Tagged: Alex Grass

Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

An Influx of Vermin

There’s a nasty dead rat on the tabletop. It’s dried out, like roadkill left on a desert road during a drought. A balloon-shaped snifter hits the table, the burning spoon goes flying, and cognac soaks the rat’s tail. The air is dense with fumes like old furniture and dried fruit. The rat’s tail fattens like a dry paper towel eating up a spill.

No one else watches, no one else notices, but fascination keeps his eyes on the rat. There’s a creaking sound like a branch groaning just before it breaks. The rat’s eyes open. The rat looks at him.

A Wriggling Purge

The woman’s flesh looked like someone took a cheese grater to it, unevenly scraped off her eyebrows, scalped her, dragged her lips from her face. I’ve seen her walking outside Emory University, and today I saw her when I pulled into the Headquarters’ parking lot off off Clifton Road. I stopped my car and rolled down the window. There aren’t that many people to talk to anymore; beggars can’t be choosers.“Afternoon,” I said.

The woman smiled. Then she started retching. I was about to perform CPR. But I was paralyzed by the sight of her mouth spewing out rats.  

The Bubonic Transfiguration

People used to kill each other over this place. There’s blood in the stones, soaked into the ground. The sun rises over the temple wall. It reminds the boy of the floating ball illusion; the sun is the magician’s ball, the limestone wall a two-thousand year old prestidigitator’s rag.

The boy thought he was the only one alive who didn’t have a tail like a worm with fur. Then, the old man came and started praying. With each day of supplication, his head worn raw from pressing it to the stones, the old man changed. He became like a vermin.