Bob van Beek
Self-hygiene had never been one of Friedrich’s strengths. This fact is most readily apparent in his oral region, which, though never exactly rotting, had seldom received the careful attention of fruit, brush, and toothpaste it deserves. Being a particularly nervous individual, long given to nail biting, knuckle popping, scalp itching, and the like, it was only natural that Friedrich periodically engaged in inner mouth aggravation, too. This being so, my successful occupation of his orifice appeared all but certain.
I came to be in a lower pocket cuddled up to Friedrich’s foremost right molar. His bite had slipped on a difficult puck of pig’s belly, resulting in a small abrasion to his mouth flesh; an opportunity had presented itself. Though not the first of my species to grace Friedrich’s inner tissue, the scene was clear in my conception, in dire need of an afflicting presence.
To appear inconspicuous, however, I lay quiet for some days, resisting my delicious instincts to surface and fester. My host’s numerous neurotic habits kept him well occupied, while I, quite unbeknownst, sneakily plundered whatever deposits of subsurface filth were nearest to me. I utilised this bacterial force for my own pestilent needs, and thus strengthened, birthed myself into the arena of Friedrich’s anatomy: a pallid wee node, squidgy, semicircular, tastily inflamed.
Ah, the beauty of life!; of self-born existence!
And the prospect of growth!; prosperity!; dominion!
There is really nothing like the oral atmosphere’s opening taste: one senses infinite possibility in the warm wet must of first release.
I will never forget the initial nibble Friedrich made at me. First came an inquisitive prod from his tongue, clumsily assessing my shape and nature. Then, a sucked-in cheek, hovering jaws, pressure, sink, pinch, and ah: mutilation. Well done, old boy. Delightful to make your acquaintance.
Friedrich is a fidgety operator, always busy with his own body. If it aligns with his frenetic outward compulsions, I believe this man’s mind must function at a truly hectic frequency; he picks and shreds, pulls and itches himself with ferocious tempo,all the waking day. There is no sense to such practice, unless one’s object be plain self-damage. Man is an organism of very crude design.
Needless to say, that introductory nibble was followed by a manic barrage of bites and tears. Though I was at first pursued with awareness, my provocation soon became an unthinking habit, an automatic activity. Friedrich simply could not resist me, whether he realised it or not.
And so, as it is my nature to swell under trauma, to feed on aggravation, I grew. My, did I grow. I soon morphed from a mere speck into a lumpy sort of disc, my skin toughening, roots burrowing deeper. I felt my pure white hide acquire a layer of surface-gristle, making a play at better ‘resisting’ his attacks – a reliable strategy for further provocation. With no obstacles to my campaign, my borders, sorely pink under ceaseless stress, claimed new territory at an exponential rate. No longer was I a meagre single sore, but a united force of infection. Within days I possessed the entirety of his inner cheek and soon endeavoured to cross over to the other, bridging both his upper and lower lip. These extensions connected, and in time I established a secondary base neighbouring his left lateral incisor, where I gorged myself on a virgin plain of the dirtiest bacteria I’d yet encountered; an untouched bounty, ripe for pestiferous picking.
I began to itch – a great achievement. For my kind, itching is a state of sensuous ecstasy, a tender, shivering effulgence of the flesh. It is to reap the sweetly sparkling harvest of our corruptive labour; to drink the nectar of the septic divine. When we itch we feel truly alive.
And where there is an itch, there is a responsive scratch. Friedrich started to suck in both his cheeks at once, his teeth ripping at me with unabashed violence, trying to relieve the unrelievable. Wounds formed. I bled, often profusely, and I relished the gore, the utter mayhem of my spawn. His teeth stained bitter crimson; I gushed rivers of pain from every corner, a serious obstruction to speech and food. Soon no spot of tissue lay uncontaminated.
I would like to clarify that, in my dealings with his orifice, I bore no ill will toward Friedrich. I do not believe he is a bad person, deserving of grief and anguish. I have no specific feelings toward him whatsoever. In my habitation of and proliferance throughout his mouth, I was only abiding by my fundamental nature. My instincts impel me to provoke, spread and putrefy: it is not malice that makes me act this way. I of course experienced intense pleasure throughout my crusade, but I must let it be known that it was not hedonism that drove me: rather, it was basic microbial necessity. Pleasure was merely a happy byproduct of this.
My occupation absolute, I relaxed, idly allowing total infection to take its course. I wondered why my predecessors had failed to stage an invasion so triumphant as my own. His flesh bore small traces of their presence, but none attested to exceptional severity. This struck me as rather remarkable, for, as I noted, the general state of this man’s mouth and temperament were simply ideal for the burgeoning of my species. It hardly required any effort of my own to conquer the area – patience and a lick of modest strategizing, yes, but really little else.
Could I have merely emerged in the right place, at the right time? Had sheer luck afforded me victory?
What of my will, I thought, my contrivance? I am certain I acted with purpose throughout my campaign, according to my own intelligence, my personal nature. My path to grandeur had not been ambled along in ignorance – I was no blind vessel, passive to the flow of time — for I had thought, waited, schemed!; I had acted freely, of my own volition!
But then what of those before me? Had not they believed the same? Had not they too employed conscious reason in their contamination? And yet, they had all perished. What force had elected their expiry, and negated my own? What had decided my ascendancy?
Could it be that mere happenstance dictates the prosperity of my kind? Can our fates truly stand on so slight a footing?
I mulled over such thoughts for many days. Again and again I reconfigured the same propositions in my mind, desperate for any intimation of certainty. I felt sure that the truth was hidden somewhere deep in my own being. I only needed to find it.
Would I have done so? Was I capable of such a thing?
Now I will never know.
For the Universe revealed its truth to me. It frightened in a sudden blaze of light. My kingdom stung under cruel exposure; the white shine of final understanding, the white shine of my demise. Friedrich had consulted a medical professional.
I had little considered this eventuality; I had grown superior in my supposed triumph, had lost my humility. I had underestimated Friedrich – and now I was laid bare to the examining torch, that insensitive weapon: knowledge, health.
The slim pride I felt in the recognition of my own virulence brought me little comfort against what followed. My armour of scumming wounds was pierced in four places with icy injections. Astringent antibiotic doom coursed through me, down to my deepest chambers. My bacteria production failed; I throbbed in sterile agony. The end had come.
Friedrich was prescribed a host of medicines, and at length their daily consumption castrated me completely. I lost my precious itch. My bloody holes healed. My icky gristle softened to benign fat, and eventually dissolved entirely. With no power to resist, I lost all my territory, dwindling to a miserable spot of matter, a tiny, harmless nub facing his upper gum.
I now see freedom as the fatuous illusion it really is. The inevitability of fate has been revealed to me. There is no hope in its blinding shine: only deception, and death. I realise now that I am no different from the faint marks of the past. Soon I too will be but a whisper of defeat.
