MicroHorror

Lila is spooning bicarbonate of soda from the tub directly into her mouth and swallowing it down with filtered water. Cystitis, caused by sexual activity after long abstinence. He’s gone, but her body is still reacting to his intrusions. Earlier this afternoon she conducted a cleansing ritual–sprinkling bicarbonate of soda in all four corners of the bedroom. Bicarb is absolutely harmless to human beings and good for so many things. Now it’s dark and full-mooned outside her bright kitchen. She can hear foxes, or maybe cats.

She met Peter on a dating website, Halloween 24/7. He defined himself as a werewolf, a podgy one. She hesitated over the categories, then chose witch. Before she knew it, he’d taken over–reordering her kitchen, deciding on a place for everything, he’d cleared a little shelf above the fridge for the bicarbonate of soda. “It must sit right here.” She’d been lonely for a while and quite enjoyed being bossed around, at first. Then it started to get on her nerves. Likewise she enjoyed the sex, until her body clammed up and simply refused. She tried to think reassuring thoughts, to overcome its objections, trick herself into compliance. But no, no, no.

Lila puts the empty tub of bicarbonate on the recycling pile. Peter also loved bicarb, which he called baking soda. He used it to clean his teeth, to counteract his bad breath, and to remove sweat stains from the underarms of his shirts. She feels guilty now, a wicked witch, for canceling their weekend break at a Glastonbury B&B. Telling him, “I think our personalities are just too different.” Showing him to the front door, to the threshold she’d blithely invited him to cross, just weeks earlier.

To rid yourself of earwigs and other crawling insects, mix one measure of bicarb and one of icing sugar, and place the mixture in a container. When the tiny creatures eat the mixture, they will bloat up and not be able to climb out again. You can then do with them what you will. Tempt cockroaches with a mixture of equal parts of bicarb and sugar. The sugar attracts them; the bicarb is deadly to them. Cockroaches are cannibals and will eat up their dead, so that’s an added bonus.

Why does Lila say oh God? Because she just left the kitchen for a moment and when she returned, she saw the bicarbonate of soda tub wasn’t on the recycling pile, it was on the little shelf above the fridge. And yet she’s alone in the house, she knows. Trapped, she thinks, I’m trapped. No, Lila, calm down. You just forgot where you put it. You’re so absent-minded. With trembling hand she grabs the bicarb and plonks it back on the recycling pile. It’s there, definitely. She switches the light off and then on again. The bicarb is back on the shelf. Oh God, she says, oh God.

This is how it begins.

I often slip away from the office at lunchtime to visit Membland, an architectural salvage place in St. Michael’s, a deconsecrated church on Leonard Street. Outside are stone ornamental things from graveyards and catacombs. A lizard, maybe seven feet long, rests its crested head on a scroll. Inside, the vast church space has been divided by floors, partitioned into rooms and stuffed with objects like a museum, except most things are for sale. Some bits of the old church remain–the font, the holy water stoup, the rose window. I only occasionally glimpse other browsers: mostly single women like me, a church’s usual demographic. It effortlessly absorbs us.

The chairs caught my attention straight away. Richly decorated yet small, as though meant for older children. The label said: “This pair of Italian walnut chairs was made by Pompinoli, a carver for the Vatican. Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, purchased them circa 1853.” They were thickly carved with strange creatures, dragon-headed, but partly human. Mythical chimerae, according to the label. I stroked their pointed breasts and ugly dragon noses, thinking of Frankenstein’s monster, how sad and lonely he was. Then I tried sitting in one of the chairs. It was horribly uncomfortable, owing to the protruding wings of the carved creatures.

Then–ugh!–despair enclosed me like a fog and held me fast. It seemed to come from the chair itself. Like a lover’s embrace, a kiss, and at the same time disgusting, unbearable. I wrenched myself free–stumbled away… Outside the building, I choked for breath, then raised a hand to my cheek. It was numb, like dead flesh, yet pulsating as a clock ticks. I stared at my fingers. They were wet.

They’ve got used to me in the office, or anyway they’re kind. Nowadays I so much welcome kindness and flinch from its opposite. I’m not a pretty sight, I know–one side of my face collapsed, a mouth that twists when I try to smile. Beauty depends on symmetry. My doctor says give the nerves a chance to regrow; it might take six months. And hopefully the new nerve fibers will connect to the right facial muscles.

The chairs are gone and that room is hung with beautiful mirrors, their frames carved with mermaids, griffins, angels, cherubs, deities, figures from Greek mythology… I hurry past.

So I drift through the blank air, hands clasped while my tentacles wave free and wild. There’s a contrast–such a very great one!–between the tentacled lower half of me and the upper half, which is Victorian and respectable. A hat, a veil, a closely fitting, high-necked black blouse. And my face, its alarmed expression.

How can we–your father and I–explain our nature? It wasn’t always so, I can assure you of that. Ours was a love match, between a blushing maiden not long out of the schoolroom and a manly youth. Both of good family and reputation, neither at that time plagued by snake-like appendages. However, as a child I had a vivid imagination and felt drawn–always–to the unnatural, to freaks and curiosities. Perhaps this is why I myself became this nightmarish thing. As for your father, well.

Poor man, his anguish is greater even than mine. For he remains almost entirely civilized–legs and feet, pinstriped suit and necktie–save for the vile horror sprouting from his sleeve. As though in danger of being attacked by it, he holds his arm away from his side, while with his remaining hand, the left one, he covers his eyes, in a melodramatic gesture.

Darling, I always dreamed of having a little girl like you, with fair hair and an innocent expression. But not quite the same as you. Different below the neck.

She comes round to flat. She goes up to down. She discovers what hasn’t appeared, only changed. Alive before, not now. She perceives its loss of vitality. We thought she might, but we weren’t sure. Although the fat-on-boneses retain a crude instinct, evolution has vanquished their finer intelligence. Moral: do not evolve.

She turns off the TV, pity, it was nearly time for The Weakest Link. We like Anne Robinson. We’ve set up a circuit, enabling each one to regard without moving from her position-of-advantage. Next door might fling us a line, one suggests, and the same unit is dispatched to negotiate. She returns saying they want half a daddy. Outrageous. We meet in council, but vote against going to war. Now isn’t the best time.

The fat-on-bones calls other fat-on-boneses, to throng and seethe below. They agree she’s dead and it’s a mercy. They conjecture she must have (died in her sleep) and she can’t have (suffered). We observed, so we know. And we don’t care. You are the weakest link, goodbye.

This flat’s in a disgusting state, the fat-on-bones says. Just look at all those spiders’ webs. I’ll get them with the vacuum cleaner.