The Cheese Monster

It started with a craving.

Elliot had never been particularly fond of cheese. He ate it the way most people did—on crackers, in sandwiches, sprinkled on pasta. But one night, after a meaningless argument with his sister, he opened the fridge, found a block of sharp cheddar, and bit into it like it was an apple.

The salt, the richness, the tang—it satisfied something in him he hadn’t known was empty.

He finished the whole block without thinking.

The next day, he bought more. Brie, gouda, blue, even a wedge of something labeled French Cave-Aged Tomme that cost nearly thirty dollars. He sampled each one methodically, silently, as if trying to solve a puzzle only he could see.

By the end of the week, he’d stopped going to work.

His messages turned strange. One read: “Milk turned solid is memory made flesh.”

Concerned, his sister stopped by. The apartment had a heavy, musty scent. The sink was full of unwashed utensils, and the walls bore faint yellow smears. Cheese wrappers littered the floor. Elliot seemed calm—euphoric, even. He told her not to worry. Said he was “close to clarity.”

She didn’t understand what he meant.

The smell worsened.

He stopped bathing. His skin looked pale and waxen, and he spoke in cryptic fragments about aging and transformation. About “veins” and “ripening.”

Then one night, after reports of shouting and strange music, neighbors called the police. When officers arrived, they found Elliot sitting quietly on the kitchen floor, surrounded by piles of cheese rinds and paper scraps, staring at the fridge like it held answers.

Now he’s in a care facility.

He rarely speaks. But sometimes, under his breath, he whispers something the nurses can’t quite make out.

They think it sounds like:

“You are what you eat.”