Distortion

    (photo by Andre Kertesz)


"Look at that monster."
"Yes, she is one of the rarest species, we are lucky to have her here, she might as well be the last of her kind."
"Can she talk?"
"Yes, of course but we are not allowed to talk to her."
"Why not?"
"Because of the Red Fear disease....you don't know?"
"In the past people talked to her, befriended her but then someone got closer and she infected him with red fear..."
"Why red?"
"That was the colour of his fear, red.  Each of us carries a different colour. Anyway, his fear was red, so we called the phenomenon  the Red Fear disease and  decided never to communicate for more than specific amount of time with her again."
"Specific amount of time? How long is that?"
"It depends on the interlocutor really. It starts with Brave, which is done mostly by written messages, and goes all the way to Wimp with almost no interaction at all. Do you want to try? What colour is your fear?"
" I honestly don't know.."
"Do you want to find out? Go pee and get in there..we don't want you wetting your pants now, do we?"
                             
                                    .                      .                       .


"Hello, I am Alithia." I type on the big tablet the zoo keeper gave me. Something flashes at the corner of the cage and the monster opens her eyes. She picks up the other tablet and looks at my message.
"I am Distortion." she types and my tablet lights up.
"I want to hear your voice." I type and send. Distortion smiles kindly and shakes her head in negation. My tablet lights up again.
"Whatever I say, you will distort." the message said.
"I have heard and seen many things, Distortion. Let me try." I type and send.

Distortion sighs and puts the tablet down. She looks up at me, her dark brown eyes crowned with dark, purple circles and sits up straight. She stares at me for a few moments undecided, then picks up the tablet again and starts to type.

"I will type and speak, for you to see what I mean." her message flashes and I nod in agreement.

Distortion types something on her pad and my tablet flashes. I stare at her face as her mouth opens. It is bigger than I had expected, it opens and then closes again forming words.

"I want you to be my....."
The sound of her voice enters my ears and spreads through my body.

"I want you to be mine, I want to consume you, possess you... Look how pale you are, and you call me a monster...you...what are you?"

I looked at the tablet. " I want to be your friend." the message flashes.

Distortion types again and looks up. Her mouth, opens forming a slithering snake, her tongue rolls...

"I need someone to....."

"I need someone to feed me, Alithia, you feed me your dreams and hopes and fears. I want to rule your life, own it, I want you to obey my thirst, be my slave."

"......hold me." the message said.

"I can't hear you." I muttered. "What colour is my fear? Show me! I want to know."

Distortion puts her tablet down and nods. Her mass of flesh moves on the floor and quickly towers above me. Her voice enters my head. I close my eyes and open to Distortion's words...my words.

"I will never love you, nobody ever will, you will never be accepted, you will always be rejected, and looked down on. You will beg for love, yet never find it. You are feared and rejected. You are worthless and all your loved ones will scorn you for who you are, they want you dead or gone. Until the day you die, nobody your hold you while you sleep, nobody wants to hold you while you dream, you are alone, dead and white. WHITE... Look at yourself inside me. Open your eyes Alithia...open them and face your fear, for it is who you are."

My eyes are wet with blood and so are my trousers. I wipe the blood away but I feel more coming out. From every pore I bleed.  I look inside Distortion knowing that the White Fear will come for me, the white fear is there, always there waiting for a sign of weakness. The floor is drenched with blood and I shiver.

The tablet next to me flashes and I place a bloody hand on the glass.

"I am sorry." the message says.

Pandora

(Photo by Thomas Hodge)

"I am Pandora and everybody knows me because of my box which, as you can see, is in fact a large jar. As the myth goes, I am the first woman on Earth and my box was a God's gift which I should never have opened but as you all know...I did.
But I was spared despite my evil deed. You know why?
 Because they knew I was going to open the bloody thing, as it never had a lock and because they wanted me to keep it forever, negotiate it, keep people away from it, keep it sealed.
 Now, you want to open my box again and use it to your liking. We both know what that will bring, don't we now....but we still know you are never going to quit until you do.
You want my box so badly, your spine quivers. You think you can possess it, own it.
Who am I to refuse you? I am too tired to negotiate. I offered you myself in return and you choose to ignore me, reject me.. So...
So here it is... my precious love. The box, which like I said, is in fact a large jar.
My advice: Pandora is enough for you, turn away from it, for once it's opened, it will claim and consume you."

