那個甚麼都吃的男人

K從少女時代開始便喜歡穿多口袋的法式風衣，雙手埋進袋裡，衣下伸展出兩條瘦長的腿，看起來像呆呆的水鳥，立在遍植榕樹的秋芝公園。披著長髪的她雖然不會像白鶴，曲起長腿，單腳企立，卻會慢慢地從不同的口袋裡掏出穀物、麵包屑，平展雙手，朝著天空打開掌心，像鳥中之皇，一下子迎來千百隻雀鳥的降臨。

I是遠遠看到被鳥群遮蔽的K後，才萌生必定要和她結成夫妻的念頭。「不過，」I對他的朋友們說：「K現在轉而餵飼其他生物。」

如今，立在秋芝公園裡的K是不再穿法式風衣了，她束起頭髪，穿高領的棉衣、胖胖的褲，像個亞拉丁，手裡則拿著肉紅色的塑膠袋，袋裡全是發泡膠飯盒。許多年過去了，秋芝公園的榕樹好像變得愈來愈疏落，並且已經再沒有鳥群聚集。風吹過時，常常揚起沙石，刮痛人的臉。無法再餵飼鳥類以後，K買了兩個巨大的鍋子，清早起來，用一個鍋子燒飯，一個做一種材料不明的泥色醬汁。每個發泡膠飯盒裡盛的，就是這種澆上了醬汁的飯。

I告訴他的朋友們，K現在餵飼的不再是那些雄飛的鳥（啄食過後，便迅速躲入樹的枝葉間，或重新在天空裡盤旋），而是一群行動緩慢、心不在焉的老人。他們或戴一頂太陽帽，或穿上保護色的運動衣，臉上掛著遮擋風沙的棉製口罩，像懼怕被捕食的弱小生物那樣，散佈在公園的不同角落。當K帶著食物來到公園時，他們首先反應過來的，通常是亂竄一通的眼珠子，拿著拐杖的手一直抖，好一會才鎮靜下來，然後最終靠著顫巍巍的兩腳，慢慢趨近派發飯盒的K。

為了區別於這些老人，I決定不再吃K做的飯。無論是煎得焦焦的荷包蛋，還是隔水蒸的鹹香肉餅──那些從前I最愛的，現在，他都把它們一一推開。I注意到，公園裡，還有另一個黑衣人，獨自坐在一張三人座的長椅上，像I一樣，拒絕吃K做的食物。黑衣人拿著一把收摺束好的長傘，不時向空中揮動，像是在驅趕蚊子，因而無人敢走近他的身邊。


The Man Who Ate Everything

Ever since she was a girl, K had liked to wear French-style trench coats with many pockets. With both hands buried in pockets and two lanky legs extending below the hem, she used to look like a dazed water bird, standing out among the banyan trees in Qiuzhi Park. She wore her long hair draped over her shoulders and, while she did not quite resemble a red-crowned crane – its long legs crooked, a single pointed foot - when she pulled grains and breadcrumbs from her pockets, flattened both hands and slowly raised her palms to the sky, she was the emperor of the birds. A thousand descended in an instant.

Watching from a distance, J had seen K enveloped by a flock of birds, and that was when he decided they should be husband and wife. ‘The problem is,’ he said to his friends, ‘that right now K’s mind is on feeding other creatures.’

In recent times, K had not been wearing her trench coat to stand out in Qiuzhi Park. Now, she tied her hair back and wore high-necked padded jackets and baggy trousers, like Aladdin. In her hands were meat-red plastic carrier bags, filled with styrofoam take-out boxes. Years had passed, and the banyans had grown sparser and sparser. There were no flocks of birds anymore. When the wind blew, it threw up sand and stones, which scraped painfully against people's faces. With no birds left to feed, K had bought two enormous pots. She woke up at dawn and, in one pot, she boiled rice; in the other, she made a kind of mud-coloured sauce, of uncertain ingredients. Those were the contents of the styrofoam boxes: rice, with the sauce poured over.

J told his friends that K was no longer feeding those surging birds (after pecking the feed, they would retreat instantly into the leafy branches of the trees, or go back to making circles in the sky). Instead, she fed a crowd of doddery, absent-minded old people. They wore sunhats, or camouflage tracksuits, with cotton surgical masks hung over their faces, to protect them from the gusts of sand. They were like fearful little creatures hiding from predators, scattered in different corners of the park. When K arrived with the food, they darted their beady eyes around in alarm, hands trembling on their walking sticks. Some time later, they would calm down and, finally, on tottering feet, make their slow way over to K, and her styrofoam boxes.

