Ariera

I find myself lying still in this lattice of thorns, the prickly tethers of what feels like worn rope press into my thick skin. I cannot feel my limbs, only the mass of my torso – I feel taller than before, as if some magical sculptor has stretched me thin, elongating my spine and flesh. The sky flickers – golden yellow fireworks! Oh, but they fail to melt back into the prior gloom, silent and comforting with its masking grimace of unknowingness. This 'Sun' shifts about tentatively, like a glowing ball on a rope swing, suspended above a jungle of apes, threateningly swiping with their great arms. The tapping of faraway footsteps pulses through me and my spiny bed. Perhaps it is some god, coming to rescue me from this dark doom? I shall call out to them – never have I felt more relieved to be in so light a presence when in this crushing black cave of disorientated souls.

My words seem to be muffled by a doughy matter smothering my mouth and airways.

Oh god, what is happening? My sad life will end prematurely after all. Yet, I can still follow my scattered thoughts, disturbed by this awful happening. Perhaps, if I endure my suffering and retain my mind, I can find a way of esca--

My thoughts, ubiquitous and brimming with fear are cut short by the instant dimming of the bright Sun above – a shadow of ill-fate steals my worst notions of terror from my screaming psyche and clasps its dark, deathly fingers (surprisingly fat and fleshy) around my soft frame. My curved chest tightens, my innards twist in the compression, but still am I unable to emit a scream of ashen agony from this inexplicable torture!

‘Ariera*! I have been looking forward to devouring your feathery flesh all day!’ booms a voice, piercing and peeling the air of silence.

Even before panic can diffuse into my veiny body, I immediately feel a sharp stinging on the crown of my head; the shadow’s claws have sunken into my case, like a farmer digging his spade into the hard ground during winter’s defiant months of chill. My head, rife with pain, throbs with heat. The stinging persists and stretches further down my body, my skin, peeling away, leaving my newly exposed flesh raw, white and burning.

I have no teeth to clench together, no eyes to squeeze shut, no hope to desperately cling to. Yet my external senses remain intact, and pulse the excruciating soreness through my nerves which glow threateningly from the sickening pain of this affliction.

Just after a thousand pinpricks stab at my mutilated exterior, inverted and bare, a foul feeling of moist ensnarement rasps through me; doughy bile in my spongy stomach arises; it pulps inside me, for it is unable to surface. Sharp knives rip into my flesh, scraping at my neck, my chest, my pelvis, until I feel a sudden lightness in the midst of this chilling disfigurement of my shredded body. My top half, now mashed into puréed carnage, has been ripped from me by the jaws of a monster!

I cannot resist, I cannot refute. All I can do is lie here, rolling away from the blood-thirsty chambers of an atrocious demon.







…and so is the fate of a banana.

* Ariera is the Latin name for the English word banana (a long, crescent shaped fruit that grows in bunches and has a soft, pulpy texture and yellow external skin when ripe)

Copyright © JRFB 2012