There wasn’t an accurate term for it.
The condition that he seemed to have been afflicted it since the beginning of time.
Well, technically, it did have a name.
Psychologists that attended to him named it Axis II Personality Disorder or Sociopathy—the utterly sophisticated word that made the condition of severely lacking in any emotions actually sound like something terribly heart-rending.
It made no difference to Charles really, he functioned as well as any other human beings did even without the catch of having any emotions. In fact, he seemed to live better than others—his practicality and methodology were unrestrained by the troubling consciousness that emotions tended to stir, and that, gave him unrivalled performance in his own work compared to others.
But Charles had something that others didn’t.
Something that he believed that God had granted him to replace the lack of emotion that he had made him with.
He could see and feel the lifestory and emotions of the meat that he ate.
It never made much of a difference to him when he was a drooling, toddling child—after all, having a life of a snivelling animal flash constantly before one’s eyes was nothing wonderful to look forward to as a culinary delight.
But what drew him was not the terrible life stories—it was the delicious taste of the emotions that raced through his veins as he sank his teeth repeatedly into the succulent flesh of well cooked meat. It worked like an addictive drug, enticing him to continually and repeatedly sink his teeth into these delicacies like a ravenous dog drooling for a fresh set of meat and bone.
Charles believed that he learnt more about life through the act of sinking his teeth into meat than he had ever learnt from his own parents, or teachers. A sad matter of fact, that never truly affected him.
He was five when succulent meat had been introduced to his plate during dinner as part of their future staple food, and his parents thought that he had fallen into a convulsive fit from the moment he first bit into his first piece of meat.
“What’s that?” He recalled having pointed the plate of offensive flesh amongst the array of vegetable plates that dotted their dinner table.
“Bacon.”
“Meat.” Charles’ parents were indifferent to his question, after all, meat had always been a rare delicacy on their table, considering his mother’s intent on staying vegetarian—at least until Charles’ sibling had started showing problems with the iron in her body.
His nose scrunched at their indifferent answer, shrugging as he reached his tiny slender hands over to the offensive plate, grabbing forcefully a piece of the red meat off the plate.
Charles twirled the meat between his fingers, running his nose along its edges, the salty tinge of the crispy, crushed skin of the bacon under the brutality of his fingers scattering the aroma of oily salt into the warm air.
He placed his tongue lightly on the crushed piece, smacking his lips as a delicious salty flavour scattered itself all over his tongue to the back of his throat.
Whatever this bacon was, it was eatable.
And that itself was enough knowledge for Charles to consume the meaty piece.
The crunch of the crispy skin of the bacon ground to pieces beneath his ivory teeth, the salty flavour of bacon spreading through Charles’ nose and throat just as the first emotion hit him.
A flash of snorting, snivelling pigs in a pen assaulted his vision, and along with that, a strange, ravenous hunger that pounded in the depths of his stomach, screeching for attention, raging its
desire to be filled.
A large dollop of steaming pig food splattered into the trough before him, and Charles buried his face into the steaming slime of food.
Drinking.
Eating.
Snorting.
And repeat.
He had become the pig, and the pig, him.
Charles felt his rheumy eyes stare hatefully at the empty trough, his belly filled with warm slimy food, and yet—he was hungry, and yet, he wanted more.
More.
More.
More!
I want more!
His feet scrabbled against the rubber boots of the caretaker in protest, screaming his indignation and anger in a cacophony of snorting pig noise.
Give. Me. More!
“What’s happening?”
“Get him away! He’s being possessed!”
“Oh, the Lord, the Lord!”
The remnants of the bacon were dug out from the confines of Charles’ drooling mouth, splattering in a massive heap of saliva and soggy bacon out onto the carpeted floor.
He hadn’t eaten a single piece of it.
He had simply chewed the bacon to pieces.
But what a gift such an insignificant piece of meat had brought to him.
Charles’ eyes lit with a strange, insane fire as he stared at the soggy pieces of bacon meat that he had stuffed continuously into his mouth in a frenzied fit.
Whatever this is, I want more of it.
That was the first emotion that had raced through his veins, filling Charles with a strange fire and enlightenment.
Of all the various experiences of his mundane life for the past five years, the first emotion that Charles had finally understood through the life of a snivelling pig was endless greed.
And like the snivelling pig rooting in the trough for more of that tasteless gruel to feed, he wanted more.