A Portrait in Flesh
By Michael C. Thompson


I found him there, in the kitchen chair. He was sitting upright, his body stiff with rigor mortis, his dead eyes gleaming murkily out, looking at nothing. He was me. At first, the shock of the sight pulled loose my mind from reality. It couldn’t be true. It must be… a dream? That was my first thought. It couldn’t have been something that was actually happening to me.

I approached him with caution, firstly hoping that I would snap out of the hallucination or wake up, and secondly in a mild terror that the thing would re-animate and either begin to speak or outright attack me. His face was as mine - each mark, or line, exact. The only difference is that a certain electricity, the energy of life, was present in my own visage. In this abomination, there was nothing but lifeless, human wax.

I touched first his - my - hair. My hands went through it, and it felt as my own does when I touch my head. A strange sense of déjà vu set in on me, then, but as I always do, I ignored it. A dream, I kept reminding myself, only a dream could account for such trickery as this. A dream, or a drug, and I had partaken in none.

“What are you?” I asked, expecting no answer, and receiving none in kind. The corpse only continued to stare, stuck in my dream, a symbol, or a reality - the difference I could not tell. No other would I invite to reflect upon this strange happenstance - who could I share this secret with? And perhaps it is a hallucination, what then? Others will know that I hallucinate my own corpse, sitting at the kitchen table?

What could this mean? I do not believe in demons. Long ago, perhaps, I felt their influence - but time has revealed to me the source of this magic. I have decided, in my own perdition, that demons are nothing more than scapegoats of human invention, miniature devils that only reinforce belief in a larger devil. One that does not exist, no more than his counterpart, the almighty God, exists either.

Still, this image, of my own dead reflection, was unnerving enough for me to consider it’s source as possibly Satanic. It so shattered my expectation of reality that all circuits of logic shorted in my mind. I could not think in the terms of a rational man, for no rational man would ever see his own corpse sitting before him.

With the departure of my rationality so inevitably broken, I began to pray - aloud. “My God… Father in Heaven…” I started. “What is this abomination before me? Protect me, oh Jesus Christ, protect me, son of God…” I was babbling, making it up as I go along, but at the time I felt as though it was from the heart. I suppose that it was - my terror was rather authentic.

The vision before me did not waver. The corpse only sat mutely, maddeningly, looking so much like me that tears began to well up in my eyes as I contemplated my own death.

Is this what would become of me? This strange, lifeless thing, no more than a doll of flesh, soon to rot? Whoever - whatever - animated this body, it could not be gone more than a few hours. The death appears fresh. The body, although cold, does not feel as cold as it should be, as though the life has recently departed. So what is this thing, then? I wondered. No answers came to me.

“God, are you listening?” I childishly asked, as though a booming voice would speak from Heaven, soothing me, taking away this monstrosity from my sight. When no response from God came, after I waited for a longer period of time than I would have believed possible, I decided once more that God does not exist. Moving past the bizarre fantasy of holy protection from the illustrious father, I began to wonder once more what might have put this strange thing before me.

The devil? If God does not exist, how does the devil? No demons, I decided immediately, could conjure up something like this. Not only because they do not exist, but because if they could, it would happen more often, and people would hear about it. At least, one might think so.

I tried to take refuge in this idea, but it collapsed on me. Demons, I decided, would have to be rather unconventional. But if God does not exist - for surely, if he did, he would answer my prayers for salvation from this wholly unnatural vision - then how could demons possibly exist?

These contemplations were unusual for my mind, which normally would ignore such silly ideas in favor of musings and contemplations that, although (in my estimation) more intellectual, still fail to resolve the ultimate question of existence just as miserably. Philosophy, although just as useless, is far superior to religion. Both revealed their uselessness to me as I faced the novelty of this situation.

I tried one last time to speak to the thing.

“How did you get here?” I asked him.

Just as I expected, I got no response.

I stared for one good minute longer, and then I turned, walking to the staircase leading to my bed. If God nor philosophy could solve my situation, I decided - perhaps in my own sleepiness - then the situation hardly need resolution. And so, as I walked away, I called to the abomination one last time, not turning to look at it.

God had been silent, and so had the corpse. Sleep, however, had been calling. At least one seemed worthy of my attention.


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Michael C. Thompson has had two short stories published, both speculative fiction. The first, entitled "Bulletproof Faces," has been re-printed once in an anthology, and is entitled "Bulletproof Faces." The second, "Aldo," appears in the Summer Edition of Icarus magazine.