selasshelves

[selasshelves]

“Is not the most erotic portion of the body where the garment gapes? In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no “erogenous zones.” […] It is intermittence, as psychoanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic; the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance-as-disappearance.”

— Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text

[selasshelves]

Guys, queers. Specifically my fellow queers.

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.

This isn't a vague post, there's no one person I'm hinting at or calling out. I'm not even talking directly to anyone who's directly in my line of sight. I just want everyone to hear this. Big library, small library, whatever. Doesn't matter. Please, we cannot be losing our shelf visibility like this.

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working on something for the mechanic and the general

shout out to @ramblebitch my alpha sigma skibidi gigachad editor and reader for putting up with 5:30 am notifications

[selasshelves]

chapter two of a malevolent affection is up!!!

[selasshelves]

big fan of romance horror. big fan of terrible people still being loved. big fan of bending morality and turning the grotesque into something beautiful.

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i posted the beginning of my grievous fic :3 if you would like to take a little peek, here is the AO3 link! Mechanic! Reader x Grievous

[selasshelves]

a malevolent affection (or, the mechanic and the general)

nothing ever happens on tatooine. at least until the most beautiful warship you had ever seen fell out of the sky, nearly on top of your home.

you first noticed the orange, fiery mass plummeting out of the atmosphere when you happened to glance out of your window, elbow deep inside of an astromech that wandered into your shop that morning. you just had to dig out an irritating hunk of metal that got stuck in her wiring somehow. the mech was a girl, of course. she moved in a silly, feminine way, spinning around in apparent boredom. funny how machines oft developed their own little habits of personality, typically from their owners.

"oh my stars..." you whisper, horrified to see that whatever was falling out of the sky was steered directly towards your little shop on the outskirts of mos eisley. "fuck is that... are you seeing this shit?" you exclaim in disbelief, pointing out the window.

the astromech whirs in agreement, pointing its little spherical head at the window.

at first, the object seemed to be falling slowly, but now you could see it gaining momentum, now you could make out the rounded hull with thousands of fires breaking out. a spaceship was in serious fucking trouble, and it was about to cause you some serious fucking trouble by crashing into your backyard. backsand. backdesert. whatever.

"you're gonna be fine if i leave you for a sec, right hon? you'll be fine, just stay here." you tell the astromech, carefully detaching your arm from the interior of its silver and pink body and sitting it up on its feet. you could hear the ship now, whooshing through the air. the metal was cracking under the immense pressure, and you see hunks of steel plating hurtling to the ground out of the corner of your eye.

grabbing a messenger bag full of med supplies and tools, you hit the ground running, skidding around a corner and rushing out the door.

find the survivors. get them inside. pray to whatever gods in the universe that would help you.

your first guess that the ship would hit your shop was a miscalculation. it's going to hit your little moisture farm in your backyard. it's not necessarily a farm, more so a well. it's still going to cost thousands of credits to repair, and you curse yourself for thinking of money at a time like this. at least its far enough away from your house to- CRASH

the shockwave from the impact of the ship hitting the earth sends you flying backwards, landing awkwardly on your back, spread eagle on the ground. you got the wind knocked out of you too, dumbass. should have waited in your house.

coughing, you shakily get up to your knees, pushing yourself off the ground. a sight of pure carnage is laid out in front of you. the ship broke into two parts when it hit the ground, it seems. a rounded hull connects to a pointed bow, while the slightly smaller bridge section lays broken apart, a good distance away. smoke begins to roll across the desert, and you frantically start digging in your bag for a gas mask. you're jumped by beeping from behind you, and you whirl around to see your new pink mech buddy rolling towards you, the gas mask you had been looking for held in its robotic arm.

"didn't i tell you to stay inside!" you snap at the droid, but gratefully taking the mask it offers to you. "thanks for the mask, little buddy." you tell her, ruefully shaking your head. the smoke stings your eyes, but you're sure that the desert winds will clear it away. for a ship that broke its way through the atmosphere and drove itself into the sand dunes, it's in remarkably good condition. cautiously, you make your way towards the rounded hull portion.

blue paint markings tell you that this is a confederate ship. your pounding heart eases slightly at the thought that you'll be dealing mostly with droids. hopefully there were only a few organic life forms on board. flesh was much more difficult to put back together than wires.

speaking of droids, several are starting to wander out of the crashed ship. a small explosion fires off from within the ship, sending metal hunks flying. the head of a B1 battle droid rolls towards you and stops at your feet. picking it up, you brush it off and shake it gently. the droids that are ambulatory are carrying blasters, and you don't trust them to ask questions first. for all you know, they could be under instruction to fucking shoot anyone who approaches. you unclip your gas mask and shake it onto your neck.

"droid, are your vocal functions intact?" you ask the head you're holding, and feel slightly silly doing so. you blow the dust out of the speaker on it's mouth area, and would you look at that, the damn thing starts speaking.