To distinguish himself from these old folks, J decided to stop eating the food K brought. No matter whether it was a crispy fried egg or a steamed salty meat patty – his two former favourites - he turned down the boxes, time and time again. He noticed there was another man in the park rejecting K's food, just like him. The man wore black and sat by himself on a three-person bench. He held a long, neatly rolled umbrella that, every so often, he brandished in the air, as though chasing away mosquitoes. As a result, no one dared approach him.

對於K帶來的飯菜，黑衣人只有一臉的不屑。他說，許久以前開始，便再不吃這些東西。黑衣人如此訴說，自己的故事：
「人們已經忘記了，曾經有好幾年，城市被入侵的軍隊佔領。大街上，常常可以看見橫躺著的屍體。這些人大部分不是被流彈打中，而是活活餓死的。有時，用一塊放米的麻布袋蓋著，只露出嶙峋的小腿。屍體通常不夠一天便會被專門的人 收走，但還是會發現少了一條腿、一隻手，或是身上的肉被胡亂地割下來，露出血色模糊的一片。」

「自從母親離開後，便再沒有回來。除了幾天一次，輪候派米，我不會上街，只蹲在家裡，一面看公仔書，一面看守行動不便的祖母。祖母好像從沒有清醒的時刻。我把米用許多水煮開了，不情願地灌一點點進祖母的嘴裡。然而，即使剩下來的，都進了我無底洞似的胃裡，我還是反覆陷入昏眩的狀態。躺在祖母身旁時，我嗅到強烈的氣味──那是肉的氣味嗎？我翻身時，臉剛好貼在她身上，並驚訝地發現，祖母肚皮上的肉，比我想像的白嫰得多。」

「我竟然，終於沒有把祖母吃掉，而是挖了一個很深的洞，把她收藏好。為了填塞肚裡的空虛，我開始吃她留下來的衣服，剪碎了，和著水吃，然後是那些看完了的公仔書。後來，是木製的床，得用刀劈開，一片片撕下來。因為不習慣，開始的時候，這些東西確實難以下嚥，然而，只有嚐過的人，才能了解到，世間的事物，其實各自有它們獨特的味道和質感。」

「和平以後，我喜歡上玻璃，不是一般的玻璃，而是寬口、薄身的玻璃紅酒杯，用食指輕彈，放在耳邊能聽到清脆的叮叮聲。我每隔一段日子便會去居住的地方附近，唯一一所高級的法國菜館，只叫一杯最便宜的紅酒。酒還沒到，擦得閃亮的杯先被放下來。我總是選擇剛好被一道柱遮住的位置，當侍應離開，我便從杯沿開始，小心把玻璃咬碎──你們大概不知道，真正的玻璃爽脆、冰涼，並且具詩的味道。」


The man in black had nothing but disdain for K’s offerings. He said it had been a very long time since he’d eaten such things. He recounted his story thus:

‘People forget, but many years ago, the city was occupied by an invading army. Back then, you often came across corpses laid out on the main street. Most of these bodies hadn’t been caught by a stray bullet, they’d simply starved to death. Sometimes, they’d be covered with a piece of sacking from a bag of rice, only their bony calves poking out from underneath. Usually, the authorities would come to clear a corpse before the day was out, but they’d often discover it minus a leg, or an arm, or with chunks of flesh haphazardly sliced off, leaving behind raw, pulpy gashes.

‘My mother left and never came back. Once she was gone, aside from going out every few days to queue for rice handouts, I did not leave the house. I stayed in, reading comic strips and standing guard over my grandmother, who barely moved. She never seemed to wake up. I boiled rice in large quantities of water, and grudgingly trickled spoonfuls into her mouth. Even with all the rest poured straight into the bottomless pit of my stomach, I was constantly light-headed. One day, lying beside my grandmother, I smelled a strong scent – could it be the smell of meat, I asked myself? I turned over so my face pressed into her side, and was shocked to discover that the flesh of her belly was even more tender than I could have imagined.

‘In the end, in spite of everything, I did not eat my grandmother. Instead, I dug a deep hole and hid her in it. Then, to fill the emptiness in my belly, I started to eat the clothes she’d left behind, cutting them into shreds and boiling them up. Then came the comic strips I’d finished reading. Then the wooden bed frame, which I had to hack into with a knife, tearing off a slice at a time. And it’s true that, in the beginning, because I wasn’t used to them, all these things were a little hard to get down. But later, as only those who’ve tasted for themselves will understand, I came to realise that every object in the world has its own particular taste, and its own particular texture.

