by PW Cooper
* * *
She disgusts me. She entrances me. Her corpse is like a pillar of flame and I am drawn into it, bathing in the radiant glow. I want to give everything I have for her. I want her to transcend the stinking confines of herself, to be free of that crippled form. I will transform her. This is the sacrament. She is god and I am her high priest. This is the sacrament.
I begin with the fingers. I break the bones, the fragile bones. They snap like twigs, like nothing. These are not the fingers of god. The woman of the screen is immortal, unbreakable. She exists. I tear the skin away. I cut through the flesh. She plays one of her recordings for me. "I can't go on alone, papa." I kiss the stump of her wound and I say the next line back to her. It's my favorite of her films, from what I call her classical period - when she was still young enough to play the little girls. Before she was ruined by the crushing weight of time and excess. I will return her to those days. I eat the fingers, tug the repulsive burden of meat away from these hallow bones. I make her suck the bones clean to remind her what she is and when she has finished I fuck her again, roughly, rougher than even I like, because she must be taught. When I am done there is blood running down her thighs; I have drawn deep gouges on her breasts and belly. The twitching nubs that remain of her fingers move like she is trying to clench her fists. The bedsheets are painted a red that turns to the same brown color as the rust which licks at the bottoms of car doors.
I feel sick. Her flesh is heavy in my stomach, churning. I force open her mouth and vomit down her throat. I hold her mouth shut and pinch her nose until she swallows. She cannot keep it down either and expels it again. I leave the vomit to dry on her. Let it be a lesson.
Rewind."I can't go on alone, papa."
I take away her tape player.
