THE SADNESS EATER
find me a story
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Inspired, primarily, by Ursula le Guin’s feminist fictions and Prema Murthy’s Mythic Hybrids, The Sadness Eater navigates the mythology of its titular character, but crosses into a fragmented digital space in order to do so. Stylised as a fairytale and structured as a blog, the story details major events that are ‘known’ pertaining to the Sadness Eater, a mythic being who ‘swallows’ people’s sadnesses. It is an exploration of a trickster, ‘unknowable’ being who is eventually subjected to the whims of a changing world, with its linear, patriarchal logic; in this stead, I bring up themes such as commodification of the body, colonialism, and how violent masculinist technologies play a part in the formation of a ‘utopia’.
But perhaps more simply: The Sadness Eater is an exploration of what it means to feel, in a world that is guided by anything but. It is, in part, my own experience with emotional repression and disconnect—which is also a shared experience, one that we do not talk about often enough, so much so that our bodies and hearts and minds continue to suffer from it interminably.
Below are the full-length illustrations I did for this piece, as well as an excerpt from the story itself.
Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!
Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!
~*~
EXCERPT | PART ONE: MEMORY
There was once a girl who could eat people’s sadness away.
That girl was not me. But I knew her—perhaps better than I knew myself, than I knew any other…
That girl was not me. But I knew her—perhaps better than I knew myself, than I knew any other…
She lived where the seas ended, in an oyster-shell conclave, where the walls were lined with years of silk and months of mourning. People would go from all across the universe to visit her there. Some arrived on foot, their backs bent over with the weight of their sadness. Some came strolling hand in hand with theirs, while others’ sadness was light and airy enough for them to ride on. Sadness packaged, parceled, pickled in jars and shut between the pages of old books and photo albums. There were howling kinds, gentler ones, sadnesses that splintered bone and reduced the living to walking corpses. Hulking sadnesses, sadnesses small enough to fit in a bottle cap, some childlike, some old, some breathing, some dying, some dead.
Sometimes people left their sadnesses outside the girl’s cave, where they played in the sand until the ocean spirits came to fetch them. Sometimes they waited, because their sadness was too heavy, or it did not wish to part. Those who waited were sometimes there for centuries, or came back every year as though on annual pilgrimage. And although it was they who were visiting, no one was ever allowed to step inside to see the girl. It is said that the sadness hung so thick inside her cavern that if you were to breathe it in it would freeze the time in your lungs. There were those who tried, and they never came out again.
Sometimes people left their sadnesses outside the girl’s cave, where they played in the sand until the ocean spirits came to fetch them. Sometimes they waited, because their sadness was too heavy, or it did not wish to part. Those who waited were sometimes there for centuries, or came back every year as though on annual pilgrimage. And although it was they who were visiting, no one was ever allowed to step inside to see the girl. It is said that the sadness hung so thick inside her cavern that if you were to breathe it in it would freeze the time in your lungs. There were those who tried, and they never came out again.
And so, people waited. Waited under the oceanic sun, which never sank nor rose, but hovered in the sky like a huge, bulbous pufferfish. Waited, while war broke out in their homelands. Waited, while around them people died, or left, or fell in love. Under the ever-sunlight’s gaze, the girl’s oyster-shell home glimmered and gleamed. Above, the ocean spirits danced, crooning to earth and heaven the names of all things lost to memory. And outside, the people waited, waited for the girl to come out and eat their sadness away.
When she finally did, they rejoiced. That time of year—although it was never certain what time of what year exactly—became known as Mourningtide. People would place their sadnesses before the girl like sacrificial offerings. They would whisper their names to the ocean spirits, who would then whisper them to her. They would tell her their stories. And she would stoop over their sadnesses, kiss them, cry with them, bundle them into her arms and press them against her cheek.
Then she would eat them all.
When she finally did, they rejoiced. That time of year—although it was never certain what time of what year exactly—became known as Mourningtide. People would place their sadnesses before the girl like sacrificial offerings. They would whisper their names to the ocean spirits, who would then whisper them to her. They would tell her their stories. And she would stoop over their sadnesses, kiss them, cry with them, bundle them into her arms and press them against her cheek.
Then she would eat them all.
