Showtime

Sammy Slabbinck

Al the Angle, poised, (as always, naturellement), high stylin’ but low ballin’, to strike, spiels his riff,
“Up, down, turn-around, edgeways or sidelined; every fucker has an angle to get the juices flowing until they flood. Do you feel me…?
“Yes? … I thought so. Very, very” (very is slowed to a hypnotic dragged down drawl, then a lull, an insinuating pause… …), “very good baby.
‘You know if you handle the cards that I deal right I might just let you, only might, mind you, I haven’t quite yet decided, come for me. Soooooo tell me my love, is it now time for that cunt to get eaten? I want to watch in the mirror every motion, absolution and devotion.”
SHOWTIME…the ever eager, devouring mouths merge momentarily before separating again, revolving and hovering in the absolute stillness until the lips shape the same word…SHOWTIME.
The Ingenue blinks on the stage trying to remember her lines. The audience can barely contain their restlessness. The words fail to form in the Ingenue’s mind and even worse she can’t for the life of her recall the part she is meant to play. Earlier in the dressing room mirror she had stared long and hard at her reflection before saying, “I know who I am, but who the fuck are you?”
The Melancholy Lieutenant, after travelling through a multidimensional shit-storm and worn down by horror zonal conflicts finds he is infra dig, even in Interzone, resorts to disembodiment; becomes the ghost in the machine, the flickering shadow at the intersection of alleys, the image fleetingly glimpsed in the corner of mirrors.