Various Flavors + Big Smiles – GRSTALT Comms

January 14, 2025

pristine waters waiting to be sullied

 

 

1. The Vessel

the woman sits next to me, she has warm eyes and round cheeks, she reminds me of women I used to know, sitting silently with their cruel boyfriends, women I always wanted to see somewhere other than the drunken shouting matches that surrounded them, but they were always so well hidden in daylight, the woman has the look of someone who is travelling alone, I wonder if I have that look too, mirrors became currency for a while and I ran out of credit, every look came with a charge and people would line up to see how they were developing under the new conditions, I can feel my bristly face for free, there was never a levy on hands, the vessel is designed for optimal storage, it takes a few laboured breathes then starts swaying, everyone is throwing up except the woman sitting next to me, I’m excited by the sight of the sick twirling on the surface of the water that’s leaking in and lapping around my ankles, the waterlogged shelters were the places where we could be ourselves without getting tracked, we held our breath for relief that never came, so we stayed under as long as we could, the dirty water was our dessert, it came from every cracked pipe and burst bank, all the silt and slime from the development zone, the sirens went soft for as long as our lungs allowed, we took it in our mouths and welcomed the visitor, everyone who’s got the visitor in them recognises the signals, the skin stretches in solidarity, the woman sitting next to me has not been visited, nothing has survived inside her 

2. Moves to Land

scratching, whining, tearing, falling, the water’s crystal clear and stings my throat, my visitor wriggles in discontent, the only connection to the old country is the ripe smell from the compacted bodies as we slide together out of the jagged slit, the vessel sinks but doesn’t disappear, the water has no mystery, the predators descend on the vessel, prayers from the faiths that have survived, the school moves to land, the swell is the only power we should be wailing to placate, choking and gasping as it moves indifferently, less of us come back up every time, the smell of caramel masks decaying matter, the face of paradise in the bowels of hell, the woman who was sitting next to me is in front, she is a strong swimmer, she kicks spray into my face, sunbathers get off their loungers to film us coming out of the water, a man finishes his drink and gets off his seat at the hut that is functioning as a bar, he bends over me with a groan and lifts me to my feet, my arms are placed over his shoulder and around his waist, we go past a row of white chalets with rounded doors, heat on my neck and cold smoothness under my feet, the water now a soft accompaniment, contained in teardrop pools, the doctor examining me has heavy bags under his eyes and trembling hands that make my skin vibrate, I have to write down my complete sexual history, the physician who rejected me for military service told me that I was unfit to die for anything meaningful, he crossed his legs and listened to my complete sexual history 

3. National Heroine

those who would not die with glory would live out the lives they’d been denied on the stage, we travelled from town to town in a rusted van and set up in gutted buildings, I was the most feminine and I played all the female roles, I put on a blond wig and played the national heroines in stories of triumph or mock trials for our enemies, the grunts made a circle around us and jeered at our performances, after I’d get on my knees and accept as many of their loads as I could, they came in my mouth, on my face, all over my wig, the wig got stiff, the heads of their dicks were smeared in filth and tasted like grit, they laughed as they fucked me with a dick made of frozen shit, they told me to punch their hard dicks, they gave me battlefield trophies that I hid with my props, jawbones that became jewellery, a tiara encrusted with teeth, I washed off the make-up and the cum with water from craters in the road, the air con keeps the heat at the window, a large TV at the end of the bed is built into a block of marble, high ceilings and bright white walls with paintings on them of pink limbs twisting into each other, all the hair has been shaved from my body, the man from the beach is walking round the pool and smoking, he sees me looking and waves, he’s wearing white headphones, a thick gold chain rests between his flabby tits, his gut hangs over his running shorts, I open the wardrobe and it’s full of bathrobes, on the breast the bathrobe says: CARAMEL CAY – YOUR PRIVATE ISLAND EXPERIENCE

4. There’s Always the Caramel

he stamps on the cigarette with a pristine sneaker, he takes off his headphones and asks how I slept, I tell him I have a lot of complicated dreams, he snorts and says it’s a shame I got here when I did because he’s leaving in a couple of days to do an investor presentation, I tell him I got here as quick as I could, he snorts then gets serious and says it’s fucked what’s going on, he’s donated to the relief fund, he totally supports our right to remain, I say thank you, he says I’ll get used to the smell, Grant thinks nature looks nice but it stinks, so he pumps in caramel perfume, because everyone loves the smell of caramel, he snorts then gets serious again, wipes his forehead, rubs his hand across his chest, runs a hand through his curly grey hair, he says the doc told him I have something living in me, he’d love to have something like that in him, his life is too clean, that’s why he smokes when he’s here, he says he had a health scare a few years back and he hadn’t felt so fired up in ages, he made plans to spend his last six months banging underage girls from textile factories in the Philippines, but then it turned out to be nothing so he had to put that on the backburner, but there’s always the caramel, I tell him it was the dirty water, he says fat chance of finding any of that here, I open the bathrobe and piss in the pool, when I’m done he pulls down his shorts and squats over the pool, he asks me to give him some encouragement, I start to clap, his sunburned face gets more red

5. Go Fetch

he is crouched by the edge of the pool, stirring the sweating grey water with a stick, he has dark hair plugs that haven’t completely taken root, he is wearing grey sweatpants and a red t-shirt with PROPERTY OF PU on it, he stands as I approach in my bathrobe that is caked in food and other substances, he is tall and thin, a swimmer’s body, his sneakers are scuffed and discoloured, he hurls the stick into the pool, it bobs on the slick and impenetrable surface, I instinctively want to dive in and retrieve it, he tells me he’s Grant, the island is his, he says he flew in to see it for himself, he likes it, it shows nature we can stink just as bad, keep it going, he’ll let the staff know, everyone starts using the pool as a dump and a toilet, the bathers never stop coming, taking away bones they will tie round their necks and suck on, fighting with the flies for their share, we lost an empire but we got a war, it was waged against the least of us, we used to be able to brutalise whoever we wanted, but then we had to choose our victims carefully, make a new animal of man and put it to work, youth got unsavoury, youth became a liability, a resource mined to exhaustion, to get through the roadblocks you had to give up the gifts you’d been given, everything around you that still held value, the grunts demanded endless stimulation and novelty, you had to turn blood into lipstick, turn dead animals into wigs, turn an atrocity into a wardrobe, lit by the retreating frontier

