Gone were the days of the occasional Pogo stew, of sauteed Bim Bom liver, the refinement of carpaccio di pagliacci. Jo-Jo carved with finesse, craft and enthusiasm lest his work be less than art in the eyes of those who found his latest victim's remains, but dining was a raw, beast-like endeavor. Blood was drunk from newly opened veins, the choicest tender morsels of marrow and vitreous orbs consumed with haste to stave off the dizziness of hunger.
Jo-Jo was nimble, despite fattening himself daily on the contents of another unlucky clown's skull. His stealth after the mocking cries of his childhood tormentors was amazing. Such speed that the whole world slowed around him when he struck true. A severed Achilles, followed by the plunge of his blade between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae just deep enough to terminate all nervous activity past a heartbeat, to render his victim immobile yet fully conscious of the vivisection that followed.
Jo-Jo would peel each layer of flesh from the unlucky, careful not to nick anything that might speed death along. As he went, he would show his audience of one a spleen, a tibia, a pulsing and writhing large intestine. The chest cavity he preserved for as long as he could endure so as not to burst the lovely pleural balloon that helped keep oxygen flowing to his dinner's terror-filled brain. Only once everything that had once been inside was out would Jo-Jo pause, slice across the diaphram and watch the skinless face of his latest meal gasp helplessly at his curious smile. Only at the last twitch would the eyeballs be plucked from their cavities, only then would the soft palate be breached to gain access to the holiest of holies.
On cold nights, Jo-Jo might defer to crisp some skin over the fire, to create a chewy jerky to content his mind in the daylight that followed. On summer evenings such as this, though, the precious delicacies of clown-meat were consumed raw, the bones left arranged like a walkway through the woods while the remaining muscle was wrapped inside a skin suitcase, tied with sinew.
And so quick was his work, Jo-Jo's hunger was sated long before the funk of death drew flies.
