The Last Know Statue of Eddy Daemon, image by Rupert M. Loydell
from
INNER SPACE GHOST MACHINE
the afterlife of Eddy Daemon
ATTACKED
BY DISTANCE
Eddy
is convinced his metallic side looks best,
the
robotic karma he has customized since birth
is
set to a repeat cycle of fashion, polish, spin,
downpour
reverie, shattered sonnets (no sign of
any
volta), a brilliant mind driven away from home,
ancestral
voices eclipsed by good-looking machines,
all
industry and noise. There is a route through
all
of Eddy's invisible stories, a sunlit clearing
in
the woods. But when and if you ever find it
you
will be attacked by distance, jumpcut edits,
a
volatile glitch, which will become your death,
a
permanent remedy for sleep, an unwanted return
to
the ghost harbour, a meeting with Fuzzlebeth
Crackleboy,
and a time slot for The Guessing.
Liminal
machines play on the levplatz, and you
can
forget all about quiet pillows in strange corners,
somewhere
shady to die, because you are bound for
intrusive
lights, active brain, night games with no feet.
Smile
for the camera, anaesthetic for the pain.
The
weight of this is like a glittering hand
writing
ageless isms, fever syndromes that
unlock
tunnel vision, best-forgotten memories
of
seashore and wet shoes, your life saved by
faces
in the sky, a broken mirror on the floor.
GRACE
NOTES
The
Archangel Zenophobe prefers it
when
there is not a soul around.
Miss
Tee is grey and floats between
the
goalposts of common sense and age.
Eddy
Daemon is a whirlwind spirit
who
often takes vacations in hell.
It's
warmer and he feels more at home
away
from the warmth of the Radiation King.
A
PARTIAL RETREAT
Millipede
erotica
and
the slow train home.
HURRICANE
JANE
Keep
your eyes on the boys,
you
never know what they're doing.
That
Eddy Daemon, he's a one;
I
don't know whether to lick him
all
over or send him home for tea.
Too
much commonsense makes for
dull
times, living dangerously can
get
you in a mess. All you want
are
the things I need, everyone
but
me loves Eddy Heartbreaker.
You'll
have to help out when
he's
gone, and when I'm gone
he
won't remember the day
Hurricane
Jane blew by,
covering
up the sun.
This
game has no name,
let
no man steal your time
under
false impressions
or
give you no good reason
to
ignite the star engine
and
take off for the sky.
Keep
your eyes on the boys
and
ignore this warning.
That
Eddy Daemon is the one.
HIDE
ME IN DARKNESS
Bacofoil
skin graft, basting ladle splint,
domestic
war wounds and anaesthetic bite,
white
spirit cocktails and chalk dust paninis,
stale
bread. The future was electric, the future
is
switched off. Eddy Daemon conjures light,
a
secondhand glow, as the dirt-grey sun sets
over
whatever planet we are marooned on now.
Battery
charm bracelet, wind-up pacemaker,
and
a petrol engine that runs on gas or might do
if
it worked. Eddy improvises, asks questions
he
knows the answers to, looks at Delta-Xeroid 5
bright
in the purple sky above and beseeches
the
Electro Angel for a room for the weekend
and
membership of the Hellfire Club. The devil
you
do, the devil you didn't, both conspire
and
corrupt. We pass the night together
as
the sun stands still and I experiment with
representations
of space and a piece of string
rescued
from the back of the kitchen drawer.
THE
UNMAKING (OF EDDY DAEMON)
First,
unscrew his arms and legs
and
stick them in the cupboard,
secondly
remove his heart,
place
it in the kidney bowl.
Ignore
the twitches and screams,
it
takes a while for life to fade;
no
anaesthetic is required.
Once
the body becomes still
the
head can be removed
and
the brains scooped out
into
the jam jar provided.
Spare
eyes are always useful
but
are not medically essential,
you
must see how you feel.
There
is a meat cleaver and
a
mincing machine in the shed
to
your left. Do what you must,
now
wash your hands. Break
your
pencil and pens, and then
discard.
Never write or talk
about
Eddy Daemon again.
There
must be no necromancy
or
well-wishers wishing well.
Eddy
Daemon is no more.
He's
consigned to the silence
of
an after-hours forgotten hell.
—Rupert
M. Loydell
