Overconsumption

He could almost reach it.

If he stood on the tips of his toes a bit more, he was just tall enough to touch the edge. He could feel the cold ceramic of the plate graze against his rounded fingertips while his extended arm waved back and forth. This isn’t going to work. He thought.

He let the refrigerator door close slowly and turned back to the kitchen. His eyes wandered the dimly lit room aimlessly until he saw it. He edged across the linoleum to the lacquered dining room table Using the light from the glowing clock lost in the microwave interface. He grabbed hold of the back of one of the chairs. It took all his strength to lift it off the floor. It took even more strength to keep it elevated until he was back at the refrigerator.

Once it was positioned perfectly, he climbed atop it and commenced his balancing act. The fridge door was ajar once again, only now he was more than capable of touching the top shelf. He curled his toes trying to create some form of grip between his feet and the slick surface of the chair’s seat. In the low light of the opened refrigerator door, he could finally make out his prize in all its glory.

Encased in a decorative glass dish was the epitome of his favorite dessert. A massive double-layered chocolate lava cake. A low rumble erupted from his stomach. He held his breath and waited for some sign that someone had heard the deep growls he could not control. But no one came. When he was sure his stomach had not given him away, he leaned forward and lifted both hands into the air.

Like a skilled thief in an action flick or even Indiana Jones, he thought he could gracefully take the cake with one swift movement. Despite the cold, he gripped the ceramic plate, it sat upon with each hand and started to lift. But he had underestimated its weight. He felt himself lean forward and overcompensated by tilting all the way back. Soon he was toppling over the chair and onto the floor. The glass clattered to the ground but did not shatter. The cake, however, was not as durable.

He groaned and his stomach complained too. They were both near tears when the sound of footsteps erupted behind him, and light spilled into the kitchen.

“Hubert Olivia Harvey, what the Hell do you think you’re doing!?”

Hubert was lying faceplanted on the ground. His gut rolled out from beneath his Spiderman shirt and recoiled at the touch of the freezing tiled floor. The chocolate cake was splattered out in front of him, destroyed and unsalvageable. He felt his mother’s hand grip his arm and lift him off the ground. She got down on her knees and turned him towards her. Her visage was pained and hopeless.

“Hubert, how could you? I worked all day on your birthday cake. Why couldn’t you wait until tomorrow?”

He could feel the blood rushing towards his face. His eyebrows creased and his lips formed a taught line. He clenched his fists and screamed into his mother’s hurt expression, “I told you I didn’t want to wait!”

Hubert felt his mother’s soft hands caress his arms. Her fingers moved across the rolls of his elbows and attempted to hold his palms in hers. He jerked them away and stomped his foot into the floor. Cake oozed between his toes causing the tears that were welling within to finally overflow.

His mother pulled away and through the tears, he could see that her expression had changed to one of a stern countenance. “Hubert, you know what the doctor says. Now, I let you have dessert after dinner tonight. If it wasn’t for your birthday, I wouldn’t have even made that cake. Apologize and I’ll make you another for tomorrow.”

She lifted a hand to caress his tears away. He slapped it down and stomped his foot once again. “No, make it now! I’m hungry, damn it!”

The slap rang off throughout the empty house. It vibrated in his skull and shook him inside and out. He felt the echo for several seconds until he opened his eyes and saw his mother’s face. She looked regretful, hurt, and despairing. The blood started to rush to his cheek. Her mouth moved to form the words, “I’m sorry.” Before they could, he was already slapping her back.

Her forehead creased and her wrinkles contorted into an expression of shock and despair. She grabbed him by the arm and lifted him off the ground. He writhed and kicked while she carried him down the hall and back to his room.

“I don’t know what to do anymore, Hubert.”

She sounded so desperate, but he did not care. He was still so hungry. He screamed at her attempts to reconcile. She let him down for a moment and he tried to jerk away and run back towards the kitchen. With her free hand, she turned the knob of his bedroom door and thrust him inside. The swirling nightlight of stars and planets near his closet door cast a reassuring glow across the room. But it did not help to calm him now.

His mother had dragged him towards the bed. She got down to his level once again and turned him to face her. She was crying now, too.

“You know what the doctor says, Hubert. You can’t go on like this! I’m just trying to help you.”

He spits in her face. It was a reflex. A jerk in his body. A reaction.

