It’s 2016 and a strange new illness called “Ratfanger’s Syndrome” is spreading across the North American continent. The disease erodes the mind and increases an insatiable desire for nothing in particular. Driven mad by want, one person suffering Ratfanger’s lashed out in a violent attack, biting off his victim’s nipple and eating it. Within moments, the man was cured.
His victim was Andersen Richards, and losing his nipple was just the beginning for him. As the attack was livestreamed, the former Ratfanger’s patient looks to the camera and tells everyone what he’s discovered. “If you want to live, you have eat @A___Dick,” Andersen’s Twitter handle.
Now as cases of Ratfanger’s increase and the nation’s demand builds, Andersen is driven from his home, forced to into hiding, never certain when someone will try to turn him in for the reward, or worse yet, eat his other nipple.
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03 | “That Night”
If a girl asks me what I do, I say “fashion”. If a guy asks, “I work at a clothing store”. Neither are true anymore.
02 | “The Grinch”
He bit my nipple off and ate it. Rob, not the Grinch.
01 | “As the World Falls Down”
My life is worth less than a pile of money. But this is America. You know how that feels.
What “#EatADick” means to me
Andersen Richards is was a voodoo doll that I tried to attach all my trauma. It didn’t work.
The story of a young man, homeless, unemployed, and reviled was the closest thing I could come to “writing what you know” at the time, and the story was an attempt to repurpose and confuse my feelings. I would take scenarios and emotions that I was struggling with from the previous few years and try to change the characters in it so it would help me to disassociate from myself. A daily reframing of tragedy through the lens of humor and wit.
Andersen’s story was mapped for a long epic, filled with tragedy and big moments, as my stories often are. But I often felt that I failed to bring the zany twist to the narrative that I needed to redeeem the emotional suffering. That was a very difficult thing to deal with because I didn’t need that for Andersen, I needed it for myself.
Originally written in 2016, the story has followed me through a different websites, but originally was published on the days stated, and I often sought to draw from the news and current events. Collected here, Andersen’s future is still to be seen.