6. The Attendant

a bomb sends debris flying, the body resurfaces with a brown film clinging to it, the bather’s skin looks like a wax costume,  fluids dribble from his mouth, nuggets and rotting chunks are caked to his chin, he smiles breathing hard and drops onto his back, a kid stands on the edge of the pool, trying to hold in his breakfast, the bather calls for the kid to get in, the kid doesn’t want to get in, Grant made me the attendant, I keep the pool in the condition it needs to be in, I make sure everyone deposits their waste efficiently, I hand out cups for people to take a drink of the special tonic, it’s cut with spirits and sprinkled with cinnamon to help it go down, the bather asks if the kid can have edible glitter on his, the kid takes the cup and throws up, I sweep the sick into the pool, the bather says he’s been trying to broaden the kid’s horizons, but he’s so fucking squeamish, if he wants to get ahead in the business he’s got to be open to anything, I ask the bather what business he’s in, he tells me he’s a TV producer, the kid’s the star of his latest show, I tell the bather I used to act, I fell into the movements of the nation’s mothers, the fiery sister with the incestuous stares, the obedient wives who held down their despised homes, at that moment in that place I was everything, I dreamt that the war would last forever, I would be an old lady performing for the grandchildren of the grunts whose dried cum in my wig was their only memorial, then I woke up feeling unwell

7. A Breakthrough

the smell merges into a universal constant of death fields, the great exhibition of what’s obscured by the infrastructure of shame, the restrooms are patrolled by trained animals for any sign of modesty, skin seeps through uniforms into soil, makes all of nature stink, gives its fruit a unique taste, the final flash of consciousness in every drop that slips down your chin, you pick the medals and hope they grow into a beautiful accompaniment to unconditional surrender, the blood’s all run out and something else will have to fill in, the skeletons are strung together and become dancing puppets, the bather and the kid come over to my chalet, the kid takes a nap while the bather shows me an episode of his last show, Filf Cru, a group of kids from the hood are too poor to wash and learn to love the dirt around them, he tells me it’s his greatest statement, the toy lines are moving like you wouldn’t believe, the Dookie Dive Fun Dumpster, the Taffy Turd Bar, the Fatberg Activity Set, he tells me his greatest memory is from when he was eight, he was running through the gardens of some abandoned houses with his friends when they saw a broken pipe that was spraying dirty water onto the ground, they dared each other to run through it, but the bather volunteered, he says the moment when the water hit his skin was when his life changed, he went home covered in shit and his mother spanked his behind raw, he tells me what I’ve done is a breakthrough for the community, he starts to cry

8. A Honeymoon Cunt

the flies repeat the same dumb refrain, the shit will never stop coming, the bather’s stink hangs around, I watch another episode of Filf Cru, the cru open their own artisanal deli to cash in on the wealthy new arrivals to the hood, they use ingredients from what they can scavenge from the trash and their bodies, their dirty pancakes are a huge hit, critics start showing up to review them, but one critic dies of fright when a baby rat burrows out of his pancake stack, my final performance was in a hospital lobby, I was delivering my closing monologue as the Mother of Victory, the sirens made it more dramatic, it ended with a wall being blown out, grunts flew forward in parts, we waded through remains and painted the walls slipping, they only took the most beautiful boys, an officer told me that prisoners had been talking about me, I’d built a reputation on the other side of the lines and the enemy had sent out a unit to find me, we had a speciality given to us by our new mother, officers came from far and wide to dump a load in my mouth, they told me I had the silkiest throat, one of them said it was like a honeymoon cunt, I was despised by the other girls in camp, some of them had painful specialities, the bread was bulked out with dead meat and dung but I got special supplies to protect my asset, I was determined to contaminate it, I stole a few minutes every day in the waterlogged shelters that were built under the camps for an attack that never came, I learned not to hold my breath

9. False Prognostication

the kid is shivering at the door, he says he needs my help, he doesn’t want it in him, the bather told him it will keep him thin, I tell the kid that it’s always scary to become something else but we’ve got to do it because we can’t stay who we are, the world will chew us up if we stand still, the kid starts to cry, I tell the kid that at first I was scared by the visitor, knowing it was there eating away at me, but even things that are hostile to you are still part of you, people only judge you by the parts you play in public, you’re the star of the show so they’ll believe whatever you tell them, performance is the only truth, the bather comes round the corner in a Caramel Cay bathrobe and puts his hands on the kid’s shoulders, the kid tenses up, the bather says he hopes the kid hasn’t disturbed me, he takes the kid’s hand and leads him away, my camp mother was a renowned carny who travelled the county in peacetime as a theatrical psychic who mixed augury with musical numbers, she was hired as a precognitive consultant by the commander, when one of her prognostications about troop movement proved to be false she was banished to the camps, she had the air of someone who was amused at finally being found out, she smirked and told us about all the times she told the commander of a coming attack that would suck fresh faced conscripts into the field, the military brass hated her, it was only the fighting fervour of the grunts that sustained the act, until the new front was opened

10. Breakfast Time

I can’t sleep so I flick around until I get to the Caramel Cay information channel, the shot hovers over the island while the voice tells me that Grant wants everyone to experience the pleasure and pride he felt when he purchased his own island, this is a space free from judgement and repression, its guiding principles are tolerance and freedom, the only limits are the ones you set, I learned to tell the difference between all the different types of cum, infantry cum was bitter while officer cum was richer, as I held it in my mouth visions would come to me, I saw lavish banquets and piles of decapitated bodies and calloused skin escaping from coarse uniforms, the man is on all fours at the edge of the pool, his head is bent toward the water, sniffing the fumes, the woman is standing over him, she lifts her foot and puts it on the back of his head, she is wearing spiked heels, she thrusts his head into the water with her foot and keeps it there when he starts to struggle, she shouts why don’t you find me a nice fresh turd for breakfast while you’re down there, she throws back her head and laughs, she is wearing a face mask but I recognise her by her eyes, it is the woman who was sitting next to me on the vessel, she releases him and wipes the filth from her shoe with a gloved hand, he spits it onto the floor by her feet and lowers his head gasping, she calls me over to inspect, the turd has little white worms crawling in it and shards of scuffed plastic sticking out that look like mouse ears

11. The Nation’s Glory

twin girls wrestle in the water, lunging and gagging, trying to overpower and dunk the other, tiny two pieces stained grey,  faces screwed up into disgust and delight, a crowd is slumped in recliners, taking bets, cheering and laughing at every botched advance and awkward struggle, they ask me if I want in on the action but I tell them I have no collateral, this is a lie, I have been charging for cups of the special tonic and hiding the cash in a Caramel Cay gym bag that contains scuba equipment, the tonic has become a popular source of appetite suppressant on the island, it is purged into the pool and returned as fresh product, I told my camp mother about my gift, that I saw seditious tactics being discussed and instability being fomented, my camp mother said I had to dress up nice because I was going to a gathering that the commander would be attending, a private car took me to the home of a famous poet whose work had been translated into multiple languages and was taught to us in school as embodying the national spirit, we stood and recited it at the start of every day, the famous poet’s wife was able to secure passage out, but the famous poet decided to stay behind and document the nation’s glory, the house was tall and sprawling and perfectly picturesque as the sun was setting on its burnt orange exterior, laughter filled the hall as a servant welcomed me, they were sitting around a large table lit with candles, the commander was dominating the conversation

