Characters

Characters

Robert on Sunday felt them wriggling beneath his skin, contorting their bodies in an attempt to burst free. They sucked from within, their outlines swelling each time they drew breath. The suckered pads of their palms pressed outward, and they altered their shapes inside him.

They rose and swirled like soap bubbles. Their colors leaped through Robert's veins, leaving a milky trail. And their textures – like colored-paper streamers – whipped against his organs.

From very far away they pleaded, revealed themselves.

Allison, eating her hand. Montague, his undulating skin rippling with color. Beverlyn, murky water rising in her coffin. Boston Joe, his body reshaping itself like clay.

They blew warm breaths against the inside of Robert's eyelids, they dug the marrow from his bones with curved fingernails.

They materialized from smoky vapors and shattered mirrors. They melted on his tongue. Their odors pounced on him. Like bugspray, like cook grease, like strawberry-scented candles. They popped like kindling, batted the screens like insects, wailed like patrol cars.

“Tell my tale,” they begged.

So Robert picked up his pen. But when he began to write . . .

. . . they faded away.