"bzzt. bzzt. HEY. YOU'RE NOT A DROID." it's mechanical voice box says to you in its nasally tone. you suppress a giggle at its obvious statement.

"nope. i'm a doctor. and a mechanic. and if you want me to put you back on a body, you've got to tell me if there were any organic life forms on your ship."

the droid seems to process this. a few of the droids that can still walk around have noticed you and are now approaching with their blasters ready, but not pointed at you yet. small blessings.

"bzzt." the droid seems to struggle speaking. you would too, you suppose, if your head had been forcefully separated from your body. "just the general! but uhhhhhh"

you briefly ponder why a droid would be programmed to say "uhhhh".

"he's prooooobably fine."

you snort, tucking the head under your arm. "tell your buddies not to shoot me, would ya? they don't look too happy to see me."

the droid head vibrates as it speaks more loudly. "DON'T SHOOT. DO NOT SHOOT THE HUMANOID. THEY'RE A MECHANIC."

the droids look at you, several scratch the backs of their heads. you marvel again at the oddities of their programming, wondering if their general also has the same tic.

"roger roger" "roger roger" "roger roger" comes the cacophony of responses from the droids, all of them relaxing their arms.

you hum and walk towards the ship, wary of any more stray explosions. the ship is huge, and you guess it to be a destroyer. it's not quite big enough to be a frigate, but it's larger than a supply ship. probably a recusant class destroyer, if you had to guess its model. the hull that the droids are spilling out of (mostly wrecked bits of droids) is decently fucked, but the bridge seems to be mostly alright. the impact would kill most life forms, and you find yourself starting to doubt the droid head that told you their general was "probably fine".

the aforementioned droid head exclaims from its perch in your arm, "hey! look, it's my body!"

there are a lot of droid bodies, most of which have been dragged out by the B1s which are able to walk. their commitment to retrieving their fellows is commendable, but you're quietly dreading putting all of them back together. it would take months of nonstop work to repair the ones that just need to be put back together, let alone any that were damaged enough to be rewired, or have bits of their circuitry replaced altogether. not to mention each astromech, maintenance droid, protocol droid... you'll have to pray that the separatists will take their junk with them when they come to extract their general. you could probably spend a lifetime combing through the remains of this ship for things to fix. the prospect is almost nice.

"that one?" you point at a body with yellow paint that matches your droid friend's head paint.

the head buzzes in response. it seems happy enough, so you walk over and kneel to affix the head back onto its neck. the droids are almost... flimsily made. it's more like clicking the premade pieces into place rather than screwing or welding them together. it's obvious to anyone with an affinity for mechanics that the droids were made hastily and without much care. putting them back together would be easy enough for a child.

within thirty seconds, your task is complete. the droid shakes his arms like a dog shaking out water from its coat and you chuckle at the B1's antics. he flexes his fingers and stands up to his full height, towering above you. damn thing must be well over six feet tall. it's gangly too, and it's conical head is still goofy when it's attached to its body. you pat his shoulders affectionately and the thing tilts his head at you.

"so," you start, surveying the hulking mass of what used to be a ship. "how many of your buddies were on that ship of yours?"

the droid smacks the back of its head a few times, shaking dust out of its plates. "uhhhhhhh. the recusant's crew consisted of five thousand B1 battle droids, as well as several hundred super battle droids in our storage hull."

"don't just tell them that!" exclaims another droid, marching over to the guy you just put back together. this one has green circles marking his body, which seems to indicate a higher rank. "they could be a republic spy!" the green droid smacks the yellow one with the butt of his blaster.

"owwwwwww."

the green droid turns to face you, and you stand up a little taller.

"B1 battle droid, please provide your rank and model number." you tell him, trying to sound both detached and commanding. you're not sure if it's working, but the green droid does acquiesce your request.

"B1 6689-2, Commander of fleet 734. what's your problem?" he nudges you with his blaster, although much more gently than the way he hit his inferior droid.

"eight-nine, huh? well, i'm a mechanic. and my problem right now is you crashed into my yard!" you say to him, poking him in his metal chest. you sling your arm around the yellow droid, giving him a friendly squeeze. he seems befuddled. "your buddy here was just telling me how many of you i'm gonna be fixing up."

"fixing???" the green droid- eighty nine, exclaims. "well why didn't you say so!"

"...i did. i did say so."

if eighty-nine were a humanoid, you'd say he shrunk under your gaze.

"right. roger roger."

you let go of yellow and peer around. "i need to tend to organics before i manage your situation. where is your general?"

eighty nine shrugs, if droids can shrug. "he should be in the bridge! but i don't know where the bridge is right now, uhhhhhhhhhhhhh miss...ter mechanic."

you raise your eyebrows at him. "mechanic is fine, eighty nine. huh, that rhymed."

