One morning Sorcha woke up as usual at the ring of the alarm clock… it was school day, so she was not turning it off and lingered in the warm bed like she loved to do on weekends. She loved easy comfy slow life and if she could… She wouldn’t go ever to work but she couldn’t, so she resigned to get up…
Her hand tried to reach her painkiller meds on her night table – her first breakfast – and she couldn’t reach them… her arm was not long enough! “What hell happened to my arm… am I stiff than ever this morning” she complained and looked at her hand. She wanted to jump… her hand did not look like her hand, and she screamed ”that’s not my hand.” But she could not jump… her body was heavy… she then touched her belly, and it was soft but bulgy… barely she reached her back… Hoh… it was hard like a shell and so heavy that although she tried many times, she couldn’t turn…”Oh gush it’s getting late… I should call the school that I don’t feel well today so they can call a substitute”
“I must have taken too many meds last night and now I’m hallucinating, and I don’t feel well but I must find the strength to call the school… they are going to be very upset with me If I just don’t show up… I know that my students will be happy to have that substitute… the one that laughs and talks like a horse. She is a better entertainer than me, but I do have to call… why didn’t I buy a cellphone… because I am so lazy, and I didn’t want to learn how to use it and now I can’t reach the living room phone… if only I could call an ambulance… that would be a good excuse for not going to work…”
“They-students- friends- are all right to say that I am slow like a turtle. I am slow in my chores… my work… in finishing my dinner… are you done?… Are you coming slow poke?… who is talking… I sense danger… predators? I retract my head and legs into the inside of my shell… I’ll make my heart stop beating; thus, they think that I am dead while I am still very alive…”
“Oh, the phone is ringing… maybe it is the school call… by now they should know that something is wrong… somebody will come… oh I am so hungry… somebody will be bringing food but how I am going to eat? I have no teeth… a Bick will do… I should have one… I know… any human carries animal DNA… many are cats or birds… my ex was a Scorpion if you stepped on his tail, he would sting you… some are still lizards and me? I knew what I carried when I suddenly looked at me in the mirror and that student… that pecking girl that has chicken in her few days ago, she said ‘Miss you like a turtle’… the bitch knows… that’s… but somebody will come… turn me around so I can go back to the water.”
© 2025 – Michel Croteau
NO MORE!
She stood on an obsidian ledge, looking down on a lake of molten lava.
This place bordered the main realm of Hell. A servant of Hell brought her here as a baby. Other slaves raised her. Now they expected her to go to the Hell Palace and play slave and maybe whore to Lucifer.
None of this is right. I don’t belong here. I NEED to see the SKY.
She closed her golden eyes.
This woman stood a height of five feet and five inches. Her deep dark red hair laid to her hips in waves. Her eyes had a slight slant to them.
Her nose small and her lips had a lush appearance to them. Her slender frame seemed undernourished, slaves only ate enough to get by. Her body laid covered in a red body suit and a dog collar around her neck.
She reached inside herself.
There existed a flame. Only a smoldering coal, she concentrated on it.
BURN!
Something internal felt her anguish.
That coal began to ignite.
The flame grew…her body responded.
The lady drew in a sharp breath. A spectral flame rose up around her. It blazed red in color and hot.
It pulled in internally and in a flash of light; a large, exotic looking, red feathered, bird stood in her place.
Large ruby colored talons and a beak sat on plumage of dark red, crimson, and gold. This harpy sized pretty bird had been called a Rock, the first shift in her kind’s line of succession. This beautiful bird could fly easily in Hell as well as sing divinely for the masses…
This isn’t enough. I must…go further…further than all of them.
“ANA!” The shout made her look back. A large blackened skin shadow being led others from down the path behind her.
A voice within her directed her attention back to the lava lake. “For you to ignite, you must have faith. To touch the sky, you must first fall. Only then will you rise, Sky Queen.”
She swallowed, her throat noticeably moved.
Ana’s wings extended.
She leapt skyward and flew over the sea of lava…
“DAMN YOU, GIRL! GET HER, THE MASTER WANTS HER, NOW!”
The men ran up the path. A total of six men total, minus their leader called INK. These men held net guns.
All at once, over the lake by a hundred yards, Ana the Rock…dropped like a stone.
My Leap of Faith.
The men stood in shock. Her move came across as unexpected.
Silence…
“The Master is going to kill me for sure.” Ink quivered. He had been told to deliver Ana to Lucifer as she was to be his new concubine. The nose dive meant that she broke her mental restraints that made her fear the flames.
A loud shriek echoed through the area.
All the men backed off in fear.
