Speculaltive Fiction
Jesus takes off His flannel shirt and ties it around His waist, taking shelter beneath store awnings to keep His shoulders and back from getting too sun burnt. He has run out of cigarettes, and can’t seem to shake the beginning nic-fit as easily as He’d like. “Messiah, heal thyself,” He mutters under His breath.
Mr. Johnson, or at least the thing that was at one point Mr. Johnson, rubbed its hand atop its head, the skin black and brown with rot. From his single right eye (the other side of his bald cranium bore a gaping chasm packed with what I believe was dirt) he regarded me like a toddler trying to understand the intricacies of a situation just beyond its ability to grasp.
“Missus would like to buy candy.” It’s a question, the fumes of candy breath drift up, the candy child asks if my mother would like to buy candy. The box opens, the inside drips as the past intertwines with the present, then solidifies once again. It is nothing but candy, would the missus like to buy some candy?
We don’t make love — we just cling, shrinking yet aroused with fear, waiting for the door to open, or something … we’ll wait all night. But of course we can’t. We wake to brilliant light, icy lips, the windows wide open. Our covers are dusted with snow. And of course the bra is gone…
It was all quite serious. Conventional mores forbid teaching dietary self-denial, and promoting sexual abstinence was a sin. Yet whole generations were at risk … perhaps the future of the entire Molloscoid Race.