This short story was originally published in the literary magazine extra teeth May 2022 issue 5. It was inspired by south korean artist nam june paik’s ‘cow head’ photograph, displayed one summer in the tate modern in london. i understood what i saw as ‘beef bunting’ and it was all i could think about for some time, so i wrote this story.

the story inspired the cover of the magazine.

Severance

extra teeth, May 2022

Later the heads will be removed. Though now you find yourself squatting underneath a string of beef bunting; torn sheets of bovine flesh amidst feathers on the walls. A cow head dangles high in the air, suspended on strings above the toilet. You squat and tense your muscles to avoid contact with the seat, eventually giving up and accepting that germs are the least of your worries tonight. Like jelly slipping off the edge of a porcelain plate, your body relaxes, flesh flowing to meet the uncovered raw rim of the bowl. An arm like cheese wire cuts through the bathwater to your left, which draws your attention for the first time to see a woman in the tub, holding her breath under murky water. You stand up and walk over to take a better look, then tap gently on her leg. She juts out of the water suddenly, gasping for air, laughing.

Nodding towards the suspended cow’s head, you say, ‘I was a little tied up with something.’ Water splashes over the edge as she jumps out of the bath. She doesn’t lift a towel to cover herself, trailing a series of red-tinged pools on the floor as she leaves. A half empty bottle of shiraz lies on the carpet beside the tub. You lift and pour it in. The water and wine gurgle and gulp together, swirling into a rose taffeta silk flowing in the currents of its own making. A laugh erupts from you as you think of The Shining or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Either way, you like the appearance and consider filling a glass with tub-wine.

The bathroom carpet feels threadbare to your bare feet. Sashaying with one arm winged, you stretch to rest your fingers on the cow’s head and pull the wire taut, tighter. The head sways, and like a buoy on the tide you move in time with it. With one swift motion you pull the strings hard, freeing your new bovine friend whose hair is prickly on your fingertips, the skin tough and leathery to the touch.

Dipping the head into the bath water, you wonder if it can be rehydrated like a plant, soaking up the liquid through the cilia-like fur. You submerge the head. Everything looks better underwater. The pink hue adds to the effect, being the exact same shade as Instagram postsof rich young people. Of nights out in fancy cocktail bars with exclusive booths, everything gold and pastel pink tinged. Or like yoga studios. Or Easter egg hunts.

You have to remind yourself that this is a cow’s head you’re holding; it’s not for likes. You do like this though. The power of holding something’s head in your hands. Two hours ago, you were dancing. Now you’re elbow deep in a stew of wine, water and petrified beef.

*

Hours earlier in the back of a cramped taxi, the night is yet to begin. You consider whether it’s wiser to stick with cheap wine or switch to beer. Entering the club, the lights shine in quick succession between blue, pink and green. A uninterested man takes a crumpled twenty from your fist and files it amongst the others beneath the lid of the ticket desk he sits at. Throwing your chin over your shoulder, you indicate that it’s to cover you and your friend, who follows close behind glancing with agitation towards the crowd. Tall and overbearing, the bouncer looks you both up and down. An unconscious bodily reaction shivers through you, though you are not cold. ‘Somebody must have walked on my grave,’you say in jest. He does not search you this time.

Inside the club, you push your way through back-to-back bodies, making your way slowly towards the bar. Sticky sweet smells of splashed tequila and squeezed lime waft from the counter, soaking into your purse as you press your body against it. You order four vodkas with a dash of lime, throwing one back immediately to take the edge off the butterflies building in your stomach.

Sardined into a toilet stall, the two of you rotate to fit in like a puzzle.The lid bangs shut as she kicks her shoes off in the toilet cubicle; one scuttles just under the dividing wall. She hoicks a small bag from her armpit – tiny enough to be a sandwich wrap for a pixie – which balances sweetly on her palm. ‘A wee taster’, she says through a tight grin, before rubbing it on her gums. Much like food on a plate at your Mum’s house, you have an ingrained desire not to leave a single molecule in that bag. You both make short work of it over the coming hour. Another vodka finds its way to your hand, though this time as an ornament. Filling yourself up, you leave your body for the night.