12. Fuck the Canon

the woman from the vessel takes off her face mask and tells me she can’t stand the smell of the pool, we walk down the beach and watch the water rearing up and fizzing out, the bars are all closed now, the tonic is all there is, she tells me that her sub created a platform that allows busy professionals to outsource non-productive interactions then sold it to a larger competitor, she has a button on her wrist that sends a shock to the sub’s cock cage, she presses the button three times, she says that she thinks she left something valuable down there and that she’s a really strong swimmer, I was sitting next to the commander in the back of his private car, the commander was flicking through a copy of the famous poet’s latest collection, which the famous poet had signed for him, he let the book drop into his lap and took a deep breath before saying fuck the canon, fuck the academy, after the war we’ll decide what’s great, these artists are useful until they’re not, he read out what the famous poet had written on the title page then said what a fucking cornball, the worst thing about these idiots is that they really believe it, they think words are something more than just a preamble to the serious stuff, you have to get your language straight so the real hostilities can get going, that’s where the values get set, we turned through a checkpoint into the nerve centre, I listen to the agonies of paradise and try to remember what the famous poet wrote, it was something about being a hard-pressed servant

13. Projecting Height

we wait until the sun comes up, I attach myself to her back, she cuts through the water with her rigid razored arms, we move with one fluid thrust, the air whips my face, she could have gone to the Olympics but her father thought it was immoral for women to compete against each other, she made it her mission to kill her father with disappointment, she couldn’t fight so she became an intern for a general who was brought down by the Parade Putsch, the water took all the bodies and turned them into scenery, I followed the commander up polished steps, past portraits of leaders who lived to sit with ostrich feathers and high collars, this was the first time I realised how short the commander was,  we went into an office with barricaded windows and he started to loosen his belt, he asked me about my gift and I explained as he unbuttoned his pants and slid them to his boots, he said I had weapon that could be tremendously helpful in the war effort and he’d better give it a try, after he’d finished I let the cum mass on my tongue until a vision came to me, I spat it into my palm then made a fist, I told him I saw palettes of cash being loaded onto planes and terms of surrender being drawn up, he stepped back from me as he put himself away, he said that saboteurs and spies were everywhere, the war effort was being critically undermined from within, what I had was the only way to root it out, I would be rewarded handsomely for my service, my portrait would take pride of place when victory was attained

14. The Normal Churn of Murder 

the water distorts every sound, I keep staring at the blinding horizon, she takes me by the hand and we go down together into the sweet-smelling depths, the remains have settled and been integrated into the normal churn of murder, sliding in and out of eye sockets, I don’t know what she’s looking for but I follow, her feet are my beacon, after her general was executed she joined the Real Fish Girls, they performed aquatic routines and diving feats for the grunts who needed R&R between campaigns, they paid to worship her legs, if they paid extra she stepped on them wherever they wanted, I took what the wealthy wives left behind and became someone else, the most sophisticated wardrobe, the finest fragrances, quality cosmetics, wigs in a variety of styles, I was fit for the parade, the commander called for a public celebration of all the grunts who came home missing parts of themselves, we stood on a platform and applauded them for the deformities they’d brought back from the front, as they filed past I moved among the generals and took them into a space under the platform where it was dark and the marching bands were muted, every load set in motion the trial and execution, the commander laughed as the car wound through crowds who tossed flowers and sang sentimental songs about the national strength he was summoning, he said reason is the bitch of the will, I lift up the goggles and panic when she’s not there, then she springs up and straightens out, she has a piece of the vessel in her hand

15. The Animal Feels Nothing

we put the piece of the vessel on the beach and go back, he invented a new kind of stun gun for industrial farming, he tells me it’s smart and compassionate, the animal feels nothing, it’s standard in every abattoir now, no more nightmares of agonised eyes for anyone, he scoops some of the pool’s surface scum into a jar and asks if I can help him apply it to his companion, a small slender girl in a string bikini, he empties the jar onto the girl and we both rub until her skin is covered in a layer of filth, he instructs the girl to lie still in the sun, she finds the brightest spot and gets on her back with her arms and legs rigid, he takes some tonic in his jar and throws it up almost right away, he tells me he’s got to make a call to Tokyo and leaves, the girl keeps following the sun around the pool, the crust hardens and turns her skin pale green, when it’s quiet I hear she is singing softly, he comes back when the sun has gone down, picks her up and carries her away, I was shown through to the study, the famous poet was sitting at his desk, it faced the window which allowed light to flood in, he looked over his shoulder then turned his chair to look at me, the light caught his wild eyebrows, he was stout and only had uncombed grey hair on the sides, he dismissed the servant and signalled for me to sit on the couch facing him, I looked over his shoulder at two old men tending the garden, he told me he was completing a speech he would deliver to the new generals the commander had appointed

16. A Clarifying Tide

the director sits behind a drowsy blond boy as he tells me how the studio took the sequel away from him after some poor test screenings and did reshoots with another director, a total hack, that fucked up the lore of the universe, he thought he had some leverage after what the original grossed and the merch it moved, he places a piece of candy in the blond boy’s mouth and says the whole thing has messed with his chi, he’s born to tell stories but the bean counters pay attention to mental midgets in provincial malls, he tells me there’s a major buzz in Hollywood about the tonic cleanse, he thinks it could revitalise his creative flow, I dressed like his wife, I smelled like his wife, but I didn’t fuck like his wife, I let the famous poet do anything, I let the genius express himself through my body, and after we would lie in bed and I listened to the great man talk about his standing in the literary canon, how all that squalid pamphleteering was washed away by a clarifying tide, how his new collection was an ode to the magnificent brutish certainty of war, how what we understood as freedom was merely a carefully constructed form of tyranny, how we shouldn’t long for what is gone but embrace what grows in the vacant lots and craters it leaves behind, I was compiling a dossier of everything his famous cum gave up, I presented my findings to the commander, she lifts it over her head with a groan and gasps as she slams it into the sand, we drag it to where we left the other piece of the vessel 

17. Homemade Creations

the mega-donor is accompanied by his daughter, he has heard about the life-extending properties of the raw tonic cleanse, he is 93 years old, an hour after retiring to his chalet the mega-donor takes sick, he is helicoptered off the island, Grant arrives to tell us that the mega-donor died on the way to the hospital, but his daughter couldn’t speak highly enough of how the tonic helped to make her grief a joyous experience, I looked out the window as the private car went through the gutted city, gangs of mangled vets were gathered together, drinking homemade creations, huddled in each other’s warmth, singing war songs, stumbling into vacant lots and craters, the commander sent me to the new general’s quarters, the new general praised the commander for his decisiveness in dealing with the plotters, he said there’d been a rot at the heart of the command structure, too much privilege, not enough room for ambition, the new general liked to keep his uniform on, he choked me until he climaxed, his cum remained an elusive damp patch on his pants, he boasted that he could still get his favourite candy, he always ate a piece before I arrived, I found his stash of candy and dusted them with a substance I got on the black market, next time we started he said he wasn’t feeling good and needed a minute, when I came back into the bedroom he was unconscious, I unbuttoned his pants and pumped furiously, my open mouth ready, he groaned as he offered me a solitary bead, I cleaned him up with my tongue

