Trembling With Fear 03/13/2022

Venison by Adrian Healy

“You are what you eat.” Fred Burke listened to the woman.  She interested him, marginally. She didn’t seem as boring as the others in the office.

“It’s the food, you see. Processed meat. They’re putting all sorts of crap in there now.”

Burke watched as she chewed.  He could see saliva mixing with the avocado in her mouth.  Her teeth weren’t bad. His were worse. Yellow stains. She spoke at length. He wasn’t really listening. How could she not notice that?

“Yes, I Know.” He interjected and nodded his head. Just enough to give the impression he was interested.

“Antibiotics. They’re pumping the animals full of it.  And genetically modified corn.” Her mouth was full of sandwich. Burke was hungry and spooned mushroom soup into his mouth.  She was right. Burke had known that for some time.  He had researched it on the internet by watching some videos.  Big corporations were messing with the food supply.  Trying to poison the human race.  

After lunch he didn’t do much work.  He should eat better food; he made his mind up. At ten past four he left the office and started to walk down Kedzie street.  There was a butchers.  A sign said:

ALL TYPES OF MEAT. ORGANIC. FRESH VENISON.

Venison. That was Deer meat, right? Burke daydreamed. He was a hunter, creeping through some ancient forest.  There! A Deer. Beautiful. The animal chewed peacefully. Sunlight spilled through the forest canopy and illuminated the beast.  He aimed at the animal and cast his spear through the air. 

Burke walked into the butchers.  

“Venison please”, Burke said.

A burly butcher eyed him. “How much?”

“Enough for one”.

Burke watched as the butcher sawed through a hunk of venison.  The butcher wrapped the bloody meat in some white paper and then put the limp package in a plastic bag.

Burke held the bag close to him as he walked down the city street.  A homeless man asked him for some money.  Burke ignored the man.  He was on a different level to the people around him now.  He had quarried his prey like a hunter.  He had defeated the corporations who were trying to turn people into stooges.  And they were everywhere he looked.  He knew by the vacant look in their eyes.  Stooges.

He took the bus.  An attractive lady shifted uncomfortably beside him. There was no smell from the package.  That evening he fried it in olive oil, with mushrooms.  It oozed blood in the frying pan and parts of the slab of meat had a strange greyish colour. He relished it as he ate.  He thought about the noble beast as it had wandered through the forest, wild; free.  He would inherit the Deer spirit now; he would become Deer-like and through him the Deer spirit would become corporeal.  A fair exchange, he thought. He chewed on a piece of broccoli.

In the coming weeks the changes started happening.  He went to see a specialist about the hair growing on the underside of his arm

“Hormonal.” The specialist had said.  “We’re seeing a lot of it these days.  It’s dietary.  Changes in the food. Genetic modification.  The outcomes are, how shall I say; uncertain.”

Burke shaved off the hair.  It didn’t seem like human hair, more like coarse animal hair.  Within a few days he had noticed another patch.  First on his stomach, then on his thigh.  Then the thing with his toenails started.  They became fused together.  He started to walk funny.

“Are you ok Fred, something wrong with your feet?”, a nice lady had asked at work.  

“Fine thanks.  I sprained my ankle.  Playing tennis you see. Part of my healthy lifestyle.”

He had strange dreams.  Running through the forest. Then the things on his head started. Two little lumps at first, right at the top of his head.  He stopped cutting his hair and started wearing a hat at work.  Two women in the office whispered that he was going bald.  One morning he woke up and the growths had spurted out of his skull, each about the same size as his thumb. The hair had spread all over his back and covered his stomach and legs.  His toes had fused together. Then he had to start wearing his wellingtons as he couldn’t fit into shoes anymore.  The woman next door told her daughter on the telephone that Fred Burke had gone crazy.  He was limping around in wellingtons with a plastic bag over his head and his back was hunched over.

He had stopped going to work. They called him on the telephone at home but he couldn’t answer.  He couldn’t speak any more.  He could just make animal grunts and his fingers had begun to fuse together.  One day he looked in the mirror and saw his whole face was changing shape.  Where his nose and mouth were he was growing a large snout.  He knew then, that he was becoming a deer.  

He got in the car and drove toward the woods. He pulled his hood up so no one could see his deer-face.  He passed the butchers where he had bought the meat, but it looked like it had been closed for years. Strange, he thought.

In the woods he was happy, free.  It was good to be out of the office and live in nature.  He mated with the female deer and it felt great.  Then one day he saw something flash in the trees. The bullet hit him straight between the two eyes.  As he died he felt his spirit splitting from the Deer spirit, but he couldn’t remember anything after that.

The hunter who shot him butchered him on the spot, leaving Fred’s antlered head, hooves and innards in situ. That night the fox licked Fred’s bones clean. The hunter sold the meat to a local butcher who had re-opened after being closed for some time. He hung a sign in the window which said:

ALL TYPES OF MEAT. ORGANIC. FRESH VENISON.