This body will become an island. These bones will fracture and erode to sand; and this flesh will float in an ocean of dark blood. It will become soft; nothing but vapour, compost. Hair will sprout from the long-repressed follicles that populate its skin until it is enveloped by a thick forest. Trunks will spiral upwards, their weight collapsing what remains of the rib cage.
Crawling arthropods with countless legs will ingest the body’s organs and lay their eggs under its fingernails which, overstrained, will shatter and slip silently away. A ring of teeth is poised to guard the tongue, which now lies wet and pulsing at the back of the throat. Only the bravest inhabitants of this island-body will venture towards the most muscular of organs that has become their twisting Leviathan.
The back will be green with algae. Limpets will cling to its neck, buttocks, thighs and outstretched arms, whilst shifting eels spiral under the pits of its knees. The spine will crack to form corals, breeding a deep community.
With good fortune, long-legged birds will fish the eyes from their sockets and hang them in the sky.
Originally published in Failed States issue no.1: island, September 2017. Photograph by Sam Williams
Sam Williams is an artist filmmaker based in London, where he studied MA Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. Sam’s work explores in-between states of being and the permeability of interior and exterior spaces. He is the recipient of the inaugural Stuart Croft Foundation Education Award.
→ sam-w.com
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