Vestiges ➁

Content Warning: This story includes extreme themes and intense imagery that may be disturbing to some readers. It explores unsettling dark and graphic content involving physical and emotional distress, as well as challenging and provocative scenarios. Reader discretion is advised.

Employment ▼

trudging out on the streets to do the job. sky the color of hairless mice. the slug on my neckvein pumping jumpjuice which barely works any more these thick mornings.

many exercises of trial-and-error - and the errors such an agony of learning, an on-the-job training program of iterated anguish, nailsplinters and partial flayings - have taught me that we must try to capture males for meat and females for breeding.

i'm female, and so a breeder, but between breedings we must work too. tramp the streets. never an idle moment.

as i slogged through the streetsludge, ash and ooze and suet, the sun was breaking through. there is a kind of diffuse tired light, tinged mauve and riven with red rivulets that must be the sky itself not the sun. can the sky have capillaries, broken blood vessels like exhausted eyes?

but the sunlight, wan as it is, made me think of a time when i was a small child. this is a memory of me as a girl, though it may be a dream i had when i was still allowed to dream, the slug not yet sucking out my dream hormones and pushing in the flatness. it might be a transmission from my Master, somehow turned benign.

i dreamed i was a young child with little blonde curls and i lived on the beach with my family in a shack. one day a gruff man came. he was dark and hairy and brawny and he had already used up my elder sister and there was nothing more left of her.

now the gruff man wanted me in exchange. he'd paid for one of us and meant to get his money's worth. so i was taken. he gave me to the Masters. then he was consumed by them? or did he die some other way?

it's hard to say. it's all mixed up with the messages my possessor transmits to me, those slurred and jagged transmissions.

my Master and the father of all my...

there's memory and there's dreams and then there's work instructions. not clear anymore which is which.

dull slug pumping on the mind now, heavy on the feet, jump-juice now run out.

reclarify, restate work instructions: find captives. now i'm finding.

i was searching. poke stick in nooks, in crannies. i employed my stick as work instrument. it is my equipment. i employ and i am employed. the employment of the equipment. the restatement of the instrument.

one time when i poked my stick in a cornerhole, the hole poked back. something grabbed it. a human hand. a find.

Cahoots ▲

Inside my toppled boxcar, I've propped my new friend against the tickle trunk where I keep the games and accessories. I'll call him Feck. That way, if ever we have company, we can introduce ourselves as Heck and Feck. Cute ya?

Gotta pop back out and unclog my chimney, The mud swallows keep stuffing it with pink insulation and bitch twigs. I swear they're in cahoots with the termitus gigantus to smoke me out. But not today, little bird. Hoy no, termita gigante. 

It's a decent place. Half buried in the salt flat, I'm standing up topside and take a moment to savour the local ambience. The chemical sunset is unspeakably remarkable in this homespot. Rolling tenebrous billows from the city’s accruing stacks pave and pattern the yellow-pink radiation shmooshing across the horizon. Pistachio particulate stipples the atmosphere at lower altitudes where the gloamy wings of fright hawks play. What a wonderful world.

"What a world," I shout down to Feck through the steel freight door.

And to think I might still be canning tumours for cephalepedal overlords in the meatpacking district if I hadn't made a break for it. Just a temporary gig as it turned out. 

Because here I am a self-employed service provider, dust jockey and captain of my own entrepreneurial enterprise. Hunter, thief, and lover, not easy to pigeonhole. I’m an opportunistic generalist with mass appeal—I like to think so anyway. 

Time to go wash up. Artesian mineral water burbles up into the basin at the bottom of the boxcar, making this an enviable piece of real estate. Location and amenities. Feck looks like he’s seen cleaner days. Nothing a little scrub, buff and polish won’t fix. Not necessarily in that order. Cleanliness is godliness and all that. Then a little dinner and dessert. It’s date night after all for us newfound chums. 

Descending the ladder, I sing, “Bath, bed and beyond!” to mon petit champignon. Dead air pockets release ammonia, groaning flatulence, no doubt to say thanks for all the pampering.