Ink stood his ground.
Something slowly began to rise. It started as a hump in the lava and continued to push up. Every move, it got higher.
She rose.
As her wings rose up, she cried out.
A Phoenix of blood red fire rose up slowly into the realm. Ana had doubled in size. Her body, now all fire. Once she came even with the ledge, she hovered there.
Ink marveled at what he saw. Others like her had remained Rocks for several hundred years. A success of the mental blocks placed on her mind…the fear of fire kept them from doing what Ana just did.
She had ignited.
Ana had become reborn…as a Phoenix, the mythological bird that had not been seen in about nine hundred years. She inhaled and blew out a large stream of fire at the ledge as a whole.
Ink ignited into flames. He screamed his last and crumbled to ash…the underlings had run away.
She took on full flight.
NOW to find the SKY.
The blood red being of flame soared across the lava lake toward a seemingly black wall a league from her position. A streak of fire trailed behind her by a hundred yards.
At the wall, she pushed through it. It looked real but really wasn’t.
The Hell’s Gate Funnel allowed many to push out onto the Earth by way of the Black Tower. This will assist me too.
Her direction changed to the direction of UP. As she did, her speed grew as did a burn pattern she generated in the space.
Demons on her path way up burned.
The Phoenix Ana burned it all in the name of Freedom.
As she passed into the portion on Earth Realm, she blew it all out and skyward. The tower collapsed into a massive dimensional Maw where the tower once stood. What didn’t fall down, blew outward as she gained altitude. What got left just swirled just below the ground like a whirl pool of void energy.
She paid it no mind….
THE SKY!
The stars above shined bright.
The air so fresh and pure to her.
Vast mists of clouds about.
The moon, oh so beautiful and white.
The Phoenix called in celebration. The burning Wings of Eternal Flame carried her along.
Ana had become FREE.
A silent call gave her direction as she soared about playfully at high altitudes…
…due north she flew…uuuu
…loving the sky…she embraced it.
© 2025 – The Eternal Flame
Bill’s lawn was the shame of his neighborhood. All his neighbors’ lawns were perfect… emerald, green… smooth and not a sign of weeds. Often his neighbors going by his house would give him a hint at how bad his lawn was glorifying their own.
“Bill, have you seen how beautiful my lawn is… come over some time to sit on my porch for a cup of coffee…” his closest friend and neighbor Jon would invite Bill hoping that he will see the difference between their lawns and then asking him for his advice on how to beautify his lawn and especially how to get rid of all those ugly weeds that disturbed the nice neighborhood.
Bill knew that the conversation always would end with Jon asking him if he knew how to remove weeds and Bill would answer that he had tried many methods like hand weed… Using a hoe… that he even made homemade weed spray…. mixing two cups of table salt with one gallon of white vinegar but he had lost the war with weeds, and he didn’t know what else he could do… Since he refused to remove weeds with chemicals.
“Why not… It’s the only way ”- Jon would reply – listen to me… a good herbicide will resolve the problem.”
“What about my birds and my bees? They wouldn’t like it!” Bill would protest… he enjoyed seeing his yard visited by many different birds and busy bees frolicking over his flowers.
The critics about his lawn would never end so finally Bill was tired to feel that he was putting the neighborhood down finally succumbed…and he went to the big hardware store outside the city. There an employee helped Bill to find strong herbicide, assuring him that it would work wonders… no more weeds for a long time and advised him to use it in the evening for better results.
Bill, after hesitating for many days, decided to use the herbicide and so following the instructions sprayed his lawn’s weeds and thinking the more… the better used the entire container in one application.
The morning after, like usual, Bill woke up early to make coffee and brought a cup to his wife who loved to have her first cup of coffee in bed. It wasn’t light yet and Bill sat on the bed from his left side with his eyes still closed without looking around when he felt being scratched on his back.
“Susette… cut it out… let me go make coffee first” he mumbled.
The scratching continued so Bill threw his right hand back to stop his wife but when he felt that he wasn’t touching his wife’s hand but something strange like a stick he yelled.
“Really… Susette… now you’re being a nuisance.”…and then he turned around to grab what he thought… was a stick… Oh… that was not a stick and the creature in bed was not his wife. He jumped out of the bed landing in a corner of the bedroom… unable to talk and thinking that he was having a nightmare he rubbed his eyes but no matter how many times he rubbed his eyes… that big green thing in his bed wouldn’t disappear… no… it wasn’t a nightmare so finally Bill found a feeble strand of voice.
“Who… what are you? … what are you doing in my bed?… And where is my wife?
