Prompt: A Potato in a Sparkly Suit

"write about a potato in a sparkly suit" - H.W.


Note: This was written under the influence of cold medication; please forgive any mistakes about potato culture present in this response.

Different Eyes

The earth was cool. I still remember it well, the firm embrace of the soil around my body. The dampness and the darkness was all I had ever known, and to me, it represented the whole world: familiarity, safety, security, peace…

To me, the earth was home.

I couldn’t imagine growing up to leave, but my mother told me wonderful things about the surface. She told me that when my eyes open, I’d be reborn, and that when I gathered the courage to crawl to the surface, I’d see the beauty of the world above.

Apparently the sun felt warm. Apparently the breeze was rich. She told me that I’d understand when I was older, some day, and that I should simply wait for that day and sleep until then.

I wanted to grow up.

I wanted to so badly, but as I was ripped away from home, from my mother, from everyone and everything I knew, only one thought came to mind:

Ah.

I’ll never get to see the wonderful world that mother did. Torn away from her gentle grasp and the soil’s security before my eyes could open, I instinctively knew that I had been condemned to be blind.

I’d never see the light.

I’d never see the surface.

I had heard rumors of this before, whispered along the roots that made up our collective home. Some mothers spoke of creatures, large brutish surface things that tore sleeping children from their earthen nurseries. They’d be taken away, never to be seen again, and the mothers died of despair.

As I felt the rough motion against my skin, I realized that was what had happened to me. I had always been curious what happened to the children who were taken. Now, I no longer wish to find out.

However, the brutish thing has no mercy for the child in its grasp. It is warm, for sure, but it is nothing like the warmth which my mother spoke of. Unlike the nurturing light of the sun, this heat seared, and invoked nothing but fear.

Shortly after, I was drowned. The soil I rested in was always damp, but even children knew what too much water could do. The cold would seep through the skin, invade the heart, and rot you from the inside out. Apparently the one who stole me away did not know this, as he forced me into the frigid flow and I felt the cold creep in.

It was killing me. I realized shortly that this was its intent all along.

I was slammed against something cold and hard before I could begin to rot, and the skin was scraped off my form. Strip by strip, something sharp would cut through the flesh and one by one, my closed eyes were torn from me. They were of no use to me, true. They were to never open again, but somehow the act was cruel.

I thought that would be the end of it. Perhaps this was the cruel game – to take everything from an unsuspecting child, their home, their family, their eyes, their lives, but I didn’t realize that they didn’t mean for me to rot. Make no mistake, they meant to take my life, but the truth was far more cruel.

Something crinkled sharply, and suddenly rough spines wrapped into my tender exposed flesh. It hurt. There was something unnatural about this embrace – it wasn’t like the earth. No, this was hard, edged, and was anything but gentle.

It wasn’t like the greenery I should have worn when I was aged. The green suit I was meant to wear should have been fitting, soft, and beautiful. Instead, this suit of… something else rejected everything I was used to. It was just another prop in this cruel game.

And then there were sounds, harsh sounds, screeching sounds, and I was thrust into a suffocating heat. I realized then the true function of this unnatural suit – it wasn’t the pain of the crumpled edges scraping at my flesh, but the pain of the heat it would take in. I wouldn’t even be allowed to rot to death.

My death would be as unnatural as my circumstances.

I would never feel the gentle warmth of the sun.

I’d burn in these noxious flames.

~*~*~

“Dinner’s ready, kids.”

“Oh, great! I love baked potato!”

“The tin foil’s hot, careful!”

“Okay, Mom~!”