Mould

That. What can I say? Circumstance, experience and an overwhelming misanthropic disgust led me to my self enforced seclusion. By the time I reached my mid twenties I was your stereotypical mumbling recluse, creeping out of my flat when the necessity of social welfare and shopping beckoned and spending the rest of my time profitlessly constructing an intricate and wholly unnecessary code for existence, which I am now at a loss to fathom even in part. Unfortunately the microcosmos I invented for myself with all its lunatic intricacies and regulations consumed me and inevitably something as simple as a piece of mouldy cheese in the fridge drove me over the edge.

I had reached a stage of eating less and less, I was barely able to go outside to purchase food and even more reluctant to ingest it. So when the inevitable that to this transformation time came around (and I can recall the day quite clearly) all the fridge could offer me was half a lemon and a small chunk of cheese. The lemon was a remnant from my gin swilling days. But when I drank gin I knocked things over and that was against the rules. After the gin came the Barbara Cartland fixation. I had dedicated dozens
of notebook pages to extolling her merits in a semi-legible scrawl. Most pages were just filled from top to bottom with the words 'Barbara Cartland is a genius. Barbara Cartland is a genius' repeated over and over again.

Anyway, I ate the lemon, rind and all and decided to save the cheese for absolute necessity. On closing the fridge door I thought I heard the cheese make some kind of vague murmuring noise, as though it was whispering to me.
I tried to dismiss this idea as best I could but all night I had the disquieting feeling of being watched. I couldn't bring myself even to look in the direction of the kitchen, petrified that something or someone was lurking in there waiting to pounce at the slightest sign of acknowledgement.

I spent most of that evening pinned to my chair in front of the desk, with my open folio yawning empty nothings at my. 'Barbara Cartland is a genius' etc. Eventually I stood up and walked to the window, or should I say skipped
to the window, careful not to interfere with the sweating heaps of this and that strewn about the floor. This was another rule of mine, you see. I wasn't allowed to interfere with anything (although I couldn't help it sometimes). I looked out into the yard and saw the Alsatian tied to a
metallic peg poking out of the concrete. It wasn't my dog. I don't know whose dog it was. But he and I spent many hours of silent communion staring at each other, until he'd start barking fiercely and I'd get all unnerved and skip and dodge back to my chair, and so it was that evening.

I contemplated sleep but had nowhere to lay my head. The bed was sacred now. The stains were in congress. To touch it or taint it with my man hands would be chaos as far as the I of then was concerned.

I managed to doze a little in my chair but was frightened awake by strange dreams involving a wizened, stooped and half rotten Dame Barbara Cartland pulling open a pair of red velvet drapes to reveal a bizarre effigy which was placed on a kind of rude altar. It was, what I can only presume as
a woman, sitting on a three legged stool wearing a yashmak with her crotch exposed, all gory and oozing, accentuated by a dirty mustard green light from an unseen source and beside 'her' was an oversized plastic yarrow
plant whose stalk rippled with biceps, hideously accentuated by a gaudy pink light. Then followed a long period of lapsing in and out of consciousness. I sat there for days, afraid to move, I had become paralysed with a fear of the cheese in the fridge which had grown out of all proportion. I was hallucinating madly, twitching convulsively at every rustle and creak, real or imagined. And then nothing.

I awoke again in a dazzling fluorescent haze, my ears filled with the soft rushing noise of rubber wheels on linoleum. A brilliant light flash flash flashed on my eyelids. Apparently I was passing beneath a series of strip lamps at a rapid speed bound for somewhere in a hospital that I urgently
needed to be. But not knowing this at the time I had immediately thought of death. The bright light, the sense of being propelled. From the little I'd heard about death it seemed likely that I was either dead or dying, I wasn't
bothered which. Unfortunately neither was the case, I was just ill. Apparently I hadn't moved or ingested anything in some weeks. Of course I hadn't been aware of this fact. Apparently I had been rescued, the neighbours having complained in unison about a strange smell, noting that
none of them had seen my strange self in months. 'In months' they said. Apparently the whole place had been frantic while I had been still. Apparently. Apparently. Apparently.

