Per 
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…abinet 36776 (Mortalities)
Open Cabinet 36777 (Technicalities)
Weeping Well
In my last days in the old person's home, I began to see things. Great, loping things that peered covetously around the ends of fabricked hallways and wooden closets in the moonlight. I didn’t know what they wanted but come closer and I’ll tell you because I know now…
They wanted my eyes.
Such gorgeous eyes I had too. Golden streaks of sunlight and brown texture seeped deep into their gooey insides like syrup. The little red men inside of them worked too, astonishingly well at that. They were kind. They burst a pipe and flooded my eyes with tar so I wouldn’t see it. I am grateful.
I remember falling out through the window next, into the dark. I felt my eyes watching me fall and the long loping things… I could hear them calling my name in great echoing voices.
I landed in the garden surrounded by concrete homes. Snuffling around and limping and my back had surely shattered. I slithered towards where I knew the well lay. I heard it before I felt it; Dissonant, cavernous, drip-dripping… splash, splash, splashing.
I panted and heaved myself onto the ancient stone. The dark brick ridges sent agony piercing through my back and I slipped. I was dangling now; My torso was dangling like the uvula of a great beast into its stomach. My sockets leaked their boiling tar and I heard it sizzle innocently on the still lake beneath me. And when they had no tar to spill and my flesh had ballooned out of their sockets like blossoming flowers the splashing muffled.
Mail Slot
Mail slots whisper things; Soft things that make your ears rattle in anticipation. You can’t get too close, but if you hold your ear up just right you can avoid the teeth. Its lips mouthed something I couldn’t quite hear. The mouth’s smile made the wood groan.
And then it was quiet. It was so quiet. There was no weeping of the heater. There was no angry seething from the bathroom. And there was no soft breath on my face. I pressed my ear against the opening, listening desperately for a sound. Silence.
I withdrew my lighter from my pocket and held it alight through the mail slot. I peered through the teeth, but I only saw the paper-cut inside of its cheeks. I returned the lighter to my pocket. I went to the sink and told it that I knew terrible things. It slowly leaked out warm water. I went to the washing machine and told him that I hated him. I said that the hangers said awful things about her in the night. It rumbled slowly to a stop and I snatched a rag before it could start leaking too. I ran the cloth under the water and plastered it onto the mail slot.
I’m waiting here now. Waiting for the rag to rustle slightly in a warm breath. I hear the cries of the heater and sink and washing machine and door, but I’ll just be here by the mail slot. Because that’s what friends are for.
Lima
Blinding light and the sensation of freezing air on wet flesh send my head spinning out through the gash in the darkness. Viscous sludge, frigid in the stale air, condense on my silvery arms and legs and trickle off onto the gritty white sands around me. My eyes are covered in film, and I only see a pink gargantuan mass ahead of me. I reach out to touch it, and it feels like skin.
I tenderly prod the rosy gash from which I emerged, longing to go back. I feel the edges of the hole and- no. The gash is closing. Mending itself. No, I can’t stay out here. I belong there. My refuge. As I blindly watch yellow ropes stitch and sway along the wound, the back of my neck prickles, whispering in my ear. I crouch.
I lunge towards the gash, swiping and clawing through the veiny mass. The meat around me shudders unpleasantly. I continue clawing til my fingernails are caked in blood and are trailing arteries like streamers. I find my old resting place hidden in the flesh. I sigh.
I settle down comfortably but- no. There was no luring rhythmic pulsing. No warmth to fend off the cold. In fact, I could feel the cold draft from where I had returned to my shelter. I trudged through the flesh and peered out through the wound I had made. There was blood on the ground. So much blood. My eyes went wide and the film covering them split.
I squelched back into my home. My dead, rotting home. What will happen to this place now? Its sun-bleached bones will collapse and make great breaching arcs in the white sands. Maggots will grow from its pustules and sneer at me while they gnaw on the corpse of my home. What have I done? Now I can see the gore in astounding detail. The severed veins. The teeth. All of it. The skin of this beast flaps in the frigid wind, billowing like cloth.
A Thief in the Repository
When did you realize that memories have veins? That they have folded skin and lungs? You peruse this purgatory like your mundane library. You do not belong here. They know you are here now. The Hangman prepares his noose. The Eagle readies its chicks. I would hide if I were you.
Homegrown
He doesn’t have time for me anymore. The clothes in the closet have gone stale and the mannequins under the bed whisper when you’re not home. I wonder how that would make him feel if you knew. I don’t whisper; I consider myself above it, but sometimes I wonder if they’re right. About him. About the red prints he leaves on the white carpet when he comes home and kisses me on the cheek. I leaned down to listen to what the prints had to tell me, but then I remembered I was being silly; I don’t whisper.
The red stains have begun to condense into lumps of dried blood and spittle. I can hear them a little louder now, so I wonder if it still counts as whispering. Sometimes I scrape them off the carpet when they’re a little too loud and sneak them into his white-breaded sandwich. I squint at him when he’s eating it. He never reacts. He just smiles at me with bits of meat and blood in his teeth.
