Chapter 4

I’m three years old.

I’m cleaning pots and pans in the kitchen back behind the bar. Nobody asked me to do it, but less people get food poisoning now than they used to before I introduced this novel concept, so the owner lets me continue cleaning them. It gives me a greater opportunity to eat scraps, my sole sustenance these days. Mother doesn’t share her food, and neither do the other whores. The owner of this shite establishment, a chubby man with a shaved head and a sour disposition that goes by the name of Jeck, laughed in my face when I asked for something to eat. “You can have a meal when you can pay for it, same as any other son of a whore that walks into my place,” he’d guffawed.

The name of this particular brothel/bar is ‘Smudge’s Bar.’ The titular Smudge was Jeck’s grandfather who had died and left it to Jeck. Or Jeck may have stolen it after he killed his brother and left his body in the woods for monsters and animals to eat. Depends who was telling the story. Jeck maintains he got the bar legitimately through inheritance after his brother fucked off to who knows where. Anybody else makes sure to mention how much Smudge hated Jeck and doted on Jeck’s elder brother, but nobody seems to care enough to make a big deal out of it. It’s more of a running joke that pisses Jeck off, which seems to be why people mention it.

Jeck sells a dozen or so apples a week, so I can often find the odd apple core in the trash heap out back or in one of the bar’s garbage pails. That’s about as good as it gets food- wise for me. I know the face of every regular that comes in that might not finish all their food. Usually because Jeck’s cooking is too gross for them to stomach. But I will eat fucking anything these days, so I politely clear people’s dishes when they seem to be done eating and help myself to their leftovers when I get back to the kitchen. Consequently, I’ve found myself sick quite often. Regularly giving myself inadvertent food poisoning has given me a good nose for whether or not something is ultimately edible or too rotten to stomach, and I mean that literally. I can tell with a single sniff whether something will ultimately make me ill or not. I’m a bit proud of my newfound ability and make use of it regularly. I can’t scrounge for food if I’m sick, so staying healthy, or as healthy as possible, is paramount to my survival.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

One time I found myself so hungry that I tried digging up the ground out back of the brothel in an attempt to get my hands on some worms, but there didn’t seem to be any. No idea what’s up with that. Maybe it’s the wrong kind of dirt? Or maybe they don’t like the taste of dirt that’s been near Jeck’s cooking. Wouldn't blame them, it’s pretty foul. I offered to help with the cooking, but Jeck rightfully told me I’d just steal food. Apparently the whores have tried this approach in the past and ruined it for me. I absolutely believe it, but it still sucks.

At least I don’t seem to be starving to death lately. I’m still constantly hungry, but at this point hunger is an old friend who is always there for me. It probably helps that I’m so small for my age that I can make do with less food while keeping body and soul together. I was a big dude in my past life so it’s somewhat refreshing to be able to make it through a day on only a couple of mouthfuls of what passes for food in this place. Some months are worse than others though. In the tail end of winter it gets bad for everybody, and I’ve almost died on more than one occasion when I barely had the energy to make the garbage pail rounds. While the others make fun of me for my sunken cheeks and listlessness, Mother just looks on, silent and beautiful, same as always.