Galatea

Galatea

Aphrodite has conceded to his delusions. She devours his offering, gluttony possessing her as she sucks on its bones, digging them into the crevices of her inner cheeks. The scent of charred meat still lingers at her grubby fingertips as she bounds me in silk garments that clasp around my figure like an iron clamp.

A ravenous wave of agony swallows me whole. It rolls me around in its tongue like a pampered cat with its yarn, and crunches down at jagged intervals languidly, brutishly canines penetrating into the austere white of my body. The pain clings onto me with the permanence of varnish to wood as all I can do is stare, paralysed by the tides’ hauntingly ruthless gnawing. The fabric cocoon tightens at my arms, digging into the glassy surface like a burrowing rodent - chipping at the cloudy ivory, pieces flaking away like the dry skin from his blisters. They crumble to the ground, assimilating into the sediments and dust that enshroud his cesspool of a workshop. Cracks continue to contour my body; drilling into my shoulders, my torso and my legs with the insatiability of a satyr. It crackles in the same timbre as the fire he cooked his sacrifice in.

A discomfort contracts and expands from within me, my hollow chest erratically pounding at the torment of a fleshy dampness crawling its way from underneath the cavities of my fracturing encasing. It engulfs my disintegrating snakeskin, spreading across my physique in its place with the same tireless wrath of mould. Skin propagates on every corner and crevice of my surface like parasitic fungi; the sickly beige usurps my ruptured ivory, clambering upwards my frame as barbarously as a starved carnivore. The silk fabric sympathetically censors my mutation.

The door opens. And just as the last patches of skin and muscle embed themselves onto my diseased body, he enters - gaze fluttering towards me like a bewildered moth to light. A heavy silence permeates the air, before the corners of his mouth stretch upwards his leathery face as he inches forward, calloused hands cupping my cheeks. Repelled by his darkening expression yet with nowhere else to turn, I stare at the girl hazily reflected in his eyes.

Brunette curls straying from the delicate braid wrapped around her head dangle curiously above her forehead. My face flushed with unbridled fury translates into a baby-pink tint of embarrassment in hers that compliments the rosy hue of her parted lips, freckles delicately decorating her expression. Her dress hugs her form elegantly, glistening under golden rays of sunlight. With a roughness equivalent to sandpaper now grinding against her lips, she melts into his arms, entranced.

My stomach churns in disgust.

Sylvain Chan

Illustration by Sylvain Chan