Canibalism

“Where do you live?” He asked as if the question of had just occurred to him. The clerk peered down at them from his lofty perch above the register, examining them like little green men with gigantic eyes. Aislyn was still slick with sweat under a conservative dress, messy red hair dark with perspiration. Ed’s tie now hung limply around her neck. His shirt was half untucked with sleeves rolled. They looked like they’d been fucking for hours in the back of his car—two horny yuppies with no place else to go.

Aislyn laughed. “Everywhere and nowhere.”

“If I wanted to write you a letter, where would I send it?”

“Don’t write. I only check my mail once a month. But the UPS man delivers my packages to Lake City, Colorado.” Aislyn paused, downing half a bottle of Gatorade. “Middle of nowhere. Elevation almost 9,000 feet. Paradise.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You know that big Victorian by the high school.”

“Isn’t that where—“

“Yeah,” Aislyn cut him off before he could voice or put words to a nightmare. “My house looks a lot like that and there’s a small, twelve unit, motor court motel attached. I run the motel, paint in the early morning, and I’m thinking about buying a bar.”

“Why have I heard of Lake City?”

“Alfred Packer.”

“Who?”

“Third most infamous cannibal behind George Donner and Hannibal Lector.”

“So are the other two,” She said with such confidence as if this were an irrefutable fact.

“What?”

“As far as I’m concerned, cannibalism is fiction. It is against nature for humans to consume flesh, let alone human flesh.”

“Even when faced with starvation?”

“If faced with certain death would you kill, filet, and roast your assistant.”

Edwin’s countenance contorted into a look of pure disgust and rage at even considering the thought.

“Your repulsion and socially constructed view of right and wrong have saved thousands from the spit. Think of how many people have died in the arms of their lover or best friend as they froze to death next to a dying fire.”

“So how do you suppose the cannibalism myth get started?”

“That’s a story for another day.”