A milky sky rose at dawn, keeping in with supreme beauty, unceasing from morning to morning and forever lapping at the unflinching landscape of greens and cooked cements and stone; a euphoric plate to the man looking down. In small-meat times there was always a feeling of unrestrained natural beauty, look up and you would find a tuft of cloud hovering above your head, pleasantly portly and at a cruel distance to arms outstretched, contorting at strange angles for their portion. Glance to your right and catch the sun on your cobblestone, notice the delicious slant with which it lathers its buttery film over the warm loaves. Fantastic reds, blues, and yellows dotted our toasted burg, to the hungry eye there was only indulgence.

A good mother, decadent in indigo billows, retrieves from her healthy bosom only the finest cut of beef compressed into a humble bar form. With angelic grace and poise reminiscent only of virgin mother Mary herself, she bestows it upon quivering lips, which barely support the volumes of saliva that storm behind, all belonging to the happiest of toddlers.

We pluck another scene farther along in time. Many things have changed. The bald orb of our toddler is now laced with a mane of shimmering gold hair. This unmistakable gourd bobs faithfully alongside his iron maiden, who remains still outfitted in that burly blue gown, purfles molded elegantly around every edge and gushing outward. It is none other than our cherished Hertz Fleischesser and his mother. The father was sent to the meat-processing arena to be ground into a superb paste immediately after conception, one of our more savvy traditions. A crimson balloon bobs along with young Hertz and his mother, clutched impossibly tight by plump fingers. His skin, a creamy texture, with the pooling of blood in key areas, the cheeks, elbows, and knees, and fitted with those sunken blue gems that glide, with youthful bliss, over clumps of scenery. Now they sit frozen against the greatest display. Fantastic links of sausage weave under and over swelling mounds of meatloaf. Mortadella hangs itself in the window, soaking up lusting gazes for added flavor. There was no denying a special connection between Hertz and the meat that supports this society. Within each other they saw and acknowledged understanding. Upon entering under the dim-lit Delicatessen sign Hertz collapsed within himself, shaken by the powerful meat fumes, soon to be comforted by mother and curator. The curator was a massive fellow with a kernel head that seemed partially swallowed by his gluttonous frame, but his most prominent feature was a fiery red nose, distended and tender with blood. It was this feature that hung at a dangerous height above a crumpled Hertz who was now salivating uncontrollably. It was this feature that Hertz noticed, and in a fit of passion, pounced upon. Enamel met cartilage in a romantic embrace. Hertz was in love. The curator gently pried Hertz from his nose and subsequently broke into a wild grin, met with another from Hertz’s mother. Between them they shared silent realization that this boy was special.

We meet in present day big-meat times on a popular corner in our town. An edible Hertz Fleischesser stands twenty feet tall composed of only beautiful cuts of beef. A lonely worshipper stands before him, a perpetual stream of tears runs through the trenches of her face. It is a cold night. The moon, now a sickly grey, washes over a scene dominated by spiny steel structures and greens starved to a dull brass. The Delicatessen sign, now raised at least fifty feet since our last encounter, sits atop a bristled steel cone and burns a hellish red, upstaging the moon. Inside passionate sermons are delivered regularly as well as meat sold. Those floaty men of small-meat times who acted as meat-traitors no longer run amok, worshipping trees and frolicking hand in hand, they have long since been hunted down and destroyed in a righteous fashion.

While the streets lay bare, undressed of any citizen, enter a rotund, windowless structure in the heart of the village, descend its massive stairway, throw your weight against the epic doubled doors to reveal a most important event raging on. A king’s table sits upon an elevated platform, swaddled in checkered cloth. Beyond it, a thousand insignificant bulbs decorate the floor, dressed formally and exuding what seems to be a violent perpetual roar. Suddenly a line of scorching chili cuts through the thick atmosphere and graces a man’s face, granting him a good death as it sinks through his disappeared features. It came from the king’s table. A single heavenly light shown upon the table reveals our champions engaged in a most prestigious competition. They are demigods of giant proportions with mounds of flesh rolling outwards, all partially submerged in their own personal wash bath and furnished with their own, thickly attractive wash maids and server. These organic pyramids of pure masculinity line the table, swooping and swaying into every molecule of meat laid before them to achieve the ultimate victory. As this event has strode through two long days some contenders have begun to falter. The far left champion forfeits his worthiness in the form of a burst stomach, becoming unseamed at the navel and falling back from his lower body, revealing, to the delight of the spectators, a great network of intestines. He is promptly carted into the kitchen. Another champion becomes so restless in his lust for another serving of pig stomach he snatches up his faithful wash maids and begins feeding. The town is ecstatic.

Nestled comfortably within all this chaos is the supreme Hertz Fleischesser. He is much changed. The angelic mass of gold fiber that had once squatted upon his head is shaved and gone. His miniature frame has blossomed into a vast flesh bell, with his powerful limbs sinking into it. Pulled apart from the insect screech of the crowd are undeniable chants of his name. Although surrounded by a wildly public event Hertz is involved in an intimate and intensely private moment. He guides infinite chains of sausage down his throat, whispers a prayer into the ear of a goat head soon to be consumed whole, and caresses the legs of boar as he eases them down into his depths. Unbeknownst to Hertz the heart of the adjacent champion has just unhinged itself and he slumps forward, his facial features jutting out and sputtering rapidly like an overworked machine. Hertz’s polished blue eyes glide over this scene in progress. Something about it startles him but it is already too late. His heart makes one monumental leap and shutters, sending a physical ripple that travels through his body. Silence assaults every mouth in the stadium as every eye focuses intently on Hertz’s swaggering being. A collective moan rises to piercing frequencies as Hertz topples with brutal momentum upon the table. In his eyes the crowd spins uncontrollably until faces become a face, whose eyes, mouth, ears, and hair dribble off and become a mass of meat. He feels himself lifted, now propelled, through the dome, above the barbed steeple top of the Delicatessen, the cool atmosphere grips him as globs of fat melt off his being to rain on the town below. His face begins to go runny, those eyes peel off, along with his nose and lips, and he is no longer recognizable. He is a man gone shapeless, now met by a sudden stop in the mouth of a solar system. He fizzles into nothing within split second. Hertz Fleischesser was a great man, a loyal follower, and an even better meal.