There's a lot of meat and blood in his teeth this time. He doesn't seem to notice the way the blood is congealing into strands and falling down onto his plate. I didn’t put that much in, did I? There’s so much blood. It was only… what? One or two?
There’s ringing in my ears. He’s looking at me and asking how my day was. I can hear the blood in his mouth laughing at me. I smile as I rise from the table. Ignoring him, I turn and begin to whisper things to the knives. They whisper back.
Black and Froth
I could hear something out in the halls. It sounded like a cat running back and forth in the night. I don’t have a cat. I sat in the black room, staring at the door, willing it to remain shut. I slowly pulled back the covers and I wanted to scream as I heard the footsteps get closer, closer to my paralyzed body, only for them to recede once again.
I got to my feet, approached the door, and held the handle. I held it for a long while, listening to those footsteps. In a moment of bravery, I wrenched open the door, only for my spirit to be sapped away immediately. It was as though I were standing on a ledge that glimpsed into the depths of hell. So dark; My night light barely penetrated a foot into the black space. My eyes focused on something in the hallway and I felt my neck prickle. Was it the vacuum? A coat hanger? What was it? I slowly inched the door shut.
“The footsteps,” I thought, “they stopped when I opened the door.”
I snapped the door closed and stood with my hands pressed against the door, listening for any sound. It was quiet, very quiet. But then- step step step…
The footsteps grew towards my door. I began shivering. My clothes were soaked. It became difficult to hear the footsteps over the pounding in my ear. I could sense it on the other side of the door. Whatever it was.
An eternity passed, maybe two. It turned and resumed its awful back and forth pacing through the hall. I lie in bed now, waiting for the sunrise, listening to the sounds of footsteps erratically grow and shrink, drunkenly bumping against the walls and the door. “Just a little while longer,” I tell myself, “then you’ll be safe”. But as I watch the night grow darker, I become less certain.
A Drey of Bone
“I don’t believe you,” the dead rat said, sloshing around in my skull. It reeked of formaldehyde. And again, he was right. I didn’t believe it myself. It was quiet in my skull, all but for the quiet splashing. “So go take a look,” the dead rat said.
Comatose on the ground, I watched the sentinels pace around my body, snatching bits of my hair and dead skin. “Use your ears, fool,” the rat sneered, drifting to the surface and bubbling in the soup. I heard the sentinels talking about the little dolls they were going to make of my hair and dead skin. “Listen closer”. The hair and dead skin were talking amongst themselves. Talking about me. “What are they saying?” I thought to the rat. In response, the sentinels took my ears.
Cocoon
I let my hands travel along the pastel walls, dipping into the ridges and intricate flowering patterns that overlaid the color underneath. I traced them like a memory, feeling for the details and texture. I came to a spot in the wallpaper that gave me pause. This spot looked different. Its sunken yet swollen appearance confused me. It warped in strange places like wet paper or bruised skin. I prodded it with a long silver finger and it gave, pushing inwards on itself. I pulled back my finger and peered into the curious hole.
There was something on the other side. Straightening up, I began clawing at the dank and moldy area around the small hole. My fingers turned to knives and I tore through the gooey malted wall. I must have been tearing for a while. A really long time. It must have been subtle too. I must have been thrashing through the wall for at least a day when I realized that the wall had turned to meat.
I laughed and stared straight ahead at the wall of solid flesh. It was shiny and swollen; so shiny and so swollen I could see that my exit had completely grown over in the reflective surface. I laughed even harder at that.
There was nothing to it but to keep moving forward. As I clawed and thrashed I became aware that the meat had grown to my back. A little further on and it had a grasp on my legs. I collapsed, exhausted onto the warm flesh. This wasn’t so bad; Wrapped here in its warmth.
A Fool in the Repository
What are you looking for? These fables that have drifted through the Partition like living snow can't tell you anything of the world which you belong. The Hangman is peering around these corners, noose in hand now. The Eagle tells her chicks that it won't be long now. Just a little longer…
Cages
There was a girl in that basement. Further down lived a cow in the crawl space. She had plenty of room; There was ample space for her to pull faces into the crawl space and throw old candies and sweets onto the hard concrete where they skittled away on broken spider limbs. The cow would lick the dry earth and beg the sweets to come closer. They always refused, for the girl told them to.
The candy and sweets heaped to the small ceiling of the crawl space and the girl grew thin. Finally, her face slumped against the door, and did not blink. The cow stretched its neck, stretched it so far that it blistered and snapped until the bones no longer clinked together when the cow breathed. So far that the ticks on the cow’s skin could no longer see each other in the dark valleys of clammy skin.
The cow pulled back its lips in a deranged smile. It picked and pecked at the girl with her long yellowed teeth. She pecked away until all that remained was the soft gooey inside of the girl. It had congealed into a whimpering quivering mass, huddled in a niche in her rib cage. The cow peered through the bars with great black tar eyes. There was a girl in that basement. Further down lived a cow in the crawl space. She had plenty of room.
