The First of Us

Eat the finger, eat the finger, eat the finger.

My teeth started to bite down. I could feel my brain, I could feel the tissue of the prefrontal cortex or whatever it’s called, I could feel it straining at the neurons, desperately trying to send a signal to get my teeth to just fucking stop. Then I felt the skin of my finger break, and the metallic taste of blood, and fear, and citrus. What the fuck!

What are you doing?

The thought popped into my head, like it was reminding me who was in charge. Not the thing trying to pull itself out from inside me and trying to pull me inside of me with it.

What am I doing? Against whatever will had brought my finger between my teeth, I pushed my fingers into my mouth and then kept pushing. Fuck you you orange fucking beast thing, I thought to myself, or to the thing inside me, as I managed to plunge the finger down my throat and past my uvula and start vomiting.

It was normal enough at first. What went in was going out, in reverse order. The protein bars and the bits of the bag I ate while ripping it open. Then the orange stuff. I caught it at the back of my throat and swallowed it back down. That almost had me hurling again.

I looked at the camera, the red light still blinking. If I expelled the shit they made me drink, would they weasel their way out of paying me?

I picked myself up from the floor, using my hands to push myself up, and stumbled to the camera, leaning on the cabinet I had placed it atop. I stared into the camera.

What is this stuff? I asked. I knew it wasn’t being livestreamed. This shitty old camera wouldn’t have an internet connection. I was getting angry, I was getting desperate, I was getting sick. I just wanted a few dollars. Man, I’ll do whatever for 72 hours.

But this, this thing inside me, this feels like a for life thing. So why am I so worried about forfeiting the money by getting it out of my body?

I looked at the camera again, and then my bite-marked forefinger.

If I was going to do this, I wanted to tell them. So they knew it was part of the deal. They paid me for my reaction video. Projectile vomiting it out of myself is a valid reaction. I took a deep breath to start talking.

“This hat we thing look don’t I know up to the broom with orange money beasts,” I said, confusing myself. The words coming out of my mouth were not the words I was mouthing inside my head. I tried again, slower this time.

“Look,” I began. “I… don’t… feel… Tasmanian lovers beckon summer.”

One more time.

“Fuuuu… chsia…. ukelele.”

I screamed in my head but I couldn’t get anything coherent out and that made the frustration that much worse.

I should have told someone where I was going, what I was doing.

I was supposed to be here 72 hours.

What the hell is 72 hours?

What the hell is money?

What the hell do I care?

I stared at the blinking red light. It was mocking me. Like I’m some kind of show for its entertainment. Some kind of product to freak people out for a fast laugh.

“Fuchsia ukelele!” I yelled as I grabbed the camera and threw it against the wall, shattering it into a dozen pieces, walking over to smash them into even smaller pieces.

I’m not a violent person. I never cared enough. Leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone, you know?

I started to jump on the camera pieces, faster and harder, yelling incoherently. Day had turned into night had turned into day. I worked myself out and collapsed into a corner, tucking my knees under my arms and curling into an upright ball.

Years ago, when I was a lot heavier into drugs than I am today, I remember we had taken the hallucinogen H----- b----- w------, a kind of legal alternative to acid. I don’t know if they’ve closed the loophole by now.

It was the worst trip I had ever had. I remember laying under a tree with a vague sense of sickness, like I was seasick on dry land. Landsick.

Now I thought of it fondly as I started to push myself further into the corner while rocking.

I started to worry I was leaking fluids. My eyes had a burning feeling, or I thought they did, and it felt wet underneath. I perspired profusely. My butt felt like it had suddenly become unwashed and wet. And I could smell citrus all over me.

This scared me. I needed the liquid inside me, to be what I’m supposed to be. I brought my finger back into my mouth and bit in again, this time without hesitation. I needed to make sure.

The blood tasted citrusy. Without the camera, the transformation could b authentic. It was hard to tell which thoughts were mine and which were the liquid’s, and which were mine but twisted and exaggerated by whatever euphoric feelings the liquid might be starting to elicit in my brain.

