Blueberries

He smashed the dark oak desk into shards of stray wood strewn about the chamber with his sledgehammer. He couldn't eat the whole thing in one bite. As the veins in his eyes pulsed and his teeth ground for individual superiority over the others, he tried to think of something that didn't involve what the guard outside the heavy door was going to watch him eat through the bulletproof glass. "Blueberries, they're nice, I remember blueberries. The best ones came from the big bushes outside the McCoy house in Michigan. I'm going to eat a desk for a crime I didn't commit. Blueberries." He laid his hammer down, sat on the floor, and stared for a few minutes at the wall. He eventually picked up a dime-sized chip of wood. He held his nose and opened his mouth wide. "This is a blueberry. This is a McCoy blueberry. They'd always be happy to give me their blueberries, and this is one of them." As he swallowed it whole, he gagged as he felt the edges of the chip cut the lining of his throat. He forced it into his stomach. The back of his mouth became sour with little drops of blood. "That was a blueberry, a very sweet blueberry, picked at just the right time. I probably liked it." He choked down more chips. More blood came up, and nausea set in from the wood and its varnish. He couldn't throw up; then he would have to start over. He got to his feet and raised the sledgehammer high above his head to make more of these pieces out of the bigger ones. "I love blueberries, I'm going to eat a lot of blueberries." The door flung open, and before he could say anything, the guard took his hammer and slammed the door. "Well, it looks like I'm going to be eating big blueberries." He sat on the floor and grabbed a foot-long length of splintered oak. He tried to break it, but it would only break in half. He pointed his face at the florescent light on the ceiling and opened his mouth wide. "This is a blueberry. I know it looks nothing like a blueberry, but it is. I'm a sword swallower, I can eat a sword, a sword made out of blueberries." He nudged the wood past the opening of his throat. He felt it scrape, he felt it slide, gently, gently, gently. "This is a blueberry. It doesn't taste like one, but it probably is." He felt his mouth water, and in doing so he gagged. He couldn't breathe. He tried to pull the wood out of his throat but the edges were caught on the inside of him. With a long scream saturated by his torn throat, he ripped the stick out and threw it to the other side of the chamber. His mouth was a fountain of saliva and blood. His esophagus might as well have been on fire with the pain. He turned his head, and saw a sturdy board that made the surface of the desk. He only split it in half with the hammer. "That is no blueberry."