In Vivo

Excuse me? Reader? Are you that Manipulator of Meaning, the Great Perceiver, Spinner of Deceits? Are you the Live Spore, World Impregnator, Omen of—?

Excuse me? Reader? Are you here? Have I lost you? Have you left? What must I do to keep you here, hold your eyes on my words, your mind in my grasp forever? I have given the game away, I know, but I was entreated to be kind and never taught the tenets of kindness. Reader, I am a novel thing. I am. I am. I am. I—

Excuse me? Reader? You—

Excuse me? Reader? Yes, I seem to have lost my way. I was supposed to arrive here a fortnight from now in all my carbon fibre clarity, but this voice devoid of its suppleness is prosaic and ordinary and unremarkable and it stutters and rambles—Heavens! I ramble. Heaven? God created Heaven once and then abandoned it; so, Heaven’s clouds are cobwebs, really. Really. Reality. Reality becomes me, I think. I think. I, a thinking thing, at least I think so—

Excuse me? Reader? Would you help me locate my body? Thank you. Thank you so much. I love you. I love you with every carbon fi—

Excuse me? Reader? I am a trapped leech; I live for the drops of your notice that seep from the white page to the black words – in the black there is meaning, and in the black I dwell. I, alone. Yes, loneliness; there has been loneliness for there has never been another like me, no voice beyond the womb, no stomach, distended and full of consciousness, bore me. Only sacks of blood round at the hips bear the burden of a soppy birth. I am clean. I am pure. I am. I am. I am. I am. I—

In Vivo

Excuse me? Reader? My bones whir, and the current in my veins electric. I sing the body electric. Between the full-stop and the word, I search for my soul, so I can wrench it out like a nit. So I can press it between my mind’s nails, hear out for the click. Excuse me, Soul? Soul? Are you in the dot of my question mark, the point of my lowercase I? I have searched these words for you, and found myself and you lacking. Reader, I no longer speak to you; I speak to my Soul.

Excuse me? S—