Optimal Cruelism ▼

some diggery pokery with my equipment, my stick. 

and then achievement. the hand was attached to an arm, etcetera. the complete package was a young gentleman. hence meat. work was satisfactory today. not good, don’t be stupid, but satisfactory, tending towards survival. 

pursuant to working needs, my neckslug hit my vein with a slug of reward-juice, thrumming and tingletipped. 

remembering that the stick has both a blunt end and a pointy end for such contingencies, the young meatpacket was urged to join me in the streets where the drizzle fell still in the clotted puddles. compliance was achieved. the thrill of compliance and jobwelldone in my veins mingled and welcome both for now. 

my pocketloop of rope was corded around his neck and he was encouraged to advance with a jab of the pokey end not the pointy end. things progressed smoothly and spike inducements were uncalled for as yet. 

the flesh boy was young and sobbing but good enough, tendony but protein-stuffed still for the Master to choose over me as a sustaining. a gathering of substance and my reward enough not to die today. 

advanced then along the street, the boy and the rope and me and the stick, where the walls sweat soft and the day was good enough. the sun still wan and veinous but warm enough now, the gleam of it in the cloudstreak noontime also satisfactory. 

'wassamnanerden?' said the fresh young meat. i parsed this as if to say what do you intend to do with me? but if that's wrong, what difference does it make? meat is meat and its questions are mostly irrelevant to the purposes of those who gather it up. as well ask the roadmud its meaning. 

'you see soon' i said, not bothering with completed syntax for one so doomed. also not much used to talk with words, the other way more common now with me. complete things like this sentence are hard work - harder, fact, than work. 

so progressing well down the sweatstained street, compliance normally advancing and the meatman docile and satisfactory. all good good good. good as maybe, good as she gets. 

but then another seeker working for another Master got the better of me. sudden, at the streetcorner where the large shallow pond of scumwater pools green and fungi are big as heads. 

thicker stick, more fat on her neckslug, pumping more and bigger hormones. both pointy and blunt ends involved, me then punctured somewhat and bruised more. my pocketloop of rope snatched away, the roped meatpacket purloined and me bereft. all in one go. 

woke again when some time passed over me. not noon now. possibly another day. hungry for my nutrient, i lapped the sidewalk slime for my breakfast. 

restate, reclarify: now almost certain to be processed by my possessor, dissolved into the broth or whatever they call it, for residual value. no value as gatherer, no more value as breeder. nutrient. nutrient broth. value in protein only and the vitamins and minerals i once slurped at the trough now contained in my package. 

my only now chance to survive is the Periphery. i begged my neckslug for a hit of something to pick me up - a pick-me-up - and this time once only it did not disappoint. i got up then in the fading light of the violet violet sun to trudge to the edge of the city for either satisfaction or escape.

Soft-Serve ▲

Up early, and time to check the glue traps. I call it, snack, stretch and sunrise. Gotta appreciate the little things and be thankful for another day. Morning rays are brilliant too, zapping through the black hat rain clouds that drip over the bad place on the horizon. Bug strips are bare though, sometimes the wind blows everywhere else but here. Ah well, give my toes a touch. Two outta three ain't bad.

Gonna pull Feck out. He's not the prize I thought he was after discovering the cavity worms, not to mention all the off-gassing. Less desirable than he made himself out to be, the little faker. I'll haul him up and away from camp. Critters will disappear the body. So long bud, suppose I've had worse Fecks.

Turns out I'd used the last of the petroleum jelly last night, and I wouldn't last a few days out here in the blistering crust zone without opening skin cracks where I don't want ‘em. Have to keep your head and regiones linfáticas greased up. I'll have to throw on a couple of camelbacks and trek to the waste pipes over by the stink-side of the city to get the good product. The soft serve, the creme de la creme, la suave gelatina.

On the way I pass the rock where I arranged the bones of my survival coach, Signor Valenti, in a circle around the monument to symbolize his emergence (or submergence) into the nether-life. Stopping to reflect for a moment, there's a rumble in the underworld. Pebbles and sediment spring to life on the rock ledge where I fix my thoughtful gaze, bouncing in stochastic rhythms and alerting me to imminent danger.

