The ideal is somebody comes over. They don’t have to be sexy but should at least be cute. They have delicate hands. They are holding a claw framing hammer. They wear something with polka dots. They move calmly and directly, not hurried but succinct. They climb into my bed. They massage my neck gently, let my head relax into the pillow. They brush my hair aside, pat it down until the rondure of my cranium is clearly visible. They hammer my skull until it cracks like an egg. (I’m well aware the pressure inside, the wetness of the bone, and the connections to other tissues will not make a real human skull crack like an egg, but this is my fantasy) and inside is a thick black-red pudding of brains and blood. It gets on the hammer. The pudding flings about the room as the hammer goes back up and down again. They smash my skull and its brain until the shape is gone. The assailant is clean. Their polka dots are unmarred. The hammer is filthy but they are clean and I am at peace.
Remy Autumn Torres is a writer and performer based in Portland, Oregon who has worked with Monkey with a Hat On, Gender Bomb, and Twilight Theater Company, and has been published by Nailed Magazine, 1001 Journal, Spider Web Salon, and others. They worked for three years as a bookseller at Black Hat Books in Portland. Their work explores anxiety, delusion, revolution, and the conundrum of having a body whether you like it or not.