18. A Cure for Sadness

I am watching an interview that the mega-donor’s daughter gave to the news organisation her father owned and now she does, she tells the interviewer that she has found a cure for sadness, the raw tonic cleanse has changed her outlook on life, she has taken up permanent residence in a chalet, she has daily cleanses and baths with the guests she’s invited, she’s talking to Grant about manufacturing a commercial version of the tonic, the rich puke has changed the smell of the place, the pool is always busy so I wait inside until night and go scavenging for fresh delights from the dumpsters, when the sun is coming up I carry the trash bags to the eastern tip of the island, nobody comes to this side of the island, there are only small windowless buildings painted yellow, I fling the trash bags into the water and climb down to retrieve them, I take the trash bags into the cave and dump their contents into the water, I get undressed and step into the water that is starting to thicken and fizz with new interactions, my visitor kept demanding more, announced itself with sudden twists and lurches that kept me awake at night, my visitor wouldn’t relent until I was walking deserted streets in search of new ditches to dive into, there was no need for a continuous posture, I became whatever the setting demanded, I moved between the strategists and the aesthetes, a plaything and a mascot for a conflict that was glorified in frescoes and firing squads, I absorbed as much of the theory as the abuse, I documented it all

19. Special Places

I’ve created a beautiful dead spot all for myself, the seabed is no longer visible, my feet disturb dingy slicks of putrefied delicacies, sanitary waste, cosmetic detritus, weapons in the effort to resist death, but success breeds death, the famous poet’s friends always told me the war was life, they were wedded to an idea of the war as a noble struggle, they memorialised advances and retreats in the performances and products that the military brass took as proof of their civilisational mission, even though they disdained the grunts they passed on the street, who failed to embody the dramatic ideal, I thought maybe the shapes of their stories were wrong, the famous poet paraded me in front of his friends like a revelation direct from God, of course I sampled every one of them and made notes of my findings, they were the ones who’d been thrust into relevance by the exodus of their rivals, those artists whose sensitivities precluded them from embracing the future, I’m climbing up the rocks when someone exits one of the yellow buildings, I try to duck down but they see me and say hi there, he is short with a bushy moustache and a wide-brimmed hat, he asks me if I want to kick it in his temple, he tells me this is where he comes to realign with the universe, it’s bare except for a cot and three candles inside a chalk circle, when I ask him what he does he shrugs and says he guesses he’s a DeFi pioneer, he asks me if he can see my special place now, my aura is telling him it’s gonna be epic

20. A Perfect Painting

as we walk along the rocks I see her cutting through the water with another hunk of metal strapped to her back, the DeFi pioneer tells me the cave is awesome and shouts echo, he waits for his voice to fade then says he totally needs to get to know his vomit, he’s always trusted his gut and it’s served him well, he laughs and it echoes around, he knows one of his bros who’d love it, he’s into messy play, I’ve probably heard of him, he’s a major content creator, he’s got 30 million subscribers, he does fart stunts, the famous poet’s friends told me they wanted to destroy everything the old paradigm held sacred, a pamphlet was circulated about how greedy companies were profiteering off the vets by keeping the price of staple foods high, more money in their pockets and less food in your mouths, we watched from a balcony of the hotel, sampling the best the black market had to offer, smoke rose that smelled like dung, as the night wore on everything about my body became exaggerated, it seemed like the only response to what I was watching, it was a perfect painting, I finally understood the power of art as I watched the vets torch the old symbols they’d bled for, grab what they could from the stores owned by the price gouging traitors, attack the crowds coming out of the latest piece of theatrical propaganda, she tells me she comes to collect me every morning but I’m never around anymore, I follow her to the beach and see the pieces of the vessel she’s retrieved arranged into a recognisable outline

21. Fresh Flavours

the celebrities have started to arrive, I recognise one of them from the Filf Cru show, they are bringing photographers with them to document the consuming of the tonic, the immersion in the pool, the contribution of new ingredients to the cycle of renewal, fresh flavours for the wellbeing of everyone, the regular guests are unhappy, they tell me it goes against the ethos of the island, they don’t feel safe to be who they are anymore, Grant says the new guests belong to a well-known institute that has a lot of pull in California, the famous poet recited a new piece he’d written about the uprising, then the commander introduced the general he’d appointed to lead the Domestic Defence Corps, the vets applauded and the general gave a speech where he said that veterans never adjust to civilian life, they just find different battles, sometimes it’s against themselves, but sometimes they’re lucky enough to find a new cause worthy of what they’ve learned in the field, I closed the show with one of my old performances, I was amazed how easily I fell back into it, all the lines and the movements and the expressions flowed out of me, the vets looked at me with their wolf eyes, everyone thinks the content creator is here for the  tonic cleanse, but he comes into my chalet and tells me the DeFi pioneer wants me, he is in his early teens, wearing a self-branded tracksuit, a photographer takes our picture as we leave, I tell them to delete it or I’ll throw their camera in the pool

22. Mutual Shit Respect

the DeFi pioneer is waiting for us outside his temple, he is grinning and holding two trash bags, more bags are piled around him, he says he beat me to it this morning and laughs, we fling the bags, climb down to retrieve them and take them to the cave, the content creator asks if it’s okay to shoot, I tell him it’s fine, he takes out his phone and says to it that we’ve got to learn to love each other’s shit, that’s when world love’s going to happen, then he farts loudly, it echoes around, we dump the bags into the water, the DeFi pioneer says the smell reminds him of hanging out on Skid Row, then he wonders what the first dude who farted felt like when it happened, he probably thought he was dying, or the gods were punishing him, the content creator hands me his phone and takes off his tracksuit, I worked out of a suite at the hotel, the heads of companies and theatre chain proprietors had been reassured that their operations would not be threatened if they assented to the new national plan, the commander invited them all to a party at the famous poet’s house, I built up my contacts, I sold intimacy and exclusivity and they surrendered their secrets smeared on the bathroom floor, hanging in the wardrobe, seeping into the carpet, obscuring the view of the capital square where their enterprises had been sacked, but  however they arranged me they would always assent to the command from the higher force they believed had leant them supremacy over the nation’s mouths, who demanded visual proof of fidelity

