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.

Untitled

         (Art by Peter Callesen)


Once upon a time, something terrible went wrong and people started to lose their skin, quite painlessly in fact and without any threat to their life.
It just fell off, like the leaves that fall from the trees in Autumn or snakes that slither out of their skin, in big chunks, it fell off, all of it.
It was then that people had to bear with the profound ugliness of their bare muscles and inner organs. At first, such grotesque sight was  far beyond their aesthetic range and so some decided to cover up by wrapping themselves with coloured bandages whereas others decided to just keep their eyes closed for ever.

There were those who were quite relieved however. These threw their clothes away and walked with their beating hearts exposed and free, muscles pulsing vividly with each move, blood pumping away unmuffled.
Parents played with their unborn fetuses looking at them grow day by day like fish in a tank. Doctors removed diseased parts in parks, like clipping nails and fat was trimmed or greedily hacked in coffee shops and beauty salons everywhere. Those were the days.

Then quite suddenly and as painlessly as before, the people watched all their internal organs (which were external in reality), stomachs, bellies, brains, livers and all the rest fall on the ground with a wet, squelching sound whereas the people still remained miraculously alive and well.

Not knowing what to do with all that stuff, they decided to burn them in a big pyre which they decided it symbolised the celebration of freedom from disease and all health concerns.
Only a few artists decided that all that flesh should not go to waste and designed some weird installations which they planted in parks and squares as a reminder of all the burden they used to carry before their sudden release.
You see, this new state of being was much more pleasing to the eye than tendons and guts and nearly effortless to keep in good shape.
All people were glistering white, see through, shiny and incredibly healthy for all they had to do was keep their bones in one piece which they did.

More than one hundred years each of them lived and only did they perish when one by one their limbs turned to dust and were gently blown away by the wind, scattering them across the land.

Light and carefree they all lived until they were no more.

The whirlpool in the sink and the stolen car (in the dead of night)

Dead tired she was

with a ton of things on her mind,

all she wished for was sleep

yet she couldn't find the strengh

to leave the dishes behind.

So she washed and she scrubbed,

until all was really clean,

then she pulled out the plug,

and stared at the whirlpool in the sink.

When even that was gone,

she headed for bed,

thinking intensively

of what she could have done instead.

She could butcher her husband in the dead of night,

she can eat her children alive,

she could go to a weird bar,

in a brand new stolen car,

and flay the patrons alive.

Her eyes closed fast,

she was sleeping at last,

her subconscious self,

armed her with a machine gun instead.

She won battles, she killed armies,

and her boss and the grocer,

nothing but a loser and a tosser,

she had stolen the car,

and had gone to the weirdest freaking bar,

her husband was there dressed as a nun.

She was laughing out loud

they were having some fun,

then she started to run,

all the way to the sun!

There's nothing better indeed,

than a good night's sleep,

to let out some steam,

in a wild and bloody paranoid,

sweet and sour dream.

Goodnight.



Painting by William E. Rochfort