Transfiguration of the Loathsome — Ch.4

IV: ESCHATON

IV.I (JUNE MMIX)

Our thighs are greased with pieces of the crisp azure, darkening in places where a dense whorl of cumulus offsets the great expanse into which a blot of swallows have nestled (a false sense of distance is thus created by which one might almost believe himself capable of unveiling, with some degree of accuracy, I might add, the combined density and radius of the topmost regions of the atmosphere). From this, and whilst refracting the last dregs of light, dusk ascends, beginning its flight along a dihedral plane until gradually it embraces the azimuth.

IV.II (JULY MMIX)

‘Help me tear the skin from my bones, I’m feeling claustrophobic.’

IV.III (JULY MMIX)

She holds a disposable lighter to my wrist, allowing in the process the root of each nerve to be destroyed completely. The scorched flesh begins to fissure before retracting to reveal inside, growing in and out of one another, coiled about themselves like rattlers hibernating in the left ventricle, several different species of grass (millet and sorghum chief among them). From this human meadow, this terrible zoo, as if capable of sensing the candles, of seeing the flames atop them almost, the veins in my body reach out, inching gradually across the mattress, searching initially for a vertical surface around which they can entwine then afterward be nourished.

IV.V (SEPTEMBER MMIX)

Glancing at my prick, I notice it has reconfigured itself into a double cord of nerve, broken up at intervals by immense swellings from which additional nerves branch out, appearing to connect the body of what can only be considered an insect. Segments bulge before forming around themselves an exoskeleton in order to support the internal organs of this grim appendage. Compound eyes stare out unquestioningly at the interior of the room. Formic acid dribbles everywhere. With instinct of its own, the transformed phallus makes a series of rapid vibrations from its thorax – and this coupled with the movement of wing muscles causes air to pass through spiracles as a mating call is sounded then returned. I pull her towards me. She does not resist. Even so, anal claspers emerge from my buttocks and hold her tightly in place until the ritual is over.

IV.VI (SEPTEMBER MMIX)

Always good-bye: lost and dark.

Read Chapters 1 & 2 & 3

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Christopher Brownsword was born in Sheffield, England on the 11th of December, 1981. Transfiguration of the Loathsome is the first of his short stories to be published; the rest having been either destroyed or lost. His debut novel, a diseased outpouring of ugliness, filth, and degradation titled The Terraced Orchards is currently under development.