Pictures and Words

Hello! My name is Peter C. Hayward, and for around 150 hours, there have been two plates of meat in a cage in my back yard.

Where have all the maggots gone? (long time passing)

You know how movies and TV shows are occasionally set in old, abandoned mining towns? Towns that had a run of gold or silver, so everyone rushed to move in. Lots of miners, and so a saloon to serve them beer, and a whorehouse to serve them whores, and a pharmacy to serve them drugs and milkshakes. But then when the gold or silver runs out, everyone moves away, and you’re just left with a ghost town?

Maggot Town feels a bit like that.

Yesterday it was so busy, a thriving meatropolis of flesh and maggots (so many maggots.)

This morning, I went down to take the daily photos, and I was surprised to find that most of them were gone. You can see dozens of little maggot corpses lying around, but it seems that most of the maggots have just buggered off to greener pastures. I was talking to my father about it (the StinkyDad) and he said that maggots lived off moisture – once the moisture was gone, the maggots would all just die.

Had I known this, I would have been extremely tempted to water the meat.

So it seems that the Golden Age of Maggot Town is over. There are still definitely some there (and now that the maggot population has decreased, some earwigs seem to have moved in) but the population is one tenth of what it was yesterday, maybe even less. Easy come, easy go.

Maybe this means that I’ll get some of my readers back. I know of at least 5 people who have stopped reading because they don’t like maggots (how can anyone not like maggots?) and there are probably many more besides.

Of course, the maggots haven’t actually disappeared…

...they've just relocated.

SPAM is the new steak, people, shout it from the rooftops.

I was down during the day, and didn’t notice any particular maggot presence, but they must have just been hiding from the harsh sun, biding their time in the centre of the moist ball of meat. The Can o’ SPAM has been completely taken over by the maggots. Because it’s not on its original StinkyPlate any more, it’s not techincally part of “Fort SPAM”, and thus needs a new name. I’ve decided to name it “Meatropolis“, mostly the word made me laugh when I used it earlier.

The front gate of Meatropolis

I couldn’t get a decent angle, but the SPAM is absolutely packed full of maggots. They seem to have taken over about 70% of the “meat”, leaving the outside shell as protection, and devouring the softer innards.

I’m curious as to whether this is a whole new batch of maggots that have been laid, or if most of the Maggot City maggots made the trek over. I’d assume that they were a new litter, and that the idea of maggots migrating (maggrating?) was ridiculous, but I found some maggots on the Cheerios today:

I call him "Columbus Cook".

None of the sausages actually have maggots inside them (as far as I could tell) so I assume this maggot is just out exploring.

I really need to find an insectspert and email them with all of the pressing questions the StinkyPete project has brought up. I’m amazed at how much I’ve started to care about the habits of maggots, and the breeding patterns of flies.

In other news, the Gravy Peninsulas have become even more solid (in contrast to the rest of the gravy in the jug, which is looking more gooey by the day.) I have a theory that naming something affects how it turns out – for instance, if you name your child “Loser”, he or she will probably grow up to be one. Similarly, naming the gravy-lumps peninsulas has inspired the rest of the gravy to become more ocean-like, while the islands try to form a mainland to peninse off.

Also, Den Tartar has attracted and drowned one more fly. Five have fallen victim thus far.

Nothing from the comments today, so straight on to the daily stats:

Weather – “It was hot today,” our weather-person Cannibal Kate didn’t say today, because I was awake from 8am and noticed the weather myself. “It was really, really hot. There was no rain, but it was bloody hot. Hot, like Peter’s sexy body.”

Stench – 3.5/10 – The smell of maggots was slightly stronger today. I still maintain that we’re not smelling any of the actual meat, just the maggots.
Stench radius – 40cm – noticeably less stench-radius today. I put this down to the fact that there are at most half the number of maggots as we had yesterday.

Feeling of unease – 9/10 – this has gone up significantly. I no longer have the feeling that I smell of maggots 24/7, but (as you’ll know if you saw the post from earlier today) there was a strange man in the park, listening to music at midnight. That makes me uneasy. And an estimated 90% of the population of maggots disappeared today. Perhaps there’s something about that meat we don’t know?

Every time I stuck my head into the cage to take the photos, I’d have a quick sneezing fit afterwards. It would pass within minutes, and I didn’t get the flu from it or anything, but today I had a sneezing fit just from being near the cage. This amps up the uneasy factor immensely.

Also, while I was down at the cage taking the daily picks, I distinctly felt a bite on my elbow. I looked down, but couldn’t see anything. Clearly it was some kind of invisible, flying maggot.

What’s more, if maggots are anything like vampires (and I’ve no reason to believe they’re not) this means that in three days time, I myself will turn into a maggot*.

