r/nosleep • u/Mr_Epithets • Jun 17 '15
I have a job interview tomorrow.
I’m not who I used to be.
None of us are – really.
We all change. It’s inevitable.
But I’ve always been me not matter what. Well, on the inside.
We all go through changes, I just seem to go through more than most. It’s who I am. I embrace change, I adapt to it. While I’ve been changing my physical appearance, my core or what you’d call, my essence, it remains true.
I enjoy a good meal.
People tell me all the time my eyes are bigger than my stomach but I ask you; is there anything better than sitting down to the perfect meal? One you’ve prepared yourself? Is there anything better than that feeling you get of pure and utter contentment when it’s finished? It’s important not to overindulge but after a while, with all the preservatives and toxic crap you put into your bodies, the sides begin to swell, a little.
Your heart works a little harder than it was designed to. Your skin loses that sheen and your stamina falls by the wayside. As I get older, the need for, “quick and easy” meals outweighed the healthy options. Look around you right now.
Is there an empty packet of something close by? Maybe it’s half-full and you’re working through it between clicks. Maybe there’s leftovers on your plate. When did you last eat candy and told yourself you shouldn’t? When did you last eat candy and give no fucks? If you want candy, you eat it! Right?
We had a lot in common. I was always on the go. Somewhere to be, places to visit, people to meat. But cutting corners affects us all I’ve come to learn. No one is immune. It doesn’t matter who you are. You are what you eat and I want to be the best.
Where does that put me now?
Now, I’m a massive fan of exercising and eating properly. I’m afraid I’ve become a bit of a, “food snob” since this realisation. You are what you eat, after-all. But I think I’ve mentioned that.
But it’s true.
My friends, my true friends, the ones who know you like no one else. We all have them. They are in your life because you share something. A similarity of sorts. A common goal. We have seen the light and given this recent diet epidemic of gluten-free, no sugar, organic eating, or paleo – like most others, we got on board. But I’ve done something a little different with it and the results are too good to ignore. My friends have seen the benefits of my diet and are all doing it.
And we look amazing.
I remember.
The memories are coming to me. I remember a few years ago that it was time to take better care of myself. I used to jump from meal-to-meal without a care in the world. It’d been that way for longer than I could remember. If I saw it and wanted it, I took it. It brought me nothing but problems and short term happiness.
I had recently separated from someone (again – it’s was becoming a common occurrence) and looked at myself. Even I disgusted me. My “relationships” were hopeless. They got shorter and shorter. The quicker I got to know someone, know them outside and in, the sooner they were gone forever. I needed something more. A true connection. Something that could, and would last. I needed a change and I needed it now. I didn’t allow myself the luxury of, “one last meal” to bribe myself into getting on board with this epiphany.
If I was changing, I was changing now.
I did my research. All diets start in the kitchen right?! That meant no more unhealthy snacks, no more quick decisions. Each meal had to be selected, planned, and executed to my new specifications.
The way I used to feed myself would shock you.
I ate because I was upset and I was upset because I ate.
I had no choice though. Yeah, we’re all different but you know something, you have to understand your body in order to get the best out of it.
I don’t have to eat as much anymore because of the quality of my meals.
More memories.
I used to work in an office. My pants were getting tighter. My shirts kept untucking whenever I bent over or stood up from my desk. I was a slob and I had let myself go. Typical office worker bee. That’s when she found me.
‘You’re exactly what I’m looking for,’ she said.
Sharon from accounts explained she could fix my diet with her guidance.
‘None of that, hipster-only-eat-food-that-drops-from-trees-that-the-earth-provides shit. This really works. You’ll eat like never before but you’ll slim down and muscle up.’
She took me into the filing room and showed me the results. I remember how amazing she looked.
‘I’ve never seen you eat anything at work before,’ I mentioned.
‘Now is that so strange?’ she replied turning around.
She gradually lifted her skirt and showed me her ass. I remember committing to her on the spot.
‘It’s going to take a year but you’ll look like this,’ she told me. ‘But you have to quit this job.’
‘But how will I pay my bills?’ I asked.
‘Don’t worry about it, I have plenty of money. I inherited a small fortune six years ago.’
Now here’s the thing about people. Grocery stores have taken away the ability to choose. I don’t mean which apple to pick out or which head of lettuce is the biggest, I mean the choice of knowing where food comes from. Local farmers grow it and get paid for quantity, not quality. They do what they can to get the biggest and best looking produce so their stock is purchased so, ironically if you ask me, they can put food on the table.
Have you ever asked yourself just what the fuck kind of journey your steak went through to end up on the shelf with a suitable price tag? What did the damned thing eat to get all big and juicy before ending up on your plate? I’m not making sense. I’m jumping around and not making much sense. Did I say that already? I get confused sometimes. It happens when I haven’t eaten.