“I am Locusta… your mate… Susette?… she was so delicious… I was so hungry after you fed me that stuff last night.”
“I did not feed you anything… I just sprayed the weeds so you must be only a vulgar bush oversized cricket of Tettigoniidae family.”
“Not anymore… now I am a praying mantis… can you see I have a triangular head with beautiful bulging eyes and praying hands?… ‘’So’’ – she added with her squeaky voice – ‘’come to bed with me and let’s pray together!’’
“No… you monster… you are going to eat me too!” Bill cried.
Locusta shaking her flexible neck sweetly responded: “No, my mate… I want your love first.”
Bill knowing that a praying mantis is a voracious carnivore thought that the only way to save himself was to run away… he slowly tried to reach the door, but Locusta grabbed him and mounted him.
The hungry female began feeding by biting off Bill’s head and the more Bill tried to get away the more Locusta enjoyed her meal.
Jon the neighbor that had Bill convinced to use a chemical herbicide to kill the weeds on his loan looked at him doing it one evening and feeling proud of his victory the morning after he decided to go visit Bill and congratulate him.
Jon knocked on the front door repeatedly, but nobody came to open it.
“It’s Sunday – he thought -maybe they’re still in bed… I’ll be back later.”
Jon impatiently waited until eleven o’clock… then he went back to Bill’s house, sure that he and his wife would be up for lunch. He knocked again on the front door, surprised that Bill and his wife were not enjoying the day on the porch like they used to do.
“Maybe they are in the kitchen preparing or having lunch… I’ll go knock on the back door” Jon decided… but there too nobody answered.
Jon peeked in the window and when he couldn’t see anybody in the kitchen first, he got perplexed ’’Where can they be?” then he got worried ”Could be that Bill got sick spraying the chemical herbicide?”
“I better go in to check what is going on” was his second thought.
The door was locked but Jon knew that Bill kept a spare key under the welcome mat and after debating if he should use it or not, he took it and opened the door yelling “ Bill… Susette where are you?
He entered the kitchen and noticed that there was no coffee in the coffee machine that Bill usually kept full. “That is very strange “ he commented to himself and kept calling his friend with no response.
There was no sign of life on first floor… ”He must be sick… maybe he is in bed… I got to check him out ‘
Jon proceeded slowly to the second floor… he felt like an intruder, but he kept going sure that something was amiss. The bedroom door was ajar, and he knocked on it gently… “Bill… Susette … are you there? … can I come in?”
Since it was not answering Jon peeked into the room just with his head and he lost his voice. A giant insect was occupying Bill’s king size bed.
Locusta turned her flexible head around and with her squeaky voice welcomed the overweight short guy ’’Oh come… come sweet cream puff… it’s been more than five hours that I had something to eat.”
Then she looked at him with her big green begging eyes and easily grabbed him and mounted him… in a matter of seconds she had her sexy lunch.
A couple of hours later Jon’s wife started to get upset… the husband of hers when he visited a friend forgot that he had his own house and family. ”I am going over and giving him a piece of my mind! “So, she did, and Locusta had her second helping.
The rest of the neighbors noticed that Bill’s lawn had no more weeds, and they were so happy that finally their ‘nice’ neighborhood looked sharp everywhere that they decided to go visit Bill to congratulate him… and locusta had a banquet!
Being the ‘Nice’ neighborhood deprived of all its inhabitants… the houses fell into disrepair and the weeds took over with such force that the place became jungle-like.
Locusta starved, having no more mates to mount and devour… so she started to shrink until one day she metamorphosed into a vulgar bush cricket of the Tettigoniidae family. Then she jumped out of a little opening left in a window and joined all the other weed creatures.
© 2025 – Michel Croteau
I woke like most days, hung over, sore in strange places, and hungry. Getting something in my belly was always top priority, unless my bladder decided to interject. I stopped for a moment, focused on my body, giving it a quick mental prodding. Nope. Pissing is temporarily offline. I can eat in peace.
My dirty feet squeak on the faux-wood floor of the hallway leading to the kitchen. Usually something easily annoyed chimes in right about now. Odd. So, I tried a little harder, dragging my soles against the synthetic. I didn’t care if anybody else cared, I had fun doing it. So I smiled and squeaked, and then arrived at the kitchen.
Not even a coffee pot perking. Just eerie silence. And then I noticed how dark it still was. I checked the time on the microwave, 10:37am. Hmm. Maybe it’s supposed to rain today. I just need food. I looked back at the time and noticed the numbers were blinking, like we had a brown out during the night. Again, I really don’t give a fuck. Just let me find some food.
