Review of Flesh Feast: The Human Brain

This magical thing found its way through the tiny opening of my letterbox the other morning. It is the perfect size of thing to fit through my letterbox. It meant that I didn’t have to run downstairs in my pyjamas while the postman hammered on the door. I don’t know why our letterbox is so tiny. I know it’s an old house, but did people only write tiny letters in the days of yore? This house holds so many unanswered questions. But back to the magical thing.

The magical thing is a chapbook by Socrates Adams-Florou. He’s a bit brilliant. It is a haunting tale of a man who is terrorised by his neighbour. It is gripping. Parts of it filled me with actual terror. It is only a short thing, but in these ten chapters, Socrates manages to convey such turmoil and such overwhelming (and deserved) paranoia that it’s a good thing it ends when it does.

If ‘Flesh Feast’ was a film, the back would read “contains mild peril”, and then it would be scratched out and would say instead “warning: contains shocking scenes of a disturbing nature”. It would not be a PG.

I read it excitedly. I wanted to know what was going to happen to the protagonist.

I liked the part where the protagonist thinks "I am trying to imagine being like Linford Christie". It is the Rocky-running-up-the-steps part of the story. It is uplifting.

I am now a bit scared of snails, though. And I have toothache.

My copy is number 13.

If you would like a copy, all you have to do is email Socrates and he will send you one. But hurry. There can’t be very many left, and you do not want to miss out on this visceral reading experience.

Is it potato time? Yes, it is.

I like potatoes.

I just found this website whilst searching for a photo of a potato. This person made this website. This person is a lord.

I was looking for a photo of a potato because I have a new story up today at The Pygmy Giant. The story is called Mash and it has a potato-theme. It is also the story I talked about here.

I wish I had one of these.

Josie and the H-Bomb

He came at me warm. I couldn’t see, not really. I thought I saw the bones of people. No skin, no faces. Just bones and shaded-in bits where lungs and other organs were. They glowed red in the upside-down of my eyes. For a fraction of a second. Like a stammer. Like time catching itself up after a big, forget-everything shock.

He had something to prove. It’s how it always is with these things. One step and then another, and before anyone knows what’s hit them there are atoms splitting and colliding and the world is forever changed. He changed everything.

The stammer interrupted a noise that was a thousand aeroplanes taking off, and the slamming of every single door, and the cracking apart of the continents, and. Think of the loudest thing you can possibly imagine. Multiply it, and multiply it again. And then, just as you feel your eardrums begin to implode and your bones start to shatter, imagine a silence so great that it’s hard to believe there even is a world, an earth, a place for your feet to be standing on left.

There was no hand holding with this one. He lit up the molecules of me. And he shook me until everything I knew had fallen away. Until all that was left was the in-out, in-out of my breathing, and the idea of me, smaller than a grain of salt but still pregnant with possibility.

I think I shielded my eyes. I think I covered my ears. I think I buried myself in the sand or burrowed into the guano. I was trying to keep myself safe. I knew what was coming. It was bigger than both of us. Not land, this time. Not bodies. A few thousand birds heartattacked and dropped from the sky. A few billion fishes disappeared where they swam. But this was safe. Necessary. Part of a bigger plan.

And I stretched out in the dryness, felt the crackle of the breeze. And knew this romance, this new thing, could only ever end badly.

Bomb/Xmas-themed Reading Night

There is a golden light filtering through my curtains. It is one of those rare December afternoons where the sky is crisp and blue and the sun is a blinder. The last time I experienced light like this was in the old house I shared with my friend where we painted the living room red. I had the front bedroom, and at around four p.m. the light would rush through the window and hit the mirrorball and throw a hundred Will o' the Wisps around the room. And even if I was thinking about all the sad things that were going on at the time, the quality of the light, and the dazzlement always made me smile.

I'm working on a story about a girl who falls in love with a hydrogen bomb, which I'm reading tonight at this...


...along with fellow TTOs Biff and Nath. I think it will be a good night.