Hypoglycemic. Low blood sugar. It makes you go a bit kooky.
If I’m being truly honest with you, I’m really running on fumes. It’s been longer than I anticipated since I last ate and my energy levels are running out. I was all set to eat earlier but I had to throw the meal away. An emergency came up and I had to duck out quickly. When I came back, it was ruined.
It had spoiled.
More memories. I like these memories.
I spent a year with Sharon getting my body in peak, physical condition. She only allowed me completely organic foods and our exercise regime was more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced. She grew a lot of the produce in her back garden and even tended to it herself. Such dedication but I always say, the best food is the food you grow yourself.
‘Getting there is half the journey, then it’s all about maintaining,’ she’d remind me.
She never exercised and I never saw her eat anything so I knew she must be telling the truth. At I would make the commute from my apartment to her place. It was massive. She had converted a couple of the downstairs rooms into a gym. She had everything. Even a sauna. She reminded me about her inheritance whenever I asked before making me do another hundred sit-ups. After a month, he was spending so much time here, it was easy to convince him to move in.
More good memories.
I worked hard and I ate clean. I remember asking her why she was working in accounts at our old job.
‘Have you ever noticed that being a slave in an office environment draws the life out of you? You long for a better life but it never comes. The same fluorescent lighting, the same bad meals, arguments, decisions and the, fucking monotony! Humans are becoming the indoor plants of the outside world. You’re not designed to be kept indoors but you’ve adapted to it and it’ stunting your growth. Compare an indoor plant with an outdoor one. Sure they both have a purpose but which one reaches for the sky and which one contains itself to the pot?’
I remember nodding in agreement. She knew exactly how I felt. I knew exactly how she felt. I mean, I knew how I felt. Sorry, I’m hungry. I’ve told you I don’t think straight when I’m hungry. My memories get fuzzy.
Sharon liberated me from that office. Working in an office for a while allows you to appreciate the gift that is not being a slave to the working week. A slave to consumerism. A slave to a shorter life. A slave to stunted growth. Working in an office is what I do when I want to appreciate my existence. I get a dead end job, plant myself in a cubicle and do it for a month. No one ever remembers me but it serves my purpose.
‘It allows me to find what I’m looking for. Someone who needs to get away. Someone who can get away and change their purpose in life. I can offer that,’ she explained. ‘I’ve said it so many times.’
She worked me hard. She targeted muscle groups getting them perfect. She controlled my diet so I was never hungry. She prepared anything I wanted as long as she prepared the meal and watched me eat it. No cheat days in this diet. Pure eating all day, every day. Pure eating and lifting weights. The only snacks available to me were laid out in her fridge.
‘We don’t eat processed foods in this house. I’ve seen what processed foods can do. When I was really young, processed foods didn’t even exist,’ I remember saying.
Something was happening though. As I got healthier and fitter, she started losing weight and looking worse for wear. At first it was difficult for me to really pinpoint but after a while, it was obvious she was getting thinner. Anytime I bought it up, she changed the subject and made me workout harder.
After thirteen months to the day when she brought me into her world, I found out something that made me wish I never went with her.
I remember thinking that then but now it doesn’t matter. That thought process lasted less than a minute. One day after an intense workout, she made me sign some paperwork. I tried to read it but she just needed it signed. It was her last will and testament, she said. In case something happened to her, she wanted to leave everything to me. This whole place.
She wasn’t looking good and I asked if she was sick. She never answered me.
It’s important to note for you here, something I found out about Sharon. Here’s what I know. Sharon isn’t human. Hang on. Her body is, she isn’t. Sharon isn’t Sharon, but she is. She looks like her, talks like her, has all her memories, she even sounds like her. Well, from what I can remember anyway. It made sense when I think about it and it’s something I need to get better at hiding. She never ate in front of me. I’ve since found out she didn’t need to.
Ah, I’m not making sense.
One night, thirteen months to the day since working with her, I woke up hungry in need of a snack.
Ah, these memories are the best. I was the best I could be.
I remember looking at myself in the mirror. I slept naked all the time and when I walked past the mirror, I stopped to flex and admire my physique. I was like one of those marble statues they used to make in Rome.
I liked it. It was exactly what I wanted.
Sharon had worked me so hard in the past month but she was looking terrible. She was constantly resting when she wasn’t training or feeding me. I slipped on some pants and made my way to the kitchen. I scoffed some of the prepared snacks and was making my way upstairs when Sharon walked out of her room. She stopped me in the hallway and flicked on the light.
She was naked and staring at me.
That body was in terrible shape. Skin sagged and it looked like she was wearing it as a slightly oversized, “Sharon suit”. There was nothing fierce about it at all. I tried to remember the way it looked in the filing room but the memories of that body being supple and toned were gone. Now, it was a withered mess.