His mother’s complexion turned white and inhumanly pale. She was not crying anymore. She did not seem to be feeling anything in fact. The grip of her hands gradually released, and she stood up. She walked slowly towards the door and opened it to leave. Before exiting the room, she spoke without turning back to face him.

“If I hear you in the kitchen again,” she said, “I’m not making another cake. Go to sleep, Hubert.”

The door closed gently behind her. Hubert stood near his bed for several moments. The blood was rushing around his skull like an ocean at high tide. He struggled to keep his breathing in check until it subsided. There was still cake squishing between his toes.

The hallway was lit now, and he could see the shadow of his mother’s feet in the bottom of the door. They stayed there for several moments. He wanted to scream at her to go away but needed her to think that he was finally going to sleep. After a few more minutes of them standing on either side, willing the other to act, her shadow finally disappeared.

A small chorus of victory bells played in his head. In one fluid movement, he engaged the lock on the handle and turned back towards his bedroom. Hubert followed the glow cast by his plugin nightlight. When he was finally at his closet door, he took a deep breath and turned the knob. Every noise he produced sounded as if an elephant had made them. The door swung open but did not echo or creak as it usually did. Luck was on Hubert’s side after all.

The closet was like an empty chasm. Dark and abyss-like with no seeable end. Hubert got down on his knees and waited for his eyes to adjust and the glow of his nightlight to finally penetrate the blackness within.

At first, all he could make out were shoes. The shoes and toys were piled atop one another to keep his mother’s curious eyes preoccupied and distracted from what lay underneath. Hubert hungrily moved a few feet away until he reached the bottom level of the mass.

Deep in the dark, he could make out what he was looking for. His mouth watered and his stomach rumbled. Piles of discarded food wrappings littered the closet floor. A mix of colors and flavors from past snacks he had stolen away into the night formed a graveyard of litter and plastic.

Candy bars, chip bags, and synthetic wrappings for tiny cakes were everywhere. Hubert hoped that something still had a few bites left inside. He extended his arm into the black and started rummaging around. He felt the sticky residue of wrappers cling to his hand. He pushed through the trash until he was feeling along the carpet of the closet. At one point he felt the stem of a lollipop glued to the flooring. At another, he found a lemon head and quickly popped it into his mouth.

But it was not enough. He drove his hand into the pile again and hoped to come out with something a bit more substantial. That is when he felt it. A tug on his wrist. Like something trying to drag him inside.

Hubert jerked away. He fell back on his hands from the closet door and squinted his eyes until he could make out what was within.

It was barely visible, but it was there. The mass was amorphous and shaking. Pieces of food and wrappers moved and mutated until something humanoid appeared. Two bright red glowing orbs breathed to life and a fruit roll-up spilled from a large opening like a monstrous tongue. Hubert could hear a low roar building in the dark.

He stood so quickly, the chocolate on his foot caused him to slip. He rushed to his bed and climbed inside. Hubert threw his superhero comforter over his head and whimpered uncontrollably. He replayed anything his mother had ever told him about his fears. The dark plays tricks on people. There are not any monsters in the closet. We make up what we cannot see. Then why could he still hear it moving?

He held his breath. The sound of plastic rubbing against each other and bits falling onto the floor was audible over the beats of his heart. He stared into the empty lining of his blanket and waited.

In the void, he could make out footsteps. Not the ones that had been coming from the kitchen while his mother cleaned, but something else. They were heavy. They moved slowly like something that was learning to walk. The crinkling of plastic was in and out while each step brought the being closer and closer to Hubert’s bedside.

He wanted to cry out. To scream for his mother. But he could not make a sound. He was frozen in his bed and in fear. It could not be real, and yet he could smell the fruity and usually calming scent of candy permeating the air.

Soon the low growl was right next to him. It overtook the rumblings of his stomach and filled his ears until he felt they would burst. The blanket was torn away from him in one quick movement, and he finally released a scream.

The two large and glowing eyes were staring at him. They were red jawbreaker lollipops that he had a single bite from before discarding them. A crude mouth extended across the monster’s face to form a malicious grin. Rows of candy corn teeth were sharpened to dangerous points and a massive fruit rollup tongue gave way until it was touching his arm.

In a low and demonic voice, the creature eventually spoke.

“I am hungry.”