"well, B1 6689-1193 will help you find the bridge, and i'll take care of the situation here!" the green droid says, seemingly eager to pawn off the responsibility of the bridge to his inferior.

"WHAT! WHY DO I HAVE TO GO TO THE BRIDGE?" the yellow droid shouts. the two droids dissolve into debate about the responsibilities of a commander versus a captain that consists entirely of circular reasoning.

"hm. you're all eight nines. i guess yellow can be called eleven, then. or yellow. or something like yeleven. that works." you muse to yourself. "come on yeleven, let's get moving." you grab the droid and pull him away with you. the bridge is only a few minutes of walking away, and you start to jog towards it.

just as you reach it, an ominous rumble spreads through the air.

"uh oh." yeleven intones, raising his arms to shield himself from whatever's about to happen. you duck behind the droid, peeking around him. your astromech tucks herself behind you and does the same thing.

you arrived just in time to watch the bridge slowly collapse on itself, an avalanche of rubble descending onto the desert. you have a quicker reaction time than the droid, and pull him back while trying to move backwards as quickly as you can. the result is you, yeleven, and your mech piled on top of each other while the sea of rubble surrounds the three of you. smoke pours from the mess, encouraging you to reaffix your gas mask until it clears.

you pull yourself and yeleven to your feet, then grab your astromech as well. mentally, you decide her name is pinkie. she deserves a name too after dealing with this pile of dogshit.

"still think that your general is probably fine, yeleven?" you ask your droid friend halfheartedly. to your surprise, he nods.

"oh, yes ma'am-sir. he's survived much worse than this."

you chuckle at his mixmatched way he addresses you while brushing off your clothes. "i don't know too many species that survive ship crashes, 'leven. just because some of you droids made it out doesn't mean an organic being could take that."

"uhhhhh well about that-" the yellow droid is interrupted by something you don't quite understand. he jumps back in fright, clutching his blaster closely. a... metal? hand punches through the mass of metal rubble, clawed fingers clenching together to make a powerful fist. the patch of rubble shifts, and you can hear what is undeniably an organic being coughing and choking beneath the sea of scrap.

"what the fuck. what the fuck. what the fuck." you swear under your breath, stumbling through the scrap pile towards whatever is clawing its way out of the debris. scrabbling over sheets of metal and broken light panels, you reach the outstretched arm. planting your feet firmly on a semi-stable sheet of metal, you grasp the arm firmly and pull as hard as you can, praying again that this being is not too far gone, that it's all going to be okay.

cold metal fingers, no, cold metal claws wrap around your forearm, sinking into your skin far enough to draw blood. you cry out in pain, but grit your teeth and grab the arm with your other hand, determined to haul out this lone survivor. with a loud BANG- another fist pushes a sheet of black steel out of the way, revealing what seems to be, but can't possibly be, the body of another droid?

a third arm emerges from the rubble to shove more scrap out of the way.

a fourth extends from the depths to grab your shoulder.

you screw your eyes shut and haul the general of the crashed ship out of its remains.

[selasshelves]

the author's barely disguised lack of socialisation and profound sense of alienation from all other human life

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so true

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dostoyesvky can be misogynistic at times but I do appreciate that he’ll often be like “she was the sickliest looking woman anyone had ever seen. she was pale with sunken miserable eyes and a face that had suffered. she was insane and manic and spoke of horrible things. everyone was so in love with her that they wanted to throw themselves off a building”

[selasshelves]

"Soon we'll be old and ugly. Life is short, you know? Die young and leave a beautiful corpse. Who said that?" "Someone who liked fucking corpses."

My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh, page 78

[selasshelves]

If you buy a lot of books and end up not liking some of them very much, can I suggest checking them out from your library first?

I worked in bookstores for a long time, and of course lots of my paycheck went directly back into the store. I've ended up "weeding" a lot of those books and donating them to different places just because I knew I wasn't ever going to read them again.

Now I'm a librarian, and I'm realizing just how much money I'm saving by checking books out FIRST. Maybe I check something out and I end up DNF'ing it within 50 pages. Maybe I check something out and I enjoy it, but not enough to read it again. Maybe I check something out and I really love it, but it freaked me out so bad it's tattooed on the inside of my eyeballs and I won't need to read it again (Drew Magary's The Hike, I'm looking in your direction).

Or maybe I check something out and I love it! And then I go buy a copy to own because I know I'll reread it, probably with a pen to mark up the margins in a way I know I can't with a library book!

Idk man. If you want to be more intentional with the way you spend your money, if you want to combat the commercialization of the publishing industry, if you hate that authors are being forced to do all their own marketing on TikTok and that readers are feeling shame about not purchasing and finishing literal hundreds of books per year... Maybe start by going to your local library. You can still post haul photos of library books without spending a dime.