23. Private Weaknesses

the tonic cleansers are posing for photos at every opportunity, they are walking around in discussion with their devices, everyone else struggles to get out of the background, the regular guests are scared they’re going to get caught in the shot, they start moving east, setting up a camp on the land between the yellow buildings, digging trenches for waste accumulation, the DeFi pioneer tells me the occupant of the neighbouring temple visited him last night to complain that the camp was encroaching on his boundary, he’s an ex-president who got brought down by a dossier of private weaknesses, he speaks in a whisper because he believes they’re always listening, the permanent state who conspired to compromise his administration, he whispered into the DeFi pioneer’s ear that he wants him to go over and move them along, so now they have relocated to the tip of the island, I opened the door expecting to see my appointment, but it was another company head I’d been seeing, he pushed past me into the suite, he took off his rain-streak glasses and wiped them on his coat, he was shaking and his voice quivered when he told me he’d received a summons to answer charges against him, I didn’t say anything and he went on asking for help in getting him over the border, when I didn’t say anything again he asked me to at least help his wife get out, she chose to stay when she had the chance to leave, she organised benefits to raise money for the vets, his thinning hair was soaking wet and it dripped onto the carpet

24. Bad Fall

we can’t get up early enough to avoid their attention, the fires burn all night, the kids are running around everywhere, one of them watches us as we fling the bags, there is a crash as we’re dumping the bags, the content creator rushes out and is filming the body on the rocks, the content creator turns and says bad fall, shame he didn’t catch it, I carry the kid’s body into the cave and lower it into the water, we watch it float and twirl, the content creator lets out a low fart, the DeFi pioneer and I squat and offer our morning turds, then we dive in together, the day after the judgement was handed down the company head’s wife showed up at my suite, she said he told her everything, he got off on sharing his indiscretions and allowing her to choose a punishment, she pleaded her case for a place on one of the boats for undesirables and subversives, she would suffer as long as she could leave, I told her that the people on those boats had earned their position as enemies of the regime and she would have to help herself, she started to cry and pleaded with me to do something for her, her world had been destroyed, I told her the conscripts would always need a mother, she’d never had kids and this was her chance to make a useful contribution to the new national plan, the dossiers were deployed, many of the company heads and theatre chain proprietors failed to convince a panel of high-ranking vets that their assets shouldn’t be seized, that they shouldn’t be eliminated for the health of the body politic

25. Wolf Cabaret

we spend the afternoon making traps, the content creator learned to do them at a survivalist camp, the DeFi pioneer tells us about his dad, he was a fashion photographer and art collector, he says they had Basquiats coming out the wazoo at their house, his dad invested in a company that ended up being a trafficking front, when his dad shot himself he inherited everything, he sold the paintings and put the money into digital flair as it was just about to explode, he takes the gold chain from under his leather vest and kisses a large gold cross, I became the owner of a theatre where seditious propaganda had been staged,  it was my duty to create a new entertainment for a new nation, a nation that had expunged any brake on its greatness, a nation that grasped its destiny like a lover released from bondage, a nation that could survive sanctions and blackouts because it knew victory was in sight, a nation that was sick in a dream so it could wake up well, the conscripts would absorb the national spirit in what we devised, we called it wolf cabaret, I eased the conscripts into the world beyond mother’s breast, with multiple costume changes, elaborate backdrops, anthems to be sung together on the front, the missions and seductions, they were getting younger with every draft, the latest were pre-teens, I played the entire canon of national heroines for them, reconceiving history as a string of dramatic predicaments and ravening postures, sheltering the battered animal of the future

26. Trash Bag Burlesque

we make a show of flinging the bags, I perform a sort of trash bag burlesque, the old instincts kick in when I start swinging two bags to an invisible rhythm, the kids gather round to watch, acting amused but enchanted by the improvised routine, I look into their flickering wolf eyes, after we’ve dumped the bags we go to the traps to see what’s in them, the content creator forces one open and finds a small body curled inside, I carry the body to the cave and lower it into the water, every trap yields an unexpected texture, after a few days we sample what we’ve made, it’s delicious and fills us with an overwhelming feeling of strength and euphoria, we dance and laugh and hug and splash, I thought the past had been filed away, a role superseded by new enchantments, but some didn’t have the luxury of forgetting, it was their only way of retaining parity, so it was with my camp mother, who scurried to the underground press to tell them a story about a young POW who bewitched the nation’s heroes with a wicked but irresistible gift, an agent who was sending the nation’s children to the their deaths in service of the enemy, it was condemned as slander, rancid propaganda, but the new conscripts were not immune to the stink, their noses were seduced by the smell of depravity and they tore up the seats with their teeth, I lift a body out of the water and swing it round like I’m dancing with it, singing one of the old battle anthems, the DeFi pioneer and the content creator clap along and laugh at me

27. A Season for Remembering

I became a weak boy again, the moon was up and howls filled the city, my visitor whined and grumbled, I beat my gut and demanded silence, my left eye was blurred, I was wounded from the rocks that were hurled at the stage, everyone had surrendered the luxury of forgetting, it was a season for remembering, the comedown is intense but it’s worth it, I paddled as the sun went down, my visitor purred while the content creator suspended the DeFi pioneer in a chokehold, we could barely make it back up the rocks in the state we were in, when we did we saw that the yellow buildings had been smashed up and cleaned out, the camp had walls around it, built from ceremonial beds and offering tables, only one kid stood outside the walls and watched us creep past, raised voices wake me, the DeFi pioneer and content creator are sleeping on the bedroom floor, I go to the window and see two mature women shoving and butting heads until one of them slips and they both fall into the pool swinging and thrashing, a man comes to the edge of the pool and berates them, he says it’s the third time this week, I stand on the rocks and watch multiple swimmers go toward the sunken vessel, a voice comes down from the tip of the island, it says we know our kids are down there and if they don’t come back we’ll take out one of your lot, the ex-president is thrust forward and dangled over the rocks, we remove the traps and they climb down, I try to calm them by explaining that tragedy has gifted us with a glorious aftertaste

28. Strength and Euphoria

the crowd ready their rocks, I ask them to try it, I put the cups in their hands and dry their faces, we all take a drink and are soon sending the first patches of murk into the wider body of water, driving back life, we fuck who we like and who we don’t like, we use the bones to stir the fruits that drop from sobbing holes, slip from jittery slits, dribble from wrinkled dicks, the ex-president’s alma mater sweater is caked in his blood and puke, he keeps shouting that he can still bust and he hasn’t had this much fun since Bucharest, I want this to be the end, I want all time to disappear into a palpitating sphincter, but we’ve got to keep going until the stage collapses and the theatre burns down, the DeFi pioneer paints on the mouth of the cave: Various Flavors + Big Smiles, all the tunnels had been blocked and the gaps in the fence had been fixed, I went to the main gate and argued with the guard, a servant came out and told me the famous poet didn’t wish to be disturbed from his work and the DDC had been called, my heart thumped and fluttered at the prospect of revenge, I haunted the correct bars and relied on the largesse of defeated men, until my target announced itself with drunken hexes against the junta, I followed him home and waited outside until he went to the office of the underground press, I explained my gift and the information I could offer, he demanded proof and took me to the bathroom, after he came I relayed to him the intel that was locked in his darkest quarters

