Bogleech.com's 2013 Horror Write-off:
"Snails"
Submitted by Anonymous
Snails. I've always hated them. My
family liked to joke about it and say it was because it were snails
who destroyed my first little garden when I was a kid, a patch in our
back yard I had planted with various vegetables. That is part of the
equation, obviously. But it runs way deeper than that. Not only do I
hate what snails do, I hate what they ARE. In cartoons and jokes,
snails being "slow" is supposed to be cute, a source of
humor. Me, I'm creeped out. They're PERSISTENT. They're DETERMINED. I
even suspect they like to stretch it out, to advance in the pace of a
glacier, playing with my nerves, my disgust. Even if they had a means
to reach a salad leaf in a fraction of the time, they'd still go
extra slow, like little tongues tasting every centimetre of the way,
not caring whether they starve before they reach their destination.
Can you even begin to imagine the mind of a creature like that?
Don't get me started on their freaky
telescope eyes, and the way they retract into their shells, or
retract into a slimy little blob in the case of slugs. They're like
disembodied, alien genetalia, exploring the world for twisted
pleasures.
I once saw my older brother caressing
one of them. Massaging a half-retracted snail with his tumb until it
regained its confidence, looking around to see to who it owed the
sugar. Stimulated. Naked. Slimy. Horny. They're hermaphrodites. They
can mate with everything.
No person in this world has ever
despised them as much as I do.
That's why I don't think this is a
coincidence. It had been coming for me. Maybe it had travelled for
ages, slowly, persistently.
I should have seen it coming, yet
somehow I didn't. Somehow, it managed to sneak up on me.
I am lying on my belly, and I cannot
turn my head. But I know what it is. I sure do.
I was sunbathing in our back yard, not
far from the spot where my little garden used to be. Lying on my
towel, with my sunglasses on, I fell asleep.
Now I cannot move, and I feel it slowy
advancing over my body. It is big. It is heavy. Its underbelly is so
very moist and cool, swallowing the summer sun. It is going to bury
me completely underneath it.
Oh, the blunt satisfaction radiated by
its filthy flesh.
The nerve endings in my skin are just
as active as ever, and so I can savor every inch of its slimy
conquest. So very slow. Time itself is starting to lose all meaning.
And I cannot scream.