[selasshelves]

I hate the trend of just describing books with what minorities the main characters represent and nothing else. not only does it feel weird + exploitative to me it's also such a shoddy ineffective marketing technique. "this is my book with queer polyam disabled vampires you should buy it" ok great but what is it like. about. what are the themes. why should I read it

[selasshelves]

kicking a hornets nest.

[selasshelves]

Goop - 2

Ambulance

Functionally, the only difference between inside and outside was the lack of people. It's not as if the people in the school were particularly important or even relevant to my life today, but I was glad to be free of their presence. Like faceless ghosts, they just straddled the line between life and death. Humanity lived in our vibrant hallways and classrooms surrounding the gymnasium. Humanity dying in the circle they formed around the dead girl on the floor. Humanity living in the homes and buildings surrounding the school. Humanity dead in my arms.

I sat down on the plush grass, a week overdue on being mowed. I placed the dead girl's body on the ground next to me, but propped her up as if to lean against the flowering tree next to us. Her neck lolled to one side, revealing a milky white neck, free from scars or marks. Her tendons flexed gently as her head moved downwards. There was no texture on her skin, the only discoloration was of her veins and arteries faintly visible beneath the skin. Once again, I reached out and brushed my fingers against her neck. There were no goosebumps raised, only the soft texture I was expecting. I pressed my index finger into where I expected one of her carotids might be. My dead girl had no pulse. I pulled my hand away and paused, then gripped my own neck until I felt my frantic heart pounding in my chest to pump blood through my body.

I'm alive. She's not.

I have to wrench my hand away from my pulse and pull my phone out of my pants with shaking fingers. I flip it open and stare at my reflection in the little black screen. It hypnotizes me with its rendition of my face, covered in streaky black tears. I drag my gaze away from my pond and force myself to look at the sky. The blueness seems artificial in nature until I see a black cloud approaching with a greenish yellow haze underneath it. I focus on that yellowy atmosphere while my thumb finds the number pad and dials what I pray is an emergency line.

Ring.

I look at my dead girl once again, satisfied with the coming thunderstorm.

Ring.

She hasn't changed. I'm grateful, because she isn't turning blue or purple, or withering away before my eyes.

Ring.

I don't even know what a hospital is going to do for a dead girl. I don't know how long she's been dead. I don't know if they can resuscitate her, or give her something, anything. I've never known her as anyone other than dead girl.

Ring.

The longer my phone rings the more it makes me want to-

"Hello? Hello, this is 911, what's your emergency?"

"Yes, hello!" I can barely get the words out without tripping over them. "I need an ambulance, as soon as possible. Please. Please, I-"

"Certainly, but what is your emergency?"

The operator is far too calm for the situation.

"There's this girl, I found her and we're at school and it's really bad and nobody else called but she needs to come in, I think she might be dead and she-"

"Hold, please."

I stare blankly at my phone, slack jawed. A laugh bubbles in my chest and gets choked out while my fingers grip the device just a small bit harder.

"Please, please don't put me on hold because this can't wait I think she's really dead and-"

"Dead? Dead people don't go to hospitals, sweetheart." The operator interrupts me in the same, sickly sweet sterilized tone of voice. She sounds as if she's been lobotomized, and I can picture a scalpel being inserted into her skull so distinctly that I start feeling my head ache and pound.

"Dying! I meant dying, she's dying right now, but if you come as soon as possible she might live, just please. Please." I feel warmth brewing in my eyes and spilling onto my cheeks as I'm begging this sugared voice on the other end of the line for something that might not even matter. "She's dying and she needs you. She needs help." I know that she's dead, not dying, and the lie tastes salty in my mouth.

"Mm-hm." I hear slow clicking on the end of the line that must be nails on a keyboard. I feel momentary disgust at the thought that this woman gets her nails done to just be more inefficient at her job. The same disgust that unwillingly floods your chest when you see someone with too much lip filler on the street. The private disgust of seeing someone ruin a perfectly good face, combined with the private joy of knowing you at least don't look like that. The kind of shameful disgust that you really shouldn't feel, because you're shaming someone else for their own personal decision and siding with the beauty standards that pushed this person to get that filler, insert the implants, inject the Botox. In the time I had to enjoy that bitter internal monologue, this woman probably could have done her task three times over if she didn't have long, fake nails.

"An emergency vehicle will be dispatched shortly to your location. Thank you for calling!" Click.

I know the operator has hung up, but I sob and thank her anyways. The phone is shoved unceremoniously into my pocket again and my hands cradle my face. I notice the roughness of my knuckles and the hair that grows on the backs of my fingers. I have two hangnails and the few nails that have actually grown out are an unhealthy yellow color. My hands are tanned and rough from the sun that's beaming down on us right now. I doubt that the girl's hands are rough like mine.

