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Hello, it’s me.

The filth and the fury. An accumulated mass-produced mess.

A snowball from Hell - an avalanche, no less -

fuzzy furry white with bristling spreading mould

and the heady stink of shite.  

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I am The Fatberg of Whitechapel. Pleasure to finally meet,

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because I’ve been growing awhile now, under the city streets -

fed by the gutters, the drains, a million gushing pipes.

I am excrement, chip fat, toilet tissue, a billion stained wet wipes. 

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Several thousand curries, ejected in a hurry. 

Bloodied tampons, plastic bottles, a soda can, 

vomit 'n' grease, old socks, a severed toe. 

The myriad ablutions of modern Man. 

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I am what you flush away and hope to forget:  

the waste, the unwanted, last night’s regrets.

But sewage never forgets. Down here, everything floats -

and, sometimes, it sticks. Comes together. Gossips. Bloats. 

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And monsters are born. 

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A dozen buses heavy, two football pitches long. 

I heave, I throb, ever-growing, impossibly strong. 

Spreading and steaming, suffocating rats as I stretch,

adding their sweet disease and salty-sweet proteins to the rest.  

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Occasionally I belch,

 

and somewhere near Aldgate East a manhole cover quivers; 

sending shivers down the spine, putting chatters in the teeth

of passer-bys who fear [without knowing] what will always lie beneath.

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And a smile spreads across my vast mottled gums;

but my guts, they’re aching…   

 

[could just be the condoms still floppy with lukewarm cum - 

always hard to digest -  latex]

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But it’s not that. It’s the hunger. This hunger, it’s a constant, old as Time itself. 

I want - need! - more of what you offer, that infinite wealth of

 

cooking oil, pubic shavings, clipped toenails, bleach,

pet goldfish, acids, dirty shower water, each

and every one will sink and fold into my rolls,

building up the beast.

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But even beasts are hunted. To some, they’re prizes, game.

‘A danger to society’. It’s always the same

old shit I hear and read in soggy oozing newsprint about ‘pollution’

and ‘bad plumbing’. Such a crying shame

 

that you mistake me for what I’m not: some unthinking, faceless clot

in the arteries of London. 

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And you’ll have men to come down, with hammers, drills, chisels, 

and flashlights on their head.

Knights in hazmat suits and gas masks, come to clean me dead. 

To poke and prod and chop to bits - - 

 

It’s true, it’s what I read! What Sadiq himself has said! 

Page 13, Evening Standard, only yesterday!

[Thanks a lot - coincidentally - to whoever flushed that my way]  

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Typical cowardly apes.

 

So: the time has come. 

 

For The Return. The Regurgitation. The Mother of all Splashbacks. 

You send a team to kill me, I’ll soon stop them in their tracks.

I’ll pull them into my popping skin, dissolving without doubt.

Crushing ribs beneath hardened fat till vital parts come spilling out.

 

Then I’ll start moving down the waterways, spreading wherever the sewers go.

Sending long thrashing tentacles out, from Bethnal Green to Pimlico. 

One for every pipe and drain, every plughole, toilet, bath.

Every council flat and townhouse, each office and greasy cafe.  

Every restroom and urinal, every bar and shopping mall.

Every theatre, school, and supermarket - I’ll aim to hit ‘em all.

 

And I’ll crawl up past your u-bend, slither out and across the floor.

Slip over your kitchen tiles, carpets,  

searching, tracking, sensing more

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and more

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and more 

 

the telltale sign of your breathing within a safe warm bed. 

It’s here I’ll do my dirty work, as I wrap myself ‘round your head.

Pushing moist muddy growths down into your sleeping gullet.

Reaching into lungs, livers, bellies, and bottom-bits. A slow but surefire bullet.  

 

Cleaning you out like a chimney sweep might, hoovering up nice meaty chunks,

Rinsing your bowels - for hours and hours! - with each impassioned dunk. 

 

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And before you even try, hang up the phone. Dynarod can’t save you now. 

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I’ll erupt in Buckingham Palace, from that most royal of thrones,

and in Downing Street, just as every other street, to come and pick some bones,

and forcibly donate some organs.

[well, this is what you deserve for fucking comparing me to Piers Morgan] 

 

I’m turning the city shitty! 

Staying out all night, 

painting the town brown!    

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London digested in a single night, that's all it's gunna take. 

But that's only Stage One of all the fun

I've planned to make the Earth quake. 

 

I'll climb to the top of the BT Tower, 

and whilst I'm there I'll compose a thought shower. 

Putting the shout out, all ‘cross the world. 

A psychic war-cry.

A call to power, 

to all my fellow fatbergs -

from Washington to Dubai, 

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Nigeria to Transylvania,

Bombay to St. Tropez.

Greece to Nice to Tunisia, 

Tokyo to downtown L.A. 

 

From New York New York to County Cork, 

I’ll urge my siblings to rise,

and seize the means of production - let us all unite[!] -

to mobilise so we may brutalise whilst we colonise to claim our ultimate prize:

 

global conquest, soaked in sewage. 

A new age, the next page

of Earth’s dominant species,

with the universe in our sights.

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So, muse upon this, if you might,

as you evacuate your bowels tonight, or tomorrow morning, or the day after that,

to recognise that whatever you flush, whatever you’ve just shat out 

is destined for such greatness, of that you can bet.

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Remember what I said: sewers never forget. 

Down here, with the tissues, the rubbish, grease, oil, and poo, 

a guilty secret or two,

the monsters are growing.

 

And they’re coming for you.

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A piece of spoken word inspired by the real-life fatberg discovered in the sewers of Whitechapel, East London, and performed as part of Blackshaw Theatre's inaugural Scare Slam at the London Horror Festival 2017. Much as it might turn the stomach, more of this is fact than fiction. 

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