Cabinets, cans and dry stuff. Fridge, rotten produce and spoiled milk. The fridge stank bad. I almost wretched before slamming the door shut while holding my breath and swallowing hard three times. I moved to lean over the sink, just in case. Once my breathing normalized I tipped my head up a little. The front window on the far side of the living room was cracked. I sauntered toward it, stumbling like I was in a dream. I was oddly reminded of Charlotte’s Web, but with a chill running up my spine. In the cracks of the glass was a word, three letters, D-I-E. I sucked in my breath so fast I almost fell backwards. Luckily the recliner caught me, but I fell back hard enough to kick out the foot rest. At least I was now comfortable while simultaneously being terrified.
“MOM! DAD!” It became my only mantra. I screamed those words over and over, in every room of the empty house that stank of rot. I screamed until my throat started to bleed. And then I just moaned and sobbed. Time became irrelevant until my undernourished body decided to pass out and try to recuperate.
I woke up some time during the night. I assumed this based on the fact that it was dark, really dark. Power was completely out. The constant hum of ambient electric noise was gone. My ears didn’t know how to process the over-abundance of silence. So they filled my senses with an echoing ring. Phantom noise for a phantom house.
Thank the gods the toilets still worked. And there was plenty of toilet paper. Yay. But I still had no food. I had to leave the house. I had to go out and see what was going on. I did my best not to speculate. But the mind will wander. So I filled my time with singing badly while washing and dressing. I kept singing random shit and verses of nothing right up until I faced the front door. I exhaled while wiping my sweaty palms on my dirty jeans. I undid the deadbolt, then the latch lock. I took another deep breath, held it, then turned the knob.
I was immediately blinded by the brightness. Totally not what I was expecting. I took a step over the threshold, my hand held out to shield my eyes. The silence that consumed the interior of the house was nothing compared to the utter silence of the open world. My throat was still raw and sore from previous screaming. But there was nothing to say that could ever fill the void I found myself in. So I dropped to my knees, shut my eyes, and moaned. But these breakdowns were getting tiresome and they served no purpose due to the fact that I am the only witness to everything. I cringed my eyes tight, then in slow increments crept them open. It felt weird, like the sun was too bright. All I could see through the pinched slits of my eyelids was pink.
2
I opened my eyes slowly, and then even more slowly I lowered my hand. Everything was pink.
The screened-in porch was covered in a layer of what looked like bubbles. I took a step forward, curious about the odd anomaly. The bubbles only seemed to be on the outside. I tapped the screen, sending out a soft ripple across the panel. The bubbles vibrated and shimmered. The light that penetrated through the pinkness was stained with color. But the color was alive.
I tapped again, twice. I walked the perimeter of the porch, tapping and watching. It was kind of amazing. And there was a smell, sweet like bubble gum. I laughed in spite of my fear, which ended up sounding a little maniacal.
And then my stomach started to rumble. There was nothing left to do but open the screen door and venture out into the world. The door opened with surprising ease, not even the slightest creak. Silent, complete and scary. But the bubbles got agitated.
The pinkness surrounding the door frame shimmered through the light like a soft prism, colors dancing across the iridescent surfaces. As some bubbles popped and sputtered, others inflated to take up the slack, and then some. The bubbles began to grow and creep toward the interior of the porch. I watched the movement with wide-eyed awe.
I stepped down onto the walkway, only now realizing the blackness of everything under the bubbles. The concrete had a dark oily sheen coating. So did the grass on either side. So did the resin mushrooms and the gnomes and the line of marigolds. Everything the bubbles had covered was black and slick.
I took a few more steps onto the sidewalk, squelching with each tentative step. The oilines wasn’t oil. It felt more like melted molasses, slightly more sticky with each successive step. The sound was disgusting, like a cringey ASMR video, but from an alien world. My world, the neighborhood I grew up in, was gone, replaced by a nightmare of pinks and blacks.
A few more steps and I turned to look at the house. I gagged on my next breath. And then I started to tremble. The entire house was dripping in shimmering darkness, patched with vibrant pink foam that moved like it had a purpose.
The bubbles were on the porch ceiling, creeping their way toward the front door I neglected to shut. The onslaught of blushing bubbles shat out the dark decay of thick sticky rot. And then I heard a muffled metallic crunching sound, like someone slowly crushing a soda can, but bigger. I turned my head slightly to watch the SUV in the driveway melt in on itself.
My breath was a staccato of gasps. I was getting light-headed. I didn’t know what to do, where to turn, everything was wrong and I was so hungry and the bubbles smelled like candy. So delicious, like dumping out your bucket after Halloween, a swirl of decadent creations pulling at primal drives within my body and mind. I was so hungry, and it smelled so good.
