’ve published more than 50 weird, quirky, horror, … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – VI” / Memorable Fancies #428
Free-range hubes were fine, everyone’s ideal. Let them breathe what’s left of the fresh air before they give the last full measure of devotion. But still, in a small enclosed space, with constant control of heat, light, water, vitamins, the piping-in of soft music, the repeated repeated “it’s OK … it’s OK …” from the recordings played in each pen, the contented hubes grew faster than the free-range kind, and fatter, and their meat was more tender. “Kobe hube” was especially prized. [hube … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – V: Generations” / A Memorable Fancy #424
Arthur Leben’s hube farms were flourishing, but the food these farms produced had encountered some resistance. The few remaining liberals could be ignored, but objections from the dining public were more significant. Surveys showed large majorities agreeing with “all tastes the same”; “tastes like chicken”; “gamey”; and there was continuing concern about disease and Mad Hube Syndrome, since much hube nourishment was gained from eating their own kind, and so over the generations deadly … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations – IV: Domestic Tranquility” / A Memorable Fancy #421
[The future: there’s not much left to eat but people.] There were arguments, in the early days, as to what stock-breeding should aim at. Some argued that health and vigor were paramount, to ensure the hardiness of the herd. Some said docility. Others, that transportability, i.e., the ability to move large numbers of hubes in boxcars without noticeable damage to their flesh and more days in transit before rotting, were most important in reducing transportation costs. But eventually there … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations III – Factory Farms” / A Memorable Fancy #417
[The future: there’s not much left to eat but people.] The “volunteers,” as they were called, were marketed as free-range hube-meat although most had come from inner cities or pockets of poverty in the hinterland, and neither type could really be considered free-range. Arthur Leben contemplated this, the toughness of their meat, and the danger of disease or ingestion of second-hand narcotics. He made a decision: he would establish a hube factory-farm, where the future meat could live … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations II – The Gourmet of Souls” / A Memorable Fancy #414
[The future: there’s not much left to eat but people.] The gourmet of souls devours each of the dead while the soul is still fresh, while it still remembers love and struggle and final calamity. Then the eater glows with repast, is satiated until the next body is delivered, steaming fresh and just about to realize that it is dead, that fleeting instant when its meat has the most exquisite savor. As our bodies are sliced and diced and pass through this delightful digestive process, we are … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations I – ‘Rights'” / A Memorable Fancy #411
[Beginning a new series …] “Next thing, they'll be breeding us like cattle for food.” – Soylent Green The year 2038: Water wars, loss of ice-caps, demise of the ocean-current circulator system, drought … Even though the environmental crisis deepened, people kept breeding: eight million, nine, ten, ... The first mammals to go were cattle and sheep – they took up too much space, farted too much methane, ate too much grain. And then the grain was gone, too. The only protein we had too … [Read more...]
“The Cannibal Variations: In the Old Days” / A Memorable Fancy #207
“And then our great transition,” the lecturer said, “from hunter-gatherer to farmer; to civilization. And then we could have settlements,” he told us, “and cities, and trade. “And we could raise people as food-crops,” he continued, “instead of hunting them down one by one in the woods, as we had to do in the old days.” [– after David Frankfurter] … [Read more...]
“Just Like Chicken” / A Memorable Fancy #017
“Just like chicken,” the waiter said, but you’d never know it for all the sauce, too sweet for my taste, chewy meat. I wasn’t sure it was real Human, either, in spite of hype and fame, reviews in Dining Guide and word of mouth and all, until I saw the eyes. <previously published in the periodical Perhaps I Am Wrong About the World.> … [Read more...]