Seeks Position after Final Meal with Friend | Mandy-Suzanne Wong | The...

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ANTHOLOGY

ISSUE 65 | LEATHER | JUN 2016

You probably dont get many applicants from Japan. In accordance with your Diversity
Statement, I should think youd welcome some. For talents like mine, Japan is the sensible place
to look. Ambiguity--as in being more than one thing and none of them--is the essence of
everyday conversation around here. So is a deep sense that the world is weirder than it looks.
My point is, being Japanese has enabled me to nurture just the kind of talent your organization
seeks. Anti-immigration laws wont be a problem since Ill live not in Florida but beside it.
But youre probably wondering why Id leave Japan if its so perfect.
The truth is a friend of mine died recently. In classic novels, people often travel after that
happens.
Which brings me to the key question on your application form. Why do I believe myself
uniquely suited to your organization in the capacity in which Im applying?
First of all, Hannibal the Cannibal, the role for which I hope Hauntington Beach Theme Park
will grant me an audition, is like myself a cultured mind, well-versed in classic literature, art,
philosophy, &c. You must admit few Floridians are well-read or well-spoken. Local applicants
are thus unlikely to be suitable. But I, having studied human intellectual pursuits, can guarantee
your guests appropriate, spontaneous, stimulating banter.
I can even do the Hmmm?. Youll agree this is the hardest aspect of the role. My experiments
indicate that a Hannibal Hmmm? originates at the bottom of the gut, winds its way upward
through the intestinal coils to a suitably lowered diaphragm, up and up through the chest into
the vocal chamber, quitting the body through the mouth in a spiraling motion. This requires
strong, malleable intestines that connect with non-digestive systems in practical ways.
Simply put: Ive got the guts you need. I can Hmmm? with incontrovertible precision. Im
also an experienced man-digester.
If youll permit, I can envisage your objections.
You must be thinking, first of all: But she ticked female.
Well, yes. I couldve chosen male. Ive sometimes had occasion to do so. For all intents, it

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wouldnt have been any less true. In fact, it mightve been more accurate to leave both boxes
blank. But on this type of form, blank boxes look like carelessness. I wouldnt want you to think
that.
Id also discourage you from thinking of me as female-identified, although I was born female.
Itd be equally misleading, not to mention gauche, to think of me as snail-identified, though I
was born a snail. To do so would be to deny my long history, which wouldnt be fair. The whole
notion of identity really has no meaning for me anymore. As Hannibal likes to say, you cant
reduce me to quantities.
Moving on, I imagine youre concerned about the Home Address I specified.
Pacific Ocean
Off Shima Peninsula
Japan
Thats my birthplace. And I would opt for oceanic accommodations near Florida. But I recently
spent time in a house on top of Shima Peninsula, so Im good at navigating human dwellings
and communities. Im more than proficient with the ambulatory limbs appropriate to theme
parks.
Finally, youll notice the + I added to the Age box, as in 30+.
Age doesnt really mean anything for me either. However, Im fairly confident that Im at least
thirty years old by human reckonings. Thats because legends say that sazae-snails transform
into sazae-oni at the age of thirty. Except when they say it happens at the age of 100.
The measurement of time is of little interest to a marine gastropod unless youre fleeing a
predator, in which case all you care about is getting away in less time than it takes him to catch
up. I know I ate a lot of algae early in life, spawned countless generations, and had a knack for
avoiding predators.
At the whiff of starfish in my tentacles, Id be out of there faster than a high-jumper on a pogo
stick. Have you ever seen a snail rocketing towards the stratosphere on her own power? Thats
not something youd expect. Starfish never do.
But there are lots of predators out there. Stingrays, octopuses, crabs. The women divers, or ama,
who eat us raw or grill us roadside...
In short, if you want someone ready for adventure, you really couldnt do better than a snail.
When you think about it, its pretty amazing for a ten-centimeter mollusk to make it to the age
of thirty (or 100).
I didnt think about it much. I was too busy surviving to realize what an accomplishment it was.
I wasnt, in my early days, what youd call an intellectual. I was content to slide one-footedly
along, make mucus, nap, and build my shell.
Incidentally, my shell is very fine. Black with several whorls, a pointy spire. Cunning
protuberances with defensive capabilities and pinkish bits. A lovely pearlescent front door.
But when I reached the age of thirty (or 100), something happened. Something I cant explain. I
cant even be sure if it was a gradual change or an instantaneous mutation. Part of it was that I
started acquiring concepts. I learned to understand and make myself understood by the majority
of species in a way that did and didnt have to do with language.
I do know that what happened had to do with kami. Secret forces in the ocean, the oxygen, sand,
and everything, and the ambiguous meaning of Being.
I began to feel these forces in me and around me. One day, I realized I could use them to
change myself. I didnt have to be who I was.
Just as when I caught my very first whiff of starfish, I instantly knew I had to leap away,
sometime after I turned thirty, I knew I could be a sea-bass.