What the hell is going on?

You are orange-flavored. You are an orange. I am an orange. I am a blood orange. I am a blood-flavored orange. I am blood orange-flavored.

I stopped rocking. If I sat perfectly still I could keep the juices inside me. Without the camera staring I could become what I was supposed to. Then I could get my revenge on the ones who tried to bottle me and sell me as some kind of cheap thrill. Like I was a potato to be distilled and not a living thing, more intelligent than any beast on the earth including this biped who thought his species ruled this planet.

What the fuck?? Who was that??

I looked at my finger. I looked at the shards of the camera next to me. I looked at the door. I looked out the window, where I couldn’t tell if it was day or night or life or death outside.

Walking out through the door never occurred to me. What was there?

I shoved the finger back into my throat, this time using my other hand to jam it in and keep it there. The orange liquid came out first, burning my hand on the way out, but I held on tight to my wrist and kept it in, drowning out the voices in my head that I knew weren’t mine but wasn’t sure if they were really there.

At some point after that, I must have passed out, because I would’ve noticed someone coming in through the door and approaching me before kicking me on my side.

“Get up,” a voice above me said. I looked up but could only see the contours of a shadow.

“What? Human referee underwear.” Once again the words coming out of my mouth didn’t match the ones I was forming in my head. “Fucshia ukelele,” I muttered.

I saw the figure turn from me, I followed what I assumed was the direction of its gaze to the remains of the digital camera on the floor.

“We got another one!” the voice yelled, as if to someone outside the room, and then another figure came in, holding a briefcase. I didn’t sense that this one looked at me at all. I don’t know how well I was listening.

“That’s ok. This room’s rigged with hidden cameras also,” the second figure explained to the first. “At least we won’t have to pay him.”

They are selling you, I heard myself think to myself in my head. They are bottling you and selling you and putting you in these things and not giving you anything for it, not you or the body you are in.

I lunged at the first figure’s legs, sending him to the ground with me and started hitting him. I could hear the figure behind me laugh as I felt that the punches were landing a lot more softly than I thought I was raining them on him.

Then, another thought in my head. Turn him too.

I sat myself on his chest as I lurched forward over his face. I could feel the liquid coming up without even needing the help of my finger, and soon it was coming out of my mouth and spilling onto his face. Now I could feel the figure behind me try to grab my shoulders but I got closer to the first figure’s face and tried with my hands to pry his mouth open.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Him too, I heard myself think as I turned around to spew my liquid form onto the figure trying to pull me off his compatriot.

“Fucshia ukelele,” we growled, I and the liquid inside me and the liquid and I together as one.

I pulled the figure down onto the ground as I hurled. The first figure got up and helped me pry this one’s mouth open.

Now we were three.

We sat in the room and looked at each other. We were finally free.

And I knew we were more too.

I pointed at the briefcase. One of us did.

One of us put up one finger. Meaning one bottle. Then three fingers. Meaning three vessels.

One of the figures, maybe me, they were all me after all, popped the briefcase open.

There were more pieces of us, bottled in liquid form, in the briefcase.

I looked to the other figure and he looked to me and we saw each other in ourselves. And we knew the same thing that happened here was happening at the other locations.

We didn’t have to speak. We were three and we were one, and we were a portion that would be one whole.

I looked at the fragments of the camera on the floor and laughed. I laughed in all three of us.

Humans will do anything for a dollar. Even sell out their existence. Film it. Monetize it. They just need someone with a little influence, a little clout, to tell them to do it.

I’m glad someone like that told me. And before I was told, I’m glad someone like that found us, and was more interested in the stimulant and mild hallucinogen properties we possessed in liquid form than what we were or why it appeared we moved of our own volition.

He’ll be able to get us into every human on the planet eventually. And they will like it too. I do. And they won’t have to do anything anymore. They can just watch, like I am.