So anyway, there I was on a wheeled trolley stretcher thing hurtling towards some room or other, feeling vaguely disorientated, confused as to the state of my mortality, with no folio wisdom to guide me. Not a sniff of Barbara
Cartland anywhere.

When I eventually regained some semblance of my senses I found myself unbearably anxious about the damage done by my 'rescuers' to my apartment. I imagined them disturbing all that I had so painstakingly left undisturbed. Anxiety turned quickly into dread which in turn increased into an
almost blinding fear. I had no idea what had been left behind or what awaited me upon my return. But with time and an obscene quantity of narcotics the fear
subsided, it became a kind of dull throb, an occasional gnawing sensation. Invariably I found myself in a tranquillised haze entertaining maudlin reflections about the
glories of the old life, the poor Alsatian staring
hopelessly at my window etc.

I was trapped in that hospital for four months, being nursed and made whole, fattened up and rinsed clean. I was quite the novelty case. They were all decidedly baffled and intrigued by the exotic sores all over my legs, the dire state of my digestive tract, my corpse-like physique and my fine
impersonation of a dribbling mess.

Eventually I was told that I was better and could go. Or, was it that I'd better go? All those lovely drugs. Anyway, I went. Shipshape, soreless and cleansed. As soon as myself and the string carryall they gave me were back on the street the entire memory of the hospital faded (obviously
I've regained those memories now). What can I say? I was dazzled. It was as if I'd never set eyes on those raw sights before - shops, bars, cafes, the variety of people, as if I'd only ever been aware of them through hearsay and overheard whisperings. I found myself overwhelmed by colours, movement, the way things pulsed. I felt refreshed. I repulsed pressing thoughts of my old folly, and lamented all that I had deprived myself of. I greedily gorged my senses to compensate. Although, it was a hard transition from that to this, pages seemed to be missing from the record of my life. Whatever had previously motivated me was obscured. Through the confusion I felt an electric elation, a sense of the force of life moving swiftly along my
entire person. Above all an excited hopefulness grasped me. For what seemed like days (although it may only have been hours) I wandered through this new landscape nourishing my starved senses.

However, this shift in allegiance from the internal to the external was short-lived. As the initial dazzle dulled I began to recall the original reasons for my previous self-imposed exile and subsequent behaviour. As I visited old haunts I was once again assailed by familiar feelings of disgust.

Soon enough the streets began to ooze their filth again and the skin of my human cousins started to secrete the shiny mucous that it had always secreted. Suppressing nausea I raced for home, for my sanctuary, for my self-penned guidebook, for Barbara Cartland & Co. I ran as fast as my
sick tired limbs could carry me through the greasy streets with their vomit coloured inhabitants. As I neared home the dread of what I was racing towards grabbed me. What was I returning to? I consoled myself (still running) by reasoning that whatever damage was done by my rescuers had
nothing to do with me, I was blameless. That whatever malevolent forces had been unleashed could not harm me personally for this very reason. Without forming any kind of back up plan or even anything resembling thought, I found myself mounting the stairs that lead to my apartment.

I bounded through the door as if to frighten whatever it was I believed to be lurking inside, but nothing could have prepared me for what I found. I was struck blind for several moments, enveloped in a blackness of rank presence. I stumbled forward, arms outstretched, groping. My petrified
fingers found alien shapes, upright columns of varying textures. As I regained my sight, or, should I say, opened my eyes, I realised that my room was no longer a room. Its walls were completely obscured, if indeed they remained at all. In front of me was a dense forest of the forementioned
columns, they were more like trees really, trees made of angry filth, rags and a hundred other indescribable things. The 'foliage' was incredibly thick. I could barely pick out a route to take, or even see a few feet ahead of me (for I needed to explore, it was too late to run. The door behind
me had disappeared anyway).

