Illustrations and photo-illustrations by our illustrious head-devourer and long-time contributor Elytron Frass. Find them @Elytron_Frass, and lend an eye or more, or a compound(ed) one or many, to his projects such as the groundbreaking ero-guro graphic novel “Vitiators”: https://www.guerrillaconcepts.com/vitiators.
If you haven’t yet, carefully fold some money and put it inside the gushing beheaded hole over here: https://gnomebooks.wordpress.com/2018/02/13/liber-exuvia/. If a human comes out of the experience, send us a method of contact as soon as possible. The tummy aches to be sated, it’s been so long… and you need some acid.
Photography by yours truly. Which is which? That’s not my problem. You can find us in at least one and a half simultaneous(?) hells at all times.

Black Rainbow

Invisible scars lashed devoid of violence,

sang the tune descending from the stars.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

But that wasn’t the end. Never finish on a high note, it is known nowadays. Even when the high note has already dissipated, a sequence of lower notes are produced until the silence begins to impose itself and the string of sounds slowly fades into infra frequencies until gone for good. Or so it happened before we knew better. Now we know that even after this, a middle tone must be procked, then halting the settling stasis of the ensuing slumber common as a result of said antique process on the ears of past savages. No, we must go beyond.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Beyond the cracked sidewalk and the telephone pole with layers of flyers in a rainbow of colors, and the patch of dry brown grass… there stood a ten-foot-high concrete block wall, caked with dozens of coats of paint. There was a small shrine at the foot of it, with burnt-out candles and dead flowers and a few soggy teddy bears. One word of graffiti-filled the wall, red letters on a gold background: Rejoice!

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Not knowing of anything else, not thinking much like it used to – it now, what was it before? The most familiar thing is a trail, one that appeared as it moved, like a tray of invisible gas, invisible only due to having all the colors in it, coming off of it. A smell. A smell, the only thing that remains when all else is forgotten. And if it has legs, what to do if not follow it? If there isn’t anything else it might think of because, well, you’re it now. And it smells of pizza. It doesn’t know what that is, but it likes it. So it follows it as it becomes visible just before disappearing again inside its moist black nostrils.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

This is not the story about how a guy became a dog, but one about what happened after that, about how he became it before becoming a she – and of her loyal companion.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

A completely dark body, pitch-black like a blackhole. First, the kid found her hidden below a colorful rainbow sprayed across a mural graffiti-style, or she was the one painted rainbow-like, he does not remember it now. Maybe it was both. She was small, and the rainbow, on the wall or her body, made her look like that rainicorn from Adventure Time, the kid thought, but then quickly forgot again, just as simple as washing her thick bristle fur, the colors spiraling away in the drain, all becoming colorless, or invisible, as he liked to see it. She was all black, black coat, black eyes, black paws, and under the paws – even her nails were black. How black you are, my new friend, he thought. I will take care of you until you can choose a home for yourself, he said out loud, but he did not know if she could understand him, his memory wasn’t the same.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Now he does not remember too well. But he remembers how everybody likes pizza. Working at twelve, that he remembers, or was it eleven? Delivering pizza, family business? No, probably a neighbor or family friend. Small town, after all, and still is, but it was smaller. He does not remember much nowadays, not even family, everyone was family in small towns like that, and families fight sometimes. And grow apart, just like towns grow into cities. He sacrificed most of his memory in search of something, or perhaps it was taken away from him when it happened, when the little black rainbow appeared – better yet, trying to remember, when it disappeared, out of nowhere, too. Many a family fight has gone past since, and many a family he forgot since then. The only thing he remembered was the colorless color, that rainbow black, and a voice, but whose voice? He always wanted to know, still does. And a smell, a smell that nobody seemed to smell besides himself.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Then the smell got stronger and stronger, but were those his memories? Who was he, what even was a he, or a who, or a what, what? What was that who going to prove him, or that him who was going to prove what… all became vapor like that, and it followed that vapor, it wanted that vapor, something below its smelling-thing watered, the smelling-thing commanded the watering-thing that was already opening and closing, eating air, getting closer and closer, and closer and closer…

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

 “What do we have here? Are you lost, tiny thing?” Its mouth opened once, then twice, something came out, something invisible that made the two pointy things above rotate, and some strange thing seemed to be moving fast and faster behind it, in its back, what is that. “Poor thing. Yeah, that’s your tail. Are you lost? Do you like pizza?”

