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A Love Letter of a Cannibal


by Fajar Jasmin


Dear Butterfly,

Are you there ? Wherever there is ? Are you there, crossing your feet on top of each other, sipping your coffee while observing the sky from behind those cat-eye glasses of yours ?

3 days, 8 months and 11 years. That's exactly how long since the last time I've seen you. You see, I've been counting. I've been counting my days since I walked out of your door that Sunday evening. And wondering. What happened ? What happened to our warm bubble of lovemaking ? What happened to turn a butterfly back to what it used to be, — an ugly caterpillar ? Reverse metamorphosis ? Unable to find out, I did likewise. I regressed to mankind's most primal existence. I dug deep to its most primitive desire. I feed.

It's been downhill since. Life after you was black. Black. Bleak. Dark. Naked. Torn. I can only see two colors now : Black and Red. And because red is the only bright hue I can see in this otherwise insipid monochrome damned world of mine, I got addicted to it. And because there is nothing redder than blood. The beautiful crimson. Once tasted, forever hooked.

I wonder how does it feel like ? Sitting on the lap of somebody who betrayed your closest one ? Prowling around on the green grass like two carefree children who escaped their mother's vigilant attention ? Basking in the orange rays of Singaporean dusk, I bet treason tasted good then, eh ? You see, what dumbfounded me was, — and constantly is, what was on your mind ? Why would you do such thing ? Broken promises ? Unsung odes ? I searched and searched and searched, until it hit me. It's just a plain, blatant, stinking backstabbing at its most ugliest.

They say fight fire with fire. Would a fire be hot enough to consume the vile stench of what you did ? When you kill someone, the best way to avoid the stinky decomposition fumes is by eating the body. See the logic now ? I do not eat to hide the traces. I feast on the glorious vermillion of blood and meat and eliminates the obnoxious smell at one stroke.

In a way, what I've been doing is searching. I've been searching for that critical point where our universe was bent into an unrecognizable shape. Answers. Reasons. Motives. Explanations. Triggers. Did I start the doomed chain reaction myself ? Was it some involuntary decision of mine that somehow created a different, twisted perception to you ? And searched I did.

Even until I found you myself. Even until I chew on your finger one by one. Even as portions of our limbs are joined together in my grinder to create the most tantalizing and delectable meat paté you've ever had. I won't stop, my dear butterfly. If I can not bend heaven, then I will stir hell for an answer. And before I can do that, I will have to pass the ultimate border of all : death itself. Oh, I'll do it gladly enough. We'll do it together, remember ? I will die asking, slowly, smiling. Looking into diminishing glow of life in your pretty eyes.

P.S. I Love You, don't you forget that
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