I struggled on a few yards, hoping to see some familiar thing, something to redeem my sanity. I examined the composition of the trees and the shifting ground beneath my feet. I saw clothes of mine, folio pages, rubbish from
the bins, objects from the apartment, all of my general accumulated filth embedded in the trunks. But how could there be so much crap?

A foul smelling wind came whispering through the trees and breathed rank in my face. There was an ongoing thud drumming monotonously. The place was alive. The trees themselves seemed to breathe, to pulse. I waded onwards,
my clothes, hands and face becoming filthier and filthier. After what must have at least a couple of hours I found myself at a kind of junction, a clearing with distinct paths leading off in many directions. I stood for a while appraising my surroundings. As you can imagine I had no idea what I
was going to do next.

Above the continuous whispering of the wind and forest forms I became aware of a distant rustling noise which gradually got louder and louder. Then suddenly a husky voiced chirped 'Hello' at my back. Stunned I swivelled
around to find my self face to face with the Alsatian. He was standing upright on his hind paws smiling benevolently at me. He wore shiny baggy trousers that expanded at the thighs and narrowed from knee to ankle and a waistcoat replete with watch-chain.

'Long time no see' the Alsatian half sang. I could barely form the word 'Yes' by way of response. The Alsatian eyed me up and down, no doubt scrutinising my filthy attire. He himself was spotless. At length he cheerfully continued 'You've been away for such a long time, I was worried about you,' 'I was worried about you too' I stammered. 'That's nice dear. But so much has changed (This was said as if I hadn't noticed). Come, I'll lead you through the forest. You'll get nowhere at the rate you're going. You shouldn't keep them waiting'. 'Who' I asked, but the Alsatian made no reply. He simply turned and took a path to the right. I didn't follow him, but stood motionless. 'Them, them, them, them' echoed through my head. I felt a bizarre mix of emotions at the prospect of being expected,
all of a sudden my wanderings had been given a purpose. The Alsatian noticing I had not followed turned and gestured with a forepaw for me to hurry after him. He even tut-tutted. I stumbled along behind him for some time. He
was surefootedly familiar with the place. Eventually, he spoke. 'I warned you about this before.' he sighed, 'Night after night screaming at you.' 'What are you talking about, what the hell is going on, why are you dressed like that. Warned me. When did you warn me. I've never heard you
say a word. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.........' I babbled like this for some time, I was finally noticing my surroundings, noticing that I was being marched through a forest of filth that had replaced my flat with an upright walking, talking
Alsatian with a waistcoat and a watch-chain and all the while the Alsatian just looked at me pityingly as though I was a particularly simple child. Once I'd stopped ranting, the Alsatian turned and continued to walk in the designated direction. The further we walked the filthier I became, while
the Alsatian magically remained unsullied.

We walked on and on, yet I felt no weariness, just a little discomfort as the filth that clung to me began to harden into a crust. I became aware of rustlings in the foliage coming from all sides. The Alsatian stopped ahead of me and raised his forepaw for attention. I heard a kind of low
whistling noise accompanied by a humming coming from the trees ahead of us. The Alsatian whispered to me in a confidential tone: 'We must observe this and pay homage, it won't take long.' What a lovely voice that dog had, so
husky and yet so grand. Sophisticated. That's the word. With that green velvet waistcoat and his watch-chain. He reminded me of that monocled puppet fox with the 'Boom. Boom.' catch-phrase from the television. I can't remember
his name now.

Anyway, a small dwarfish creature, largely hidden by rag
coverings with a protruding hook of a nose and sparkling yellow eyes emerged from the heavy undergrowth. The Alsatian, now standing beside me, told me to pay close attention. The dwarf began to shuffle in a circular fashion, all the while emitting the same low whistle. Then he began a series of sudden jerky movements reminiscent of contemporary dance of the artistic variety. Finally
he ended with a mime of what looked like the preparation of an egg dish. The Alsatian was transfixed. As soon as the dwarf had finished his little charade he ran humming back into the thick of the forest. I looked at the Alsatian inquisitively, he snapped at me to pay more attention the next time and quickly resumed our path through the filth.