The family car was now just a quivering puddle of black goop burning itself into the driveway. Pink steam escaped from sizzling rosy bubbles as the concrete dissolved. I was getting dizzy and the intoxicating smells were becoming overwhelming.
I tried to take a step, but my boots were stuck to the path that used to be a sidewalk. The ground and all things on it and in it were now dark slime, decorated with vibrant balls of every shade of pink. It was almost beautiful to the point where my thoughts felt in awe. The fear leaked out of me. All I felt was hunger.
3
I walked down to the curb. With each step, black tendrils of sticky nightmares tried to pull me back to the ooze. It was becoming an effort to move at all.
I squatted on the edge of the yard, staring down at the pooling goo that bubbled in the gutter too eager to fall down the storm drain. I held my hand over the writhing skin of shiny black that was eating away at the concrete curb. For some strange reason, I didn’t feel any fear toward it. I felt like it would not harm me. Maybe, just maybe…
I stood up abruptly, still staring at the same patch of black, wiping my hands nervously on my pants. I shook my head as I tried to take a step back. My boots had become glued to the sticky black grass. I started to stumble as I lost my balance. In a fit of reflexive action, my foot shot out of the immovable boot, toes naked to the world. My awkward momentum propelled me back toward the step I meant to take, but now my foot was unprotected. My bare foot smacked against the thick black muck. I couldn’t look.
The empty boot was quickly consumed, covered in a blanket of nightmare topped with a sprinkling of pink sweetness. The bubbles popped and hissed as the boot melted down. I had to look at my foot. I had to turn my head.
And there it was, in all its fleshy glory, mashing down onto the blackness, but not penetrating it. My foot was just casually standing on top of the goo. And then the pink bubbles started to blossom out from between my toes. It tickled. I laughed. Then I picked my foot up, leaving a grotesque black footprint outlined in pink foam. The bubbles on my foot quickly disintegrated and dried up, leaving no evidence on my skin.
I involuntarily emitted a casual hmm, and despite the low volume, it still upset my sore vocal chords and sent muffled reverberations out into the silent neighborhood. I stopped and looked around. If anyone was within earshot, even that little noise should have been alerting. Nothing but black and pink.
I figured at this point it was safe to lift my other foot out of its boot. The boots had become part of the landscape, and yet my flesh was still whole and unmolested. The blackness simply did not stick to my skin. I walked in a quick circle. Then I did a couple of dance moves, badly. It felt like walking on bubble wrap, but without the satisfaction of all the pops. I walked and squeaked, up and back along where the sidewalk used to be in front of the house I used to live in.
The house, just like the SUV, started to melt into itself. It was no longer a house, just a lumpy hill that soon absorbed into the landscape. Black and pink, as far as I could see, in all directions. I was at a loss, and my anxiety was ratcheting up. But, at least now I knew the black whatever was not going to kill me or consume me. And the pink bubbly foam that frosted the peaks of the undulating ooze was really starting to look delicious. I suddenly had a vision in my head of a hot fudge sundae from hell with dark chocolate and strawberry cream. My stomach did not grumble or growl, it roared.
Before I could stop myself, I dropped to my knees. My arms stretched out to the sides. My hands curved into sliding scoops as I dragged them together, gathering up the pink foam. My hands came together, filled with delicate pink bubbles. I lifted the mass of sweet-smelling weirdness to my face.
4
I was hesitant. I held my tempting little bundle up to the diffused white light of the sky. I could not see through the pinkness of the bubbles, but they absorbed the light, somehow. A pulsing radiance grew within the heart of each tiny bubble. They looked alive, almost like little eggs. Caviar? I would have gasped and flung the foam from my hands but at that precise moment my sinuses decided it was the perfect time to sneeze, which I did, right into my hands.
Pink foam shot out in a spray of magical light. Fairy fireworks. That’s the thought that popped into my head. It made me laugh, sort of. The feeling was there, but the sound was more of a snort. At least it didn’t hurt my throat. Yay.
I watched as the twinkling spectacle ran its course, fading to nothing. I scraped up another handful of foam and blew on it, soft at first, testing. Then I let loose and gave it a full gale. The results were similar to the first time. As the groupings of bubbles separated and spread, their inner glow flared, and then died. Pink dots danced on my retinas, flaring and dying. I tried to blink them away, but they just rewound and replayed, over and over.
