One Man’s Stomach

Written By: Liam Johns

Clancy sits slouched at the restaurant’s edge, spooning clods of fried rice into his mouth. Above him, the mall’s fluorescent lights hum, the smack of his lips punctuating their drone. With thyroid eyes he watches an old man swab at the floor. In the man’s ears sit two white earphones. From Clancy's own ear dangles a withered vine the colour of verdigris. 

To his left Elaine stands hunched over, her elbows perched on the countertop. She grinds her teeth and stares in his direction. She wants him—needs him, even. He sits up straight. Runs a hand through greasy hair. The vine rises and falls as if to grab a mote of dust. He swallows the last of his rice, wipes down the table with a serviette, and tucks in his chair. He nods at Elaine with a smile, her gaze fixed on the now empty space.

For the past three months, Clancy has visited Elaine almost every day, and after every meal he has taken the same route home. He leaves through the strip mall’s northern exit, walks east past the pan-handlers and buskers, then continues north again down a series of trash-strewn alleyways. Today he stops beside a dumpster and drops his pants, watches his urine slither into the concrete’s cracks and crevices. Nobody tries to speak to him. Even if they did, he would not realise. He is off with Elaine—has been since he stepped outside. They lounge together in his pent-house: she wears an oversized sweater, its collar stretched around one shoulder; he a pin-stripe suit, a gold watch clasped around his wrist.  She begs him to save her from the sad life she lives. Although in these visions he knows Elaine is beneath him, he still views her as his equal—if not in fortune then in their future together. 

He emerges in front of his apartment complex. He takes the elevator up to his level, watching himself in the mirror as it rises. Once inside, he steps over the bags of half-eaten fast food that litter his floor, their salt and grease suffusing the stale air. In his bedroom he shucks off his clothes and sweeps them aside with one foot. He crawls under the covers and closes his eyes and pictures Elaine naked next to him in bed, her skin smooth and her gaunt body hairless.  He lies on his hand until it goes numb and then he touches himself. He traces his index finger up his thigh and cups his scrotum and closes his fingers around his cock. The vine thickens and spasms. A warm puddle forms on his stomach, filling his navel. 

He sleeps without washing up.

* * *  

In the back of the butchershop, Clancy leans over the sink and watches the dirty water swirl down the drain, listens to the pipes gurgle and groan. He takes off his sweat-soaked cap and holds it by the brim. His fringe sticks to his forehead in wet clumps. He runs a raw hand through his hair and hangs the hat on a hook beside him. Above it an analogue clock ticks. It is six in the evening—thirty minutes later than his shift usually ends. He taps his foot and exhales. 

Soon the sink empties. He replaces the plug and shifts a stack of chopping boards atop it. He drenches them with dishwashing detergent and refills the sink with buckets of hot water. Wiping his hands on his blood-stippled jeans, he nudges the freezer door open with one shoulder. Along the wall, pig and cow and sheep carcasses hang from hooks. Only the hogs retain their heads, and as he walks past them, he slides his hand across the thick white hairs that bristle from their bodies. 

Beyond the freezer his boss sits on a metal table, her feet dangling a few inches from the floor. Briefly they make eye contact, and he nods at her as he sidles past. She turns her head and studies the store’s freshly swept tiles with a scowl. Behind him stretches a trail of grimy bootprints. He mutters an apology and lumbers out the front door, not bothering to fill in his time book. 

Outside, the air is chilly and crisp. Traffic rushes back and forth in front of him; people tramp home from work, the clacking of their shoes sounding against the sidewalk. Normally he would join their stream—let it carry him home, where he would shower and shave and change before visiting Elaine. But to do so tonight would risk missing her—risk arriving after her daughter has taken over the till. Then his night would go to waste. No—the last few weeks. For since the new year he can swear Elaine has fallen further in love with him. Now she talks about her life, and sometimes she asks him about his. She smiles when he speaks, and by the tone of her voice, he can tell she craves him. These thoughts make his throat dry, make the vine droop; they propel him toward the restaurant in his rancid workwear, the smell of rotten meat still clinging to his clothing. 

