Rise of the Rice

Maybe it was Clint’s fault for cooking so much rice. Maybe it was Wilson’s fault for just turning up with a Hawaiian, a barbeque chicken and a capriccosa without checking what was happening for tea. Maybe it was Shane and Doug’s fault for choosing pizza over stir-fry.
Maybe it could be blamed on Jamal’s Rice Emporium, where the cereal had been purchased several decades ago by Shane’s grandma. Perhaps it was Grandma Franklin’s fault.
Should the government have put more revenue into publicising the perils of poor kitchen hygiene? It could all have been avoided if someone had just put the rice in the fridge.

But the rice sat in the big, two-handled saucepan in which Clint had cooked it.
It began to dry out. By day three it had formed a crusty outer shell with the properties of translucent, white plastic; a sort of membrane.
By the end of second week, the pale mound had grown a large, dark, light-sensitive patch of mould. The moist rice granules of the interior had begun to communicate with each other. Using their collective cognitive power they found they could wonder, plan, experience emotion, memorise, philosophise, meditate and imagine.
Halfway through the third week the cognitive granules had built an information pathway running between the interior and the mouldy ‘eye’.

A housefly circled around the kitchen table, and eventually landed on the crusty, rice surface. She rubbed her front claws together in anticipation of the fetid meal and was consumed by the rice.
The rice was predatory.

‘Have you seen Doug?’ Clint asked Shane and Wilson as they sat in the lounge room, watching Snatch for the third time in as many nights.
‘Not today,’ said Wilson.
‘Prob’ly workin’ late again,’ said Shane.
Clint got up and went into the kitchen to refill his glass. He placed it on the table, opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of lemonade which he opened and poured into his glass.
He jumped and spilled as he noticed that the saucepan, which had been only half-full of putrid rice was now overflowing onto the table.
He blinked, just to make sure his eyes weren’t having a joke at his expense.
‘’Ey, guys!’ Clint called out. ‘Yous noticed the rice?’
‘Yeah,’ Shane called back. ‘’S gone mouldy.’
‘Derr; Oh know that. Looks like there’s more of ‘t. ‘S overflowin’.’
‘Doesn’t rice expand?’ Doug yelled from the lounge.
‘Yeah, b’t tha’s when it’s bein’ cooked.’
No reply from the lounge room. Clint just stood stared at the rice. The rice blinked first.
What the?! thought Clint.
He went to bed.
Next morning he made an appointment with the optometrist.

Clint arrived home without an optometrist’s prescription, but some good advice – make sure you get plenty of sleep. He parked his light-blue VW Rabbit between Doug’s grey Magna and Shane’s dark green Commodore.
As Clint walked into the kitchen, his feet slipped, dropping him on the hard dirty floor. He got up, and noticed a trail of white goo leading into the lounge room. The house really needed a clean.
Clint noticed an overturned chair by the kitchen table and righted it – the guys must’ve been kicking the footy around again.
Clint saw that the saucepan was no longer overflowing. Must’ve been really tired, he thought. He looked inside, just to check. Except for a thin layer of pale scum, it was empty! Someone must’ve emptied it into the bin at last.
‘Anyone ‘ome?’ Clint yelled.
No answer.
Clint walked into the lounge room, and sitting on the couch, watching Oprah, was The Rice. It had grown, or swelled, to twenty times its size. It picked up the remote and switched off the television.
‘You ate them, didn’t you?’ said Clint, staring at The Rice as the truth slowly sunk in.
The Rice confirmed Clint’s suspicion with a deep, rumbling burp. The smell made Clint want to spew.
Clint began to tremble. If The Rice had eaten Doug, Wilson and Shane, what’d stop it from eating him too? He began to back out of the lounge room, into the kitchen.
Keeping eye-contact with The Rice, he noticed that it was trembling even more than he was. There was a trickling sound, and a dark puddle began to spread across the couch where The Rice was crouched. The Rice had wet itself! Clint was it’s creator, and it was afraid of him.
It began to ooze its way off the couch, toward the open window. It pressed itself up against the wall, and began to climb up, onto the sill. It perched there for a second, and then jumped out, landing on the ground with a splat.

The Rice sniffed the air; picked up the scents of carbon dioxide, methane and sweat. The smell of people. Civilization. Prey.
The Rice headed west, toward the Big City.