The Malevolent Newbie
Women bore me with their predictability. They are always busy. Complaining. Being slaves to the needs of others. Often, fighting for the right to live the way they want to. They’re too busy to notice me eyeing them lecherously.
They ignore themselves. I snigger at their naiveté. Unlike others, I relish a woman who has no time to spare.
My stealth is unmatched. I consume them completely, till they surrender. Disrobing them of their beauty and modesty. And eventually, of their will to live.
I enjoy all types of women. As long as they plead with me, right from the marrow in their brittle bones.
Stacy, the swanky pilot yelled in frustration at her prematurely terminated career, thanks to yours truly.
Farida, the demure housewife cum closet bestselling novelist was drafting her dream book. It was released posthumously.
The response is always predictable, irrespective of the woman I claw my way into.
“I have a family!”
“There is still so much to do!”
Last week I feasted on Meena, a surgeon. She was startled when she coughed up blood. She had been the nemesis of a few of my kin.
Each time, I start out as a single anomalous cell, with the desire of conquering the world. A newbie who refuses to take orders from anyone. I spawn an army of clones. We have a single obsession, to conquer the body that birthed us. Ah, I have been a newbie for centuries!
Never grow old. Never rest. Reinvent yourself.
That’s my mantra. And boy, has it served me well! Dozens of anticancer drugs each year, lethal to every cell that dreams of multiplying. Radiation that melts your very being. Surgery that mutilates and often dismembers women of the organ they measure their self-worth with.
Yet, I exist. I acquire new skills. I camouflage myself. I adapt.
Today, I’m burrowing into Chandrika, as a pea-sized lump.
Last night I heard her mention something about self-care. I’m not worried. She would probably schedule a spa appointment.
Wait! Why is she palpating her breast? Systematically, one quadrant at a time. Her gentle fingers graze past me.
Phew! I guess that’s a false alarm. I am well insulated between fat pockets.
Damn! Is that the mammography machine? They photograph me against my will. I feel naked.
Wait, is that a scalpel? I get it, I must die! But I never really die. I embark on a suicide mission, leaving seedlings of my cankerous self in her bloodstream, just before I am excised.
Plop! They’ve dropped me in saline. Is that the laboratory? Great, now I’m a specimen in a flask.
A familiar pair of green eyes pierces me. Ileana, I recall. “Spare me, I have a son!” She had begged.
“You took my mother, remember? Now taste my patented drug.” With seething rage, the newbie scientist puts a drop of purple liquid in my flask.
You could reinvent, but a newbie shall always rise to vanquish you.
Defeat tastes sour, I realize.
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