Cotard’s syndrome or when I became a zombie:

I slipped into the role quite comfortably. Some people are of the opinion (read the muse) that I am a drama queen, but I am merely capable of playing different roles superbly. Perhaps my imagination is just a tad overly dramatic and visually inclined, but what on earth is wrong with that?
“Hnnnhhhh….help me,” I groaned. I had my arms outstretched in front of me and my feet were dragging on the floor. I allowed my head to slump onto my shoulders and groaned convincingly. The Lexicon Dragon peered around the wall of her cave.
“What kind of language is hnnnhhh? It does not compute and I cannot find it in any of the dictionaries I have consulted.”
“Zzzzooommmbie ssssppeeeaaakkk,” I said, slurring the words.
“Are you quite allright?” she asked solicitously.
“Nooooo,” I answered, “I am decomposing and have the distinct urge to eat your brain, scooping it from your skull with a soup ladle.”
The Lexicon Dragon’s eyes went wide as she scurried back to her library, speed dialling the muse. The lady in question appeared within seconds, her hair covered in a zebra striped shower cap, her body wrapped in a voluminous bright orange towel. The ensemble almost turned me into a real zombie.
“Hhhnnnhhhh, a fatty brain,” I groaned as I lurched towards her. I fashioned my fingers into claws and grinned at her manically.
“Smell my decomposing flesh and quake in your boots, woman,” I added.
“As if,” she snorted. I felt quite disheartened at her blasé attitude towards my superb drama skills.
“Cotard’s Syndrome?” she asked and my bubble burst. She knew way too much, damn the woman. I kept forgetting that she could not be fooled- she was part of me after all.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/mental-disorders/what-is-cotards-syndrome.htm

 

“When have I ever turned into a frog?” I asked incredulously.

“It was all in that short story of yours, dear. What was is called again?” She snapped her long nailed fingers at me as if that would make the traumatised hamster speed up.

“What the cat dragged in,” she said with a pleased smile on her round face. “It’s in that short story collection you published on Smashwords. Turned, Touselled, Tested, Tourniquet…what was it again?”

“Twisted,” I answered wondering whose brain really needed slapping and frying.

“That’s it!  My memory is flawless, you know.”

I didn’t bother arguing.

“Isn’t this bikini the most adorable thing you have ever seen?” she asked as she waltzed past me jiggling everywhere. It was hard to concentrate when all her body parts were moving indiscriminately from one another.

“I look positively skinny in it,” said my darling Muse who has never been skinny except in one of those weird mirrors at the fun fair.

“It’s one size fits all and was discounted. You really should buy yourself one, dear it does wonders for the old self esteem and at the discounted price you would be able to afford it. You haven’t sold any copies of that Tourniquet book, have you?”

She knew I hadn’t, but rubbing my nose in it was one of the things she did extremely well. She had gotten the title wrong again, on purpose. She lived in my head damn it, she knew everything I did. Then it dawned on me that she probably pushed the hamster off the wheel in the first place. No wonder the hamster looked miffed. He only ever fell off when one of my more far -fetched stories sent him into paroxysms of laughter. She wanted to pop out and show me the bikini which I could only catch glimpses of. Half of the little material there was had gotten stuck in the rolls and valleys of her flesh.

She turned around and I experienced the full horror of it. It was a g-string bikini, though the string had disappeared into parts unknown which have never been boldly explored by man. To make matters worse the whole thing was a hideous metallic orange. I wouldn’t be caught dead in it!

I imagined my dead self lying at the front of the church in an ornate coffin. People would be dabbing at their eyes with Egyptian cotton handkerchiefs. Purcell’s funeral march would be playing sombrely in the background. At a signal from the universe or a moment of insanity the pastor would flick a switch. Disco lights and the booming bass of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody would fill the eaves, sending doves fluttering into the sky and pacemakers stuttering. Open would pop the coffin lid and I would be wearing the metallic, orange monstrosity and a feathered headdress.

A teaser of my new novel: Something evil comes…

 

Preface:

The long, auburn strands lifted in the cool evening breeze that whispered over the abandoned lot. For an instant she seemed alive as the gentle breeze fingered her clothing; playing hide and seek in the folds of her satin blouse, mimicking the undulation of breathing. Her clothes were dated for someone that young, as if they belonged to a different, moralistic era. The dark blue cotton skirt fell well below the knees; the chunky crucifix glittered in the scant light of a nearby street lamp. Her nails were freshly manicured, cut short and painted a pearlescent pink. She seemed immaculate except for the bruising around her ankles and wrists, the silent symbols of restriction, captivity and brutality. Deep puncture wounds bared testimony of the cruel, barbed wire. A gentle sprinkling of rust flakes decorated the walls of each wound.  Movement would have been excruciating; hell on earth.

Make-up had been applied to her serene face; she resembled a cheap hooker. Her lips were red sirens, her eyelids painted peacock blue with layers of thick mascara around empty eye sockets. The skin around the gaping holes was a vivid, traumatic purple. Dried blood clung like despondent bats to her upper eyelids. He had taken her eyes, the windows to the soul; the entrances of light. She stared unseeingly at the quarter moon, the light unable to penetrate those dark depths. She looked into eternity and saw nothing. Once the brain has died the impulses from the visual world have no means of translation and they become lost symbols of a parallel world; a world in which she once laughed and knew sorrow.

The breeze allowed her to breathe for a few more seconds before dying down. In the distance a dog barked forlornly, sensing the wraith like soul that stood over the body, tethered by the traumatic death. It would remain earthbound until the perpetrator was found and brought to justice; only then would it go towards the light. The dog howled, giving voice to the grief and solitude that hung over the area like a shroud.