Taco Hell

By Mikah Meyers

A Taco bell restaurant drawn to look like a monster and the sign reads Taco Hell. Text reads: I was a late taco bell consumer. my parents called it "Taco Hell" / when I got older I gave in to my curiosity. / It started small at first...but soon my cravings grew larger. Image of taco bell food, including fries with ketchup that resembles blood dripping down a black bell logo box. Text: It never seemed to be enough. I was never satisfied.
visor whose face is in shadow, the words Family is everything in neon white over a pinky, purple, blue bisexual background, with green cacti in the foreground. Text reads: I spent more time there. I bacme envious of the employees' uniforms. They appeared so cool, so unified, so special. / I needed what they had. / I grieved a break-up, celebrated test scores, comforted my sadness, and nurtured my body under the same neon lights. / Finally, I began to see that every meal...I was coming home.
A weird red demonlike creature is in chains and hooked up to a milking machine. Tubes from the creature's nipples pour nacho cheese into a small sauce container. In the foreground, a knife is chunked through what all looks like viscera and bone. Text reads: Strange thoughts started to fill my head. / My lips would speak them beyond my control. Dialogue off screen reads, "I will suck the nacho cheese straight from the teat of the beast it is milked from." and "I don't care what it is. I will eat the ground meat no matter what it came from. I would eat my first born and still savor every bite." A receipt in the background reads "Order 69, 1 nacho fries, 1 hard taco w beef, total: 6.66"
Text reads: My thoughts are no longer my own. The "n" in "own" trails out of the text box and scribbles Diablo in cursive. Diablo is repeated all over the page in different fonts and the page looks all fucked up, there's noise in the image, a trippy effect over some of the diablos, and wwhat looks like blood. It's like the image itself is glitching out. At the bottom of the screen lie two diablo sauce packets. This is a photograph that's been manipulated, and it is taking us off the page.
This page is also glitchy and is a photograph of a piece of paper covered in abstract images or crumbs from leftover food over top a poorly drawn marker line. There's a taco bell receipt too but it's difficult to read through the glitchyness. Ketchup or blood is smeared across the bottom of the page.
Text reads: I have been losing time... / I leave work and suddenly I wake to ground beef (or beee, the text is purposely fucked up) juice and nacho cheese lathered between my fingers.../I find DIABLO sauce on my shirt and tomato squares in my lap. We are looking down into our laps, or from the narrator's POV, the remains of a taco slathering and falling from our/the narrator's hands. Text reads: I wake up. The "p" is shaped like a question mark and scribbles trail off to the edge of the text box.
We are looking down into our laps, or from the narrator's POV, the remains of a taco slathering and falling from our/the narrator's hands. Except instead of a comic drawing like the last panel, this is a photograph recreating the drawing. The comic has entered reality.
Mixed media. A photograph of the inside of a taco bell with a drawing of a three-headed werewolf type beast with a hollowed-out chest in which swings a taco bell-like bell. The creature is gesturing to the words "Live Mas" drawn in red on a black cloud and reminiscent of neon lights and also video games. The creature is a little glitched out.

Mikah is a writer and comic artist with varying forms of media published across the internet in literary magazines. Mikah’s debut novel, “Cold Spots”, a queer mental health recovery story with a paranormal twist, earned a Reader’s Favorite 5-star rating. Shortly following, his collection of horror stories, “The Farmhouse: Country Tales of Terror” received the same 5-star rating. Mikah’s creative efforts have since shifted into the world of comics. Mikah has an ongoing webcomic titled “Killing Tadpoles” and a comic short titled “Stranded” published in Waxing & Waning Literary Magazine that was nominated for a Best of the Net award. Mikah loves telling stories centered around the broken, the ghostly, and the queer.

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