Every table is empty when he arrives. Elaine again stands hunched over with her forearms on the counter, staring into open space. The doorbell chimes as he enters. She starts and shakes her head. 

“Hi, Clancy.”

“Hey. I thought I might’ve missed you.” 

She looks him up and down, opens her mouth to speak but closes it again. “Aren’t you an accountant?” 

“Oh,” he says, gesturing at his uniform. “I took the day off to help my cousin. Both his dishies called out sick. He’s a butcher.” 

 She scrunches her nose.“Well, that’s kind of you.”

“I never could say no to family.” 

He scratches at his cheek, feels his skin prickle and grow warm. He squints. Elaine cocks her head to one side. The bones beneath her face seem to shift and scrape against each other; her nose lurches leftward then rights itself. Every movement emits a heat that erases the evening’s cold. He shuffles closer to the counter. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. The vine relaxes, sways above his shoulder as if stoned. 

“I’ll have the usual,” he murmurs. “The pork fried rice.” 

He fishes his wallet from his front pocket, but when he looks up she has already disappeared into the kitchen. He sits at a nearby table and fidgets with his credit card while he waits. She returns within a few minutes, and as she sets the bowl before him, he studies her features. Her nose has settled, yet now her jowls stitch in and out place, and opaque shadows twitch in their wake. He turns away and inhales, swallows mouthfuls of rice in silence. 

Half-way through his meal, Elaine slumps down at an adjacent table. She rests her chin on her hands, its point warping and flattening. 

“I don’t get it,” she says. “Why does nobody want to eat here?” 

He chews slowly, his eyes fixed on his fork.

“We’re in a good spot. We’re the first restaurant anyone sees. We’re warm and inviting—I paid someone to make sure.” 

He shifts in his seat, glances at her.

“This is a good restaurant,” she says, returning his gaze. “I make good food.” 

“You do. That’s why I'm here." 

She sighs. “One man’s stomach can’t sustain a business.” 

* * *  

Two days later, slats of orange light filter through his shutters and fall across him in bands, the afternoon sun strapping his naked body into bed. He groans and rocks from side to side and with every movement his sodden sheets cling to his back and buttocks. The vine lies taut and outstretched on his pillow. It has grown thicker since he fell ill, its color deepened to a dark emerald. Occasionally it sweeps back and forth, and wads of tissues coated in clear yet crusty mucus tumble from mattress to floor and land beside the already overflowing wastebasket. 

He props himself up on his elbows and looks toward the window. Out of the westering sun her frame materializes limned and hunched over. She trembles like a penitent, her hands upturned in front of her. Before his bed she says she wants him more than anything. He closes his eyes and when he opens them again she is knelt by his bedside, her bare shins deep in soiled tissues and her palms together in prayer. Begging him to fuck her, to make her his. 

A wet rasp escapes his throat. He shakes his head. A rivulet of sweat runs down his temple. Finally he says no—tells her she took too long, that he found somebody else. 

She wails and keens. Pleads for forgiveness. It wasn’t her fault, she says. She was too tired, too damn exhausted from work. He stares at her and shrugs. She slaps herself and claws at her face. Gouts of blood spiral onto the floor and sizzle and steam as Clancy hangs his head over the bed and vomits and his yellow bile sluices down the waste-bin’s side. When he raises his head the room is still and dark.

Eventually Clancy stirs, his lips cracked, his bedding soaked. The air is acidic; his sinuses burn whenever he breathes. With a groan he sits up and swings his legs off the edge of the bed, his knees cracking as he stands.  He stumbles down the hall to the bathroom and switches on the light and studies himself in the mirror. The vine has grown thicker and fuller. From base to head its skin has started to split like a frayed stitch. From its tip: a pink flower now unfurled.

