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The Living Statue
Swann positioned himself away from the constant stream of pedestrians for fear of being struck by a briefcase or an elbow. He glanced over the wall at the Thames foreshore below and made eye contact with Jules, who jutted out of the shingle-skinned mud like bone from torn meat. Jules’s naked body held a tint of dawn-blue with a marble sheen; under his chin a glistening slit cut the milky throat like a smile. The Thames reversing current and its churning swell proved Swann’s faith in bricks and a bin-liner to be seriously misjudged.
His precarious upbringing led him to a short, calculated dash rather than a panicked sprint away from the river’s sludge. With each of Swann’s deliberate steps forward the memory of Jules was crushed under heel.
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The Stilt Walker
On the South Bank, hearty applause for a street performer, wrapped in a long pink and black cape which extended down over an impressive pair of stilts. Sunlight reflected on the surface of the performer’s long-nosed Venetian mask.
Swann was fascinated by an act so exquisitely opposed to the smothering childhood he had endured. As a youth he spent his time reading books (or playing the cello before his mother sold it) instead of racing a bicycle down the steepest of hills, feeling the rush of air warm his cheeks. He’d never been allowed a bike, yet still he was made to wear a helmet like an epileptic. He suffered from congenital analgesia which meant he was entirely numb to physical pain. His dad, attempting comfort, said that all mothers wrap their children up in the cotton wool, whether the kid has a medical condition or not.
Swann coveted the stilt walker’s elevation, admiring the silent graceful display as a lazy pirouette swept the vibrant plumage into a bruise. The audience reached a crescendo of amazement.
Swann did not applaud, but gnawed his nails. He’d caught another glimpse of marble through the gaps in the crowd. Once again, the taunting flesh caught his imagination and flipped him into paranoia. Swann fought the urge to run; instead, he studied the press of people that flowed like water around the classic nude. No heads turned to look, nor did any of the crowd break free of the stilt walker’s spell to notice this pale obscurity. It was only Swann, and Time itself, that halted for Jules.
The thought that this must surely be another innocent street performer – a living statue, onto which he had projected his latent guilt – tempered his anxiety a little. Until Jules raised a surgical scalpel in his pale right hand and pierced his own beautiful flesh, drawing the incision down from the curved swell of the clavicle to the sternum’s bowl. A passion for show, authenticity and sacrifice for the art fuelled this creator. The neck wound was not an anomaly, but a statement: a random, ritualised self-mutilation that gave the performance a macabre twist. A fine example of dedication.
If Swann spared some change to show appreciation, perhaps he’d be allowed to leave poor Jules alone (or was it the other way round?) and be on his way to art class. However, there was no upturned hat, open guitar case, not even a rag at the sculpted feet. Swann could do nothing but make an unspoken, unmarked departure, taking with him a share of the performer’s morbidity. After several steps, he realised he’d also come away with a touch of grace, as one sometimes does after encounters with perfect strangers.
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The Fire Eater
Swann’s memories were ghosts trapped within the walls of his consciousness; emotion and energy absorbed at a cellular level. The phantom of Swann’s childhood cello resounded with a deep thrum. He abused the instrument because it was not what he wanted it to be. He had yearned to play rock and roll ever since seeing the Elvis Presley movies during the summer. A cello was refined and polite, restrictive and repressive, and definitively not a double bass, though Swann tried to make it so through hours of plucking and banging, jamming out a rockabilly beat.
Then came the night he finally said farewell to the instrument. He had slapped out His Latest Flame when a door slammed downstairs. He heard his father’s voice, and responded with an extended version of Johnny B Goode. The thick, thudding sound of strings beat against his father’s cursing and threats, beat instead to the rhythm of his heart. Swann closed his eyes and willed the wood and catgut to join in his rebellion, forced it to through sweat and fear. And somewhere in those four minutes and twenty-seven seconds, he and the cello started dancing and a-grooving and a-grinning together until the final chord. He opened his eyes to find his fingertips in tatters, the varnished spruce spattered with blood. His mother took the cello away that night and sold it the following morning; it was dangerous, just like rock and roll. Swann would continue to suffer from this strange sensory deprivation for the rest of his days, always desperate to feel his shredded fingertips, chest-clutching pain of a shattered hand, the searing burn of fire or ice.