29. Principality of Shit

the woman is found badly beaten by the row of dumpsters, the strip of concrete is the frontline of the trash battle, who can secure the bedrock of their tonic, the island is not producing enough trash to meet demand, the rest comes from our bodies, we’ve got to be disciplined in utilising our waste, I appoint the ex-president to regulate collection and transportation, his  old voice is back, he is free now to be the statesman for our principality of shit, around the pool the attack is blamed on the camp dwellers, the voice of the mega-donor’s daughter rises above the news coverage of the war crimes trial, she’s telling them as they glaze themselves in pool scum that they need to project strength, the exposés were published in a series of pamphlets, detailing everything I’d learned about the nation’s artistic and military elite, we waited for the fallout but events overtook our gesture, massive losses were sustained in the latest offensive, the ordnance gap was exposed as waves of conscripts were liquidated, personal failure no longer seemed to matter as the nation came together, our pamphlets were trampled by the hordes of mourners who filled the streets of the capital in a show of support for the war effort, the strain of producing the pamphlets exhausted the underground press, its office was abandoned and we scattered, the scavengers I send out come back to the cave empty handed, telling stories about gangs with dead rats strung round their necks, defending the dumpsters

30. The World’s True Diamond

the fish are dying and we love to see it, purity is ours now, the visitor in us demands more, innocence is at a premium, it’s the world’s true diamond, forever pristine and flawless, the visitor feeds on purity, we’ve tried to pacify it with mountains of trash, but now the supply’s been cut off, the rat squad stand resolute before the dumpsters, it’s got to be the uncut stuff now, it’s the only remedy for the ache that stretches the skin until you can see it writhing inside, the DDC was tasked with the cleanup, we were charged with breaches of the national hygiene, their noses were attuned and they rooted out the leading lights of the underground from their hiding holes, but none of them could go as far down as me, I went back to the abandoned parts, where everything odious gathered, my visitor sang and leapt, I lost all loyalty to the ground, my visitor positioned me like any other dependable vessel, cutting untarnished through the city’s hidden debris, unerring navigation to the next bend, I came up in the sewage works and watched the reflection in the black water as the sky erupted with white flashes and the buildings bent in obedience to the beast that burst through the rift, the beast turned its back on the city and I knew we were forsaken, loud banging on the chalet door, the mega-donor’s daughter shoves me back and comes in, she screams that she learnt a thing or two from her dad about rat fucking, she takes me to the body, sprawled in front of a chalet with its skull caved in

31. Dead Skin

everyone is given a number, at the end of the day we gather at the tip of the island, I draw the winning number and announce it, the director raises his hand and steps forward with the kid, it will happen when the sun comes up, the commander’s refusal to come to the negotiating table made him and us international pariahs, the sanctions were starting to bite, the DDC had to put down multiple hunger riots, new weapons were in the enemy’s hands, casualties piled up, the conscripts kept getting younger, other people said they saw what I saw that night, the beast whose tongue lashed the skyline with white light, it was the wildest creatures who fled first, generals surrendered en masse, the famous poet sought asylum when his latest work was deemed to contain harmful ambiguities which undermined national morale, citizens leant their free time to oversee the construction of the vessels, to send away what the commander called dead skin flakes, the occupants of the internment camps who did the labour, the kid has been prepared, he’s stripped and shivering but there’s a pride in his manner, he knows he’s been given his defining role, he’ll be idolised by a loyal audience who’ll talk about his performance forever, he’ll never have to age out of favour and slip into addiction and become a nostalgia artifact, the kid is carried into my arms, I lift the kid over my head and fling him, I look down at the rocks and see that the blood has come out looking like a heart, like the heart inside your body

32. A Human Border

new notes are introduced, a new kind of feeling, it’s hard but quick so we have to keep knocking it back, the director gets his winner’s dividend, the first draught from a larger cup, it gets hard to tell what’s real, people get injured when they think they’re a moss or try to test the elasticity of the rocks, jets of orange cum spurt from fissures, fumes from the tonic are a gorgeous sugar coating on the coastline, we laugh until our puke replenishes the tides, suddenly seeing your own blood on the outside, a delicious cherry glaze for the next helping, we beat our cups together until they turn into daggers to fend off the mutated swimmers that are massing on the black waves, our visitors scream inside our ears, they want everything to stay the way it is, we promise not to change when the coast clears, enveloped to the chest, I’d become immune to everything that was destroying everybody else, my visitor protected me on certain conditions, I was afforded a narrow space to crane my neck and watch the flow of everything the besieged city tried to drown, the thunder carried on the water, I swam into the open and saw the skyline being lashed by a horny tongue that dwarfed our proudest erections, ranks of rural transplants made offerings to the beast and were gobbled up by the handful, the provinces had been vacated to protect the capital from the advancing enemy, the city was ringed with a human border, they clogged the streets to pay their respects to the columns of smoke that choked them

33. Enterprise and Adventure

we’re climbing up the rocks, some of us fall in the hurry to get to the source of the drumbeat, the walls have been torn down and the rat squad is ransacking the camp, we watch as the shacks get torched, we cheer and applaud as shimmering stars rise out of the flames and beaming angels swirl over our heads, the intensity of the colours that fill the sky sends a surge of joy through me, it feels like everything that was tethering me to the ground has been siphoned off to power the purity of this vision, we hold up our refashioned cups in tribute, I put a hand to my stomach and it comes back covered in blood, the DeFi pioneer is lying next to me on the grass, his face is fixed in a big smile and he’s turning grey, most of the city had become uninhabitable, compromised buildings wilted and collapsed without warning, taking out links in the human border, rubble became currency, deformed structures dotted the city streets, constructed by the  salvage monopolies that rented out plots in their hastily assembled projects, there was too much waste to process, the sewage system got overwhelmed and my refuge was taken away, I had to go back up and utilise my gifts, the transplants didn’t know me and accepted my overtures, I bathed in rainwater creeks, I stole what I could until I’d amassed a new identity, seductive enough to stand out from the drained and dejected daughters of the field, I was sustained by the affections of the freshly minted rubble magnates, the new face of enterprise and adventure

