The Lovers
by Marc Lowe
The lovers hold their faces close together, but do not touch. Between their silent mouths, an orange ball of flame. It moves from one mouth to the next, back and forth, never burning either of them. This ball of flame soon turns into a large blue ball of light, flickers as it goes back and forth between the two partially open orifices. The lovers' faces look alternately drugged, ecstatic, deranged. As the ball continues to move, the man's left ear falls off; moments later the woman's right eye drips away. The expressions on their faces do not change enough to tell whether they are in pain, or even whether they've noticed what is occurring. The blue ball has now transformed into a white moth. This white moth flitters in and out of the mouths, back and forth. The woman's teeth suddenly crumble to pieces, and the man's nose drops off of his face. The white moth comes to rest in the woman's right ear canal. At this moment, the man's head begins to crack and the woman's jaw begins to flap. I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO SAY TO YOU, she lisps, and, with this, the fissure in the man's head reaches the bottom of his chin and the hollow head splits in two. The moth exits the woman's mouth a second before her jaw drops off. It is holding her paper-thin eardrum, through which it produces a sound like that of sorrowful laughter.
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Author's Note
An unpublished "surreal" short-short from 2012.
Wonderfully quirky macabre. *
Hmmm...
;-)
(I think this is *very* well done, esp. the insertion of the personal ("I HAVE...") into the midst of the easily believable surreal.)
Thanks, Mathew and Eddie. Really appreciate your comments.
"This white moth flitters in and out of the mouths, back and forth." That line. *
Glad it resonated with you, Rachna!
You made me believe something totally unbelievable.
That's not easy to do. Well done.
Thank you, Sally!
I like this a lot. A whole lot. Like I'd like to change its "unpublished" status, Mr. Lowe. Have a look at the group Revolution John here and see what you think.
Glad you have not taken a turn toward realism even in the very short form, even where the temptation may be greater. No need for me to have worried about that, Marc Lowe. I've learned not to photograph insects, learned in part from Kamau Brathwaite, but also from my own previous photographic efforts. Here, it can be written and the spectacular insect does not burst in the development of the film to a flash blast though the flash at night was turned off. Kissing is still legal post-2012, as I read in Time in 2014. This couple goes for the legal zone then pushes its limits health-wise! *
A verbal visit to Salvador Dali. *
Sheldon,
Thank you very much, kind sir! I have indeed had a look, and I assure you that your inbox is not empty...
Hi, Ann,
Nice to see you here, and thanks for your incisive comments! Realism is a tricky thing, and so is kissing sometimes...
Thanks for your wonderful observation, Daniel!