My reverie of self reflection is broken by a flutter of wings in my peripheral vision. In front of us lands a mourning dove. She looks directly at us and coos softly, seemingly bobbing her head. I sigh softly, rummaging in my pockets for leftover granola bars or nuts. Sometimes I eat pistachios at school, and I suppose a bird wouldn't mind that kind of food. My pockets are empty, save for my phone.

"I've got nothing. Sorry."

She coos back at me. I force myself to imagine that the bird is saying something like "It's alright, I know you tried". The little creature settles down into the grass in some sort of nesting position, although I can't imagine the lawn is any more comfortable for her than for me. I study her more closely, now that it seems she's going to stay next to us for the next few minutes. She's a soft little bird, unassuming. Brown and black feathers, beady black eyes and a blueish beak. There's blue around her eyes and her feathers look smooth. It's just a bird.

I look at the girl again. It's easy to imagine her as a sleeping angel, like one you might see as a ceramic statue in an elderly woman's garden. She could be a marble bird bath, the birds resting upon it, the sunlight shining down, and the clear blue water inside it all at the same time. She was that picturesque, she was the whole painting. My head feels thick and I lay down in the grass to ground myself.

I can hear rumbling on the ground and I sit up, looking down the street. I don't realize what I'm looking for until a vehicle resembling a mail truck turns into the driveway of the school. The driveway we're sitting next to. The black storm clouds from before begin to cover the sun and the temperature drops. It all feels very real now.

The mourning dove flies into the tree above us as the ambulance comes to a stop in front of us. It's just a white vehicle, strangely unmarked. It's certainly the build of an ambulance, but I don't see the red stripes I was expecting. But it has a driver, and sirens, so that's good enough for me.

The driver leans out of the window. He's an unassuming man in his early sixties. I don't particularly care who he is. "Just me today," He says, jerking his head towards the back of the vehicle. The doors in the very back of the vehicle open automatically.

I have no choice but to steel my nerves and grit my teeth. For the second time today, I pick up a dead girl and start walking. Her weight is just as light in my hands now as she was the first time I carried her. But now I'm unsure, and my steps are shorter, my knees shakier. Coming around the side of the vehicle, I step up inside and take a look at the interior of the van. There's a small cot, which I place the girl to rest upon. One seat is in the back, separated from the driver and passenger. I assume this is normally where an EMT would sit, but for now, that seat is my new home for this ride. I struggle with the belt that holds the girl's body in place on the cot, then sit and fasten my own seatbelt.

"Ready." I call out to the driver.

He adjusts the mirror to make eye contact with me instead of just turning around and looking at me. My dislike for him grows with every passing minute.

"I don't think that you're coming, miss."

His words have that same hint of amusement to them that the phone operator's had. Once again, I'm flummoxed by the lack of sympathy and urgency every single person I have interacted with has shown me.

"I. Don't. Care." I hissed, reaching over to grab the girl's hand. "They can kick me out at the hospital, but I'm not leaving her until we get there."

The driver smiled and shifted gears. I felt the ambulance lurch and heard the engine start thrumming, matching the sloshing and turning of my stomach and the never ending static heartbeat I heard in my ears. Outside the window, I saw the mourning dove from the lawn looking at me from a branch on the tree. I took my hand back from the girl and closed my eyes.

-

I felt the ambulance come to a halt. My eyes open and I see that I'm in the passenger seat, next to the driver. I have no recollection of how I ended up here, but in front of me is a hospital. That's all we need.

"We're here." The driver states. He makes no move to exit the vehicle or help in any meaningful way, so I unfasten my seatbelt and jump out of the ambulance myself. The doors to the back aren't opening automatically this time, but I pay it no mind. The only thing I can think about in this moment is getting the girl inside. I don't know what's next.

I run to the back.

I grab the handles.

I wrench open the doors.

And I vomit. I fall to my knees on the pavement, and vomit old cafeteria food, bile, something that looks oddly like blood, and the remaining contents of my stomach onto the asphalt besides the ambulance. Wracking coughs are heaved out of my body as I try desperately to expel everything inside of me. My eyes have been open the whole time and try as I may, they refuse to shut. So I see the mixture being spewed from my body onto the pavement, but another image is burned into my eyes.

I dry heave one last time, and shakily rise to my feet. The doors in the back are still open. I lift my head to look inside once again.

I step into the vehicle.

I move my feet one by one to the side of the cot.

I grab my chin with my vomit streaked hands and force my head to look at the cot where my dead girl once laid.

In her place is a pile of gooey, oozing, yellow slime encapsulating a pile of black wires.

The urge to vomit returns, but I have nothing else in me to sacrifice to the parking lot. I wipe my hands on my pants and slowly,

carefully,

touch the oozing mass of remains that is my dead girl.

