MONO ISSUE 2 - Flipbook - Page 79
her forearm, but was met only with the sensation of paresthesia that followed a night of
sleeping across a limb. When she tried to scream, all that she could produce was a
squeal, indecipherable even to herself. Go back to sleep, she urged the body, go back to
sleep. She closed her eyes, bringing her thumb to her mouth by force of instinct, near
wailing when she discovered that all her teeth had fallen out; the Freudian nightmare.
‘Baby? Gooood Morning!’
‘Elliot! You have to help, Elliot!’ She opened her mouth to speak, and closed it again
when no words came out. He brought his face to hers, the bristle grazing her cheeks, his
familiar rancour providing a fragile gauze over the terror of her existence.
‘Good morning, baby. Happy birthday, do you know how old you are today? You’re a
mighty one year old!’ When she looked down, she found the umbilical, much shrunk,
protruding from her own naval and wrapping itself around the bars like a coil. Elliot did
not come to her salvation, not least give her a kiss, as stick something sharp in her arm.
Almost instantly, her body turned to jelly. Any vestiges of strength remained only in the
tip of her forefinger. She began to stroke the soft rubbery worm, ‘there there’, she cooed
as a smile stretched across her face and the warm liquid rushed through her veins,
‘There, there, mein schatz’.
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