$85.00
The announcement came not on television, not in newspapers, but as a vibration in the ground itself, a low, unplaceable hum that resonated through bone, metal, and thought. The product was called THE RATED AILING ALL. No one had seen it before, yet everyone had touched it. It was a cassette boxset: seven volumes, 7c50, each cassette nestled in its grotesque sculpture, each sculpture twisted like a ribcage, each page of its accompanying book crawling with ink that moved as though alive. The Earth quaked the moment it was first unboxed.
Scientists, terrified, called it an extreme product recall. They declared it unsafe for consumption, unsafe for listening, unsafe for perception itself. The ground shook as announcements were read aloud. People’s heads throbbed. Chronic sinusitis spread inexplicably through the population—blocked noses, thick mucus, postnasal drip, aching eyes, tender cheeks, throbbing foreheads. Yet the symptoms were merely prelude. Those who touched the boxset began hearing whispers under their tongues, mandibles gnawing words that were not their own. Insects under mouths, they called it, though the language was inadequate. The larvae were everywhere, crawling along teeth, along gums, under palates, chewing messages from a universe older than the sun.
A press conference was called. Not on Earth, but on Pluto, atop a plateau of frozen rock, where skeletons in ceremonial garb—unknown, ancient, impossibly tall—stood as podiums and chairs. They clacked their bones together for emphasis as the government explained the recall. “THE RATED AILING ALL is unsafe,” they said. Their teeth were missing, replaced by gaps that clicked in sync with the cassette static. “Do not open. Do not listen. Do not speak of it.”
No one listened. The vibrations of the first unboxings had already spread across continents. People opened the cassettes anyway. Side A hissed like larvae crawling beneath enamel. Side B whispered words older than memory. The sculptures began to move. Each rib of stone twisted into a mandible, each spine became a twitching insect leg. The books crawled across tables, slithering like worms, opening themselves page by page, forming sentences from saliva and ink: “THE RATE IS ALL. THE RATE IS ALL. THE RATE IS ALL.”
Meanwhile, Tom Cruise—because he was inexplicably present in every interdimensional newsfeed—was seen gnawing on moss atop a Martian plateau. His smile was unnerving. His teeth clicked with mandible-like precision, each bite sending shivers through the Earth’s crust. The cassettes hummed in response. The chronic sinusitis symptoms intensified globally: headaches that felt like the planet itself was chewing at your skull, congestion that sounded like grinding stone, mucus pooling thick and discolored, postnasal drip that carried whispers in languages humans had never spoken.
Back on Pluto, the skeletons began to speak. Their voices were hollow, but unmistakably aligned with the hum of the cassettes. “Recall is futile. THE RATED AILING ALL is everywhere. THE RATED AILING ALL is the rate, the rate is all.” Their fingers tapped on frozen podiums, summoning a wind that carried the smell of decayed Earth across the Kuiper Belt. The press conference devolved into chaos. The skeletons’ jaws unhinged, mandibles snapping open to reveal tiny, crawling insects that scuttled over microphones and into the mouths of reporters. Everyone in attendance choked, coughing thick mucus that hummed with the static of cassette tape.
The sculptures, meanwhile, climbed from homes worldwide. They moved in darkness, gnawing at walls, floors, and furniture. The boxsets played themselves. Side A hummed, Side B hissed. Voices burrowed under tongues. Insects multiplied. Mandibles gnawed. Chronic sinusitis became universal. Congested noses became vessels for the whispers, the gnawing, the hums. Pain around eyes, cheeks, nose, forehead—pain in the mouth where insects crawled unseen—pulsed with planetary rhythm. The Earth shivered as if in fear.
The extreme product recall had failed catastrophically. Governments declared martial law; scientists fled into vacuum-sealed bunkers. But the cassettes, sculptures, and books had no boundaries. They were everywhere: under floors, inside walls, embedded in the soil. People woke to find the phrases scratched across ceilings: “THE RATE IS ALL. THE RATE IS ALL. THE RATE IS ALL.” Some swore their saliva moved against their will, tiny legs crawling beneath soft tissue, carrying letters, syllables, messages older than the stars themselves.
On Pluto, the skeletons erupted in a rattle of triumph. They were conducting a symphony of gnawing, humming, hissing, mucus, and bone. The cassettes responded, vibrating the ice, transmitting the chaos back to Earth in frequencies felt in teeth, ears, and sinus cavities. Thick, discolored mucus ran unceasingly from every nose, pooling in droplets that hummed in sync with Side B. Chronic sinusitis became a planetary condition. Pain, tenderness, swelling, postnasal drip, earaches, toothaches, headaches, bad breath—symptoms no human medicine could contain.
I watched from a safe distance—though not safe enough—and realized: the insects under mouths were not merely metaphorical. They were the Rate. They were the tape. They were the boxsets, the books, the sculptures. They were gnawing through the borders of reality itself. Every human inhalation carried their whispers. Every eyelid blink flickered with static. Every heartbeat was synchronized with a mandible clicking somewhere, always somewhere.
And the cassette kept playing. Side A: hiss, hum, whisper. Side B: larvae gnawing, mandibles cracking, insects multiplying. The books scuttled across surfaces. The sculptures twisted impossibly. Skeletons atop Pluto rattled in applause. Moss-covered Martian plateaus trembled with the gnawing of Tom Cruise’s teeth. Chronic sinusitis spread like a hymn to madness. Congestion, blocked noses, mucus, postnasal drip, pain, tenderness, swelling, earaches, headaches, toothaches, bad breath, gnaw gnaw gnaw, hum hum hum, hiss hiss hiss, crawl crawl crawl, THE RATE IS ALL.
And somewhere in the endless looping hiss of Side B, a thought began to form: perhaps the recall had succeeded, after all—not in halting the spread, but in proving one truth:
THE RATED AILING ALL was never meant to be stopped.
It was never meant to be unboxed.
It was always meant to gnaw.
Edition of 1, numbered.