Cervia's Log - 15 Achiel, 1 AoC
The benign grace of carrion
T
his is the first day that I became hyper-aware of my own fading sensibilities. In the first 24 hours after the crash, I was definitely aware of my hunger, but hunger (at least in its initial phases) is a passing phenomenon. Your body screams out for sustenance. It sends up all the standard alarm bells. But after a day-or-two, when it realizes that no nutrients are forthcoming, it finally gives in and just starts eating itself. And while that may sound like a scary proposition, the fact is that, in the short term, it can actually be very helpful. The hunger fades. You enjoy second (and third, and fourth...) winds as your body finds new way to cannibalize itself and harvests the energy it needs to carry on. But that can't last forever.
Eventually, your internal energy stores wane. And your body flounders in the face of renewed activity coupled with an utter lack new energy sources. And that's where I found myself this morning.
The beach has turned decidedly southeasterly. And somehow, that feels like a positive accomplishment (as if my only problem in life is simply that I don't get to move in a southeast direction often enough). To be sure, that "accomplishment" seemed to sustain me through most of the morning hours. But by the time the sun had reached its peak, I was having long, intimate, insightful conversations with my long-dead grandmother. My worthless ex was begging forgiveness for his myriad transgressions. And I was having a deep, earnest conversation with the daughter I've never had.
Those conversations may have continued right until the point that I fell face-first into the surf, if it weren't for the appearance of that fish.
There it was, languishing in the roiling waves. Its empty eyes seemed to stare at me from the moment I spotted it in the distance.
I was shocked to see it there. I scanned the horizon but, for some reason, there were no birds - of any kind. No hungry scavengers eager to destroy this carcass. There was nothing on the beach - except... this dead fish.
The fish was... not what I would traditionally call "appetizing". It had been here too long. Maybe, waaaay too long. It was bloated. Its eyes almost seemed ready to explode out of its head. It was not like any fish I'd ever seen before It had arms. Long, scaly, muscular arms that extended far-longer than what would seem natural, given its body size. And its tail was disturbingly... hairy. I don't know what kind of fish across this expansive universe finds an evolutionary advantage in being hairy, but apparently, this one did.
I stood over this fish for what-seemed-like hours. I had absolutely no desire to consume it. Everything about it looked - and smelled - disgusting. And yet, the longer I stood there, the more I realized that my legs were too weak to walk away. So I kept standing there and looking around - as though some bird, or some interloper, might possibly stride up and yell, "No! You can't do this!" But no such intervention was forthcoming.
So after a full 20 minutes of wrestling with my inner gag reflex, I finally knelt next to the deceased critter as though it was an alter. I searched my delusional brain for any excuse as to how I could keep walking down the beach. And I could find none. And in a violent flurry of famished anger, I lifted the rotting beast to my face and tore into it like a toddler opening a Christmas gifts.
My hygienic concerns melted away in approximately two-point-three seconds. My entire sense of self exited when I sunk my unbrushed teeth into that poor, dead, bloated pile of rotting sea-flesh. I've never tasted a decaying corpse so sweet. Nor will I ever again.
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