On our way we encountered two more such dwarf dancers
and both put on similar performances. I tried to pay more attention but remained as baffled as I had initially been. The third dwarf included a crotch grabbing section of some duration in his dance and the Alsatian finally felt obliged to
put a stop to it after five minutes of what was basically simulated masturbation.

On and on and on and on we walked I was barely conscious, just dazed and baffled and gibbering. I occasionally tried to question the Alsatian, but he'd just give me 'Shut up' looks and keep walking and I kept following because there was quite literally nothing else for me to do. It took me a while to notice that our pace had slowed and that the Alsatian was beginning to look furtively and apprehensively around him. When I did notice I felt
chilled, he appeared nervous and so in turn I felt terrified. He stopped in front of a low arch of branches roofing an avenue of black darkness. We stood at the mouth of this avenue for a while in silence, the Alsatian's triangular ears cocked this way and that, presumably picking up those
secret sounds of that other realm inhabited by animals. I finally asked the Alsatian in a hushed tone as to our whereabouts. He raised a silencing forepaw and whispered 'Here'.

Immediately following this utterance the ever present background sounds of the wind and the rushed whisperings grew louder. The Alsatian's eyes rolled over in silent reverie, his face taking on a sinister aspect. All at once
the trees parted, their boughs bending fluidly backward, some actually shuffled away. A large clearing had been created before us. The dog entered and beckoned for me to follow him. I looked up to see if there was a sky that the rag trees had hidden before. But there wasn't, there was
only a kind of absence. The light, wherever it came from initially, grew fainter as the wind grew louder, growling through the mix-match foliage. Soon we were enveloped in darkness. I called out for the Alsatian but there was no
response. I felt the wind gather and swirl about me, it had an acrid smell and I could taste it dank and fetid on my tongue. All was rank energy. I found myself overpowered. Suddenly I was propelled forward, my feet barely touching the ground below. I was released with a sharp jolt, falling
to the moist foul earth, I cut my hand on a broken gin bottle on impact. The wind receded and light was gradually restored. As the grove was slowly reilluminated and my eyes adjusted I was able to pick out the varying shapes
that now surrounded me.

There were literally dozens of those dwarf creatures I told you about earlier, varying in height and the extent of their gnarledness. Together they began a hideous choreographed dance. My fear subsided and I found myself giggling at these midgets and their dramatic flourishes. From amongst
the trees a line of chorus girl rag dwarves came high-kicking in fishnets, filth and high, shiny, pointy red shoes. They all gurgled.

As the dancing progresses it became more and more elaborate. Dwarves threw themselves through the air, others tumbled, cartwheeled, bounced. All was an orchestrated frenzied whirl. The Alsatian reappeared as one
of the chorus line, thrusting his hips this way and that, all the while grinning inanely. The dancing reached a kind of climax of wild feats and then stopped. The dancers stood rigid. Caught in a stasis of ridiculous attitudes. All
at once they emitted a unified low hiss and parted down the centre. A rumble and a crunching noise came from the shuddering trees behind them. A huge figure emerged, destroying vast tracks of rag foliage en route. How can I
possibly describe this being? It was everything, an amalgamation of all of my dreams, experiences, all of the palpable, material objects and subjects I had ever
encountered. It was the trees of the forest, it was the wind and the whisperings. My mother and father and a host of others embroidered its thigh, television sets flickered on its forearms, some playing emotions. Dinner remnants of meals I remember eating as a child, food packaging,
sweet wrappers glinted in its ear which was itself my grandmother's rocking chair. Furniture was embedded in its torso. School chums and girls I'd fantasised about in my youth clung mouldering to its person. My parents decomposed before my eyes. It was rotting,pulsing, rotting and renewing itself with more and more familiarities. It sat down at the outer edge +of the clearing directly opposite me, at such a distance that I could take in its gigantic
evolving and dying frame. It sat there hugging its huge knees, issuing a thousand noises like the fabric of the senses, of dreams. I stared at it for some time, it appeared to be allowing me to. Then slowly, very slowly, it opened its knees, a light shone from within, providing a focal point
in the shifting mass. The light contracted, forming a small figure, the size of myself. There, dead in front of me was my Barbara Cartland vision.

