Such Unholy Shapes

All three of us had our hands outstretched touching the cold spot and then it happened. The acid kicked in, widening my eyes like breakfast plates.

‘Look Kev, this is going too fast for me. You obviously know what your doing but I’m sorry this is freaking me out.’ I say, pulling the plum-red robe hood back.

‘What do you mean? Are you not game? We have come so far. We have made a break-through!’

‘Aye to what though? We don’t know what this cold spot really is.’

‘He’s right,’ says Matthew, lightning another cigarette, pulling the hood of his robe back, revealing a stubbled, pock-marked face.

Kev shouts ‘Your both breaking the intent! Leave your robes as they are. Can you not smoke please?’

Matthew inhales longer on it, then blows out a plume.

Kev pulls his robe hood back. His eyes magnified through the lens of his glasses. The left lens is blood-smeared.

He repeats ‘Matthew can you not smoke when we are trying to make contact!’

The acid had its grip on Matthew, you can see a menace work behind his eyes.

He says ‘Should it not be warm and inviting this celestial realm? Ouija boards are full of shit. I believe you spoke to someone Kev, but we have been misguided… Look! over there at all that death. All we get is a cold spot?’

I think we should stop I said shaking my head at Matthew.

Kev just looks at both of us.

I say ‘Look man, I’m feeling this trip. I need to lie down now.’

‘It’s not for lying down, I got us the acid to focus on the intent. That was the point of the chant,’ says Kev.

Earlier Matthew and I followed Kev’s voice with the chant notations. It was simple, more like a mantra. We did this for three hours.

The sacrifices were hard. It had to be personal or otherwise the ritual would fail. I went first and picked my dog Eerie, Matthew chose his Mum and Kev his ex-boyfriend.

‘To the new life!’ I said as I dropped a boulder from shoulder height right on Eerie’s head. Red mush poured out his mouth all over the wild garlic stemmed next to the glen.

Matt got his Mum during housekeeping, said her screams were muffled by the Dyson 40000 model but she saw him in the reflection of the half-moon mirror.

Kev’s kill was Marcus, his ex-slut boyfriend who gave him chlamydia. Marcus had a black bin bag pulled over his head while the hammer smacked all around until it softened.

Anyway. We, were stationed at the entrance to the communal living room. My words were coming out slurred. I didn’t even understand them anymore. I left the chalk circle. Walked past the sacrificial bodies lying head to toe starshaped. I fell on the couch with many-sized cushions, exhausted. Drained. Empty.

‘I love you both,’ Kev shouts ‘But, you need to understand what we are doing is very real. When it opens you will understand and witness its almighty glory!’

The muted television glows behind him. The static frost crackles silently illuminating the white walls with a majestic spectral glow.

Kev loses his balance, knocking the pyramid stacked empty beer-cans onto the floor, beer dribbles onto the ouija-board fashioned from old bathroom tiles. Kev reaches for his rucksack, pulling out a Polaroid camera. The acid has him now. I just lay there between the cushions, staring at the cold spot. Something terrible is coming from that spot, in the form of geometries? then a white flash before my eyes.

CLICK!

I turn to the flash and see Kev pointing the polaroid at the cold spot.

‘Kev man, can you not take any photos of me in this state,’ says Matthew with a furious sneer.

‘It is my duty to archive this moment. It’s content for the website!’

CLICK!

‘I told you to stop that’ said Matthew, pushing Kev.

‘Matt calm down, I’m ju…’

‘I TOLD YOU, DON’T TAKE ANY FUCKEN PICTURES!’

I see the geometries meld into a little black hole that silently grows into a huge 8-foot oval shape behind Matthew, just as he moves forward punching Kev twice in the face, Kev cups his nose, screams and lunges at Matthew pulling him down while smacking with his left fist into the side of Matthew’s face. They both roll back and forth on the ground, punching savagely into each other.

Something sifts within the infinite depth of the oval, a long black thin arm stretches from the hole.

Reaching over the hand touches Kev’s back as rolls on top Matthew. He raises his left fist to strike again. The portal disappears. The television switches off as Kev’s eyes turn red.

He looks down at Matthew. Strikes down with the left, grabbing the jugular, white-knuckled, squeezing all his fingers deep inside making loud tearing sounds. Matthew’s gagging drowns out the flesh sounds as blood shoots out in all directions; over me, over the bodies, the walls and the carpet.

I pull myself up from the couch, swaying with psychedelic intoxication. I fall back on the cushions.

Kev’s red eyes stare towards me as he rises.

‘TO THE NEW LIFE.’

He walks towards me.

I should probably scream but I don’t know how to.

90 pages
Burdock Press

Brief Perversions is a collection of flash fiction and prose poetry. The title of the collection reflects the brevity of the individual pieces and the various twists they often take. On a broader level, the title also reflects the collection’s theme of life as a brief perversion, as a short and twisted journey.

Many of the pieces engage with pop culture in various ways—alluding to and quoting celebrities, songs, poems, novels, textbooks, commercial products, cereal boxes, etc. In addition, many pieces call into question aspects of western culture (our treatment of the elderly, the emphasis on physical attractiveness, the reality vs. the fairy-tale of love, male-dominated politics, and much more), hopefully without moralizing. That is, the collection, ideally, is a philosophical conversation about what society values and what many of us consider normal.

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