Having finished her long, needless monologue, Pandora sat on top of the wooden box, folded her white legs and looked at me coldly.
"Pandora.." I said quietly and walked towards the jar. "I don't want you, never did, never will. In fact, there hasn't been a man in recorded history that ever wanted you more than your box. Why would I be any different?" I asked picking up the jar which turned out to be very light.
"Is this empty?" I asked and shook it. "It seems empty.." I muttered and shook it again.

Pandora's eyes fell to the floor, her skin rejection-pale, disdain-white.
"Open it." she muttered.

My fingers curled around the lid and I lifted it up. The jar was empty.
I pressed my face inside to get a closer look, it was big, bigger than I thought at first, like a rabbit hole it was, an earthy cave.
"Hello!" I shouted and walked deeper inside. It was cold and dark and empty. She had cheated me the horny bitch, there was nothing in the jar after all.
"FUCK YOU PANDORA!!!! " I shouted and my voice hit me from all directions, it shook the walls, they started to crumble around me, a large boulder hit me on my back, I ran outside.
It was a familiar street, I was back home.

"There he is! Get him!"
I turned around.
"What are you doing here? What do you want? I told you never to come here again."
"Why did you kill them? Why did you do it?"
"Killed who?"
The living room smelt of piss and vomit. I looked at the ceiling. My mother, my father, my sister and me all hanged from the ceiling, blindfolded and naked.  A large cleaver was still locked in my father's thigh. I looked at my broken body, blood was dripping out of my mouth..so young I looked, so strong.
"No!" I said, " I didn't do this.."
"You killed your own mother..you did.."
"No, I love my mother, I could never kill her.."
"You killed me, and you loved me too."
"What? No, it is the other way around and you know it."
Her jaw fell to her feet and golden beetles walked out of her throat.
"Take one" her eyes said, "For good luck."
"Don't you want to fuck now? I am all infested with your love..rejection-pale, disdain-white." she said and came towards me.
"Stay fucking away!" I shouted and went for dad's cleaver. I'm sure he wouldn't mind.
I hacked her body to pieces. The beetles, scared, scattered everywhere, some even climbed on top of me, they smelt of her. Young, and mad, and covered with butter.

"I need to get to work, I will be late." I mutter and wipe my hands on my shirt.
 I look at my family hanging from the ceiling. I should get them down, but I will be soo late, tooo late. I don't have time for things like that, I have too many obligations, too many things to do, no time no time...

"Where do you think you're going young man?"
"To work, I need to get to work."
"Now, now, calm down, you can't go to work every single day. I thought I told you that... You can't go to work as often as you please. You need to wait for my permission, you need written permit my sweet love."
"They are going to fire me. I need to get there."
The woman pulled a large needle out of her pocket..
"When I shove this into your sick eye-socket, you'll sing a different song."
I raised the cleaver and hacked her face in half. She didn't budge.
"You're fired!" her mouth shouted. "You have no work, no money and no time."

"I am young!" I shouted, "I can get a new job and make more money, I am young and time is ALL I have you fucking bitch! NOONE CAN FIRE ME!!!! I AM INVINCIBLE, ETERNAL, PERFECT!"

"Can you sing? Got a good voice?" the dead woman says. "You know I'd sing to YOUR mic any time, precious.." the tongue escapes the mouth and touches my naked skin right above the belt.

The cleaver has a life of its own, I turn her to mince, a pile as high a freshly dug grave.
"Here boy..." I say to a little dog, as white as snow, it smells the heap and licks his nose.
"Eat up, it's fresh!"
My hands leave a read streak on its fur as I caress it. So weak, so vulnerable, I can make it love me and then hack it clean...but this needs time and I need to get to work...

