Cutworm (an earlier experiment; w/ Michael Woods)

He bites the flash until the spirit is cut away and the pupils dilate until whole eyes turn into travelers inside televisions. He climbs over sacks of squid ink until an idea turns into a ladder of frequencies and he enters the lighted virus and begins replicating the blossoms at the peaks of the towers. Throughout the body of the electric nomad is a monster with gills and hair made of tentacles.

He finds peace in the asphyxiated stare of lost land mine eyes. They’re all alone for miles; the plane is dead still but for a single cloud of dust as it wraps its decaying body around a sagging palm tree. A sad stray dog licks the wind and bricks and trees… A hooded skull smiles and reaches with one hand towards the eye… Distorted echo inside the skeletal amplifier attached to the daydream which reality forces to be crumpled into a thinking mound of meat…

"Free me, please," says the land mine. "I never wanted to kill. I can’t help it that my touch alone kills."

"You were put there for a reason," Mr. Dawson responds.

"What reason is that?"

"You and I both know exactly what you’re doing there." Sounds melt and crumble past Sonic gestures dance and brawl Frog rolling in a powdery drug Easiest truth Violence is Cheap.

"Do you know what I’ve seen? Do you want to know what I’ve seen?"

"All part of the job, sir; nobody said it would be easy."

A rusted Japanese voice interrupts them over the intercom. "WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL EVERY SURFACE IS SOAKED IN BLOOD."

"Do you hear that?" the land mine says. "Do you understand the mindset we have to endure to participate in this thing called war?" Mr. Dawson doesn’t respond. "Let me show you, human. Let me show you what I’ve seen."

It starts with a fat tongue and a swollen tonsil stuck in his throat. He feels his stomach sag and sink into his spine, the heavy vomit crash and lunge for his lips; digestive juices, sweeter than wine, trickle through his mouth, burning, searing flesh.

Now acid prongs engage and tear skin from bone; he’s exposed and open; heart pumps black blood, flows through broken ribs and drops into the deep desert cracks, washes over the grim smile on the land mine’s face.

From the silence of the plane gunmen emerge and the placid field becomes a torrent of bullets and bombs. Planes litter the sky like hail and tanks sweep the ground while they scream Violence is Cheap with closed mouths.

"All right, all right!" Mr. Dawson says. "I’ll free you! Just tell me how and I’ll do it, I swear! Make it stop please make it stop…"

For a moment the scene flickers –

"Pull me out of this ditch and cast me into the ocean."

"What ocean –"

"Just do it."

He stoops over, eager to stop the screams of firearms and tanks and bombs. He runs his fingers along its coarse metal skin and explo –

******************

"What did you see?" asks the man, still holding the syringe.

"War."

"How did it make you feel?"

"Violent." He puts his lips to the man’s right eye and sucks hard until the eyeball pops out of the socket and into his mouth. He rolls it along his pallet and swallows it, scrambled brains cling sloppy like undercooked eggs.

The screaming temperature rises… A modern shower of marbles and punctuated orbits… Mr. Dawson’s face is numb and he is dressed in melting diamonds… He saw videogame villains hidden behind his eyelids as the devil knocked on the door…