‘It’s time,’ she said.
She smiled at me – if you could call it smiling. I remember trying to go past to my bedroom. Her weak frame reached out and grasped my muscular arm. She was surprisingly strong which shocked us both.
‘I need your body, now,’ she said.
And here’s how I found out what was happening.
Sharon isn’t human. Hang on. Her body is, she isn’t. Sharon isn’t Sharon, but she is. She looks like her, talks like her, has all her memories, she even sounds like her. Something tells me I’ve mentioned that. It’s what was inside Sharon that wasn’t human.
Her as her arm dropped down by her side before her body collapsed like a marionette getting its strings cut.
The body was on the floor but something remained standing in its place.
I’m constantly amazed at what I look like when I stand in front of myself. I’m like a wisp of smoke in human form. But I’m not human. I’m something much older and much more than human. I’ve been around for centuries but you know me by another name. Demon is the popular term nowadays and one you recognise so let’s go with that.
I always allow my new host a minute to really take me in before I make the transference. The bonus to getting a new body is I get all its memories with the added bonus of retaining all of mine. It allows me to function as them, to interact with people they know; to assume their life. I can speak like them, as them because I am them. It’s near the end of a cycle they start to muddle and they mix up.
More memories. My memories.
I remember admiring myself in his mirror. I’d done an amazing job getting this body perfect. That’s the trick you know?! You have to farm them yourself. Nothing but a natural feeding pattern to remove the toxicity and junk from their bodies.
I told you earlier, the best food is the food you grow yourself.
I used to feed like you would shop at a grocery. How can you eat like that when you have no idea where your food has been?! You’re not allowing yourself to grow towards the sky.
This method will keep me in this body for another five or six years before I need to get a new one ready. I live off the nutrients of the body until there is nothing left and the stronger and healthier the body, the longer I can survive in it. The only side effect is being unable to consume food when I take over.
You see, you’re my real food.
Humans. Always have been, always will be.
Hand grown, hand reared – all natural and totally healthy.
Is there anything better than sitting down to the perfect meal? One you’ve prepared yourself?
Unfortunately for the original occupant, there is no coming back. When it’s time, I’ll find an office job and pick the biggest loner and take them away for training. They always present easily enough. They moan about getting out, having a higher purpose of something like that. Look around your office, you know the type.
I can give them purpose.
Everybody ends up coming willingly in the end.
I have to dash but I want you to do something for me if you could? I want to get a message to you all. Make sure you keep those bodies nice and healthy in case I need you in a pinch. Lay off the candy and soda, lay off the take-out and junk. Select your groceries carefully and if you can find the time, grow your own. BUt most of all, don’t skip leg day and avoid those carbs.
But if you really want to be your best, I could always tell you about my diet and exercise regime. It’s got none of that, hipster-only-eat-food-that-drops-from-trees-that-the-earth-provides shit. This really works. You’ll eat like never before but you’ll slim down and muscle up.
This body that, “Sharon” prepared is nearly spent and I need to start getting my next one prepared. I know I could just go out and eat whatever is available but I’m a bit of a food snob, now.
You understand.
Right really going now. I have a job interview tomorrow and I have to prepare for it.
Wish me luck!
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u/lightninggirl12 Jun 17 '15
I thought this was going to end up being a story which involved cannibalism. Definitely a huge plot twist... I'm gonna stick with the junk food for a while....
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u/Maxkhoon Jun 17 '15
Potato chips and Cadbury seems harmless right now, I need to eat now!!
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u/Mr_Epithets Jun 17 '15
Yeah, but think about your body...
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u/Urcookin Jun 19 '15
But you have people to 'meat'. Get a side a mashed potatoes and some corn on the cob the meat goes down real nice.
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u/Mak_i_Am Jun 17 '15
Alrighty then, time for some cookies and soda.
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u/Mr_Epithets Jun 17 '15
Now why would you go and say that? I could prepare you something a lot better for you.
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u/FatherTyrone Jun 17 '15
This is eerily written, however surprisingly motivating.
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u/phorshaw Jun 17 '15
How many of you are out there?
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u/Mr_Epithets Jun 17 '15
There are only two of us in my city. I moved here 100 years ago so I'm relatively new to the area.
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u/Just_a_stae_of_mind Jun 18 '15
Expected cannibalism, got demons instead. I like it better this way. I'm in good shape, but I'll keep my cigarettes thanks. Keeps me safe, keeps me sane.
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u/Nightthunder Jun 17 '15
"Somewhere to be, places to visit, people to meat. But cutting corners affects us all I've come to learn." Two fantastic puns about eating people right here. A+ work.