I turn my back to it and lie on the grass. The sun is shining on my face and my eyes close. The air is light and full of smells. Flowers and tears, flowers and rain..
"I can find another job, I can get another house, a new lover, I have time."

Bang! Bang!

My eyes open to darkness.
"What the fuck!"  I say and sit up only to hit my head against the box.
"LET ME OUT!!! Jesus, you are burying me alive...I AM ALIVE!"
I hit the box with my fists, I can't see the sun from the cracks any more ..I hear the thud of the soil hitting the lid. I hate this box, it's so small, it smells of rot and decay.
So many bones around me, skulls and skin...death, disease, despair...

"Time's up, my love."  Pandora said.
"Oh no no no your time is up, you are old and weak, look at you, all wrinkled and needy.  I am young and eternal, remember?"
"Are you?" she said and placed a large floor mirror in front of my chair.

I was in a wheelchair, older than earth, frailer than snow.
"No!" I said, "It can't be...I want to leave the box, I choose you! I choose you, instead!"

"You made your choice, now now..." she says and wipes my tears. "It's time to die my young bird." she said and caresses my bare skull. "Goodbye!"

She steps into the mirror. I see her sitting on the wooden box, folding her white legs. She gently places the lid  back into place.

He ate her whole: A love story

Three days before 2012 expires and she still finds herself hanging from the same hook; she is naked and parts of her are already missing. However, she looks at him full of understanding as he sets the table for yet another meal...poor man, he is always so hungry.

Even though she is skinnier than when he found her a couple of months before, this never puts him off his food. Piece by piece he cuts her off with a long blade raw and dripping and eats her on a fancy dinner plate in the candlelight as she hangs there with a bitter smile, all pleased that she gave what he needed, yet sad that it didn't earn her a kiss.

Yet, it is odd, he is never truly pleased, always treats her with scorn, always punishing her for giving him love, her skin is too thick, her blood too sour, her bones without marrow and she cries and cries. You see she loves him so. She wishes she were fatter, with bigger breasts for him to feast on, she wishes to see him smile, to hear him talk, he never talks only chews once in a while and then walks away, punishing her for being so lean.

Tick tock, tick tock, the clock ticks the old year away and she looks at herself in the mirror he bought for her  so that she can look at what's left: no legs, no flesh on her ribs at all, liver gone, her right eye, her hair all to the floor. Poor girl, there's really nothing left for him to feast on yet she waits for the clock to strike 12  to finally do what he had promised when he first installed the hook in the dark, narrow room; to finally eat her whole.

He sewed her mouth shut because he doesn't want to hear her speak. She never understands the pain he goes through chewing on her bones, she doesn't know how it feels to truly love someone because she has never eaten human flesh, she has never cut a limb of a beloved, she doesn't know how it is to clean after one's mess; she is always so dynamically headstrong, always complaining, demanding for more, the bitch.

"What's left?" he asks and stands before her before the clock strikes 12. It's been a week perhaps two. She's missed him so. Her left eye, short-sighted as it is, scans his body for signs of love. He looks so tall and fierce, his blade catching the candle light on the fancy tablecloth.
She wants to speak but she can't, her mouth is sewn tight.  She cannot move so she blinks twice.
"It's my heart" she thinks," Happy New Year my love."
She dies of joy before she dies of pain.
He lifts her off her hook with one hand and swirls her round and round the room. She catches a glimpse of some coloured lights and a chair.
"He cares, at last he cares." she shouts in her mind full of joy and then it's over.

He places her on the dinner table and rips her heart out through the exposed rib cage. It still beats and her ghost moans with pleasure of his delight.

The clock strikes 12 and he licks his fingers meticulously.

"Time too see the parents," he mutters lifting the big rubbish bag off the floor.

Bitter truths: A Christmas story.

