Original language: French
Author: Me (Kelly McAnena)
All rights reserved.
Imagine: you're born to die. Born to Die. I don't remember who said it but it sounds cool. Imagine you're not even born, but created by a machine from elastomers, aspartame and artificial flavourings. Created to serve humanity, that all-powerful species, that parasite of the Earth that rips what it wants out of Mother Nature's belly to create abominations such as me.
It's a good job mint gum has no conscience. Of course, if one of our ingredients was alive once, it's long dead by now. But imagine you're a piece of mint gum, gifted - by who knows which trickster god - with consciousness, perhaps even with a soul.
For starters, your life sucks. Birthed in a racket of machines, you are not treated kindly. Pushed around this way and that only to end up in a little cardboard box, surrounded by identical comrades with identical fates. To avoid completely losing it, you give them names, personalities. They become your family. By the time you've been transported, stocked and displayed, you've created your own society.
Sold: 2€ if you're lucky. You and your nine little friends, you're worth 2€ altogether. And the clients complain of inflation.
Let's say your buyer is a man. Thirty-something, stressful job, the type who's always chewing gum. Today he forgot his box of a hundred at home, so he's making do with you and your friends to get him through the day.
He shakes the box, because he likes the sound you make rattling against the cardboard together. Opens it. Gravity pulls you down, but you're not the one who falls. It's someone else, a brother you particularly liked. It's not even like you'll meet him again in this guy's stomach - you don't swallow gum. You spit it out. You're not even that useful.
One by one, he takes out your comrades, chews them up while raging against traffic and the radio. One by one, he spits them out into a tissue, a piece of paper, out the window to be flattened under the wheels of other cars. Blackened, those ones end up part of the road.
You're last. You're alone, he's taken everything you had. You wait your turn, but instead he parks the car, gets out. You hear childrens' shouts, a woman's voice, a door slamming, silence. Night falls. You are alone. You can't even pretend you have friends any more. You can't get out of the box to find others. You are paralysed. All you have left are your thoughts.
So you think of this man, of his species and their place on this Earth. You can't find it, and you make a decision. You know that it won't make much of a difference, on the grand scale of things, but at least you'll have made the world a tiny bit better.
The next day he gets into the car before the sun is up. You wait for him to open the box, but he's still drinking his coffee, which he puts down next to you. A few drops fall on the box without touching you. He finishes his coffee. You can feel the car accelerating, you're on the motorway, overtaking the trucks that took you to the news agent's to be sold. You tremble with anticipation.
Perhaps he senses it. Either way, he turns on the radio and opens the box. He knows you're the only one left, so he tips you right into his mouth. The smell of coffee and cigarettes overwealm you. His tongue, that huge lump of flesh, pushes you towards his molars, but you have a plan, and anger gives you strength. Using only your will, you throw yourself backwards, towards his throat, dodging the epiglottis, and by some miracle, find yourself exactly where you want to be - stuck in his trachea, where you lodge yourself firmly.
A spasm, an attempt to cough, but you hold on. You will only have one opportunity, you mustn't waste it. By pure luck, you choke him at a critical moment: overtaking a truck, he loses the control of his car speeding at 80 mph, banging into other cars that leave Mother Earth only to return as fertiliser. The truck spins round, and it's a wreak, the death count rising at the speed of light, until the grand finale, where the car crashes into a barrier and the man, who forgot his seatbelt, is thrown through the windscreen to land thirty feet away. The shock of landing sends you flying out of his mouth, covered in saliva, your sugar coating half-melted, and you are soon squashed under the boots of the paramedics whose skills are already useless.
Your soul leaves your tiny body, and you observe your work from above. Twenty-seven victims, a dozen dead. A dozen who will no longer pollute and rip resources from the belly of Mother Nature to make abominations such as me.