In the Flesh


"Try to sneak up on me," I wrote in Discord as I waited. From the raised balcony of a busy London terminal I scanned the crowd. Beside me, three strangers in bodywarmers and coats chatted with Thames accents. Lunchtime: the pub that occupied that balcony was doing a roaring trade. Hundreds of conversations blended to produce a beige, background wash.

Embedded in this hubbub I was nevertheless looking elsewh

This is
Wrong
by Andrew
London
Stars
fading but I linger on, dear
Still
craving your kiss
—Dream a
little dream of me
I'm
dreaming.
I furrow
my brow as I try to work out where that voice came from, and then the
thought slips away. I'm on the bus heading towards work, looking at
the adverts above the windows. The text melts and reshapes like ink
on wax, but this doesn't strike me as odd. Shop fronts pass by the
grimy window. The bus doesn't usually go this way but I don't find
anything odd with

Tantra
by Andrew
London
It turns
out that every woman is a demon and that if you have sex with them
then you become their slave.
This is
the kind of thing it would be nice to know right at the beginning,
Frankie thought to himself. They could put it in the life manual,
somewhere between Don't Pick At It and the bit about wearing
sunscreen. 'At the age of sixteen you will come of age and all women
will seek to bed you and alter you.'
Frankie
adjusted his wig and checked his makeup in the rear-vie