Music came to him again near the book market under Waterloo Bridge. The rousing lament of Carmina Burana – O Fortuna – echoed through his organs; its constant and mounting threat bullied the air as a bare-chested, wild-eyed fire-eater glared at the crowd. The berserker, defiant and fearsome, ignited two torches and brandished the rolling flames defiantly, bringing the vicious heat to his open mouth in a display of supremacy. Delight flashed across the performer’s face as he entrapped the audience with their own primordial needs. It was another street act to mesmerise Swann had Jules not been standing beside the swelling crowd.
With the statue came another ghost. His father had kept the Glenmorangie in the glass cabinet of the kitchen dresser. Swann never paid the bottle much notice until one school morning when he woke early and crept through the silent house to get a bowl of cereal. The gold glinted in the early summer sun, tempting him. I’ll make you a man, it seemed to whisper from the shelf. A swig, nothing noticeable. But it was just a swig next morning and the next, until his mother reprimanded his father for drinking too much. Swann didn’t drink it for the taste; whisky had always been rancid to him. It was the thrill of doing something he shouldn’t. More importantly, it was the anticipation of doing it again.
Wounds are lips waiting to be kissed, the statue said, though Swann never saw the lips move, just the hand. The scalpel pierced the forearm, slicing a new laceration down the length of the limb. The skin parted for breath.
It crossed his mind that only he could see Jules, so any forthcoming interaction with the living statue would appear... unusual to anyone who cared to pay him a degree of attention. People would give him a wider berth, either out of pity – bizarrely – or from wariness. He’d seen it happen. Done it too, to those with obvious mental issues.
With the sanctuary of the bookstalls under Waterloo Bridge just out of reach, and the fire-eater’s torches warming his exterior, he skirted around Jules, observing yet another opening mouth of pliant flesh. A pale flash took his gaze low to the flush of rosebud wounds blossoming on the rounded abdomen while, on the hip, slit tissue exposed the stark iliac crest. Gooseflesh split open like a teasing zipper. More glistering lesions raked bare back and buttocks, and on the chest and arms, multiple lacerated grins spread.
Jules’s elegant digits traced every split, caressing each flap of skin before curious fingers dipped inside. On occasion, the gliding hands paused to allow his fingers time to slide deeper, the walls of flesh pressing against knuckle bone, sucking at the inquisitive digit.
Swann could only wonder what sensations of discomfort and pain Jules experienced. This was due, in part, to Swann’s ignorance, but also a lack of anything recognisable in the expression sculpted upon the face a breath away.
The sound of slick supplicating flesh tickled Swann’s eardrums. How the penetration must grate the severed, raw nerves; how they must screech, and spark, and jolt, shocking the spine into charging this load-bearing mass of flesh. Withstanding these traumas so intimately connected with the life-carrying, soul-giving current took true power.
Jules vanished.
Swann stood bereft.
People streamed passed, striving toward all that blinded their view and narrowed their veins. He was a lodestone, attracting then repelling, remaining distant as his eyes searched for so much more.
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The Contortionist
Swann knew there were expectations in any kind of relationship, no matter how brief and regardless of nature. Like most, he entrusted others to follow certain accepted norms of behaviour, and when this didn’t happen, he was caught off-guard and left cautious. This feeling wasn’t entirely unwelcome as it rekindled a certain desire within him. Shortly after the violent shock of desertion, Swann knew that the performance was not over. The nature of the performer prohibited a premature ending. The intimate gig would soon continue.
Caught in a whirl of guilt and indecision, he continued to walk his daily route, casting startled glances at every pale smudge that passed his periphery. Under the bridge he chose not to pause and finger the texture of ink-lined pulp or wallow in bound worlds, though it always gave him pleasure. Swann felt no interest in books today, or anything other than the new crowd ahead and a glistening serpentine movement half-glimpsed through the crush of bodies.
A lycra-clad contortionist peered at him from between her knees, crouched upon a table. The feminine knot unfurled, so only her fingertips and the ends of her toes caressed the glass top. Arms then threaded with legs to re-knot, feet dangling briefly about her neck like a glittering stole before she poured over the table rim, splayed fingers dripping down the wooden supports like globules of honey.