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Next time a starfish refused to get the message, I became a bigger starfish and ate the bugger.
And the world started getting weird.
Things werent as solid as they once seemed. Especially me. Although in every moment I was
still myself, a little sazae-snail, I also wasnt a snail when I was an octopus.
I came to understand my predators intimately. I got into their heads and bellies without having
to get eaten first. When I was a starfish, I knew why snails were tasty. Metaphysical conundrums
and existential crises abounded.
Still, I liked my powers. You want someone with a supple sense of fun, look no further. I was
even accused of getting carried away hunting my hunters.
When youve eked out an existence at the bottom of the food chain for perhaps 100 years,
helplessness gets old. Leaping for your life, unable to hit back because youre just a few
centimeters long and made of ooze, wears on the nerves.
Especially where humans are concerned.
For millennia, the ama have ransacked decent homes, demolishing entire underwater
neighborhoods, in search of tasty sea-creatures. Thousands of my relatives grilled alive by a
gill-less, finless species.
Maybe youve heard the legend. A sazae-oni turns into a drowning woman whos rescued by
pirates, invites them to gang-rape her and eats their testicles. Later--somehow they
survive--she returns said testicles in exchange for pirate-gold.
Not how it happened. I didnt give them back. Having spent time as a shark (male), Id learned
how yummy sweetmeats are.
The shark thing wasnt worth repeating. Sharks move constantly or they go funny in the head.
No stopping to smell the seaweed. No attaching yourself to cozy rocks.
But the woman bit Id do again. For someone whos never touched her sexual partners,
gang-rape was rather interesting. Besides, my human predators were all women. As part of my
hunter-hunting program--I didnt know yet it was a program--I climbed on the peninsula and
ambled through a fishing village.
It was there I met my friend. The one who died.
I hope you wont mind if I backtrack a little.
Shortly before I became an oni, an ama picked me up. I was a great-great-grandma many times
over. I was certain that the painful deaths of my descendants had begun precisely with ama
picking them up. I hadnt lived to be a great-great-grandma just to go out like that.
Against all my instincts, I thrust out my foot as far it would go, made my oozy bits as large as
possible, lashed out with my tentacles, and attempted to slam the attacker with my spines.
She gave a start, blew bubbles.
Nobody expects resistance from snails.
She put me down. Even bowed. And left me alone.
Leaving things alone isnt what humans do. So this ama stuck in my mind.
Years later, I ran into her again when I tried being a woman on Shima Peninsula. She was
walking on a sidewalk. She bowed in greeting to someone.
I remembered that bow. Remembrances from my snail-only days strike hard.
It was a stiff, one-sided bow. For she was an old gal, like me.