‘Once peacetime came around, I developed a fondness for glass. Not any old glass, but the wide-mouthed, thin-bodied glass of red wine glasses; the kind that, tapped lightly with a forefinger and then held up to an ear, rings with a silvery tinkle. Every few days, I used to go out to the only high-end French restaurant near to where I lived, and order nothing but a single glass of their cheapest red wine. Before the wine arrived, they would set the glass in front of me, polished to a high gleam. I always chose a seat hidden behind a pillar so that, once the server had left, I could begin my careful bites into the glass, starting from the rim. You probably aren’t aware, but the taste of real glass is crisp and refreshing; really bursting with poetry.

「由於玻璃杯反覆的消失，餐廳經理終於不得不搜查我的衣袋──當然，他們什麼也沒有發現，除了賠不是，還得免了我喝紅酒的錢。我再也沒有到那所餐廳去了。後來，我愛上了音樂──吃音樂比玻璃容易多了，因為那根本不用牙齒去咬，只要張開嘴巴或重或輕地吸入便可以。我不太喜歡重金屬或搖滾類的音樂，它們會在我的胃裡搗亂，搞壞我的睡眠。在鋼琴演奏的音樂會上，我卻總是不知不覺便吃掉了所有的音樂，剩下來的，只是空空洞洞，失去內在的聲音。然而， 那些買了票入場的聽眾根本不知就裡。他們一定以為，是表演者的技藝出了問題，坐在圓拱頂的華麗大廳裡，有人在臺上作毫無意義的徒勞的敲擊，那些聲音是如何讓人感到無聊、煩躁！」

「後來，我亦再也不參加任何音樂會了。然而，吃的慾望是無止境的。即使不張開嘴巴，我還是在不知不覺間便吃去了什麼──愛、記憶、意志。沒有人願意相信，我是這樣，一點一點吃掉了生活裡的一切，甚至把我情人的內裡都淘空，以致她終於轉身離我而去。」

黑衣人在一陣沉默後，又再次舞動起他的雨傘。你最好離我遠一點！他說。像這樣，在這樣的距離之間，我就能夠把你不能想像的一切吃掉。

I確實也累了。公園裡的老人拿過飯盒，又隱匿在他們各自的角落。不過幾年間，這些接受K餵飼的老人，似乎也愈來愈少了。至於K，現在，公園裡也消失了她的蹤影。

I跟朋友們說：我們回去吧。那些朋友──當他們還以人的形態存活時，I並不常和他們談話，但現在他們都死去了， 成為了幻象的朋友們反而都聽憑I的指令，慢慢的，邁著顫巍巍的腳步，跟著他離去。

‘The repeated disappearance of glasses meant that, finally, the restaurant management had no choice but to search my pockets – and, naturally, they didn't find a thing. They apologised profusely, and waived the bill for my wine. All the same, I never went back.

‘Later on, I fell in love with music. It’s much easier to eat than glass, because there's no need to use your teeth; you simply open your mouth and suck in, just as hard or as softly as you like. I was never too fond of heavy metal or rap, because they tended to upset my stomach and cause me trouble sleeping. At piano recitals, on the other hand, I ate up all the music before I even realised what I was doing, leaving behind only hollow, vacuous noise. And yet, none of those audience members, with their paid-for tickets, were ever any the wiser; they must have assumed the fault was with the musicians. There we were, seated inside a gorgeous, dome-roofed auditorium, the person up on stage labouring over a series of entirely meaningless taps. My, how those sounds made a person bored and fidgety!

‘Eventually, I stopped attending concerts, too. But my appetite remained as insatiable as ever. There were things I could eat even with my mouth closed without even meaning to – love, memory, willpower. No one would believe it, but this was how I was. I ate up everything in my life, bit by bit, until finally I cleaned out everything inside my beloved, and she up and left me.’

There was a pause, then the man in black went back to brandishing his umbrella. 

‘You better stay far away from me!’ he said. ‘Even from this distance, I can eat up parts of you that you can’t imagine!’

And, in fact, J did feel tired. The old people had taken their boxes of food and gone to hide away in their corners. Over the last few years, these old people of K’s seemed to have been getting fewer and fewer. As for K, by now all trace of her had vanished from the park.

‘Let's go back,’ J said to his friends. Those friends − back when they still survived in human form, J had barely spoken to them. But now they were dead, transformed into illusions, and they had no choice but to listen obediently to his instructions. Very slowly, with tottering footsteps, they followed him out.