Beginning at his ear he traces a finger up the vine’s body. Slits of soft, wet flesh now sit interspersed along its length. When he reaches the flower he retches, the room reeling around him. He closes his eyes and grips the basin, breathing in short, ragged breaths. Just stands there until the room steadies itself. 

After a while he shambles back to the bedroom, his left hand groping the wall for support. Nearing his bed, the vine starts to thrash and flail.  He grimaces. It wants him to find her. He can feel it. 

“It’s too late,” he says. “She’ll have shut by now.”

The vine yanks at his hair. He whimpers and grabs the first pair of pants he can find. He puts them on without any underwear underneath. On his way to the front door a pubic hair catches in his zipper.  He leaves in some old sandals and his lone corduroy jacket. 

Later he sways at the edge of an alleyway, watching the street that runs opposite the strip mall. A few feet away she walks beneath cones of white light. She sniffles and wipes her eyes with a tissue. Translucent lesions now stipple her exposed skin. They form a latticework of pustules that line her face and neck and hands. His penis grows hard and rubs against his zipper; its metal makes his hackles stand on end. He calls her name. She quickens her pace without looking in his direction. 

When she disappears from sight he cries. The rest of that night he spends crouched by an overfull garbage bin, his face buried in his arms. 

* * *  

Early afternoon. He wakes to the vine lying across his pillow longer than ever. Now even in his dreams it tells him what must be. Renders him dominating Elaine, her thanking him for his love and kindness. Now it forces him from bed and from the apartment out onto the open street, down to her restaurant in last night’s workwear.

Inside, Elaine stands naked centre of the seating area. Her lesions protrude like hernias. They shift in place, their contents rising, swirling, and falling, the skin tugging back and forth beneath them. She gestures him over with her chin. He approaches slackjawed, the vine undulating in the air. She takes his hand and places it upon one breast before guiding it over the rest of her body. Behind his hand the liquid in each canker begins to congeal, and soon they grow into gnarled brown buds. His fingers linger near her cunt, inching toward the heat that pulses between her legs. 

She takes him by the arm and leads him to the kitchen door. A white film separates them from the other side. Beyond it the kitchen sits empty save for a single bed and a carpet of mold that stretches soft underfoot across the concrete floor.

 Far-off, he hears her tell him to strip. Yet when he crosses the film’s threshold he sees himself already naked. Sees his head buried deep between her thighs, the vine sprawled atop her stomach. Then she grabs him by the scruff and yanks his head back. Smeared all over his face is the ruddy dust of now burst buds.  He looks down and realises he is flaccid.

Across the room he staggers forward. He watches himself crawl onto the bed and penetrate her, the vine squirming overhead. His breath hitches. He draws nearer and places a hand upon his own shoulder. Briefly both watch Elaine arch her back; briefly both smell the dry-rot flow from the folds of her skin, hear the behemoth moan that wells from her throat. But then only one remains, and leaning over her only one comes. 

He seizes—falls face down on top of her and thrashes, arms and legs aspasm. The vine writhes. It kicks and jerks and bursts. From his ear a cloud of spores coils into the room. He stumbles backwards and topples onto the ground. Fingers of mold brush against his bare ass. 

From Elaine’s body a low hum beats the room in waves. The sound enters through only his right ear. From the left a stream of  black viscous blood trickles down his cheek. Under the spores her skull pulses. The left side stretches out, the right collapses in. Now the left deflates, sags past her shoulder over the edge of the bed down to the floor. That sack of skin frays and snaps. The room lurches on its side and shatters. Shards of what were once Elaine’s restaurant cascade around him, more and more space growing between each clatter, and through their interstices he sees for a moment her leaning over the counter, her black hair obscuring her face. 

Liam Johns is a graduate student at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He lives with his rescue cat, Boomer, and writes horror fiction in his free time. His favourite authors include Laird Barron and Livia Llewellyn.