    (photo by Holger Droste)

"Persephone get dressed, another batch has arrived, hurry!"

The girl moaned, she hated being awaken like this do deal with something that repulsed her. Her limbs still ached from her husband's late night visit. She needed more sleep, definitely more sleep.
"On Christmas Day? Must be bitter to die on Christmas..." she muttered.
"It's bitter to die on any day, my queen. Now you mush hurry, he's already at the lakes" he old woman said placing a white linen dress on her bed.
"I bet he's thrilled!" she said pulling the cold linen over her head. "More toys for him to play with ...the necrophiliac!" she added, bitterness and anger dripping thick on the floor.
"If he were what you say, he wouldn't have you, would he now?...You'll get used to him and his ways.." the old woman said brushing her golden hair with a gold-crusted bone comb. "He is good at what he does" she added, "And anyway...in a few more months you'll be able to go home again.."
"Only to come back here..I hate him.." Persephone said but the old woman pretended not to hear.

Barefoot, she walked out on the damp street and was startled to find a large silver moon hanging from the sky. She stared at it wide-eyed, trying to work out what it meant and why He has gone into so much trouble. The moon looked real, the wet streets reflected its pale light making everything around her look brilliantly...dead. Her spirits fell.
When she got to the mucky river she saw the boat empty already and Jack counting his gold.

"Merry Christmas Jack...you busy bee." she added and sat down on the mucky concrete river bank. The black waters below her sizzled with the silvery moonlight and even the ancient boat glistered with it here and there. Jack, however, like a black hole sucked all the light within him and reflected none.
He raised his head, lowered his cloak and looked over him.  His black, volcanic eyes with long lashes like spider legs, rested on her feet for a moment before locking on her transparent eyes. His pale mouth was immediately drawn into a smile the stubble on his chin and cheeks barely noticeable.

"Merry Christmas Persephone. " he said in his warm, husky voice. "Got you a little present!" he said and she saw his hand rummaging his right pocket.
"What is it?" she asked her hands into a prayer over her chest.
"Oh I little something I found while picking up customers." he said, raised his bony arm to the sky and shook his palm.
The thing jingled.
His white palm was warm to the touch though her hand was dead cold. The little golden bell let out a chocked squeal as she lifted it to her eyes.
"Pretty." she said
"That's what I thought too." Jack said, "I immediately thought of you." he added
He locked his eyes on hers and she felt herself drawn to him like a bee to the honey. Death was warm and sweet.
Once he sensed his affect on her, he pulled his eyes away and bent low to pick up his oars.
"I've got to run, there are more waiting for me on the other end..."
"Busy day.." Persephone said.
"Christmas is.." he added and raised his hand in goodbye as the boat slithered away. He was quickly lost in the mist.

Persephone jingled the bell once more. Its sound sent ripples over the water and made the moon shiver. She pecked it and tucked it in her breast. She knew she was late so she started to run.

Intro for www.venetianredstories.com

DIY me

(Painting by Thomas Eakins)

The book would not sit still, the pages kept flicking back to 995. But he had just began. Page 12, he was trying to read page 12.
"Damn it".
 The pages needed something heavy to keep them at bay, but what could he use now, what could he use..?
His right hand was covered with  blood and muck and so was his scalpel, no place to put it unless he wanted to create a mess around him, which he resented. He was always meticulous and organised, and clean. Above all.

The woman's hand, white as plaster, had fallen from the table and hang just below his crotch. He kept pushing it out of his way but it just couldn't stay put. With a light thud he forced the hand onto the book. It could be more useful this way, holding the pages in place, allowing him to finish his work.
The scalpel run across her belly smoothly as if she was made of butter. He was happy he had purchased it even though it had cost him a small fortune.
"...# 18 for deep cuts and scraping, with Zirconium Nitride coated edge to improve sharpness and edge retention." He would have gone for a polymer coated blade, but the shop assistant had insisted.