Had I killed them? Did I just slaughter a colony of life? Twice? It couldn’t be that simple, or that complex. They were just bubbles. Weird, pink, magical bubbles that smelled like every artificial berry flavoring melted into one. It was a heavenly synthetic fragrance that bordered on intoxicating. And I was still so incredibly hungry.
I sat on the viscous muck, relaxed but inquisitive. With a single finger, I pushed against the surface of black. I poked it hard, leaving a temporary indentation that quickly filled with the tiniest of bubbles. I couldn’t tell if the pinkness came from the blackness, or the other way around, or something else entirely. But the indentation reversed itself in equal measure. It rose up as far as it was pushed down, like a single ripple in slow motion, tipped with a sprinkling of the sweet pinkness.
I was getting dizzy with painful hunger. My energy was nearly spent. If I didn’t eat something soon, anything, my body was going to start shutting down. I was not going to just let that happen.
My anxiety erupted as anger. I punched at the dark ground, over and over, as hard as I could. I punched until I had created a black crater. And then I stared at this negative creation I had wrought. It was very much a bowl in shape and intent, and this not so little bowl was quickly filling with heavenly pink sweetness. It suddenly reminded me of Franken Berry cereal, but it was all the little marshmallows, and they were all round and bubbly. It was always one of my favorite cereals growing up. The nostalgia took over my senses.
I dropped down to all fours like a feral feline with buzz cut bleached hair. I plunged my face toward the surface of the undulating bubbles, but still hesitant. I took a deep breath and nearly orgasmed. A new rush of saliva filled my mouth. I moaned and groaned. I circled my face around the perimeter of the black bowl that was starting to retract. If I didn’t act soon the bubbles would be pushed out and away. I created this meal, in a way. It was mine, all mine. There was no one to stop me from doing something monumentally stupid. It was all on me. I swore a mental decree in the swirling chaos of my mind, effectively absolving myself of any liability. Then I shook my head at the absurdity of the entire situation, scooped up a thick wad of foam, and sat back on my heels.
5
I stared at the wad of bubble gum scented foam, held in my cupped hands, looking very much like a bizarre offering of a desperate acolyte. But the offerting was being made by me to me. I am the giver and the receiver. I make the connection and thereby I am made whole.
Where the fuck did that little sermon come from? My mind was getting brittlized. And now I’m making up words. It was all unwinding and yet beginning to make sense. The secret was about to reveal itself. I could feel it, itching behind my left eye.
Or maybe that was my allergies acting up. But, there was nothing left that I could see that would induce any type of allergic reaction. The landscape is black. The bubbling foam is pink. There is nothing else. Then why am I here? Why am I the only one left? What the fuck is going on?
I grew tired of the unanswerable questions flooding my fragile mind. Enough was enough, or so I tried to tell myself. I sighed as I stared at the pink. My stomach grumbled as I inhaled the pink. My tongue flicked out as I brought my hands to my mouth.
The flick made contact. It was a shock, at first. Literally, it shocked my tongue. Have you ever gotten a static shock on your tongue? Of course not. No one has. I am the first. And I didn’t know how to process the flood of strange sensations.
There was no taste, only a slight, but quick, burning sensation. But I knew I wasn’t burnt. This was a new experience, and I needed to take baby steps. The only thing to do was to flick again. I couldn’t help my timidity. It was all about being cautious, but at the same time my voracious appetite needed satisfaction.
The second flick did nothing. No shock. No sensation. No taste. I gathered up a fresh bundle of foam, only to realize I had started panting, and it was making me light-headed on top of the effects of being hungry. The timing had become critical. I needed to eat.
FUCK IT
I screamed in my head as I sat on the black, only to realize, much like my boots, my jeans were melting away. The prolonged contact with the magical muck was taking its toll, and the toll was the fabric that clung to my skin. I shot up to a standing position. I tried to twist around to assess the damage. Instinctively, I reached around with my hands, the hands filled with foam. The result was my ass being covered in sweet pinkness. And it felt… nice.
I had two frayed holes in the seat of my pants, roughly oval shaped. I would have been a star attraction at a gay bar, if such things still existed. I laughed, somewhere in my psyche. And then I screamed, still feeling the effects from the last time I lost control. The screams were accompanied by manic sobbing.
I turned and I twirled, looking all around me and beyond, hoping for a glimpse of something sane. Nothing existed but miles of shiny black speckled with pink frosting. Mmm, frosting. Strawberry flavored? Why not? It was all probably just an elaborate hallucination, anyway. I didn’t seem to be in any malevolent danger. My only course was to stay alive, and in order to accomplish this simple feat, I needed to eat, and the only thing remotely resembling anything of sustenance was the goddamned pink foam. The screaming laughter bounced around inside my head, echoing through memories and emotions.
fuck it
I bent down, scooped up some enticing foam in each hand, and scraped it into my dry mouth.