Yellow Thing, Red Thing
Yellow thing, red thing. Oh, red thing, dead thing.
Purpled lips and bluish fingertips.
Your pretty hair and green eyes. Oh that orange-chunked surprise.
It’s all so far gone now, deep in the brush. They’re searching closer, much closer tonight.
Feel that red rush.
They shine light on your face and turn green.
Oh my yellow thing.
Red Cloth
A woman sat in the dirt, legs crossed. The movement did not look natural. No, it compared to a lamb that had fallen over onto its back. She was so lonely, so lonely. She drew a blanket around her for warmth and began trudging through the long dirt road. As she walked, the cloth became filthy and diseased. It collected dirt and flesh littered along the trail. It grew hide, thick and dense and angry.
I am screaming as though a swarm of leeches is upon me. You defiled me. Pieces of me fall away into the red mud, but I am still growing. I cannot look before me. I can only see the viscera that I leave as my eyes are drawn out by the rubble and gore. Where are you going? Can you even hear me? I am being dragged by my feet into hell and the devil is humming a lullaby.
Trudging through warm dew
Along the muddied track
Feeding the notion
And the ticks on your back
I'll cut my ears off so I don't hear you
I'll feed them to you
I'll feed them to you
The mass or corpses, purple and blue
A living rind
Do you wonder if they're alive
Deaf and blind and one-of-a-kind
Oh, how you grew
I'll feed them to you
I'll feed them to you
A blanket sat in the mud, swollen and twitching. The movement did not look natural. No, it compared to a swollen tick that had fallen over onto its back. It uprooted itself and drew its red cloak tight. A tormented face bled through the rosy cloth as the blanket traveled on. The blanket paid it no mind, even after it began to sing softly.
The ticks chatter and chew
On varnished phlegm
Come closer, bloated ones
And I’ll whisper to them
In this bloodied brew
“I’ll feed them to you”
“I’ll feed them to you”
Tobacco Box
Dusty light splintered off into the darkness, dimly lighting the wooden room. It was much like being in a tobacco box. Even the air seemed to smoke and whither. What an odd place. My ears twitched slightly, and I was made aware of a presence some distance behind me. I did not turn, however I allowed my senses to examine the area. Soft breathing, a subtle shadow, the patter of footsteps.I inhaled sharply and the smoke coiled around my head. I still did not turn.
I heard a soft voice in my head that was cracked and frayed at its edges. What was it saying? I could hear its broken lips smack together but nothing else. It made me think about ghosts. But no, I didn’t believe in ghosts. It wouldn't do to venture into my house in constant terror of things that simply weren’t there. But this was clearly a case for extraordinary circumstances. Wasn’t I here, in this dusty tobacco box of a room instead of tending to the flowers like I would be on any other sunday.
The voice made a noise of assent. I waited for it to continue. I waited so long that my tongue became coated in the bitter smoke. I reflected on the stories the children would tell one another. Similar stories, no doubt. Recounting the stories in my head I saw visions of childish terrors drifting through the fractured light. And then there was a thought clearer than the rest. A cold air seemed to crawl up my spine and into my head, further fogging my thoughts. A woman trapped in a tobacco box- yes, but what else?
As the truth threatened to push forward through the muddled mass that was my head, I heard that breathing again. Rattling and hollow and filling every space in that tobacco box, yet it had still been standing directly behind me.
The sunlight is gathering momentum now and the breathing is growing softer. Softer…
There is an old tale in the cabin atop the hill. That of a woman who lost her spouse to a disease of the lungs. She is said to have been driven mad by the loss. Sometimes I look upon the cabin atop the hill and wonder, but I’d never had time for such belief. I looked back down at the garden and tended to the flowers.
Fare
I feel something. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Pacing the white dessert and kicking up sand, I furrow my brow. Maybe it was my dusty, dandelion glass. My stomach whimpers uncomfortably. I make soft shushing noises while I try to work it out. I think I’ll wait down here by this nice rock. The muscles on my hand convulse and I softly coo at them, wishing them to quiet. Maybe it was my long dark hallways, I thought I felt a creature in there awhile ago.
A small silver tick peers from a bleeding, pus-filled hole in my stomach. I watch it thoughtfully. Then pinching it out, I lift it up to my eyes. It is thrashing blindly and I can’t help but set it on the sand out of pity.
I barely flinch when it dives back into the hole, ripping my drywall and arteries. I watch, passive as my precious blood and oil is pushed out like dirt from a burrow. I don’t have the strength to pull that little insect out anyway now. I suppose that silver-blood-glutton has what he wants. It doesn’t matter now; no winners, no losers. I won’t have need for this flesh and scaffolding soon. I hope that my vessel will provide him warmth.
A Carcass in the Repository
Back and Forth
Black and Froth
Swaying inexpertly
Like a moth
In the grasp of the noose
Turning Green
So far from the ground
Oh Yellow Thing
Why do you come down here
Into this Weeping Well
Curiosity Surely
Brings you to Hell
Open Cabinet 36781 (Anatomies)
Open Ca…
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