The purpose is not necessarily clear to him, it's a compulsion, not an indulgence. The pain awakens him to the idea that he is still alive, although so many around him have gone and died. His mother and sister dead in a car wreck; his father dead of alcohol abuse; his aunt and uncle and little cousins incinerated against the World Trade Center ... dead. All of them dead.

He'd never been all that close to his family, but to have all of them stripped from him within two years of each other ... it was a lot of pressure. He didn't like his friends, and his job cutting and pasting in the bullpen at Harris and Pure Advertising was hardly any way for him to be able to purge his remorse.

Still, it was good to have the work, even if it didn't mean anything to him in the end. He'd always been a good boy -- decent grades, not unpopular, not great with people, but social enough. He'd never fit into any cliques, but he did enjoy the alternative scene. The problem was his was a life without joy, without engagement. He shuffled along, day to day, fulfilling a role that seemed to be cast for him from the dawn of time.

He'd had a girlfriend, but after 9.11 the two of them started fighting more often than not. He never knew if he loved her, so he told her to take a walk. It was more headache than pleasure, and he'd always believed that no relationship was better than a crappy one.

Since then it had been all cigarettes, the occasional Asian Escort, and lots of Hungry Man dinners. He liked the turkey with that cranberry and apple thing the best. Within the last year or so, he just began to wonder what he tasted like, and the cutting began.

And it was good at first, sort of helped him to feel, like Trent Reznor talked about ... and later Johnny Cash. He was careful not to cut too deep, for he knew that with his limited understanding of the human physiology he could fuck up his masturbating arm, and that wouldn't be of any benefit whatsoever.

After he would do the cutting, he would give himself a few days to heal up, then pull off the scabbing and, at first, throw them out. But then part of him rationalized that those scabs were just a part of himself, so why couldn't they serve ... his appetite? He began to eat those encrusted bits of flesh after about the second week, and that is when his addiction set in.

He began to believe that this was the way to get to understand himself in a world that no longer made any sense to him, and it was good.

About two weeks later, his "special place" on his arm began to thicken, and become more resilient to his attentions, and he began to wonder about the flesh itself ... the soft, white flesh itself.

It took him some nerve to think about cutting himself to that degree, but what could it hurt?

He made a shallow V-cut, about the length of his index finger, and gently pulled the flesh away from his muscle. He had to cut it twice, scoring it once, making sure that he didn't cut too deep, then cut the flesh away from his body. He placed the thin strip of his own meat on a small plate, and, quick as he could, wrapped his arm with a length of gauze. He was bleeding profusely, but he was far from faint or nauseous. The gauze was soaked, and he was sure his scar would be magnificent.

The blood letting did make him a bit heady, and he stared for a long while at the thin strip of himself lying on the black saucer before him.

No time like the present, he thought. He reached for it. It was limp, soaked in his dark, hot blood. The pain in his arm was starting to warm up, to throb in time with his heart.

He plucked the piece off the plate, it struck him that it looked like a gummy worm. He knew it wouldn't taste like that. He wondered what the taste would be ... would it awaken all his senses, or just be sort of bland?

In the end, he was disappointed. It was bland, and sort of rubbery. All that work for an anti-climax, typical, he thought.

He could not cut again from that arm, not until the healing had settled in a bit.

Then he started eyeballing his right shoulder.

It would take more skill with his less proficient hand, but there was fresh meat there that could be cooked, and wouldn't that be a treat?

Mmmmmmmmmmmm ....

Yes, indeedily-doo-dah-day, it would. Yes, it would. After all, he wasn't hurting anyone but himself.

Then he started thinking about his legs. If he shaved down his thigh a bit, he could pull off a nice shank from there, couldn't he? He considered that the loss of blood might be having an effect on him, but he'd been careful not to cut too deep, hadn't he? Blood was seeping from the hem of his bandage.

Maybe he didn't have to do this all at once? Maybe he could take his time, allow himself to heal up first ... but his compulsion was getting the better of him. It was something he felt he needed, much more so than he initially wanted. That sliver had tainted him, and, on top of being a disappointment, had whetted his appetite for more of ... himself.

"I'm never going to be able to stop thinking about this," he said to no one.

He reached up and grabbed his gauze bandage, he squeezed the wound a bit. It fucking hurt. A lot. The injury went into double-time, wickedly syncopated against his heartbeat.

"Why did I do this?"

He didn't care that he was talking to himself, wasn't the first time.

But it was the first time he had a real issue to discuss, not just bitching at the television or chiding himself for misplacing his keys.

He wished he'd gotten a dog after everyone had gone so he could shave it, then eat it ... fuck its corpse.

Maybe he should have gotten out of the house more often, so he could have met a girl, someone else to help him while away the hours ... and, maybe, who could have helped him cut his other arm.

He hadn't stopped bleeding, at least an hour or so had gone by. One slow, black rivulet ran from the gauze, straight down the length of his upper arm, right to his elbow where it diverged and ran over the top of the bone there ... or was that the bottom? It all depended on which way he held his arm, didn't it?

Upper elbow, lower elbow ... weird.

The blood ran back the other way when he held his arm up ... at about seventy-five percent of what he would have been capable of hadn't he cut out the wedge of flesh from up there ... which hadn't stopped with the bleeding.

He used his finger like a squeegee to wipe up the gore.

It was delicious.

The blood was better than the meat.

But, he supposed, the real miracle of meat came when attention was paid to it.

He wasn't an animal, after all, his species had conquered fire specifically for the cause of cooking his meat.

They hadn't known it at the time, but, oh! What a favor his ancestors had done for him. It would be so wonderful when he finally tried himself ... marinated, spiced, browned in a skillet.

That wouldn't be a let down, he was sure of that.

If only his wound would stop bleeding ... and itching.

Now, really, that would become annoying after a while.

The bleeding was one thing, that would eventually coagulate or drain him, but the itching was just flavorful frustration.

He was tempted to rip off the gauze.

That might not be a bad idea ... if he could lick off some of the imminent infection that might be able to stave off the aggravation of the itching by itself.

Or so he rationalized.

His mind pitched back and forth on what he'd done, what he was doing, what he wanted to do ... back and forth, back and forth, such a confusing jumble.

Maybe if he just took a look at the thing, just to see it, just to try to understand why it wanted his attention so much by bleeding and itching and throbbing and screaming ....

"Oh my fucking God, why did I do this?"

He picked up his shiny new mat knife and bisected the hem of the blood-wet gauze right where he was bleeding to death. He worked the blade up through the gauze, careful not to maim his mauling. He made it about three quarters of the way up the bandage, and was able to pull apart the rest of it.

He was not necessarily surprised by what he found, but the blood loss had dulled his senses.

What had grown, instead of a scab, was an ugly little mouth.

Not a proper mouth, by any means, but a thin gum-line was forming, with little razor nubs of thresher shark-like teeth, and he could see where his musculature was beginning to divide in order to form a gullet. It by no means showed any sort of lips, other than the swollen flesh of his razor cuts. It was filthy, and flecked, and blackened with his blood, and, rather than drool, it bled, which led him to the obvious conclusion that, unless he started to indulge this thing, he would not be long for this world.

He took a moment to caress its ... lips, and its little gums tried to close on his fingers, its lips embraced his index knuckle like a newborn learning its mother's tit. It was a vile exploration on both their parts, and Rob was rather disoriented from his drooling bloodstream. He was uncertain where this malformed entity would lead him, but, he realized, at least I have a friend.