If you could fit the entire world in your mouth, what would it taste like?
Human civilization, its concrete pillars, rubbery telephone wires, and tarred roads, crunching under your teeth like a shell of hard candy. Bodies instantly reverted back—not to dust, but to meaty organic matter. No redemption. No romance. Do not pass Go. Do not collect your soul.
Fountains of urine and blood, liquid spurting as thickly as breakfast syrup from a clogged bottle. The human heraldic colors are yellow, red, brown, black. The shield is roped in chains. The crest is a crown not worth wearing. You’ll nearly gag on these slimy, fetid, chunkily bejeweled emblems.
The kingdom of nature tastes grassy, soapy, and bland. It is mostly texture that numbs the tongue. Layers of blue-green ooze, hairy leaves, and mulch. Try not to think of all the microplastic adhered to every surface. Saltwater follows, down your throat in a wave that lasts ten-thousand years.
Art tastes like nothing. Morals taste like nothing. Maybe, if anything, they come up in a floral, fungal burp. Love tastes like nothing. Evil tastes like nothing. Maybe, if anything, they contribute to indigestion. They may be something to look at, but they are the nutritionally void Red Number 40 and Blue Number 2 featured in an otherwise boring, dense, vaguely off-putting meal.
What does a sinkhole on the seafloor taste like? Can you detect its flavor in your mouth, amid the vast mountains of mush pulped together by saliva? What do my hands, feet, and eyes taste like—I’m guessing mystery meat gone slimy in the lunchbox? Can you consume it all in one gulp, and leave no trace behind?
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