Silk

My captors shovelled silkworms into my mouth.

Photo by Julissa Santana on Unsplash

Day 4 of 100 stories in 100 days. I didn’t have much energy today so it’s short - but not sweet!

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My captors shovelled silkworms into my mouth. These new inhabitants rearranged my innards, discarding what they saw as unnecessary. First went my kidneys, sliming up out of my throat. Next went all the needless bones in my hands and feet, thrown up like a perverse game of knucklebones, my appendages rendered flaccid and useless. The silkworms then dismantled my veins and replaced them with passageways to further their production. It tickled.

When my captors cut my palm I bled silk thread. My limp body was transported to the factory so my new blood could be fed into the machines. I was just one in a long row of producers, sat day and night each in our own flesh prison, listening to the whirring of our memories made solid.

It was our memories that made each silk producer different, and thus brandable. There was Backpacking Idealist Silk, Charming Iconoclast Silk, Expressive Artist Silk. Socialites and entrepreneurs would wear whatever imbued them with a sense of purpose. My own brand of Quiet Bohemian dipped in and out of fashion.

I knew something was wrong when my silk turned red. My captors performed some tests and discovered my colony was dying. I was a bad host, they said. They had to move the survivors to a more hospitable environment.

They opened up my chest, and I watched them pluck out the silkworms and moths with tweezers. Their next host sat opposite me, a funnel thrust down their throat to ease the transition. As the last wisp of my energy fled my body, my captors promised me my clothing line would shoot up in value. It was now limited edition.