Millennial
I'm a millennial, I try hard. Flash fiction by Sophie "Knox" Peters
I'm a millennial, of courseeee I have cuboid irises, thick legs, and acrylic nails.
(I'm a millennial.) I watch warships and retweets, and I hold gossip, where my prayer hands could be.
I take airplanes, I doom scroll, and I am not dissimilar to a heat lamp, a bowl of soup, or yes, a snowflake. I'm a millennial! I was told I could save the world.
Last week in the shower, I transmuted, (I’ll walk you through it.) To do this, you gotta squeeze your muscles tight, all of them, the ones you didn’t know you had. I did this and opened a door to the earth and called out. My silly little transmutation worked.
A man stepped directly into me, coughing. He entered through a small door at the back of my skull, the way one steps into an embassy. As my hands rubbed soap over my chest, I could feel everything that he felt, from the sharp bones of his arms to his tight dusty skin. I could feel him. He had arrived from an oily desert far away. He was war-weary, his eyes were burnt umber with yellowing whites. He was battered. His nails were thick as teeth, his soft hair coated in rubble, powdered with the grey dust I have been seeing on my iPhone, I could feel his world, and he could feel mine. He began breathing through my lungs, and felt my hands reaching for a sponge, my fingers handling Tresemé, he observed the shifting wobble of my flesh as I scrubbed, and stared through my blue eyes into new, white, washed, surroundings.
The man was exhausted. His liver had shut down, his abdomen was swollen. He was starving, thirsting, and bedraggled. His eyes had dehydrated and lost their roundness, you can imagine his sigh of relief, as the glucose in my bloodstream began to pump to his body as well as mine. He was fusing with my biology, his cells absorbing my water and my salts, I heard him groan with pleasure as warm soapy jets washed over us. As he drinks in the bright light of the bathroom through my eyes.
I'm a millennial, I try hard. And a good host, damn it. I must greet him. I fall back inside my head and the shower water becomes a distant, muffled thrum—I enter my skull like an apparition. He stands inside me still and hollow, knees wider than his thighs, his wrists jutting, head spindle on the skinned turkey-like arch of a neck. I lead him through the regions of my brain, the lyrical shape of my thoughts—until we come to a mental hallway. In front of us, there are two doors, wedged into the flesh walls of my limbic system.
One is small, the other large. I walk him through the large door. Inside is a messy bedroom. Toys, empty drug baggies, trash, and snack wrappers litter the floor. It was the remnants of my post-festival comedowns. The walls are red and humming with blood, they are coated in a sticky layer of song lyrics (I’m a millennial, of course, I listened to the Gorillaz, Britney, Beyonce, Red Hot Chili Peppers, MGMT, LCD Soundsystem, Tame Impala, The Killers, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine, and Rihanna.)
I tell the man to make himself at home, we share no common tongue, (besides the one between my teeth), but he understands. The only rule here, I explain, is that he must be gentle to the girl in the other room. The one behind the smaller door. I explain that her body is deceased, and she never speaks a word. I tell him that she arrived the day after she was sold to a billionaire (sold under the name of ‘1 Disney Princess: Jasmine’.)
I tell the man to do what he likes in my head but that unfortunately, I can’t give him motor control. I will be in charge of where my body goes and what it does, (and doesn’t do). He looks around my room at the drug paraphernalia and back at me, doubtful.
I tell him—you will be like a quadriplegic, able to see everything I do through my eyes. You can expect a reasonably long life if you decide to live within me. I don’t make so many bad choices these days. I don't exercise, my family doesn’t call much, I am single and I consume a lot of butter. You can count on me to feed this body and keep it watered, of course, everything inside me is in English and there are no religious texts (besides anecdotal Christian myths,) I might learn your language one day, perhaps.
He still looks as forlorn as when he first arrived, I notice his skin is a little less tight to the bone though. Furthermore, I can feel his swollen belly filling with the risotto I ate yesterday. I decide to leave him to settle in.
Back in my shower, I turn off the faucet. A little numb, wrinkled, unnaturally cool.
I wonder if there is a way I can take anyone else in? I feel that the man’s body has absorbed over half the blood I had to offer, and I feel tired. But nevertheless…I’m a host, I’m a saviour. I’m a millennial.
I wonder, could 8 billion of us witness this one, warm, steamy room? Just for a moment? I wonder what it would do to me, to them, to let everyone in?
There is one way to find out.
Sophie “Knox” Peters works extensively as a visual artist and writer. She made her debut in the Philadelphia writing scene a little over a year ago having previously made poetry and art in the swamps of New Orleans. She enjoys poetry that squirms, questions, and jokes. In addition to the award-nominated text/multimedia ‘Aftermath’, creative written work by Peters has been published by Thirty West Publishing, Red Noise Collective, Naked Cat Lit as well as in a book, Hibernation by Tatum Mann and by Zoetic Press. Peters has performed as a featured poet for Scribes on South, Poets Row, Bring A Blanket Reading Series, House Poet, Bullshit Lit Anthology Reading, Walnut St Library Coffee: And Conversations, and Ardmore Reading. Visit her on Instagram @knox_peache or her website: www.sophiepetersartwork.com
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