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8a50cae
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I patch together a living language out of reanimated parts, like Frankenstein, and feel no disgust at scrabbling in the charnel house. Each of us makes her own monster, who earns a cozy co-tenancy of our tomb. We're all the last native speakers of a language that dies with us. Am I so special for tasting the rot on my tongue? For knowing whose remains I'm kitted out in?
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Shelley Jackson |
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10d21fc
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Feathers needed, swan preferred.
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Shelley Jackson |
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614807c
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There is nothing so bracing as planning a murder. I recommend it to the weak-willed and those with a leaky sense of self. It is fortifying as a drop of coagulant in a solution. I had planned (The word is too strong. Imagined. Anticipated?) this particular murder for so many years that it had taken on an air of performance and respectability. To understand how a murder can be domesticated and even humdrum may be hard for fans of the pounce o..
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Shelley Jackson |
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9aa2553
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It is a terrible thing when it is the substitute that is sent to find a new life, a sign that a person yearns for change but cannot imagine creating it herself.... If scapegoats feel pain, it is only the delegated pain of their originals.
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Shelley Jackson |
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c261ad0
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Not that pain is the worst thing in the universe. Interesting things happen when you adapt pain for your own. This thing you were prepared to spend your life flinching from is suddenly just another piece of information.
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Shelley Jackson |
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d8c293a
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Nobody can remember when the sperm became large enough to see, but we agree on this: once that point was reached, every generation topped the last. They went from guppy to goldfish, and before long they could frighten a schnauzer, and not much later even Great Danes made way for them.... Sperm are ancient creatures, single-minded as coelacanths. They are drawn to the sun, the moon, and dots and disks of all descriptions, including periods, ..
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Shelley Jackson |
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e5c373b
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Cut nerves left lying on the threshing floors drift and roll and wind up all aligned with the earth's magnetic field, like iron filings swayed by a magnet in a classroom experiment.
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Shelley Jackson |