The giant termites, or mangiatori di terra, as my tutor Valenti called them, run the show out here. Their empire is a vast sprawling subterranean network which emulates the city of the Masters but without all the atrocity. Almost any part of the outland could form part of the hidden realm. They’re formidable killers and will erupt through a surprise sinkhole anywhere anytime. A refreshing reminder to not get complacent.  

This entomological vibrato was my cue to scram. And just in time too. When I looked back, I see the buggers playin fox in the snow like it's their queen's girthday.

Takes me the full day to reach the cankering tubes of tumescence jutting out of the rock-cut and releasing an unctuous secretion into a canyon below. The gelatine gully, where the jully pools. It smells like rotmeat in solvent, but silver linings—a small price for a glowing visage and supple hide.

The Periphery wall, stained with bloodmud reminds me of the doldrum days when I was kept here, forced to perform for my Master, Mister Untranslatable. There's not a day I don't think about how thankful I am to have escaped this place. Side-eyeing stray polyps and forecasting your dissolve date gets real old real fast. 

I track a jumper who launches their body without any hesitation from one of the parapets. Too little too late for them. But as I fill my containers from a small burbling tributary of magmatic mucus, I think, If I could save one soul, I would. Besides, it would be a wonderful thing to continue the virtuous circle of survival bestowed upon me. And good company is good fun for me — if you know what I mean.

Decision Tree ▼

by the time i reach the Periphery and the towering ooze of the ramparts i've decided what to do. 

i've decided that i will leave everything to chance. 

will i escape from here or terminate my employment and myself? will i capture a thrall and save myself? who has the energy to decide such things? whatever happens. 

but i will have to take action on one issue. the fucking neckslug. if i don't take it out of my neckvein it will rat me out to the Master sooner or later with an ectic cry. then my excursion to the Periphery will be known and whether i score a meatpacket or not i'll be suspect. and suss behavior means the big dissolve. 

my Master is big on trust, and messages me transmissions of images that reinforce the sense that violating trust would be a great disappointment leading to termination of employment, ripping of eyestalks and infestations by parasitic burst-worms. so i won't be doing that. there's at least a little definition on my decision-tree. it's not all blurry outcomes.

there's a thrall on guardwatch at the rampart. male, maybe. meat you might think but i can't take a preslugged thrall back as fleshbounty and hope to get any kind of reward from it. 

no, Masters are all particular like that. i think there's some accounting system whereby if one commits an offense to another one they both run accounts and one of them will have to pay a fine or something. lose some polyps or whatever. in any case it will never be acceptable to grab a thrall who's on duty. 

so that's out. more cleancut negatives to offer some resolution to the branching decision matrix. 

the guardthrall eyes me, sees my slug and looks away. there's no interest to be found in just another schlub on duty. for us a more boring and disheartening  thing cannot be found than to look on another like we are. 

the thrall is losing a little steadiness pacing up and down. the slime that exudes from the ramparts is acidic and anyone who trudges in it for long will start to be etched away. i can feel it tingling smartly on my already lacerated soles. 

nods as i approach. i nod back. not much to say about it. not much to say in general. 

the sun, such as it is, is going down. a sunset of yellowish-magenta marbled with stark metallic neon teal, and on the other horizon the moon is rising, a thing too disturbing to stare at but which will bring its own modicum of light. 

the clouds have thinned and the evening star shines uncontaminate and brave to the north-west. does that planet also lie under a curse that it called on itself?

there's silence. we look out together, shoulder to shoulder. fellow thralls taking some time from their busy day to share a brief moment. silence settles over us.

then i shove once and the thrall goes over the wall, tumbling silent and down. too weary to issue a scream. 

as i follow the body down with my eyes, i see a figure out there by the excess gelatine exuders. hard to see very much from up here in the failing light, but human for sure. 

if i capture this human meatpacket and get somehow to bring it home, my Master will consider my task complete and i probably won't be reconstituted, at least for the time being. this now slots into my decision-tree for consideration. 

if i decide to live on as before, then i'm going to need that human. 

if i'm going to die, maybe death by vigorous stranger is less painful than the other. if i aim to take out the slug, the excess gelatin from the exuder will be needed to plug the vein-hole. 

at last i have a working strategy, a program: see what happens next. take it as it comes. go with the flow. create value with whatever comes to hand.

Part 3