The Shine Journal

 

Revelata Dysmorphologia

 

by

 

Boris Glikman

 

 

It started out inconspicuously,

inauspiciously,

a small pimple

on the lower left of his back,

something that no one

would ever give a second glance at.

 

It didn't even itch,

so demanded no instinctive scratching.

 

But

it grew

and grew,

developing into

a small cyst at first,

then into a larger and larger one

acquiring along the way the powers

of perception, cognition, speech, reason.

 

It became more and more dominant

in the running of his life til

there came a point

when he realized

he had become

the boil.

 

 He now was the awkward,

ugly lump of shapeless,

useless flesh that needed

to be amputated

at the soonest possible opportunity,

discarded with other medical waste

or better still,

pickled and preserved

for eternity as a freakish

anatomical occurrence–

a talking, reasoning pustule

that apparently possessed

all the features of a well-developed human being.

 

He clearly saw how all this time

he had deluded himself

into believing that he was a real person

who deserved love,

companionship,

all the rights

that every member of society should possess

whereas

he was just a cyst

that somehow grew,

assuming the proportions,

the attributes of a person.

---

---

BORIS GLIKMAN is a writer and philosopher from Melbourne, Australia. He says, "Writing gives me the conduit to a world that is unreachable by any other means, a world that is populated by Eternal Truths, Ineffable Questions and Infinite Beauty. It is my hope that these stories of mine will allow the reader to also catch a glimpse of this universe." In 2008 one of his short stories was nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize.

My Motivation : "Revelata Dysmorphologia" is another one of my pieces that is based on a dream that I had and then expanded upon.

Photo by: Daniel Mohorovic