It Sounds Like 'Revulsion'

Another short story in the 1000 Faces of Elias Thorne pantheon

This is another iteration of the 1000 Faces of Elias Thorn initiative

Which has certainly….got under my skin.

Thanks again to Ian Patterson for coming up with such a furtle prompt.

It Sounds like ‘Revulsion’

The word is ‘Degloving’.

Is it? Thank you!

Except it says here that’s technically for hands.

Why would they do it with hands?

---

He wakes and he can’t see much. He stretches and yawns but something doesn’t feel right. He stretches and yawns again, still not right. No things are definitely not right! Where is the delicious soft-skin-scrape of his linen sheets? Where is the satisfying rise to wakefulness of a good hard yawn and the nubby click of the joint in the bottom left side of his jaw that he likes so much he sometimes just sits and opens his mouth snake-wide again and again, inhaling, making yawn noises making himself yawn, drawing the yawn out of the air, summoning it, conjuring it from nothing. That little click that’s not quite a click not quite the soft ‘phup’ of a fresh jar of jam or the feel-sound when you pop a chicken thigh bone out of its socket when you’re making soup from the carcass and snacking sly shreds ‘cos nobody wants the dark meat, the fools.

Something is not right.

---

Do you think there is a word for it?

Do you have to know?

Well…now that the question is out…

Isn’t it enough just to do the Business?

Haven’t we just done the Business?

Here’s a word for you: mission creep.

That’s two words.

Mission-hyphen-creep.

Hyphenation doesn’t count; that’s a compound word –still two words.

Are there rules for that. Is it written somewhere?

Probably. But it’s not my first language.

We are digressing.

You started it with the ‘mission creep slash mission hyphen creep’ business.

Speaking of ‘business’, stage two does require our attendance–

–YES YOU TWO, WE ARE WAITING DOWNSTAIRS, IF YOU WOULD BE SO KIND.

Ready then?

Yes. Ready.

Don’t drop your side like last time.

Oh shut up.

On three: one…two…

I’m going to look it up.

What?

For next time.

What!!

The proper word for it.

The proper word for what?

The business…this business here: The Elias Thorne Business.

Oh. Well if you must.

I do must. It’s only right, if one is going to do the Business, that one knows the proper words for one’s actions.

I shan’t argue further.

COME AT ONCE. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. THEY SPOIL VERY QUICKLY AND STAGE THREE IS FUSSY.

On three…One…Two…Three.

---

There is sudden light and then there is sensation but not what he expected, not what he was expecting at all just after waking up. He screams but it’s a silent scream, except in his head it is a real scream and inside his ears he feels that he must be hearing the scream –which is the scream of all screams– because of the pain –which is the pain of all pains– which rises from his chin all the way up his face all at once like a velcro nerve grind. He’s clawing with his hands, he can feel his fingers scrabbling and touching nothing. He can feel his head thrashing, but yet not moving. The scream is a dream screaming…the dream of screaming. Did he dream this last night? There is no movement, no sensation of anything but burning acid needles sinking deep into his entire face. Then the sweep of a red curtain and the hint of someone, something behind it, then all is dark again and the pain stops and the silence and absence of anything at all is sweet bliss. Bliss like bed time.

---

Regrowth is perfect! You have to hand it to them.

Do you think we should do step 1D before this part?

That’s not what it says in the instructions.

I know that, but just between 1C and 1D, there’s a few seconds…have you seen his eyes?

Can’t say I’ve noticed.

It’s like he’s aware that something is…afoot.

Not with all the interventions he can’t.

What if he can… What if he does feel it. See us?

Does it matter?

Of course! Suffering is not in the instructions either. We’re not animals.

Was that a joke? Oh do watch your step.

Why do they say that?

What: ‘We’re not animals’ or ‘watch your step’?

---

Morning again. Must be morning, he thinks. It’s light…yes it must be morning. The red curtains sweep open but it doesn’t get any lighter. Then he sees something. Somethings. Things he cannot understand. In his head he speaks and hears the words and he feels the mouth move but yet not move and no answer comes, no answer at all and his words become questions become shouts become screams and his arms move and his legs run but he doesn’t go anywhere and all he can do is look at the things that move the things –do they have eyes–gliding in and out of his vision and then he’s looking at himself but its not himself not quite himself because where are the eyes, and why does the mouth move like that and where are the teeth and why does his face crumple like plastic, like the helium balloon a week after his 50th, like a T shirt print he once had made that she used to wear in bed. Confusion and terror is also pain but not the pain of the dream of a scream at least.

---

There! I told you!

Let me watch it again….Yes. That is definitely not in the instructions.

That is not even in the repair manual!

Should we follow the instructions next time. That must be the best thing to do.

Aren’t you curious about the difference? It’s all in the eyes.

No. The Business is the Business. Curiosity is none of my business. Nor shoudl it be yours.

Well…I’ve done some research.

Why? What has got into you recently?

The research has.

‘Avulsion’ is that it? Or ‘Desquamation’?

What?

The proper word for it—for the Business. The research? You were going to look it up? I thought I would save time.

No. it was something else. But thank you! Avulsion seems closer - it’s a procedure; something being done, rather than a symptom.

I prefer the sound of ‘desquamation’: It sounds like what it is, squamous epithelium—

–It sounds more like ‘devastation’.

Well ‘avulsion’ sounds like ‘revulsion’. And we’re digressing again.

Well if they will make us this way.

I don’t want to do it this way next time. We have done it seven hundred and forty nine times following the instructions. Why change it now?

Interesting…I prefer to think we only have two hundred and fifty times to go.

Isn’t it better to think about what we have achieved?

Isn’t it better to see the task nearing completion?

Now that you mention it…I’ve just had a thought.

Me too.

What are we–

–going to do once we get to 1000?

That isn’t in the instructions.

No…What did they do with the rest of him?

The rest of him?

Don’t tell me you don’t know about that!

We don’t need to know about any rest of him. Ask them downstairs if you’re so curious.

They won’t know. I asked them about stage three and they had no idea.

Probably for the best. No point knowing things that we have no use for. Shall we?

I suppose so. Ready when you are.

On three…