Trigger Warning: The content may not be suitable for children or those with a fragile psyche

Maggots

Everything about the house was rotten. The walls of the house were rotten. The furniture inside the house was rotten. The people who lived in the house were rotten. It was a rotten house made up and inhabited by rotten things.

A terrible thought came to me.

Since this house was rotten, and everything inside this house was rotten, did that mean that I too was rotten?

Then another terrible thought came to me.

Since the world was clearly rotten, and this house was essentially rotten, did this house represent the rotten soul of the world?

I shook my head. I shouldn’t be thinking about these things. I was in this rotten house to purchase heroin, not to have strange and useless thoughts.

I looked at Gabby.

Gabby and I had a special bond. Our spirits were painfully intertwined together. No matter what we did, no matter how hard we tried, we would never be able to pull them apart. Gabby had long tangled brown hair which she rarely brushed. She had these large pale eyes which seemed to change color as you looked at them. Gabby had always been very small, but now she somehow seemed smaller than ever before. She was shrinking. This made me worried. If she continued to shrink, she would eventually disappear. Then she would be gone. Then I would have no one to talk to. Then there would be no one left to care about me.

I looked at Dust.

Every time I saw Dust, he looked exactly the same as before. He always had the same freshly shaved bald head which shined in the dull light, and he always wore the same grin which never left his face. His grin was especially disconcerting. Even when he spoke, his grin somehow remained plastered on his face, unchanging. Along with that eternal grin, Dust wore a winter jacket, gloves, and thick pants. No matter the temperature or weather, Dust always wore the same winter clothes. My hypothesis was that all across his skin were hundreds of copies of his ceaseless grin. He wore this uncomfortable winter clothing to hide this ever-repeating grin which covered his body like a horrible patchwork quilt. I could think of no other reason to wear such uncomfortable clothing, even when it was so hot and humid, as it was now, inside this rotten house.

Gabby was in the middle of haggling with Dust. We had brought with us a Blu-ray player, a rare and precious Blu-ray disc, and ten dollars for this purpose. We had hoped to exchange this combination of items for a reasonable quantity of heroin.

The negotiation did not appear to be going well.

Gabby was doing her best to argue for the wonderful value contained in the Blu-ray player and the rare Blu-ray disk. She was explaining how the Blu-ray player was of the highest quality, and that the Blu-ray disk was especially unique, that it was no longer being manufactured.

“The resale value of both could easily be many hundreds of dollars,” she said.

Dust was in turn explaining that he had no use for a Blu-ray player, that he had no use for a rare and precious Blu-ray disc. That these things were worthless to him. What he wanted was money. And money was something which we clearly lacked.

“If these items are so valuable, why don’t you sell them yourselves. You can come back when you get more money,” Dust said.

The pawn shop nearby had recently banned us from ever returning, and the next closest one involved a number of confusing bus lines which ran on an incomprehensible schedule. I was already starting to sweat, and a sickly bile was already beginning to burn the back of my throat.

The pawn shop was out of the question.

“What about just the money? How much can we get for ten dollars?” Gabby asked.

I heard Dust’s metallic laughter. “You can’t get anything for ten dollars. Ten dollars isn’t even worth my time.”

Heroin had been getting more and more expensive, while Gabby and I had been getting less and less money. It was a direct causal link. Surely, if Gabby and I had lots of money, heroin would be incredibly cheap, and we could buy as much heroin as we desired. But if I had lots of money, perhaps I would do something else besides shooting up heroin. Perhaps I would paint huge surrealist paintings which no one would ever buy. Perhaps I would purchase a cabin in an isolated far-off land where I would learn to hunt and fish and make traps out of plants.

But it was no use thinking about these things. I would never have any money, and I would never stop shooting up.

“There’s another way to get the heroin,” Dust was saying.

This “there’s another way,” sounded like it was coming from a great distance, and the words were distorted and muffled, and it took me a long time to understand what they meant.

Dust looked at me, then he looked at Gabby. That awful grin never left his face.

Gabby turned towards me, her glassy eyes suddenly appeared especially sad.

I shrugged. “Go ahead,” I told her.

“Really?” asked Gabby.

“Yes, really.”

She nodded slowly then followed Dust into the other room.

Cold sweat was forming on my brow and dripping onto the floor. I was starting to shake. I wouldn’t make it much longer.

I was completely alone. Dust and Gabby were in the other room, and I was by myself in this rotting living room. But actually, I wasn’t alone. There was Bug. I had forgotten that he even existed until now. Bug was lying unmoving on the single mold covered couch in this decaying room. Bug was barely a person. He was more a piece of furniture, an extension of this rotten house.

I remembered when Bug used to talk. He used to talk constantly. He always talked about the same thing. He talked about when he worked as a concierge at a prestigious hotel. He talked about all the famous and important people he had met. He talked about these people as if their fame and importance had somehow rubbed off on him, as if he too was now a famous and important person just as they were. He used to get this sentimental smile, and his eyes would glaze over when he talked about the hotel. But he didn’t talk anymore. He just stared at the wall with an empty expression on his face.

I noticed that there was a dense cloud of flies circling around Bug. Looking closer, I saw why: across both his lower legs was severe cellulitis which had eaten through his flesh nearly to the bone. Nested inside his exposed flesh were countless maggots.

Transfixed by this sight, I moved closer.

Looking more intently, I saw something strange.

There existed a complex maggot world within Bug’s ruined legs.

I saw maggot schools where maggots went to learn unimportant maggot things. I saw maggot jobs where maggots worked, which left them exhausted and unhappy. I saw maggot graveyards with tiny maggot headstones where maggots were buried after they died. I saw maggot politicians who made sweeping maggot promises which they would never keep. I saw maggot husbands and maggot wives, maggot sons and maggot daughters, maggot sisters and maggot brothers. I watched maggots argue over unimportant things. I watched maggots kill each other over nothing. I watched maggots cry because of the pain in their hearts.

“Hey,” someone was saying.

 I couldn’t look away.

“Hey.” The voice was louder this time. I tore my eyes away from this strange world. It was Gabby. She was shaking my arm.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

---------------

We silently sat under an underpass as I gingerly measured the powder into a burnt spoon. The powder was beautiful. It seemed to glow as I looked at it.

The cars thundered above us.

“I love you,” Gabby said.

And I

Had no idea

What to say

To that

END