Clause

1. Sometimes I feel like I’m filtering the world through my body as I sift further and further down to some sandy bottom, some sea floor of beginnings and endings where everything is alive or becoming.

2. I took a walk along the ocean floor, as was my afternoon habit, to see what there was new in the world and I happened upon an odd sight. There were two mouths gaping open. One hard and surrounded by millions of teeth, and one softer, pale. Almost non-existent. Since there were two of them, I asked the mouths collectively what they were doing.

One let out nothing by a little trickle of water and enzymes, spilling out its digestive fluids through its mouth-anus. The other one said even less. It just raised its two front fangs and grabbed the soft mouth in is claws and shuttled away.


3. There was a boy, a death and a paintbrush.

4. Welcome to my swimming pool, the little girl said to the little boy.

The little boy looked warily at her, curious and frightened by her eyes, which were an odd mixture of black and red.

Who says this is your swimming pool? The boy demanded, his flippers hanging from his slack hands. He had wanted to swim all summer and was excited when he looked out of his apartment building and saw the entire street had been replaced by a swimming pool. He had raced into his bedroom to change out of his incredible hulk pajamas and put on his aquaman bathing trunks.

He hadn’t been expecting a girl to be in the pool, though. He turned to go back into his apartment building, but it had disappeared, too. And the longer and longer he stood outside, the hotter and more dry it became. The boy started having problems breathing.

I think I’m dying, he said to the little girl, in between gasps of air.

It’s because you need to be in the water, she said, pointing to his skin. He had grown see-thru. His veins pulsed, his muscles articulated. But he slowly saw himself fading and becoming more translucent. He rushed into the water and immediately felt better. Even though he was far below the surface, he felt like he could breathe.

He turned around to thank the girl, but she was becoming something, too. She was growing more arms and legs and her skin was thickening, growing hard. He lost words and memories, but he still had hunger and fear.