Something pulls my whole hand in and I shriek in terror. My scream is accompanied by another dry heave because now, my hand is truly in the guts of whatever this is. Gone are the gentle touches and frantic attempts to feel life. This is the opposite of smooth skin and cotton shirts. I don't stop screaming until I rip my hand out of the slime and shake it free of the remnant. I still felt like I was screaming until I realized I was just sobbing and heaving now. Its so sick. I can't stop the noises that are escaping my throat and I can never touch anything ever again, so I can't even muzzle myself with my own hands. I will never see these hands the same again.

Slime is a poor word for whatever this is. The viscosity demands a word like "goop". I felt how oily the mass was, how it was nothing I had ever felt before. Like glue, but more clear. Jello, only more liquid and sticky. Perhaps I only felt this way because I knew what this had been once, but this mass felt like the product of a sociopath that took each part of the human body and blended it together until it was unintelligible what it once had been.

The wires inside were not a confusing and disgusting, inhuman substance like the goop was. The goop was an alien life form, incomprehensible to me. I could not fathom what it might consist of. It was an entirely new thing that never should have existed. I doubt it was even the color yellow, my human brain could only comprehend it as such. The wires were simple wires. Black rubber on the outside, braided copper inside. Some were inside the goop, some were piled on top. How this could be, I didn't know. The only thing I had room for inside my brain was disgust, horror, and grief. Grief for my beautiful, graceful, birdlike girl.

I don't know how long I stared at the goop.

Something inside of me knows that this is deeply wrong. Something intrinsically twisted and evil happened here. Something has been wrong ever since I walked into the gymnasium this morning and saw a circle of people, completely silent in an American high school. Something has been wrong ever since I got put on hold on the 911 line. Something is wrong, and I'm the one that has to make it right.

There is a clear plastic container with green handles beneath the cot. I believe they're sold at Family Dollar for $3.99. I looked at the container, then at the hospital.

"I must be- We must be here," My voice is hoarse and doesn't sound like me. "For a reason. I don't know. I don't know."

My arms move of their own accord and reach down to grab the plastic container. I set it on the cot, next to the goop.

I do the single thing I want to do the least, I begin to pick up my dead girl for the third time that day. I screw my eyes shut and shovel the goop and wires into the plastic bin until I feel nothing left on the cot. I open my eyes and see only a vague, damp stain where the goop was. I pick up the container and watch the goop and wires jiggle inside. It's horrifying. It's disgusting. It's a little funny, but whenever I think about laughing I dry heave again, so I keep my mouth shut. It's not funny, not at all. I just can't feel disgust for this long without laughing at myself for somehow being in this situation.

But I think of my dead girl. She's in this too. She deserves to live. She deserves to have a body.

I hold the plastic container with both hands and step out of the vehicle. The doors shut by themselves behind me. Ahead of me is the hospital's entrance. I don't know what lies behind me besides my pile of sick. I step forwards and once again, I don't hear my footsteps.

The doors open for me, and I'm greeted with the sight of a pure white, sterile hospital. I can only smell bleach and hand sanitizer. The reception desk is run by a woman with acrylic nails and a small smile. I grit my teeth and walk forward, now intensely aware of my disgusting smell and clothing in this pure place of cleanliness and restoration. I can only pray she doesn't scream at the sight of what's in my hands.

"I'm here to check in, please."

[selasshelves]

a meditation on the idea of purgatory

She trudged through the forest, the trees towering above her like ancient, evergreen saints frosted in snow. The wind whipped around her, through what little clothing she wore, like daggers carved from ice plunging into her skin.

How long had she been walking again?

There was no sunlight in this place, only smoky clouds shifting in the sky high above her, as if a blizzard was imminent. But in the time she had been following the dark cloaked figure ahead of her, there had been no weather besides the brutal wind and a steady shower of fine, fluffy snow.

She hurried to keep up with the figure's long strides. Snow crunched under her feet, and although it wasn't as deep as one would expect in a (seemingly) never ending forest with (assumedly) never ending snowfall, the path the pair took had only several inches for her to indent footprints in.

The cloaked one she followed, of course, did not leave any footprints behind. Nor did he hurry, or wait for her to catch up. He only stared straight ahead and glided through the forest, serene and entirely inhuman.

Although it wasn't as if the forest itself had any other humans in it, and if there were, she had not seen any evidence of them. She doubted the very concept. This was a place for her, and the figure. Nobody else, not a bird, not a deer, not even a squirrel would dare interrupt their silent march.

She shivered and wrapped her shirt closer around her body, trying to shield herself from the freezing air. It did nothing, and the wind howled even louder with more ferocity in response.

She dared to use her voice, calling out to the figure.

"This is a long journey."

The figure did not even seem to hear her. A moment passed before it finally spoke, it's voice cutting through the sound of the wind.

"This is not a journey."

She tilted her head in confusion.

"Neither is it a quest, or an adventure, or anything with a beginning and an end."

