Ooze Box
Gary J. Shipley

He'd memorized the layout of Spandau. It was in him, he said, like his leukaemia. A wormery of nostalgia. He'd help rebuild it if anyone ever asked. His nose fed mucus into his mouth. Stared at the porn on his TV. Its men rutting like narwhals. His hands bleached on the hour petted his dog. Intergalactic fruits the colour of cartoon Satans. The door to his room thickened on B&E. Alphabet's a place of sadness, he said. On his chest, marks where it'd got in. A meaty seam up the middle of his ribcage where they'd taken it out. He feels hunger where it was. Its absence his brand of aching. The extraction modified the layout of his organs. His brain now just the loose mash of sight and sound. Him left here in this room not more than its footage -- running forever. That mice could steal his thoughts became a fetish.

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