6
I woke up feeling like most days, hung over, sore in the strangest of places, and insanely hungry. Seriously, my stomach was twisting up hard. I went into the fetal position and just moaned as the gastronomically neglected contractions slowly subsided. Now I was covered in a cold sweat, panting like I was in labor.
The last thing I remember is shoveling pink shit into my mouth. Over and over, hand over hand, scoop after scoop. I got dizzy just thinking about it, and then the memory just snapped, gone from existence. I was left curled up, shivering, probably hallucinating, in the middle of a vast sea of shiny blackness, a blackness that was impenetrable.
I suddenly realized the extent and thereby the cause of my uncontrollable shivering. I was naked, completely bare, head to toes, and all things in between. I grabbed my head as I sat up, ready to have a screaming fit, but my head felt weird. No hair. I felt my face. Then I looked down toward my lap. My entire body was hairless, smooth, and pink.
Did I eat it? My brain wouldn’t open up for me. I couldn’t look back. There was only the blackness. Wait. Where did all the pink go?!?
A new anxiety took hold of my already tattered mind. I looked down, stomped my feet, yelling at each impact. I went pure primal, screaming out to the nothingness that surrounded me. Around and around I turned, stumbling on my own feet, blinded by tears.
The sound did not travel. The sound of my skin smacking against the thick black muck got swallowed up a moment after it was emitted. It was like I was inside a bubble, my own little world, trapped. But I could see to infinity, or at least the horizon. I decided to focus on that.
The vast expanse of blackness met its end where the sky took over. Both concepts met in a hazy line of silver brightness. But there was no sun, just a brighter section of sky that was dipping under the concept of the Earth. The silver turned to grey as I watched. At least I wasn’t screaming or crying. But, I was drooling a lot. So, that was a thing.
I wasn’t shivering anymore. I didn’t seem to feel any kind of temperature. There was neither comfort nor discomfort. I was completely neutral with my environment, as lacking as that may be. And then the brightness was gone, snapping a final thin line of brilliance out to the sides and into oblivion. In a very brief moment, the darkness became absolute.
I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t even hear my breath. I knew I was touching myself, there was an awareness, but no actual sensation. Even the sticky slick ground that my feet were melting into gave off no tactile impressions. I was officially senseless. I tried to laugh it off, but no sound came from my mouth. A scream gave similar results.
I remember hearing about sensory deprivation experiments. Probably one of those weird YouTube channels. I didn’t know how to interpret any of this. Hell, the absence of all senses, while being fully aware.
For whatever unknown reason, I wasn’t stressed out, which was a little concerning. Shouldn’t I be freaking out? Yes. Probably. But at this point, why?
I couldn’t feel anything, but I was fully aware that I was walking. Something was drawing me onward. Something was propelling my body. I couldn’t stop, even if I wanted to, which I didn’t. What would be the point? There was nothing where I was, or as far as I could see before I could no longer see. And yet I was moving.
In a rush of sudden and frantic feeling I was overcome with the sensation of falling. There was still no wind or whooshing sound or any outward sign that this was happening. But I knew it to be true, to be happening in this now.
7
It’s amazing how quickly you can get used to the strangest things. It felt like I had been falling for an hour, but without any of the actual feelings, just the knowing sensation. And then a tiny little glow began to appear, just a pinprick of light, like a single star in the night sky, way above me.
As I stared more intently at the little flicker of light, the sensation of falling diminished, almost imperceptibly, in fits and spasms, until I was simply floating. Everywhere else was pure emptiness, a void of black, but my eyes did not move from that one spot.
It became a lifeline, an anomaly of substance where none existed. The beacon seemed to pulse, or maybe it was a trick, part of this elaborately lucid dream in which I am stuck. In three more labored heartbeats my breath came back to me, in the sense that I could hear myself breathing. I tried a quick squeak. It came out, a little bit, but then it rippled out to a dying hum. But I did hear, for a brief moment. It was something more than a moment before.
The next sound to escape me was a growling screaming sob. It echoed a little more strongly. I was creating substance, and the star was getting nearer. I couldn’t help but be skeptical of this. I still couldn’t move on my own. But I could make sounds. Yay.
The starry light kept growing, in size and brightness, but at a snail’s pace, barely noticeable. What I did notice was the faint glow my skin was starting to reflect. The starlight was reaching me, maybe pulling me toward it, it was impossible to tell.