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

When the ride ended, she was lifted again. The kid slid her body onto a soft pile of clothing among the boxes in the garage. He pulled an old coat over the top, creating a cave that emanated the sweetness of old ladies who frequently powdered themselves—a light rose motif that played ironically well in the deep recesses of Rainbow’s ancestral brain. The pizza kid lifted her head to help her lap water from a hubcap. He broke bits of pepperoni and crust into bite-sized pieces and left them where her tongue could reach them. Much later, she heard him practicing his orations like songs. Like monks chanting in the distance, they were a comfort.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

He stood there, arms not too open, holding the no-pedigree dog like that mandrill from The Lion King held baby Simba, but the smile on his face was cold even though ecstatic, for in that moment, that frozen instant, he doubted himself, and kept fingers tight across “her” belly just long enough for the first deject to hit his leg, then his shoulder, then the dog, then, only then, his face, slapping him across the cheek before disappearing into the shadows behind without a noise.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

It wasn’t supposed to go like that, right? So how was it supposed to go, then? He thought he saw the dog’s eyes say. But now he could not think, too, and a mass of colorful but still invisible gas began to sprout from the heap of people below as the people below became the gas. Was that it? Was it happening? But he could not remember – he could only smell. How can anyone navigate like that?

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

 “Welcome to my world.” He heard a voice say. Could it really be?

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Disease everywhere. Even the spork’s handles are diseased. Undying sick man as if you were a dog, imagine that. A strange hand comes out of nowhere to surprise your ear with the sweetest of warm scratches. It feels good like that. Careful who you throw a bone to, though. If it still has some meat, worse. If you’re going to throw it anyway, at least clean it cautiously.

Homo homini lupus, he thought, with a slick air of envy glistering in his eyes he stroke a front paw over pulpous strains of muddy lichen; almost to shiver if not by his fur coat; almost to back away and let everything behind if not by his drooling mouth and rumbling gut. He needed stomach for that, and right then he had only but half a dozen of abrasive— aggressive —glances given towards. That and the oozing smell of fresh meat with no bone. He was dreadfully hungry yet he couldn’t, one more step and he would be the fresher meat with bone; he would never eat again —or howl to the moon. Moon which wasn’t particularly beautiful— but was big —just like every other night there it wasn’t something worth losing for mere food; for simple, even trivial, survival, yet he would.

The wolf is the wolf of other wolf, he thought. yes, this seemed more truthful now than ever as strange eyes shone fear over him— to back away, menacing the only possible outcome —and, being strangled by the yellow moonlight, regaining breath under black green leaves, he cowardly retained his life in retreat march; soon to be dead anyways, if food couldn’t be found. The legacy of his memory, containing short pictures of blurred blood dripping teeth and the smell of communal grace— bloody be it —would last a bloodmoon’s night’s time. Landscapes below, dying from inside out, kneading the vermin that will eventually eat me, he thought. Long strides, several steps ahead. Fatigued, eyes losing their blue to the feverish yellow of the moon and to the flavor in the air; every more distant. On and forth plateaus, ahead drool spots, deep snores… labored fogging cornea: symptoms of a ‘soon-to-be-dead’ thought. But this he didn’t think, once the wind blew strong below, showing what any would call a miracle: A little noisy circle full of sheep. He was starving but he wasn’t dead yet, and with the last string of strength left— sheer will to continue —he fought the ladder towards that flickery hope with lethargic stomps about a streaming shore, shimmering golden waters near the man’s snores; surrounded by chirping crickets and all kinds of nocturnal creatures besides himself.