In his line of work having the right tools was of highest importance. Every construction in his house had demanded investing money on tools on way or another.
The floor lamp, which he considered his masterpiece, had cost him more than 1000 bucks give or take.
However it was not the money gave value to that particular piece.
Removing the spine without breaking it was a task the required both precision and power, not to mention luring, trapping and killing the subject suitable for the task. Preparing the  intestines for the wiring, finding the proper part of skin to make the lamp hat, painting it with blood.....so much work but oh so rewarding.

But no tools ever went to waste. He used them again and again to make his house the way he always wanted it to be....basically organic. The only thing that remained after his DIY frenzy is food.

(Body Art by Francois Robert)

Skin on Bone

   (Zombie walk in Moscow 2010)


Looking at him through a plexiglass box full of ice-cream cones, the floor all wet and sticky. Wonder who is the unlucky human to clean it.
All around me happy, horrid faces covered in stitches, cuts, gushes and gore...They are loving every minute of it and so do I.

I go back to staring through the plexiglass box but two zombie kids running around break my reverie. Their make-up is all smudged and they are licking the thick cranberry juice thing used for blood. I feel his eyes on my face. They are warming up my protruding bones, the gush over my brow, the hole just below my heart.

"Upon my Death! He's coming.." I mutter and pull a strand of hair over the gush on my cheek.

"Hello zombie girl" he says and chuckles.

"Hello."

My head falls down, I am so afraid my chest will collapse or worse he will detect the death in me.
"You didn't overdo it." he said pointing at my face.
"Yes, I thought I would go for subtle."  I said and smiled.

I look up to catch a glimpse of his face. I think of all the things I want to do to him and my guts ache. All that is left of them.
Pull his head all the way back and grab hold of his Adam's apple, suck on his, caress it with my  tongue and let go a little after it hurts. Hide my face between his shoulder blades, let my tears of sorrow trickle down his silky skin, wrap my arms around his waist, and slide down bone by bone by bone, slither on his skin, run down like a drop of blood breathe him in the moment until he's no more. And then, if he stays enough, if he accepts the fact, if he is willing to let go, take him in, if he is willing to let go. And then he can break me, fold me twice in half and put me in the box or he can grind me to dust and release me in the air, or take me again so I can melt from his heat, melt into slime, into nothing.

(18th century Gothic sensationalism.
You are not interested in his bones. You want to see if his sperm can stick to the ceiling, you want to suck him up, hear him beg. You want to  flay him alive, YOU WANT HIM TO DIE IN YOUR ARMS!)

No!.... (yes, it's been so long...but no, not like that. I can do much better than that, if only I can remember).

Skin on bone.
His finger lifts my chin up and I bore into his face, he smiles and takes me by the hand.

Medusa

           (Photo by Ivan Aguirre)



    My wife. Madeleine.

One can take a strong whiff of danger the moment those cold eyes fall on their face. And yet, once she lays her eyes on you, there is no turning back, no running away.
This is what happened to me 7 years ago.
I didn't like her at all when I first caught a glimpse of her on that unfortunate evening of my brother's New Year's party. I thought that on the whole she was a bit too much of everything. Her voice too husky, her body too bony, her fingers too long, her clothes too expensive. Yet everyone seemed enchanted by her every word, men and women alike. I should have left right then and there but no. Curiosity had taken the best of me and had burnt me whole in the end.

I look behind my shoulder. She always knows when I am thinking bad thoughts and always punishes me in a way that only now I begin to comprehend.
It happens at night, when in the last moments before sleep finally traps me in its web, I begin to realise that I never stood much chance anyway; she pulls the right strings, the great puppeteer that she is. She decided to marry me. She decided to come to this house. She decided who are friends will be. And she doesn't even have the courtesy to tell me in words. Not even that; it happens from within.

At last I close my eyes. It is right at that moment, just before I lose consciousness that I feel her cold breath running inside me. I hear her pounding heart pumping its poison, draining my soul, turning it into ash. I see her eyes chasing my life away, driving it out of me in fear and despair and I willingly give it all away and die lest I live and go through it again.

