Saturnal Cancer

Stream of Consciousness POV Workshop Entry: Liminal Degloving Parry

Goya’s Black Series redux by me

Blue skin? It's everywhere; in everything. The walls breathe and vibrate as you do—yet away and far.

—WARD OFF THRESHOLD 9-- Avulsion Imminent—

Shit, yeah it is. You got snot running and tears stinging even before you see god's Detritus peeling off the walls. Countermove into the sun. Let the bellies shake. Soon too much flooding and that's all there will be and you are the guy who has to deal with it. Who they gonna call? Shit man, why'd it have to be me?

Reach the door and soon you'll be in its Arteries. Blood's everywhere but the thing bleeds stars. Echos of something older but dead as dreams. Turn that knob, and screams is all you'll hear but whose you're never sure. I'm just a janitor cleaning up the mess but it's nihilism and not bleach, you dig? If this isn't making sense, don't worry, It will once we pull the trigger.

No, don't touch that, let me tell you more about the door. You didn’t notice it 'cause that elegant blue Finger is ten stories tall, I get it. No shame. It came because it was summoned but it has contempt for walls though that's all we'll find inside. Demi-urge to corridor. Like Tang® you just stir. Remember Tang®? Fuck I miss those days.

Better days when god’s Flesh weren’t littered in and on every mountain and between every hallway bent backward and inside-out for no reason beyond we called but didn't have the place ready, didn't consider that our "guest" might have some special needs we weren't prepared for. That's how you get ants. Heh.

So young one, brave one, idiot with good teeth growing up through all this shit like it's normal and you smile when talked to; I want you to look at that door, barnlike because before vishnu's giant holy Fingernail came crashing truck-like into this hill that was a barn, look at it and think of it like a polyp. Shit's not fair kid, but we're the cancer, not it, don't believe what you've been told. Once you open that fucking door there's nothing but everything inside. If nothing fills abyss think of it more like nothing’s a solid, impenetrable because infinite nothing might's well be something next-to-nill. Brace yourself; remember to sidestep. Grab that handle and peel that door open.

Smells like ham and grace. Cooked ham and the air's just as warm. Feels like skin when you twist it. Pray to it if you must, say that you're sorry. Training’s not done yet, don't doddle. Peel that door open and dart to the side— then watch the hills shake.

Tension? Yeah, me too. Rip it fucking open. Don't forget to breathe in that brief second you forget everything and god screams. One. Two. It's gonna be okay. THREE.

—Avulsion success-- BOUNDRY REESTABLISHED. Countermove complete—

Good job kid. Don't think of it as dead 'cause god was never alive. Yeah, it's gonna twitch like that, exactly like a bug but it'll twitch into yesterday soon. I'll buy you a coffee kid, not 'cause you deserve it, but because your dreams are gonna be screams and haunted malice if you sleep in the next twenty-four hours. What do you mean it's pregnant?

Liminal Degloving Parry

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Featured Micro/Flash fiction TiF

Stats: One cup of coffee, 542 words, four songs. Corrected typos, of which there were four.

Developed from the Stream of Consciousness POV Workshop (thanks,

Edith Bow

!)

Three-word prompt: “Liminal”, “Degloving”, and “Parry”. Prompt by

Emil Ottoman

(“degloved”? What’s wrong with you? No, don’t answer that.)

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M.P. Fitzgerald is the author of A Happy Bureaucracy, a post-apocalyptic parody novel. He writes darkly humorous sci-fi for dream criminals and after that workshop, he’s pretty sure that his writerDeck is haunted because of it. Neat.