34. Raw Materials

I’m carried to the chalet, some tonic is brought to rub into my wound, the DeFi pioneer and the other casualties have been flung over and immersed, I’m worried about the consistency of the tonic, but raw materials are at a premium and waste cannot be tolerated, I fed my visitor on primitive fears, the hostility of the land, the caprices of history, the motives of wolves, I chose the most charismatic young faggots with the hardest eyes and hollowest cheeks, trained them up and put them on the street, before long I had a franchise that was sanctioned by the rubble magnates, I kicked up a percentage and in return my visitor grew accustomed to cuts from the livestock requisitioned from the fields and housed in the shell of the theatre, my boys were identifiable by the scent they carried, distilled from the soles of shoes and community buckets, redolent of the old fields, the signature of cocksucking excellence, I urged my boys to maximise their productivity by eschewing any distractions, the provision of pleasure required discipline, my boys serviced the human border and the projects in my allotted sector, I lost many of my boys in the air strikes that flattened the rented rock piles, but there were always new recruits, rural faggots free at last to go wild, the city didn’t see like the fields did, my wound objects when I’m dragged off the bed and carried to the pool, I’m dropped at the feet of the mega-donor’s daughter, she instructs one of the carriers to jab their finger into my wound

35. The Sacred Balance

the human border kept retreating at the sight of the massing tanks, shuffling back until it was pressed against the gates of the nerve centre, the city shrank to a cramped hamlet, the commander hadn’t been seen on the balcony for weeks, the DDC enforced the border but they couldn’t stop overawed farmers from wandering into surrendered wrecks in search of stray livestock, everyone was pressed into taking up space, we drew our strength from the community buckets, we strained to keep our fingers interlaced and our toes touching, they cover my mouth when I scream, the mega-donor’s daughter crouches and asks if I understand the damage I’ve done, the horrible side effects I’ve caused by tainting the tonic, they can’t make eye contact anymore, they’re scared by loud noises and bright lights, they physically attack people around them for no reason, they keep seeing beasts that are coming to devour them, I ask her what the beasts look like, she says they’re not collapsitarians, nothing will get thrown away, they’re not a wasteful people, it’s a matter of adaptation, it’s the only way to salvage the sacred balance I’ve tampered with, our position in the border was strenuously self-regulated, arms and legs tensed beyond fatigue or feeling, stepping over fallen links and grasping for the next hand, I didn’t respond to the pressure in my shoulders, but I recognised the voice calling me cocksucker, I looked behind and saw one of the rubble magnates gesturing at me to come with him

36. Celeste

I roll onto my side, blood from my wound travels in the spaces between the tiles and drains into the pool, I watch a plume of smoke rise from the east and turn the sky grey, the fallen links were stacked in front of the nerve centre checkpoint, buildings quivered and collapsed as the advancing tanks shook the ground, a siren sounded and our flags were ripped down, a voice repeated that we should assemble outside the shell of the theatre, I wake up on the beach, my wound has been treated, the woman from the vessel walks through the haze that thickens the air and leaves a caramel tang in the back of your throat, her skin is red and swollen and she has boils all over her body, she tells me that the east has been cleared, she points to the sea and I can make out specks bobbing on the grey waves, she says we’d better get to shelter, as she helps me to my feet I see the vessel, perfectly rebuilt, mounted on a platform covered in gold specks, surrounded by swimmers with similar skin complaints, I ask her what her name is and she tells me, she doesn’t ask me for mine, the rubble magnate spoke with the guards and they let us through, the nerve centre was quiet, our footsteps echoed as we crossed the lobby and went up a flight of stairs, the rubble magnate stopped in front of a door and turned to me, he told me I’d have a place on the last boat out of the country if I went in there and performed my magic, he patted me on the back and opened the door, the men sitting around the table greeted me with big smiles

37. The Heir to Our Humiliation

the white faces of the chalets are caked in ash, the path is boiling under bare feet, the eastern tip is still burning black, figures coming into view, she picks me up and throws me over a fence, I hold in my pain and bury myself in a bush, a voice tells her to stay inside until they’ve swept the island, I got on my knees and crawled under, it was a long table, they’d already got themselves ready, I lunged at the first twitching stubby uncut dick, my head beat against the underside, I was flooded with occult intel, the dimensions of the defeat were laid out in front of me, I absorbed every drop of dejection and terror, each member of the brass advanced their knowledge of the culpability they held, it coalesced inside me and I carried it on behalf of the nation, the heir to our humiliation, the chalet has a dungeon where the sub lives, she takes me down and I sit on a strip of spongy foam, she unfastens the sub from the board  where he is suspended, the sub drops to the floor and she kicks him until he gets onto his knees and nestles up to her crotch, she pushes the sub back and calls him a disgusting piece of shit, she grabs the sub’s head and attaches the chain extending from the mouth of his mask to a hook on the wall, I start to feel unwell so I lay down on the bench, when I came back up the brass were slumped in blissful relief, the commander stood in the doorway, a towel was draped over his arm, he walked over to me and delicately wiped my mouth, then he broke into a big smile

38. A Recurring Twinge

she looks at me and asks what the fuck, I explain that I have to do it, she shrugs and says sure, I drop the other half of the sandwich on the kitchen floor and stamp on it, then pick up both halves and put them on my plate, she tells me I’m the biggest freak here, the terms of withdrawal were set, the city was silent as the commander’s private car passed through the humanitarian corridor, the provinces were lit up with bonfires, lost links in the human border threw on chunks of furniture they dragged from flattened farmhouses, bodies clambered over the front of the car when we hit a checkpoint, a gunshot sent them scattering, she rushes in and shoves me into the dungeon, she lets the sub out of his cage and undresses him, she instructs the sub to go and hide in the burial den, the naked sub runs up the stairs, she tells me the rat squad is doing house searches, she helps me into the suit and puts on the mask, I get on my knees and she guides me into the cage, total surrender to the senses, every discomfort amplified, a recurring twinge I feel whenever I fail to restrain myself in the hours when she’s at the beach and the sub refuses to say anything, my visitor’s squirming articulation of distaste for what I’ve done to us, I shield my face with the floor, she tells me they’re gone but I stay there, the commander patted me on the stomach and we got out of the car, the hum from the gathered rubble magnates, elite creatives and military brass died down, they cleared a path to where the vessel was waiting

39. Hostile Waters

I sleep in the dungeon every night, my face pressed against the floor, I can’t get low enough, I crave what accelerates our dissolution, the visitor spins in increasingly hostile waters, my bones are just an opportunity for climbing, it gets so heavy that I flatten myself to take in breath, I crawl to the bathroom and angle myself over the toilet, I snort and gasp and hear a gathering static, it inundates my throat, lubricated on a wave of mucus and stomach acid, and splashes into the bowl, I watch its final twitches, slimy puckered and colourless, curling in on itself in an attempt to locate another host, I get to my feet and reach into the bowl, I hold it up to the window and stroke its shrivelled indented flesh, I carry it to the back garden, the sun hasn’t come up yet, the last moisture drains down my wrist as I grip it hard and fling it, I open the burial den and get inside, two troops from the occupying forces were checking our documents of passage when a series of gunshots came from the direction of the checkpoint, the troops left their position but were trampled by the crowd that had breached the checkpoint, the real passengers fought to reach the vessel, throwing each other off the dock and jamming the doors, the intruders carried rocks and sticks of broken furniture, a revered artist got his brains bashed in, a rubble magnate cradled his right eye in his hands, a general grabbed me by the waist and directed me, when we got to the doors I gave him a big smile and pushed him in the water 