The glow continued to brighten over the next millenia, until a very faint color could be seen. Pink. My skin, as if newborn, pulsed with living energy. I felt alive like never before. I decided I could move, and so I moved. This was no void. This was no nightmare. This was no hallucination. This was me in a primordial exploration, seeking the truth of an existence which made no sense.
I wasn’t really flying, or levitating, or swimming. This was no longer the world I knew. I was the core of all substance, pink and smooth, and rushing to a circle of light, which also happened to be deepening into pinks. My speed kept increasing, beyond human exhilaration. I became pure bliss as the pink star loomed in front of me.
This was no star. Nor what is a source of light. The closer I got, the clearer it became. Bubbles, pink foamy bubbles, erupting from some other dimension, filling the void in mine. That’s when I realized the flight, the acceleration, the journey, was an illusion. I had never moved from my immobile spot in the nothingness. It was the pink star, growing, expanding, filling my hole with blissful possibilities.
…filling my hole, LOL
The absurdity of my reality smacked me across the face. It stung. Then a smack on my ass. That kinda felt good. Then smacks and slaps all over my body, not enough to do damage, but more than enough wake me the fuck up. I was a ragdoll in a dryer with a dozen flip-flops. And then it stopped, all smacking ceased. My skin was one huge pulsing welt of nerve-endings panting and squealing. No, wait, the squealing was from me. I was the one squealing, like a skinny pink pig. The pulsing pain radiated off every inch of my outer shell, like a sunburn on top of a sunburn turned inside-out.
I was at a new level of awareness, but only barely aware that I was now inside the massive pink bubble star at the heart of all that is nothing.
8
I am one with the Pink. I am the Pink, and the Pink is me.
Nothing but pink as far as I could see, which wasn’t very far. It’s like being in a bubble bath to an extreme. Nothing but pink bubbles, and me, this newly formed thing of pink flesh. Was I still me? Had I become something else, something more?
At least I could move, arms, legs, head. But, there was still no actual movement taking place. I was just floundering, a bubble inside the bubbles. So now what?
I moved my legs in an approximation of a walk. It all felt so wonky. My hands splayed out, swatting at the endless foam, tunneling my way to more unknown.
I wasn’t getting tired. I wasn’t even hungry. There was nothing else to do but move, so I did, as best I could, or so I thought. Intent can be a powerful thing. It gives you focus. But my intent was unclear. I just kept walking and swiping, left to right, right to left, step by step, over and over.
I cleared my mind. Restless thoughts do me no good. All thought and energy was focused on the pink, moving through the pink, emerging from the goddamned endless pink. I stopped to catch a breath where none existed. I looked back the way I had come. Nothing but infinite pink, with a tiny black dot at the end, like a tiny dark star. Shit. Everything was reversed.
I am the light and the star. I am the endless pink that dwells within the endless black.
A sense of serenity washed over my body, and through it. Every molecule was saturated in bliss. I breathed out and smiled.
The black dot at the end of the pink grew exponentially with each step until I finally emerged. But, I stopped at the threshold. The blackness I had been traveling towards was only a small part of the picture. I stood on the precipice of a pink sphincter. A familiar night sky, faint with stars, misty with clouds, shone in the heavens of this glimpse. My eyes naturally ventured down.
There was a horizon, dotted with lights diffused by distance. But they were moving, and made of many different colors. Reds and oranges, a fleeting glimpse of green. This was all so familiar, a world almost forgotten. My eyes continued to drop.
The surface of the world skittered like an anthill. The intricacies of life danced their waltzes and tangos. It made my skin crawl. And then bubbles started foaming up from my skin. I looked at my arms as they pussed with pink, growing in volume. I was soon blinded by the pink as it sought to close the portal. The sphincter shrank. The world was gone.
I dropped to my knees and sighed out my relief. I breathed for a moment more, creating a tiny new tunnel from my mouth. Then I shot out a Ha before jumping to my feet.
Ha
The Ha’s continued of their own accord as I spun faster and faster, becoming a tornado of pink. In fits and spasms the bubbles were flung, far and wide, until I was left standing and panting, this odd little pink thing at the core of all the pink.
HAAAAA
It became a cry of defiance, a roar of energy. It twinkled at a distant memory of pain and anguish. I would not have such pain, or any other, for any reason, ever again. I became silent. I became still. I became the nothing in the everything.
I cried it out to the highest heavens and the deepest hells. I cried beyond the pain, past the anguish, trampling the anxiety. I cried until there was nothing more. And then I just stood there, staring out over an endless expanse of undulating waves of black goop crested with oozing pink foam.
© 2025 – Dom Sabasti