The Ouroboros, a short story
I'm very excited to announce that I have a piece of erotic short fiction published in the latest editoin of Rocker Magazine, which you can purchase here. I conceptualized this story when I was living in an old apartment of mine. The building that consisted of 2 walk-ups on a corner joined into one had caught fire in 2020. The fire was in a top apartment on one side of the building, while I lived in the basement apartment on the far other side. My apartment was left completely unscathed. Some of my neighbours at least experienced some smoke damage, or water from the fire being putting out, but nothing for me. Our landlord kept us locked out of our building for a little over 3 weeks. Red Cross had put me up in an apartment just outside of the city. I organized with my neighbours in the building, as well as some in the neighbourhood with the help of tenants' rights activists and pressured the landlord into letting us back into the building. The tenants of side of the building that had caught on fire couldn't, however, and years of slow renovations began on the building. I had loved my apartment, and slowly I started noticing changes. At this point, I was extremely isolated. I lived alone, and worked alone at my job strictly interacting with a single customer at a time, usually for around a minute. I had gone back to school to finish my long-abandoned degree. Between all of it, I spent most of my time alone indoors. I went weeks at a time without so much as a handshake or a hug from another person. Physical intimacy was feeling increasingly more foreign to me. At the same time, seemingly pointless renovations of my apartment had left my apartment feeling unlivable. Everything I owned was really covered in drywall dust daily. Anytime I masturbated I experienced intrusive thoughts of my building collapsing in on me, on turning myself inside-out, like what if I could pull myself straight through to the other side from my genitals. When I conceptualized my solo experimental project, I had thought I might want to configure it more as an audio component to my writing projects; reading my poems aloud and including sound design. I had asked my current partner early on in our relationship if he might be interested in scoring a recorded reading of this story when it was in its embryonic stage; and maybe we'll do that at some point. In the meantime, it exists here for you to read alongside some drawings and a collage that I made.