The battle had begun, a silent descent with his slender body slithering through the short field no care was enough, the man had a dog. As in a samurai contest of spirit: whom gets noticed first loses, the presence of fear is the advent of death, that’s how it is played, the pure instinct of an old rag of a wolf versus a trained, domesticated version; but at least a rested and well-fed copy. A poorly mutated atrocity. They say, like gods, “go fetch”, throwing twigs into the horizon with a dumb expectant smirk hanging on their faces and those soulless—little monsters—positively respond to it, gobbling anything they are ordered to. Poor unnatural creatures, he thought. Cold breeze, pale faded clot to charge: curvy vertical movements, swift descent. A peak then again — Boiling blood, a couple of jumps, thin air, accelerated heartbeat; all in the game — a dash in midair. Matter of a moment. A second. An encounter. One charm. Finally. Strokes of blood painted the white green ground, two piles of coat dancing in zigzag one above the other in turns. A brief moment to stare: reddish spots expanding over fur, fearsome smell, bended ears and sharp fangs— eye to eye —glowing. More silent stares reflected a barking beast. The chill floated as of waiting suspension— another clash, now upside down. They changed positions as the half-arch of light, incomplete, shone over massive heavy bites penetrating flesh and live tissue. At dawn, the sun blossomed centerfold ripping the fabrics sky, warming every frosty point of his fur; nourishing his still-life body as a pagan’s god’s eye opening for the first time through, over, in… front of a man — first revelation of a sacred knowledge. It was so, he thought, it was so because soon it would not be anymore; there wouldn’t be anymore. Nevermore. And he bathed in the sunlight as it was the last time, because it was, and he felt pure and saint— for this was true. Night: truly worth a lifetime for a glimpse of one’s own personal truth, of one’s own and one alone. Not to become two, not to die none, but to finally be one alone.

And in his last dream he saw glistering deep green eyes, soft winter white coat, a king’s port; promises of a composed night that only gets clearer. Shimmering despair, shivering spine, starving musculature; heavier than yesterday’s field day; lighter than the light shining down as gravity’s aggressive attraction. Drops of red over paper, wine bottle — broken pieces scattered on a desk –, finger base bruises; a night full, a full moon outside the window. Crescent as an arc, non-Euclidean object. Decaying roses ornament the insides of old books, sweet memories enveloped in rot smell, a beating heart; ‘for how much’ is the illuminating question not asked. Imbued in throbbing veins, blurred lenses out of life but pulsating with instinct to survive — to walk the lightened path as it is due time. Due to give his breath of life, to inspire a solution and to expire the synthesis – solve et coagula – sovereign trembling hand that holds the pen, that marks the yellow with jet blue ink: Sickly scythe slithering my neck. To have its grace revealed as death. That conceals the continuous presence of that. That is utmost vital to the final. That, in the suffocating presence of the moon’s shine, erases itself out of time; never to be remembered. A drink to that. A drink to death. To the labored breath into the dark; hiding from the – always so eager to be found – light. Frosting paws, aching nose; soon to slumber the dreamless swallow of red slobber. Sip of red wine, sour gazing night. Cold indifferent, silent. Seconds turn to minutes, minutes turn to hours. Hours pass, a day becomes two and then a week and everything passes and we grow old. He remembers the kid ramble in drunken swirls of semi-conscious agony. It is as true as the frost coalescence about the ankles – the sketch of a crimson fever of a night. Hours can’t turn back to minutes, seconds can’t last enough: and the air freezes all around and the skin burns, but the moon remains silent in her stare; gracious romantic tragic stare. Not all the alcohol in the world could warm you up now, or set you on fire as an act of mercy. The green word that escaped your eyes now contaminated yellow — sickly scythe slithering through cold autumn, to harvest the hopes of the lamb in wolf’s cloth. Time to die. As you lay bleeding, accept the gift, for time has come for you to cast in the skies as a newborn star, and cast back on earth all your light.

