Specimen #1

In honor of the release of my collection THIRTEEN SPECIMENS, from Delirium Books (see my post of 7/4), in oh-so-affordable trade paperback form, my next thirteen posts will feature an excerpt from each of the thirteen pieces in this book. In addition, each post will offer an odd little specimen from my personal life. I’ll leave it to you to decide which, fact or fiction, is more compellingly disturbing.

(1) From the opening story, THESE ARE THE EXHIBITS:

“Eventually, the centipedes covered almost every horizontal surface in seething hordes, a thick living carpet; they say the hissing and rustling of their bodies sounded like a constant downpour of rain. The townspeople could no longer walk the floors of their houses or streets of their town for fear of being bitten…Gradually, the townspeople took to creating hammocks to sleep in, up off the floors. This reaction evolved over the course of a few years, until finally heavy wire cables were rigged throughout each house…These cables were attached from wall to wall, from room to room, so that the occupants could pull themselves along them above the floor, wearing harnesses attached to pulleys. Their bodies were positioned horizontally, so that they would appear to swim along these networks of wire…”

(2) BUDDHA LIKES TO IMBIBE

There’s a little, enclosed back porch outside my new apartment, which is part of an immense old Victorian house, and we’ve put a metal table out there at which I like to sit and read and my son likes to draw. My wife was doing her makeup out there today before work, and when I looked out at her she was a breathtaking vision of primal beauty, obliviously naked to the waist, long hair flowing, looking more like some Tahitian or Polynesian native girl primping to tempt a shipload of explorers than Vietnamese. Out on this porch she has created an altar to Buddha in the corner. She had an altar to him at our house but this one is more elaborate. She buys him fresh flowers (preferably yellow), currently carnations. He has offerings of fruit (currently an apple and orange) that we will eat after he’s done with them (does he suck out their juicy souls?). He has a cup of water, a scented violet candle, and she burns three incense sticks to him nightly (I love the smell; it puts me right back in Vietnam) which she stands up in the holes of a salt shaker. She also keeps Buddha’s shot glass full of my $70 authentic absinthe, from La Boheme, imported from the Czech Republic. Oh well, nothing but the best for our buddy Buddha, but I hope the wormwood doesn’t make his visions too psychedelic. My wife and I have a passionate, often stormy relationship, and from my relationships with a number of them I have found Vietnamese women to be extremely jealous, to say the least — so the other night my wife had me pray to Buddha and swear I’m not chatting with other women in her absence. My poor son Colin, who is autistic, saw our argument and was disturbed by it; later we saw him standing out on the porch apologizing to Buddha (obviously in imitation of my prayer) for yelling at me and Hong. We were very touched by this, even if Colin’s prayer eventually turned to the complaint that Buddha wasn’t responding to him because he’s made of stone (and incidentally, my ex wife Rose gifted Hong with this statue). That night Colin lay on his side sleeping on our recliner, and Hong remarked that in this position he looked exactly like images of the reclining Buddha (in which Buddha is portrayed lying on his side, not sitting in a reclining chair; that would be couch potato Buddha). I told her she was right, as I was reminded of just such a giant statue we had visited at a temple in Vietnam. Hong often says that due to his innocence, Colin is very much like Buddha. Except that Colin doesn’t drink my $70 absinthe.

THIRTEEN SPECIMENS: https://www.horror-mall.com/THIRTEEN-SPECIMENS-by-Jeffrey-Thomas-Trade-Paperback-p-18122.html

Warning: Reclining Buddha Ahead: http://www.superstock.com/preview.asp?image=1598R-202571&imagex=72&hitCount=158&pageStart=49&pageEnd=96&productType=3&filterForCat=&filterForFotog=&pixperpage=48&enableCDLink=1