 But in the morning  I do wake up again, dead cold and mutilated. My soul eaten a little more. Always I little more, never too much, each night. I am not  me any more. I am her.
 I stumble out of the room only to meet her cold eyes.
 She is licking her lips and turns back to the paper on her lap. With a slight move of her long finger she points to the door and the doorbell rings.
The fresh air makes me want to weep though I can't. I want to run out barefoot on the street, escape her grasp, feet glued to the ground and my brother comes in.
I once tried talking to him but the words couldn't come out, like dogs they were on leashes, I coughed and spat and my lungs turned to stone.

 He licked his lips in return and asked: "How is Madeleine today? Is she in?"

"Madeleine, my cannibalistic witch of a wife?" I shout mutely but then her eyes bend on my spine and I cough in repentance. I know there's not much left of me. It won't be long now.

 "She is inside." I say and the corners of my lips are forced upwards.

The bitch.


After I am gone, I know he is next.

The Hand

                        (Painting by Travis Louie)



It was her right hand that caused her such distress, it was not her thoughts, no never her thoughts. After all, everyone gets angry from time to time, everyone might picture someone's death, crave it in her head. But thoughts, thoughts can only  hurt  their creator, like poison they erode her brain until there's nothing left, they never cause any harm to their object, never.

Though the hand was different. The hand was not a thought, the hand was hers, hers at the beginning yes, but then gradually, gradually it rebelled against her, against her will...naughty hand.

It had a life of its own, a will and a way, a way to move, to grasp, to catch hold of things, all without her consent.
Her hand was beginning to feel as if it was not her hand any more.

Very often she asked herself if that could be possible, such an alienation of a limb has never been recorded, and yet...why fret over such a thing..it kept her company after all, and she was so, oh so alone.
Like a friend it seemed, it gave her the things she would never have dared, never have dared to claim.

Like that Pavlova, she would have never thought to taste, but it was there in her hand, the curious girl behind the counter saw the hand picking it up from the tray, so she bought it and ate it. Such rich taste it had, her eyes fell shut, she shivered..
The necklace, so much money spent on such a a little thing, but the hand knew and the hand paid.

At night, she scrutinised it against the light. It was bigger than her left hand, so big in fact her wedding ring did not fit any more... the hand knew that too. It knew what she liked and gave it to her at night when they were alone, the hand played her like a classical guitar, pulled on her delicate strings, like the man she never had. The hand knew. But.

She shouldn't have let it take over, she should have cut it by the wrist, when it was small enough, when she could. Now it had grown too big for the kitchen knife, and now she was thinking of the pain.

And now her husband was dead.

She saw the hand wrap around his fat neck. Could she feel its texture? Could she feel the bone snap?

His eyes wide open fixed on hers full of surprise and contempt. He couldn't believe it! The bastard.
"It's not me you piece of shit." she whispered "It's the hand. I can't stop it, you know..look how big it is, it's not mine.."

But he was dead already and she didn't feel a thing. It was obvious now that it wasn't hers.
"I mean look at it!"
Too beefy, too big, to dark to be hers, it was someone else completely, but who?
Who could it be?

The hand was so protective of her...no she didn't feel a thing of course not. She closed her eyes and the hand pulled the blanket of her head and pushed the corpse off the bed. Like a sack of potatoes it fell on the floor.

Then it lifted her night grown and snuck between her thighs, she smiled and fell asleep.

Take me Home

       

Take me home, take me home,

where I'm safe and carefree,

where I am fed and content.

Take me home, take me home,

away from the burning sun

away from bone, away from marrow.

Take me home, take me home,

where life eternal,

rivers and lakes,
granite rocks, red cataracts;

trees, flowers and branches

bleed for me, bleed for me,
willingly, peacefully...

oh take me home, take me home.

To the Vampire garden, to our sacred land,

below the skin of Earth

below the burning dust

take me home, take me home,
or else I'll perish here.

please take me home, come, take me home.