I examined it, walking a pace or two closer. All the details were in place as I remembered them, the grotty yashmak, the exposed and oozing crotch, but there was no face. I moved closer again and saw the indistinguishable pulp
and the flesh where the face should have been shifting and squirming. Fascinated I continued to watch as features slowly began to emerge. The face that looked back at me was my own, but it was twisted horribly into a snarl. So there I was, a half human, half yarrow plant wearing a soiled yashmak and leaking yellow at the crotch. I felt myself (this self) being dragged towards the image. It looked at me cruelly, its face shifting from a bitter grimace to a featureless pulp once more, except this time the colour of the flesh was different. It had taken in a distinctly orange hue flecked with mould formations, green, blue, white. It had become the cheese. The orange surface continued to contort and shift until it resumed the shape of my face again. What a reflection that was, hideous, vicious, malicious and mine.

The Alsatian reappeared (I had forgotten about him completely) in the dress of an antique chancellor, across his extended arms a slack velvet cushion was draped, placed on top of which were two long pointed sticks. He
approached myself and my cheese counterpart presenting us with these weapons. The cheese eagerly grabbed one, I followed suit. The gigantic festering heap creature pronounced 'To the death'. No sooner were these words uttered than the cheese pounced making wild swipes at my
head. I stumbled backward, ducking, and he just clipped my ear with the sticks point. A sharp pain raced through my skull and face. I regained my balance and prepared to defend myself. We circled each other tensely, waiting. His
penetrating, fierce eyes locked onto mine. Suddenly he lunged at me piercing my side. A torrent of yellow puss oozed from the wound. Disgusted I fell to the ground. He circled me like a predator for a while and then lunged once
more. This time I was ready for him. From my crouched position I swiped at his feet, bringing him down with a moist splutter, then I delivered the fatal stab straight through his bloated orange face. The light from those malevolent eyes dulled then extinguished. It was over.

The dwarf dancers re-emerged uniformly high-kicking and singing in unison in squeaky, scratchy voices: ' The cheese is dead. THE CHEESE IS DEAD. The cheese is dead. THE CHEESE IS DEAD.' The Alsatian came close to me and
whispered: 'Don't do anything until we meet again.'

All at once my surroundings started shrinking rapidly. The huge heap creature was transformed into a small sweating heap upon the floor of my newly restored room once more. The furniture regrouped and reformed. My desk, chair, bed, wardrobe, emerged from the mess of the rag forest. All
was peaceful and quiet.

I went into the kitchen, opening the fridge door cautiously, I found, to my immeasurable relief, that the cheese had vanished. I was safe. It was time to start anew. Change, progress, freshness. I was overjoyed to hear the Alsatian's bark outside, I rushed to the window to see that he had
been restored to his former shape, on all fours, dog-like. He looked up at me, catching the curtains twitch with the the corner of his eye, and wagged his bushy tail frantically. I slept soundly that night, having cleared my bed of its soiled sheets and miscellaneous rubbish. Finally I sat down at my
desk to write in my folio. I'm still writing now, revelling in my new found coherence. What next? My future intentions appear clear to me now. I will be a minimalist, a puritan of sorts. I'll never purchase or eat cheese again,
that's for sure.

^

Biography

From Dublin. 22 years old. Graduated last October from UCD: English Lit. Was previously published in Electric Acorn 7..