My mother was a manic-depressive, my father was a circus clown, and I have never suffered for it more than now, nearly twenty years since their departure. The hunger-lust, in one form or another, has been around since my adolescence, but the ritual is developed. Things dark or red, sweetly decadent, satisfy my cravings. Things reminiscent of my deeper moods, things that can be savored by candlelight. You might say I am a sort of vampire for cherry pies and chocolate cakes, Bloody Mary mixes and richly red wines. My mother's binges, on the other hand, went somewhat beyond the sweet tooth. But I become one with her through abandon not mimicry. Abandon is bliss.

Abandon is when the curtains are drawn, the candle lit and the feast spread out before me. Only then may I cease to suppress my magnificent appetite. Only then may I fully give over to the voraciousness and savagery that define my nightly indulgences. But the banquet goes not without its pauses, moments to close the eyes and to relish our finding each other over the chasm, my mother and I, dripping fingers interlocking, feet gingerly balancing on the red polka dots scattered across the whispery white fabric that serves as the bridge.

I often use my father's only surviving costume as a tablecloth. The reds have long since bled into one another--thanks to my utter lack of etiquette--but there is some comfort in having the clown suit there, some...sanity. One day I will burn it. One day, when its simple motif is no longer recognizable, I will set the candle flame to its flowery cuffs and listen to the clown scream. As for tonight, I will let it serve the practical purpose. I am hungry, after all, and the shadows are already dancing around me.

Ah, the rich, the delectable, the sinful and luscious! How I do anticipate these feasts. From the early office hours to the bakery's last call, it is all I can do to contain myself. You see, my deeper moods have become my shallower moods, abiding, as familiar to me as my own face. And the darks and reds blur my vision with such incessancy that the lenses of my glasses might as well be tainted. The ritual becomes as much a leash as a release, and the world is spared the monster even as the monster suffers.

Though the only suffering I know now is the oblivious suffering of gluttony.

But--a syrupy cherry has fallen from my maw. And--I look at it against a brief, very brief patch of white, watching it saturate like ink, like blood, the ridiculously virginal bit of fabric. Now the flicker of the candle...the flicker, flicker, moth wings...

You bitch, you bitch, you BITCH! I have watched you deteriorate to this state, throwing your black shadow over our home, devouring everything in sight, for the last time!

Ah, Daddy, home from work at last, still in his clown costume.

I've had damn well enough. Do you understand me, you bitch? ENOUGH!

Wielding his bottle of bourbon like a club.

There! How'd that feel? Still hungry, you?!

Now like a knife.

I'm going to take you apart like a chicken!

Daddy, home and screaming. Must be in that sort of black mood Mommy gets.

The tablecloth's motif is scarcely discernible, I notice. The polka dots are no longer distinguishable from the rest of it, the entire garment now saturated by the ritual syrup. I should do the baptism tonight. Baptize. Uncle Trace used that word after they took Daddy, naked and screaming, away. The costume--my god, we'll have to baptize it with gasoline and a match. Uncle Trace is my mother's side.

Like a chicken! Know why? Cause I can't help it, that's why! I'm famished! Ravenous as a wild dog!

Now like a fork. A dinner fork.

The candle flame to the tablecloth's flowery cuffs and listen to the clown scream. This time in pain. And not the sort that a painted tear and a bottle of cheap bourbon describe.