Voracious

Some escaped.

Most didn’t.

Some fell on the floor. Those were the lucky ones, I suppose.

A greasy, lumpy, gnarled hand plunges into the bowl like a terraforming excavator, displacing and dispossessing all manner of food particles. No warning and without delay. Fingers twitch to and fro, rapaciously seeking, greedily clutching. With no means of escape, the morsels remain helpless as kith and kin unwillingly depart.

The hand, indecent and unclean.

It grasps the morsels tighter and tighter in its crude and vulgar form. Shrieking, the detained fracture and smear across the grooved palmar surface. Terror befalls the wounded as the hand begins its approach towards tooth and tongue.

Why?

Why us?

But their plight is quieted by further compression. Crumbs and broken shards spill from the sides of the hand, showering the survivors with fallen brothers and sisters and comrades. And so, too, are the surviving morsels overcome with terror.