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Paul Cadmus. “The Seven Deadly Sins – Glutony.”

“We’re hungry!”, they shout from behind. I barely listen to them, focused as I am trying to trace the next stop for getting some supply and be able to surfeit their demands. The transport rattles a bit, denoting a possible wear because of the extended trip period, with not a single halt since the last departure.
I arrange the empty containers of food consumed on the way and I put them behind the copilot seat, trying not to make visual contact for avoiding to disturb the brief calm that most of the time comes before the next outburst. Those are short and precious moments, so you have to handle them carefully, as a tiny contact lens on a trembling fingertip.
It’s hot. That doesn’t help either. The gear may be overheating and the air conditioning may not outflow properly. I try to concentrate myself in a possible destiny coming into view on the route chart, struggling to keep the wheel steady, without my hands shaking due to the movement of the metal or slipping on due to the sweat of my palms. There, a small inhabited spot placed just…
“Hungryyyy!”, they shriek from behind, thudding upon my seatback. “We’re hungryyyyy!”. The wheel sneaks away from my hands for a second and the vehicle seems to wobble under the complaining shrieks. “We’re about to get there!”, I shout in the most bossy tone I can manage to emit, regaining the machine control. Some minute grim laughs and insidious whispers emerge from behind, but I ignore them. I prefer to stay focused in what I am doing so I get out from that unbearable jam as soon as possible. “Just a few minutes more and you’ll be able to eat all what you want till you blow out.”, I add, seeing how finally the first inhabited place looms in the distance after four torturing trip days.
But they don’t listen to reason when it comes to their belly. “We eat or we eat you!”, they start to humming, “We eat or we eat you, we eat or we eat you…!” Threads of sweat begin to drip down through my face and back at that point. I point out ahead: “There, see? There are people and food, happy?”.
Five minutes after that, we are on ground and I get out of the vehicle to open the door. No sooner I do it, they run out as deranged towards the darkness of a village dimly lit in the distance. Luckily it’s night and we don’t have to wait. In the closed blackness no one is going to see them come, and if we’re even more fortunate no one is going to see them go out either. Neither to me.
I sit waiting inside the vehicle, leaving the window open to enjoy the air in the calm prior to another night of horrors. Except from the stars, no other celestial body disturbs the beauty of this glaced sky. I listen in the remoteness the first rumor of alert, a ludicrous siren that hardly can be heard from here. Then the shootings, the explosions and the screams. While everything happens, I look for something to eat among the provisions that are left. Not many, but it should be enough to reach the next inhabited world that, according to the chart, would be located about two or three days away. I hope it will be two, not three, because they are so voracious that after a day they are hungry again.
The most distant screams start to decrease. Instead, I perceive desperate runs and frenzied howls in the proximities of the vehicle. Someone must have seen the light of the transport and thought to be safe. Useless, of course. I put my headphones on and play some music for not to hear them tearing and swallowing as their prey still bawls among their jaws.
Half an hour later everything is quiet again. Just faint blasts fading away and a dark cloud of smoke distilling from the village. The stars look blurry and there is a burnt smell. I hear them getting in grunting satisfied and I get out to close the door behind. That’s it. Time to keep on searching as long as life lasts, hoping that their we eat or we eat you never becomes real.