The wind continued it's battle against her body, pushing and pulling her in every direction so that she felt as if she was being ripped apart and stabbed all in the same motion. It was nothing she had not experienced before. There was no "before". Only the forest.

"What is it, then?"

"Repentance." The figure responded simply. And that was the end of it.

Yet, she wanted nothing more than to push further.

"Are you not my Virgil?" She asked, and although the wind warped her voice, trying to shush her and push her forward along the path, she knew that the figure could hear her.

It kept gliding along the road. She noticed for the first time that the figure did not leave footprints in the snow. But as she looked back from where they came, neither did she. How frustrating, she thought, to make all this progress and have nothing to show for it. Only endless trees standing vigilant in a vast forest, the wilderness beyond the path entirely untouchable.

"What am I repenting for?" She called out again.

The figure did as it always did. Walk.

She was awfully tired of walking.

"I know you can hear me!"

The crushing, grey skies and dull light filtering through the clouds had never felt heavier to her as it did now.

"Answer me!"

"Is it not enough to know what you must do?" The figure asked her, giving her a question for once, and not an answer.

She thought about it for a length of time. Perhaps a few hundred footsteps she thought about what the figure asked.

"But I don't know what I'm repenting for, in the sense I don't know what I've done, and I don't know what I'm repenting for, in the sense that I don't know what I'm walking to."

The figure was silent again. But not the silence of a wall, where it could hear her and deigned not to respond, but the silence of the forest that was considering what she said.

The figure did not answer her for many footsteps. She froze just a bit more, and she sensed herself slowing down as it took more effort to trudge through the snow.

"There is something holy in suffering not for a reward, but as your duty, without a promise."

All that silence, for that? She thought it over for only five footsteps, although they were much slower than normal.

"There is nothing holy in pain for nothing."

"It is both worship and devotion."

She stopped dead in her tracks.

The figure did as well, it's cloak fluttering around it as if the vicious wind was only a light breeze. The trees seemed to arch ever closer to them, and suddenly the weak sunlight was blotted out from the sky as the sky disappeared behind a canopy of strangely thicker trees as if a hundred years- or a million footsteps- of growth had occurred in ten seconds.

"You will freeze if you do not walk." The figure said.

"So will you."

The figure laughed, an inhuman sound for the human emotion of amusement. But maybe that one transcended humanity.

"I do not freeze."

She lifted her head, staring intently into the back of the figure's hooded head.

"Face me."

The figure did not indulge her request. She shivered harder, teeth clacking together as she desperately missed what little natural light had warmed her just moments before.

"If I die here, either of exhaustion or frost," She said, jutting her jaw out with icy eyes, puffing her chest out like she had never lost a war. "You will die with me."

She did not know how she knew it, but she was sure of it.

The figure turned it's head slowly over it's shoulder, allowing her to see what lay beneath the hood.

A void stared back at her. She could only describe it as the inky-black space between the stars and the sky. Vast nothingness.

She struggled to even see the trees surrounding them anymore, only the freezing white snow radiating cold into her bones beneath them.

The cloak that the figure wore began to evaporate into the air, the black fabric disappearing into the black trees- but the trees were blurring into each other, no longer dark, natural green, now fading into darkness.

The figure spoke again, no longer a steady voice coming from the quickly evaporating body, but a reverberating voice coming from all around her. Pools of darkness replaced all she could see, and she suddenly missed her pine guardians, rising above her to protect her from the snow and wind.

"You may suffer however you like."

The figure was half gone now, the cloak being swallowed by the darkness surrounding her.

She fell to the ground.

"It is all repentance."

Only shoulders and the hood remained now.

"A step for every sin."

Just a hood was left of the figure, trapped in that mocking look over it's shoulder.

"It is not a poor deal."

And with those words, she was left in the freezing wind, drowning in the space between the stars.

So she rose from her knees and took another step.

The snow crunched beneath her feet. 

[selasshelves]

Goop - A novella

Chapter 1 School

Her face was so soft and peaceful, one could easily imagine she was sleeping.

If it weren't for the flickering neon lights overhead, the ring of people surrounding her body, and the unsettling way her limbs were bent at the wrong places, one could easily imagine she was a perfectly healthy young woman.

One could, I pondered, look at her long brown eyelashes and silky brown hair, instead of the milky white color her skin is turning. One could, I thought, pass her over as a typical student, sleeping during study hall. One could, perhaps, ignore the sinking feeling in one's stomach while looking at the girl resembling a corpse.

I knew that I was moving towards her, but I couldn't hear my footsteps padding against the polished wooden floor. There was no sound in this gymnasium, everything was sucked into the black hole created by the body on the floor. The girl demanded all of your attention. My ears were worthless, any hearing inconsequential because the only thing worth perceiving in this moment was a crumpled pile of girl in the middle of the floor.

