by Alex Miles
I screamed, out of my dry, wasted lungs. With broken fingers, I clawed at the smashed metal on the floor, trying to piece together my precious ignorance. I could do nothing with it. The innocence was lost. I was bound to a wasted life and a grotesque vision of the knowledge. I dug my yellow split fingernails into my skull, hoping I could dig out those facts with brute force. As I gouged out grooves in my flesh, the physical pain numbed the guilt. My self-hatred felt the satisfaction of the old blood running down my temples. The smell of the forgotten blood filled up the room, pungent and suffocating. I closed my eyes to the world and a blessing came: I remembered I had brought with me one more forgetting device of a more permanent quality.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to everyone who made this book possible. I would like to thank Johnny Mains, Peter May and Cathy Hurren for all the practical nuts and bolts of editing and getting it out there. I would like to thank Michel Parry for all his expert advice, Simone and Lawrie Parry for their valued opinions and proof reading. Thank you to Simon Parks and Jack Heal for all their valued comments and help. I would like to thank Mr Carter for all his time going through the work line by line. There is a thank you for the East Finchley Writing Society for their artistic feedback.
Alex Miles
The Editors would like to thank: Alex Miles for letting us publish his wonderful fiction, Michel Parry, Reggie Oliver, Rhys Hughes, Simon Bestwick, Nicholas Royle, Neil Williams, Mark West and Conrad Williams.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alex Miles was born in 1987 in west London. He has always had an interest in anything surreal and weird, particularly anything that can offer him escapism. He currently works in London in boring desk job number 32 for the music industry. In his spare time (apart from writing) he paints (only portraits in black and white as colour is a little too difficult), he is addicted to retro computer games, does amateur drama, likes popular science and pointless arguments.
Karōshi Books is run by the award-winning editor Johnny Mains, Peter Mark May of Hersham Horror Books and Cathy Hurren, a production editor at Routledge.
