Theme Story - Inanimation

I see you there, staring at the open refrigerator. All his hard work is wasted, dispelling his chilled currents into the kitchen air as you sit there and ponder. His light glows, the only way he knows how to protest, as you sort through the items stored inside. I can almost hear him weeping, his compressor turning on to hide his cries. He knows what’s coming, but not quite as well as I do.

I see you pull out the mustard, the mayonnaise, and I know that it is over. My time has finally come. You’ve heartlessly taken so many of my brothers and sisters, simply so that you can remain presentable after you gorge yourself on organic matter. It is lucky that your food has already been killed for you – my kind do not have that luxury.

You don’t even look down. That’s probably the most infuriating part. You just reach out and grab, expecting me to be there. I feel my body collapse in your grip. I am allowed one final glimpse of my companions – my family, as they are all that I have known for the longest time. They cower in the small box on the counter, the mockery of a home you’ve made for us in this abattoir of terror.

Here it comes; the first step to my inevitable end. You’ve taken a bite of your sandwich, and it’s right there. Glistening menacingly in the incandescent light. I know that soon it will cover me, the first of many such drops to be forcibly infused into my being. I watch with sheer loathing, hating you with every fiber of my being, but I am of course powerless to resist as you bring me to your chin. A quick wipe for you, but it still lingers on me. The moisture of the condiment soaks itself into me. I can feel my insides beginning to stick together.

Of course that is not the only transgression. No, you are truly thorough in your cruelty. A crumb sits on your lip, and you wipe it away using my weeping carcass. Some of your mustard gets on your hand, and I can feel the flesh tear as I am dragged bodily over your unkempt fingernail. Time after time you use me, and use me, and just keep on using me, leaving not a square inch untouched.

My torture is over. I sit, a crumpled and stained ball grasped tightly in your fist, as if you fear that now is the moment I choose to make my escape. I laugh bitterly at this, as you must know you’ve had the power all along. I am not even given the luxury of a struggle. You pull up the lid and, with just as much carelessness as when you kidnapped me from my family, you toss me in.

As the lid closes, I can hear the cries of the fallen around me. We are a mishmash of injury and dismemberment, all of us neither hale nor hearty. You go about your day, oblivious to the destruction you’ve wrought, while we lie here and weep in the darkness.

At least your face is clean, you monster.