*I may only get turned invisible and be given the ability to fly. That would be pretty cool.

So not only have disappearing maggots, sneezing fits, and strange men listening to midnight music, I have to cope with invisible flying maggots, and the fact that in a few days, I myself will become a maggot*. I don’t know what will cause the uneasy-meter to go up to 10/10, but it will have to be pretty big.

*or invisible/flight-capable

I still flinch any time something brushing against me, my mind automatically thinking it’s a maggot. Also, today was the first time that I couldn’t eat while writing this. I have a bowl of soup next to me, but it is making me feel ill to look at, and I blame the maggots.

Every day, there's less yellow and more red and blue.

Bonus “meats”: I forgot to poke the gravy, tartar sauce and vegetables, but the tartar sauce continues to be popular, while the gravy continues to interest no-one. (unless the gravy is already turning into maggot-eggs, which is a distinct possibility. It’s looking a bit like the SPAM did before it became Maggot Central.) None of them are very appealing.

Kangaroo Steak:

Toughness – 9.5/10 – both the Kangaroo and Pork steaks have become extremely tough. Almost the hardest they’ve ever been, but I took into account the fact that both had a healthy maggot population (well, less healthy today than it was yesterday) and reduced the points. No meat can have full toughness while maggots live in it.
Popularity – 6 – there was an earwig, and a handful of maggots, but that was it. Still no ants. I think that Kanga’s glory days are over.
Appeal – 2/10 – there’s more of it than the Pork Steak, and it looks like it’s pretty solid (which, for some reason, is appealing to me) but it is also wrapping down from a major maggot infestation, so it’s not looking terribly appetising.

I’ll remind everyone that “Appeal” is how appealing the meat would be if I was starving to death. Appeal “just for the fun of eating it” would be lower again.

Pork Steak:

Toughness – 9.5/10
Popularity – 8/10 – considerably more popular than the Kangaroo Steak, Pork Steak still has more maggots than I could count on both hands and feet. This is possibly a higher score than it deserves, but I’ve already exported the image, so I’m not going to change it now.
Appeal – 1.5/10 – less than the Kangaroo Steak, more than the Bolognaise Sauce.

Dad’s Bolognaise Sauce:

Toughness – 4/10 – this has built up quite a solid crust.
Popularity – 5/10 – it still has patches of maggots – little street gangs in Maggot City, waiting for an excuse – any excuse – to pick a fight with another gang. What they don’t know is that the Maggot Police have infiltrated one of the gangs, and they’re taking them down…from the inside.
Appeal – 1/10

Wall of Saveloy:

Toughness – 10/10 – still rock solid. This has actually started to put me off.
Popularity – 0.5/10 – for Columbus Cook, the lone maggot explorer.
Appeal – 7/10 – gone down a lot, because it is so unnaturally tough. Still by far the most appealing meat in the cage.

Can o’ SPAM:

Toughness – 6/10 – tonight was the first night that I couldn’t actually pierce the SPAM’s skin.
Popularity – 8.5/10 – so…many…maggots.
Appeal – 1/10 – too many maggots.

I’ll finish us off tonight with a photo of me lifting the SPAM up, to see what was underneath:

Also: I don't know how obvious it is, but some kind of white foam (the foam you see in the ocean or in the sink while washing up, not the foam that comes in boxes) seems to have formed on the mesclun plate. Anyone know what that's about?

I also recorded another video to share with you tonight, but now I can’t find my video camera. How do you lose a whole camera? It’s baffling me.

I’m curious as to where we go from here. Presumeably the maggots will suck all the moisture out of the SPAM in the next day or two, and so unless it rains, are they all just going to die? I assumed maggots were a bit hardier than that, but it seems I was mistaken. I suppose that only time will tell!

Tomorrow: Daily Check-in!

Also, and this is completely unrelated to StinkyPete, I’m performing in a long-form impro show tonight. It’s going to be the “pilot episode” of an improvised cyberpunk series, and I play the comic relief, the lead character’s best friend, an assassin who has been genetically engineered to be perfect. It should be a lot of fun, and it’s free. If you come along, feel free to come up and say hi, introduce yourself. I’ll be the one who looks like all the pictures and videos plastered all over this site! Details:

“The Series”
When: Wednesday the 14th of January, starts 7:30pm
Where: Kitty O’Shea’s, 23 / 25 Given Tce, Petrie Terrace
Cost: Free Show

Hope to see you there!

I finally got the maggot video working! You can now view this video (taken on Day 5) in all its high-quality, maggoty glory:

In other news, the daily check-in will be late, by up to a few hours. This video explains why:

(summary: there is a dude in the park, a few metres away from the meat. Listening to music. At midnight. I am not going to take photos while a night-time listener is a few metres away.)

Up next: The Delayed Daily Check-in!