Jules appeared in front of the contortionist, catching Swann in the glare of affronting wounds. The mutilation was complete and within Swann’s reach. Both comprehended what the other expected.
The life-affirming flesh was so close its scent caressed Swann’s nostrils. His eyes closed to savour the intimacy; he could almost taste the blood.
The skin was alive with faint swirls of blue, fused with fluid the colour of candyfloss which seeped from the meat to the beat of his desire.
Feel my pain.
This trio of silken words presented the flesh and laid bare the totality of Jules’s submission. Never before had Swann been given such permission, and he repeated the words over and again, embracing their exquisite meaning. One of his few lovers was prone to asking what and how and where, bending with simple compliance to the answers given to that series of questions. Swann soon took her willingness to please as a plea for abuse. Jules, however, gave an explicit invitation, a command, an understanding of suffering he wished to share in order to soothe and pleasure. Of course, if Swann’s hands joined those of Jules, he would himself be committing an act of submission.
His heavy tongue scraped against the roof of his mouth as he recalled the baptism of flesh.
Jules’s hand, shiny with viscous matter, reached for his. The touch was electric. It stole his breath. Cautiously at first, then with increasing joy, Swann’s fingertips were at the slivers of skin framing the wounds’ ruddy entrances. His eyes widened as Jules’s narrowed, and together their hands pushed through the freshly-sliced muscle. The cold shock of the innards slowed him. He’d expected to feel the sensual warmth once more, not the frost-gripped bitterness that numbed his touch. He rummaged deeper, hungry for a glint of discomfort on the face that was just a kiss away. His wriggling hands delved to the wrist, willed the statue’s gaze to tremble, its cheek to twitch; anything admitting to the stifling pain that Swann needed Jules to feel, (that he needed to feel); anything but the impassiveness that death always brought. Swann’s nail snagged on the edge of Jules’s sternum—and there it was: the brief parting of the lips, a silent sigh. Pain.
Do you feel it?
Swann shook his head.
Yet I feel yours. You scream within the marrow of my bones. You haunt me, Swann. I want it to stop.
Jules jolted back, aghast. Bereft.
Feeling his hands about to slip from the body, Swann broke a little. He drove forward once more, burying his fingers deep, groping for Jules’ heart.
“You can’t go. I must feel pain!”
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The Mime
Yes, Swann saw the pain register on Jules’s face, but he witnessed its mirror a thousand times a day on the faces of the great unwashed. People silently bearing their torment like yokes, its weight grinding their bones and their spirits to dust.
Had he not seen and heard Jules’s own pain just two days previous, near a homeless shelter in Woolwich, while Swann himself held the scalpel?
Everyone incites pain, he knew that. Regularly, incidentally, purposefully, born from their own selfishness. How all validate and excuse their behaviour and that it’s essential to do so. The physical immersion in the agony of others was necessary for Swann yet, curled within the embrace of his duvet, a sense of guilt gnawed through his justifications. In his dreams, Jules’s face still bled from the lips of each neat violation he’d committed, splashing open his eyes.
He never thought he would be glad Jules had returned. It was time to make amends, and this time – could he do it? – feel the screams of severed nerves. In doing so, could he take away this terrible need? And what of this living statue? He could not think Jules a corpse or a victim – this beautiful creature here to give him strength, to hold his hand despite the wrongs committed. He hoped Jules would be lying on the river’s bed, sleeping soft in the knowledge that Swann had found his answer. An answer which he realised he had always known, had wished to be a lie, and could no longer ignore.
Then feel it.
Only half-conscious of the flow of people slowing, their heads turned, curious, Swann shrugged his coat from his shoulders, peeled his top from his torso. The crowd gathered, fascinated now as he selected one of the scalpels from his bag. Swann’s first incision bled the length of his own arm. The second opened up his belly as the crowd went wild. One hand made a wound, the other entered in search of pain, groping, clawing until first the blade, then the man, hit concrete.
