Nicked

by M.T. Anderson

There are those who would devour us; and worse, most of us live by devouring others without ever knowing our sin. We must watch what goes into our mouths and what comes out.

Nicephorus nodded solemnly. “To know you.” “I don’t want to be known.” “I know.”

Remember, when you are trapped in this life, that often whatever liberates you, whatever transports you, must drag you by the hair to yank you free.

“Then you’re going to fucking die,” said Matteo Tradonico, who did not have a practiced ear for rhetorical niceties.

We each own a skull that identifies us, an attribute we carry. We are all our own icon, our own avatar; an idol made in our shape, haunted by a spirit longing to intervene in the calamities we witness.