40. The Great Demon Mother

she opens the burial den and pulls me out, she’s breathing heavy and walking in circles, running her hands through her hair, she tells me that Grant flew in this morning to meet with the mega-donor’s daughter, after a few hours Grant hadn’t emerged from the meeting, so they went to check the helicopter and the pilot wasn’t there, she sent out some swimmers to observe and they reported that the cleansers were gathered around the pool, dancing laughing and screaming, they made me wear the wig again, a composite of scalps ripped off in combat, it got heavy from the water that leaked into the bowels of the vessel, I developed a stoop from carrying it, the great demon mother, a revolting waxwork that absorbed rage and cherished swill, I wasn’t alone down there, anyone with links to the regime was sent to the bowels, where we were selected by the strongest intruders, I fell into the arms of a man who’d served with distinction and had the defeats marked over every inch of his powerful body, he waded through the water and pinned me to the wall, he ripped open his thumb to paint my lips, he rearranged my teeth for ease of access, he told me he wouldn’t put it anywhere else as he plunged it down my throat, I listened to the angelic music coming from the gaps, my gift mocked me like only an intimate could, fit to be reduced to fantasy, the bodies followed us and beat their coded threats against the bottom of the vessel all night, weighed down by their luggage, approaching the edge of the world

41. Different Symbols

she releases the sub from his harness and undresses him, she tells him he’s going to the pool to find out what’s happening, the sub starts to shiver, she slaps him and says he’s got to be the man who masterminded the most-hyped IPO of the year, he nods and she takes him upstairs to find a pair of swimming trunks, when he’s out the door she says if he’s not back in an hour we’ll consult the vessel, the water kept coming in, but I knew I could hold my breath longer than anyone, his pristine sneakers were slung over his shoulders, his loyalties were etched on his broad chest, he fought for different symbols, when he touched me I told him I was claimed, he leaned in and said my intruder had racked up massive debts and used me as collateral, he flashed gold teeth and said nothing more to do here than fuck and gamble, she puts the collar on me, then the puppy hood, I get on all fours and the chain stiffens, the concrete is cool and coarse, music throbs from the direction of the pool, she pulls on the chain and tells me to slow down, we make it to the beach and I’m allowed to run free, I bathe my feet and knees in the water and it turns them green, I get on her back and we go out, I can’t move fast but I can stay where I am for a long time, I can go as deep as I need, even if the water is slick and impenetrable, the only life here is the one we created, I don’t feel thirsty anymore when I’m in here, nothing compels me to dive with a wide open mouth, I push through the wreckage for the undeniable symbol

42. A Born Host

I should be grateful to my visitor, or maybe I’m just a born host, always looking to be occupied, when people started getting sick on the vessel it didn’t touch me, the sickness took down even the strongest intruders, they joined the barrage of threats from underneath the vessel, that’s when she came into the bowels, the Real Fish Girl, everyone she knew had gone overboard, the vessel started to drift when the crew died, new cures were put together that sped up the decline, she refused to take any of them, she didn’t have any symptoms, so they threatened to throw her over, she crept out of her bunk and kept going down into the dark, her face when she was forced to explain looked like she was having a monstrous child ripped out of her, her legs stirred the water to keep us away, we held on to life like it had something for us, the bugs seduced us, we ate each other equally, but they couldn’t stomach what we offered up, their tiny souls left their bodies and buzzed around us, I reach for the first ribbon of colour I see, I recognise the design, the content creator’s tracksuit, the piping down the sleeves, the self-branded logo, I drag it to the surface and raise my arm, I twirl the shred of fabric over my head, she glides over to me and we slice through the grey blanket that’s stretched over the death and obscenity and expulsion, my feet feel bigger and my fingers fumble when I try to dig out my trunks, I wake up and my entire body is on fire, I twist in the sand, my arms and chest are red

43. Brutal Dreams

the vessel was shoved into all kinds of precarious positions, I pieced her together from a set of looped gestures, the Fish Girl faded out and the woman came into focus, as everyone else got sick we sat together and watched them go through the tortures, I took off my wig and threw it into the pool of water, everything rinsed out and filled the air with the smell of bodies contorted in hollows, poised for the moment of ecstasy or extermination that was always about to be enacted, I see a distorted likeness of myself in the surface of the vessel, my swollen face has broken out in boils, the swimmers collect around the vessel, olive drab legs crossed, the offering is placed on the platform, after a moment of silence they get up and take off their clothes, they start rubbing themselves against the vessel, sliding their hands up and down its body, exhaling and groaning mantras, she takes my hand and leads me into the vessel, the interior is now one giant bowel, sloshing around our ankles is some of the old clean water, she tells me they started collecting it when they saw us in the cave, she pulls down my trunks and lowers me into the water, she says she’s got to get me looking my best, as she rubs me with a soapy cloth she tells me she used to write letters to the moon and post them on the lake, begging to end her brutal dreams, with great care she shaves all the hair from my body, helps me into a swimsuit, applies some makeup and puts on a new wig, stuffs my mouth with putty, gives me a mirror so I can see

44. The Heir

I am immaculate, I am desirable, I am back to being the perfectly harmless boy with the silkiest throat, the swimmers leave their damp outlines and pay tribute to my restoration, she asks the swimmers what they heard, one swimmer steps forward and makes a pronouncement that the vessel urged them to stay, she asks if anyone picked up anything to contradict this, the next morning the swimmer who made the pronouncement is gone, the swimmers are sent out to perform a search, as soon as they clear the treeline she tells me to get in the vessel, I lie in the water and feel the weight of the wet wig, I listen for the insistent fists but there’s nothing except the pleasing tap of bones, I try to stop an obnoxious joy from overtaking me, the vessel shudders and drops, she tells me we’re going to drift until something comes into view, the feeling I thought was joy becomes a shredding in my gut, a tortured wail shakes the walls, the floor opens up and the water drains away, we land together on one side of the new divide, the vessel comes apart and we follow the pieces down, the pain is everything as I’m speeding backwards, hanging on to her bent arm, she drags me up the beach and sits behind me, the pressure rises through my chest, my throat expands until I can’t breathe, my jaw dislocates, my mouth fills with bile, my tongue is squeezed and slashed, it crowns and lands between my legs, spraying sand with its barbed tail, its grey segmented body slick with fluid, it digs and dives, the heir to our humiliation