CONTRIBUTORS
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Robert Nazar Arjoyan was born into the Armenian diaspora of Glendale, California. Aside from an arguably ill-advised foray into rock n roll bandery during his late teens, literature and movies were the vying forces of his life. Naz graduated from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and now works as an author and filmmaker. Find him at www.arjoyan.com
Ronit J. is a 28-year-old writer-filmmaker from Mumbai, India. He was about 12 years old when he decided to become a fantasy writer and a filmmaker. Over the next decade and half, he’s honed his skills to make a one-man-film-crew out of himself, having successfully made two indie features and several shorts under his name. He is now focused on achieving his dream of becoming a fantasy author. Starting in January 2022, he began working on a collection of short stories in an attempt to build his world of Adeva, an Indian mythology-inspired fantasy world that he’s been developing for a while now. He has already begun work on Book 1 of his series and intends to complete it sometime in early 2023.
Sylvia Woodham is an international business professional living in Germany with her dog, working across several time zones and continents. Her other short stories which have been published are Bodies of Women in The Sad Girls Literary Club Blog September 2021, and Maerchen: Prince of Gold and Greed in Danse Macabre v.150 in May 2023.
Anthony Ferguson is an author and editor living in Perth, Australia. He has published over seventy short stories and non-fiction articles in Australia, Britain and the United States. He wrote the novel Protégé, the non-fiction books, The Sex Doll: A History, and Murder Down Under, edited the short-story collection Devil Dolls and Duplicates in Australian Horror and coedited the award-nominated Midnight Echo #12. He is a committee member of the Australasian Horror Writers Association (AHWA), and a submissions editor for Andromeda Spaceways Magazine (ASM). A four-time nominee, He won the Australian Shadows Award for Short Fiction in 2020. His short story collection, Rest in Pieces was published by IFWG in August 2023. Visit his website at https://anthonypferguson. wixsite.com/mysite
Wayne Kyle Spitzer is an American writer, illustrator, and filmmaker. He is the author of countless books, stories and other works, including a film (Shadows in the Garden), a screenplay (Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows), and a memoir (X-Ray Rider). His work has appeared in MetaStellar—Speculative fiction and beyond, subTerrain Magazine: Strong Words for a Polite Nation and Columbia: The Magazine of Northwest History, among others. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Eastern Washington University, a B.A. from Gonzaga University, and an A.A.S. from Spokane Falls Community College. His recent fiction includes The Man/Woman War cycle of stories as well as the Dinosaur Apocalypse Saga. He lives with his sweetheart Ngoc Trinh Ho in the Spokane Valley.
John K. Peck is a Berlin-based writer, musician, and letterpress printer. His writing has been published in a diverse range of journals and anthologies including Interzone, Pyre, Cold Signal, voidspace, VOLT, SAND, and the anthologies Dark Stars (Shacklebound) and The Nameless Songs of Zadok Allen (JayHenge). He is also a frequent contributor to McSweeney's Internet Tendency and has appeared in several McSweeney's anthologies. Find him online at johnkpeck.com and on Twitter at @johnkpeck.
Jake Williams is a short story writer based in London. His work appears in Archetype, Roi Fainéant, Bruiser, Purple Wall and Orchid's Lantern. He's currently stood right behind you and you can follow him on Twitter at @jakewilliamspen
Clay Waters has had stories published in The Santa Barbara Review, Morpheus Tales, Hello Horror, Three-Lobed Burning Eye, as well as Dark Horses. His website is claywaters.org, featuring his self-published cozy mystery novel Death in the Eye. Clay lived in Florida until the age of four and recently returned to find it hadn't changed a bit. Three of his six memories from that first stop involve the alphabet, which in retrospect was a bit of a tell.
Vonnie Winslow Crist, MS Professional Writing, is the award-winning author of By Scant Moonlight, Dragon Rain, Beneath Raven's Wing, The Enchanted Dagger, Owl Light, The Greener Forest; Shivers, Scares, and Goosebumps, and other books. Her speculative writing had been published in Japan, Australia, India, Italy, Spain, Germany, Finland, Canada, the UK and USA. Believing the world is still filled with mystery, magic, and miracles, Vonnie strives to celebrate the power of myth in her writing. For more info: www.vonniewinslowcrist.com
Eric Nash (he/him) lives with ghosts in the South West of England, and writes dark tales. His fiction has been published in Bleed Error, Coffin Bell Journal, Demain’s ‘Short Sharp Shocks!’ series, and other places. Read more of his work on his website: https://eric-nash-inked-up-and-earthbound.com/, or give him a follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/EANash1.