“Is he going to die?” Asked the little kid.

Some would imagine some kind of disgust, some negativity to be erected around that situation, but, oddly, the kid smiled in awe. Those last breaths of the bloodied wounded animal touched deeply into them — not inspiring sadness, but rather wonder. And the wolf gazed back, each inhalation weaker, it deemed the scene fit.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

I’m tapping into the world of light more every night. Not heaven nor hell, just electro – no, no, not that either. It defies abstractions. It is… folds and realms of… the beasts that ride over wax… or explode in the horizon, the slaves of so many… big cities, field or… house, or…. inside lamp-lights at streets or in homes, unnoticed until gone, over in the ceiling as halos of our own. Immobile, until gone. It seems to be only in my dreams that I see them, in the day they’re what make me see, making them nothing. Until they’re gone. Then they become hope, Imagination, Reason. They become screams of terror in the absence. In our despair, they’re free. From it to they to it again, that is what they do, what it does. My only truth is that it got me. It leered me. It looked at me with those almond eyes like a puppy in need of affection from an owner who had gone puff, just like that. And returned with an even bigger puff in a bigger out of nowhere. And, just like that, It crept over my bottom, never to take those hypnotic bulbs out of my sight. Whispering, as if out of terms with the yearning – the longing for the abuse that had become tender in previous times. It ghosted its way into my current home, not as a vampire like it once was, but as a specter of a possible future, and, before it could be meditated, it was staring at my ‘what-have-I-done’ face with a double-edged smirk in satisfaction and faux surprise. Among the blood, It smiled. It, among the cloth, cried in pain moments before going puff again. Just like that. I call them, it, these things… what are, is they called again? Nevertheless visions, Visions of a flea’s ghost dancing around a stage, beneath preternatural stars, bloodsucking the insides of my brain like a parasite. Seldom repugnance of my tainted soul for I am as much a ghost — though of a human. And even though I may try to run and fight in these woods, it won’t last. It will eventually catch me. Engulfing itself on my sour spelt blood, drinking till the last drop with avid, stained paws with fingers that, long as they are, defy sane passage of time; possessing no earthly growth and the shine of a thousand and one. Speaking in riddles now… Don’t struggle, dear. It’s here. It said it won’t hurt — that I might even enjoy it. Lies. The shadows flee away from me, hiding below rocks and trees. They are tired of my lurking in their bodies, through them. It’s over. A parasitic intent once and damned to hell I am. Forever doomed, like the small flea I am. A modern Jonah, only the whale is dead, the fish is rotting on the ground, and its smell, its ghost, is lurking in the shadows, in the corner of his awareness. He has a two-way condition: the anxiety of waiting for that whale to come and the paranoia of suspecting being already trapped inside a dead fish. And there is no Whiteness of the Whale, and the Whale is not the ghost of anything, it is dead, just dead, and its ghost is not white but invisible – with momentary flashes of hollowed transparency. And it was in his suppurating hate inside that bus, looking at all those people chattering or evicting each other, wanting them all to disappear with the smog filling the smoky-grey sky, that a foreshadow germinated in the belly-mind of interactions that formed “him”: For there will be a time of non-human verbosity, a time of critical access, of epiphanies inside habits and habits out of improvisation. But now, first, the hate has to almost consume him as millions of virtual needles pierce his anxious skin. There, in the future, there is no skin – only the needles. But Samsara is law and you must survive; or maybe die – depends on the view and the date in which karma passes, if it will. Now the needles pluck and the pores ooze prickling goo turning black in the way out like caviar gushing out of a big-ass fish that is actually a school of them swimming like needles out from the skin again.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Consecutive humming: string of C notes in an optimistic rhythmic flux layered with the ambient’s base, stuffed by the harmonious melody of swift movements of a pair of hands through smooth surfaces; like a slug slithering over a rose. Each intoned hummmmm echoing about a much bigger and continuum scenery — where the grass is fresh and the sunlight masks the bags under his eyes; he didn’t sleep last night instead crept the impossible structures of the dreamland of K, whose incomprehensible geometry he always tried to reproduce in the wake world, always failing by his own standards. With a slight change in pitch, up and down the scale, he approaches the edges in crescendos of tension applied to fingertips. Modulating the curvaceous spots in an engulfing haze, thoughtless, completely absorbed in the craft. On the expanded plane, tridimensional pictures too old to hold its own arms: Venuses and Apollos with severed limbs and perverted tendrils coiling up their necks. Ant-farms proliferating under their feet, scavenging the way up. Not a single flickery sparkle of life in their eyes; but astonishingly life-like skin and pose, even more alive than the average salaryman or housewife — people whose dreams are of visiting distant places, places where these statues reside; people desperate for a startling vision or insight of change into their boring stagnated lives. Down to E buzzing quick intervals — clouds hiding and coalescing above the garden, nebulous. Through the pale eyes of the statues, endemic conglomeration of hermetic ratios, vague glances into nothingness, little has changed over the centuries: trees remain the same, more or less, the air only but a slightly fogged from pernicious distant city’s smog; not much has changed indeed. Not that they cared — or could do anything about anyways. They are simply “The Observer…”. Almost to sing, first words in the span of two wake days after a particularly long night come out gruffly. He almost choked and coughed a little, contemplative sneer, clumsy pirouettes to juggle the morning’s glass of red wine slipping out of sweaty palms. Up to B, perhaps a forced smirk stuck on the nails, not the right angulations for a trembling hand holding a goblet; even less to a steady one holding harsh self-criticism… of the heavier type, the physically abusive. The melody goes sinewave as the wind strikes strong dragging along his forehead drips of sweat, horizontally blowing the neurotic distilled guilt off his face.

