Synopsis:
Marc Nash’s fifth collection of flash fiction is his most daring yet. Arranged around a school curriculum, stories range across several genres but all push the boundaries of what fiction can do in this the most short of story forms.
Tales of flea circuses, death squads, witch burnings, junky angels, thermal imaging voyeurism, blind lovers, drones, dying languages, poker tics, military bands and plastic surgery zombies…
Eyes In The Back Of His Hands:
My blind lover reached out to light upon me. I stayed as still and as silent as I could, suspending my breath so as to provide him with no clues.
I coveted the way he foraged to locate me. Without sound and motion, he zeroed in on my heat. The temperature of my blood. The cadence of my heart, audible only to him. Watching his fingers’ limpid search only further magnified it, pulsing like a beacon. Thus we mutely reinforced one another’s avidity.
In time, though our anticipatory senses had in actuality dismantled all incremental chronology between us, he attained the monolith of me. He clasped my face in his hand, gently dabbed his fingers to triangulate my mouth, before pinpointing his own lips to mine.
My eyeless lover did more than cup, contain and compass me. He carved me and hewed me from my block. His expert, unjudgemental hands moved to plot me, each a deliberate motion reforming the configuration of me. Willfully I shifted and writhed so that my flesh would never settle and present the same aspect. Making each handhold of my body a fresh exposure. My contours scaled and duly honoured, not as some milepost or waystation, but a sacred destination in and of itself. He graved me. Even with my eyes open, tracking his parabolas over my skin, I could not experience myself as he cast me with his tactility.
My sightless lover became my eyes for me. For in no other possible way could I grasp my own outlines. My eyes were shut as he revealed me to myself. Raising the siege of me. I enveloped his hands with mine and let him guide me over my unknown terrain of me.
*****
About the Author:
Marc Nash has published 4 novels and 5 collections of flash fiction. His work always looks to push right up against the conventions of language and narrative form. He has collaborated with video makers to turn some of his flash stories into kinetic typography videos, an exciting way to tell a story visually. He lives and works in London in the United Kingdom.