The ring of onlookers parted for me, and as I blinked, I found myself kneeling down on the floor next to her. If anyone was speaking, I heard nothing around me. I sensed the subdued, nervous energy of this audience. How long they had been here, I knew not. If they had done anything, known anything, seen anything, I knew not. I knew that they were gazing at me kneeling down to the girl on the floor, but I knew that they were simply aware of us. I don't think a single one of them was consciously there, in that moment. Only I felt real. Only I knew. Only I knew she was dead.

A scream ripped out of me, tearing out of my chest and through my throat, into the room. The girl's black hole of attention consumed it all, no noise was heard, no pain was felt (although I understood on some level that this scream was enough to turn my throat raw for days). I only could understand that it was happening, that I was screaming and not silent. I felt no shame, because I knew that none of our onlookers were truly aware enough to know I was screaming. I don't think they even cared she was dead.

The thrum of the small crowd's energy subsided and receded like the waves of the ocean, but it came back smaller each time. It was as if they were all waiting at the bus stop and saw a mourning dove get hit by the bus. A dead thing in the street is a sad sight to see that everyone was politely ignoring. This beautiful creature was only roadkill now. Her plumage and grace meant nothing to the cruelty of hot, black asphalt.

I trailed my fingers down her chest. The cotton of her shirt was soft against my fingertips. My palm pressed into her chest, expecting it to rise with a breath and meet it half way. The breath never came. I pressed my fingertips into the squishy spots between her ribs for no reason other than morbid curiosity. I reached for a pulse in her neck, more frantically now. She didn't have time for feather light touches. I gripped her skin, desperately searching for a lingering heartbeat to say "Hello? I'm still here. Take me off the road now, let me fly away."

There was no breath, no wind under her wings. No heartbeat cooing at me, no warmth under her paper white feathers. Skin. I leaned back and sat on my feet, legs tucked underneath me. All I could do was look at her. It was irreverent to touch her again, so I kept my hands to myself. This girl was all elbows and knees, smooth skin fitting over kneecaps and ball joints. Even in death, she was resting as a ballerina might, prepared to gracefully rise to her feet and stretch her arms above her head. Although she was crumpled on the floor, I saw no bruises or marks on her flawless skin. Her hair fell around her face in glossy waves, not mussed or tangled. Just smooth. Her face was like her body, all bones. Her cheekbones jutted out from the rest of her face, similar to her browbone and prominent nose. Her jaw was angular and came to a point with the rest of her face. Symmetry so perfect that I felt my heart race harder, wondering how this beautiful girl had died. She couldn't die. She couldn't die like this, crumpled on the floor of a school gymnasium, surrounded by a Greek chorus of bus goers pointedly ignoring the dead girl that they were all gathered around. The faceless crowd all waiting for something. Waiting for the bus. Waiting for me.

I swallowed. My senses were slowly returning to me, from the weight of my tongue in my mouth to the pressure of sitting on my feet. I felt the weight and pressure of the expectations of the crowd. I knew they hadn't done anything. I vaguely remembered that we were, in fact, in the school and that there should be a crowd of authorities tending to the girl in front of us. I still couldn't hear anything, but I knew there were no alarms, no announcements, no emergency protocols being activated. It was just me, a dead girl, and the crowd of people watching us. Waiting for me. Waiting for the bus.

"I need a phone." I said numbly. Literally numbly, because I couldn't feel my lips sounding out the words. I knew I had to say it, so I did. I know the crowd heard me, so they shuffled further away from us. Of course they were no help. I lifted my head to meet the face of the person across from me, but I didn't see anything. A white void looked back at me, then became fuzzy and hurt my eyes to look at it until I looked away. I wasn't supposed to be looking at them, I was supposed to be looking at her. My mourning dove, my roadkill, my dead girl. My eyes acquiesced to this purpose easily and returned their gaze to her. To their dove.

If I stayed too much longer, I feared I might never move again. The horror of death infects everyone near it, until they too are dead. The horror of death fills up your body through your eyes down to your feet, until you can't convince yourself to move any longer. The horror of death wants you to stay still and watch it. The horror of death grabs you and turns you into stone. It fills you up and says this is it. I am inevitable. I have been marching towards you all your life, and here I am. I believe now that this is what has happened to our crowd. Maybe they never wanted to be silent statues with only eyes to see what has happened to the most beautiful of us. But I am not a statue or a victim of death's grip.

I feel my fingers and my toes, and the cell phone in my pocket. I awkwardly scoot forward on my hands and knees, once again close to the girl on the floor. I slide my hands underneath her body and feel the strange muscles on the undersides of her knees, and each of her spiny vertebrae. I lift her into the air and stand up with her, cradling her bony body against my chest. I remember how to walk again and set my sights on the glass doors leading outside. Sunshine seeps through the bulletproof glass, but nothing can warm the bones of someone holding a corpse.