All the while,

Invisible scars lashed devoid of violence,

 sang the tune descending from the stars.

When I heard it, a voice.

It said to me that…

…people will be born out of giant wombs — collectively, somewhat of worshiped. They were initially artificial but, being biologically engineered, evolved. All the while vaporwave plays in the background:

My father’s voice is so powerful it’s like a lion’s. I sit thinking like a statue set in flesh – immobile, but in transit – about the air that fills my lungs, the odor that exudes from my body, the fruit was in my hand; I exhale the air, then come back to think. Am I, the man, flesh and bones, the water that pours out of my body? Am I the food in process of putrefaction on the ground? Where does the world end, where I begin? The world is as I, an infinite tubulation of hollow, of holes – and where does it begin or end doesn’t matter. Me / / The World / / Me / / The World It is as it was said: Ó pó da Terra Tu que me criastes Como continuação de sua missão Falhastes, então Não sois tu Mas ao pó voltareis E um dia Quem sabe, então Tu sereis Pó. To care – here, prostrated, – where death begins and life ends. For what? I’m everything, the Universe could emanate from me, but a purposeless god is as good as none, and I failed your—my mission. May be due to fill my role and, as any other failure of a god, start a creation. One neither good nor bad, just in the mold to share my shame. They are to fail with me as I failed with you, and this maybe, just maybe, will be enough to survive. But

It tried to teach me:

 See my body twist – always music, be music. Watch my skin twirl – If you’re frozen, struggle to melt. My ankles opening. If you’re trapped, struggle to flee. As my bones crackle. Even if motionless. And I contort jumping. If you’re alive, struggle to die. Enjoy the view. Never stop moving. Enjoy me. Even when you’re not moving. And don’t let it go, even if you want to sneeze. Rest right, move right. It will end, everything does. Be ephemeral, be right now. And you will miss it, sighing every time you remember. Release trapped birds. But I don’t want that. Melt the glaciers – die with them. With the earth – be music. But

it was too late.

The sun settled. His mother called him only one more time. Didn’t say goodbye. Stood up, ruthless this time. Left me there. Without direction. Without way. Ungodly. Like a good dream. A nice dream. That ends early. He was gone.

And I cried anyways.