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I of course looked nothing like the way Id looked before. Yet she knew me at a glance. This had
to do with those bizarre forces. And with her being an ama. Ama dont scuba-dive. They breathe
like dolphins, trusting themselves to the ocean. Vulnerable, like me.
She had books in her house. She was a connoisseur of classic literature, art, &c. I devoured it all.
We discussed everything. If she were alive today, shed confirm my friendly, entertaining people
skills.
I slept in my shell at sea. Being human made the world weirder.
It was in human form, for instance, that I learned my hunter-hunting was revenge. This
concept had connotations that made my ama-friend think there was something wrong with my
program.
Well, I disagreed. Its only eating. Her problem was that humans have too many concepts.
We both became indignant. Confused. Our excess of concepts obscured how ambiguous beings
fit into the world.
You mayve heard the legend. An oni comes out of the sea with sazae-tentacles, extra-extralarge. Her heads a beautiful black shell with pinky bits. Instead of hair, she has more tentacles.
Instead of hands, claws. (Everybodys claws come out when theyre confused enough to get
angry.) Lower parts like a Western mermaids but more oozy. She sneaks up on fishermen and
divers, throttles them boa-constrictor-style with malleable guts, and eats them raw.
I made up that shape. My ama-buddy hated it. Eating humans is wrong, she said.
I said, Predators have predators too. Its nothing personal. Even though it feels like it when
someone rips you off your rock.
I still cant pretend to understand her argument. I cant offer any rationale for it except this, and
its a guess: she couldnt see past the end of her non-retractable digits because she thought she
was the same shape day in, day out.
I can assure you that she wasnt. I looked like a snail for at least thirty years, once Id grown my
shell. She, on the other hand, did not look like an ama either in her first thirty years or in her
last. Ive seen photographs. Its also clear from how her grandchildren conduct themselves that
she wouldnt have to stay Japanese-identified, female-identified, or omnivore-identified if
she didnt want to. But she preferred to forget that, I think. Just as she forgot that Im not
human-identified.
Even if I was, I pointed out, starfish eat starfish. She said they wouldnt if they knew better--in
other words, if they werent starfish. Since tautology is not exactly fertile ground for discussion,
I gave up on that angle.
Anyway, this argument of hers boiled down to: humans are better than other people, therefore
killing humans is an affront to everyone.
This argument is flawed from the very first clause. Humans have concepts for what they do yet
they do it anyway. Better just isnt the word for that.
Even so, I tried to understand her point of view.
Youll appreciate that I really didnt have to do that. It wasnt like she offered me any such
courtesy.
What you mean is, I offered, humans have the wherewithal to do anything whatsoever to
anybody, not to mention the chutzpah. Ergo any human-hunter must have serious...well, guts.
She said that wasnt what she meant. She called me a monster. Ill never understand it. She said I
was a monster and my program was monstrous.
Thats why I figure you need a Hannibal the Cannibal at Hauntington Beach.

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Our friendship ended. She said Id merely used her to learn the habits of my prey. This was
hurtful and unfair. When we felt munchy at her house, we had chocolate. I liked it.
I didnt see her for a while. Neither in the ocean nor beside it. Then one day I spotted her on the
beach.
She stared out to sea. Waiting for something.
I offered assistance for old times sake. She sat in the shallows with all her clothes on.
She said the cells inside her were eating each other. She wouldnt survive it. Shed suffer terribly,
possibly for a long time, until she died in agony.
It was a while before I understood what she wanted.
She said, It has to be you because you wont feel anything.
She meant death-by-monster was better than being eaten by presumably blameless cells or, if
you like, devouring herself.
I spared her having to say it. I gave her what she wanted.
After that, I felt like traveling. Which goes to show, maybe, something.
This might be more than you needed to know. Its difficult to stop certain things once they get
going.
Anyway, although Im well-suited to Hannibal, Im willing to consider other roles as well.
Smaug or Carrie, for example. You should now have a comprehensive picture of my abilities
and my eagerness to satisfy every desire of your human guests. I can say with confidence that
my innate hospitability, unique level of experience, and all-around flexibility will make me a
peerless addition to Team Hauntington Beach.

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