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I couldn’t stop.  No-one could.  We just woke up this way, part of the ‘hungry world’.

Someone said it was a curse that some warlock had made out of anger, spite or just to test his power.  Others said it had been in the drinking water for years, a slow release experiment that had suddenly flowered, full blown. Others said again that the world is a consuming machine and we had finally ‘got with the program’. Lastly, some held that aliens had invaded overnight and infected us.

Really, no-one knew.  I certainly didn’t. I just couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop eating.

Usually my breakfast satisfied me to mid morning at least.  Usually, if I am good, I’d get a coffee and some low calorie snacks then.  Sometimes, when I was less good, I might get a muffin.  Usually when I was hormonal…

But I wasn’t hormonal this morning and breakfast wasn’t enough.  I started eating everything in the fridge, everything I could reach.  Even things up the back that had a dodgy expiry date.  Then the cupboards, opening cans of vegetables and eating them uncooked.  The taste didn’t seem to matter.  I just had to consume.

Once I’d finished everything even vaguely edible in the flat I had to venture out.  It was only then I saw everyone else, emerging from homes, and racing down the street to haunt the convenience store like ravening beasts.

I wasn’t alone, and it was only seeing this that made me realise how odd it was.  I hadn’t even thought about it while I consumed,  I’d been totally gluttonous, unthinking, on auto pilot.

And so was everyone else. So in between eating whatever we could find, and fighting over whatever was left, we exchanged theories.  Wild eyed, terrified theories because now we were all feeling sick, like we might burst.

But we can’t stop.  We just can’t stop….

(c) Helen M Valentina 2016