*

At 3 a.m. you exist on the periphery of yourself. Stumbling out of a taxi, your feet land heavy onto a gravel stone pathway which rolls long up to a solitary house. An applause of woodland blows just beyond the hedges. Specularite night-sky announces that you are no longer in the city. You link arms – it is hard to say whether it hinders or heeds balance – as one tows the other to the door. Stones crack underfoot, making your strides unsteady. The wooden door is propped open like a welcoming host. A cow’s head suspended by string sags low between the doorway’s shoulders. It partially blocks your entry, and you are forced to limbo underneath it, a swift tilt of the hips to enter into the house.

Inside, the light feels like soft satin, revealing the contents with a seductive secrecy. Carpeted stairs ascend, doors remain closed, the house whispers to you. A deep green velvet armchair holds a person; he swivels towards you. He has a face like a long-forgotten favourite meal; you cannot place this nostalgia. A low buzz vibrates in the air; the hairs on your arms respond like antennae. Music, possibly. Or the hum of electricity from the kitchen fridge.

The air is thick with heat, and the man articulates without words a ‘make yourself at home’ sentiment. Stepping out of one stiletto, your bare foot presses the tile; the sharp cold meets the heat of your skin. The room spins as the vodka – and the contents of your friend’s wee baggie – floods your head. Spinning on your heel: Fuck, where did she go? She was right there at the taxi. A spritz of cold sweat settles on your skin. You feel suddenly dehydrated, a mouth like the Sahara on you.  Stumbling down the hall, you reach the bathroom, and squat on the seat. Here you are introduced to the first of the heads and the woman in the bath.

Returning to the corridor, peering around the first doorway, you notice people sat cross-legged around screens, multiple, strewn around the room. Clinical-bright light reverberates off the white walls, bouncing back on the faces of the people, scattered like marbles. The glow pulses its intensity on and off. The shrill noise climbs higher, an electrical screech so intense it feels physical in your ear, a small drill through your drum. As if listening to music, the people sway as they stare into the screens, their powder pinktunics softly creasing and flowing. They must have left a red sock in the white laundry.

Out of thin air, the armchair person appears directly behind you. Petal-soft, his hand settles on your forearm as he looks everywhere except at you. A thud echoes around the room as a woman flops onto her side and vomits. Everyone laughs, including you and the armchair person. Torrents of yellow liquid flow from her mouth, pumping out of her in heaves. Emptying her internal inventory onto the ground. Gagging now, she inhales, coughs and splutters. The laughter continues as the pool grows around everyone’s knees. As the mirth settles into silence, you see the woman violently shake and then still.

The armchair man kneels, and you sit with him, scanning the room for the person you came here with. The crowd’s faces blur into one. Fluffy-memoried, your body prickles with panic as you can’t remember which one of them it was. They all look so familiar, like tracing paper copies of one another; their differences are miniscule, intentional. You try to remember if you met one – or all? – of them on a Tinder date in Starbucks or at that call-centre interview in the hotel near the Gasworks. Sweat glistens on your body. A wave washes over you as you feel that each of them is more wonderful than the last; you do not have the words to say so, but you stretch yourself and fold around them. With each new hysteria, their faces contort, showing neck tendons extending like wings. You do not hear what they have said, but you laugh anyway, stretching an arm out to feel their soft downy feather-like flesh.

A woman throws fistfuls of candy like a penny arcade splash. Over and over again, she pushes the sweets into a man’s open mouth. He is not swallowing, so she grabs his throat and closes his mouth. A firework display of yellow, red and blue scatters the air as he regains his breath and spits on the floor. You look to your right; the stain remains, but she is gone. You peel the layers of polish from your nails. Chipping away at the ochre, like nicotine stains. The beautiful remnants of bygone parties. You smile, and hope nobody sees.

Surveying the room, you notice that each of the televisions plays a different scene than when you entered. On a screen a few steps away, you see a homely orange glow emanating, like an oven at Christmas. You step towards the screen. Amongst the glow, you see her: there she is, your friend. Coal mascara smudges on her cheeks. She is pulling curtains from the windows of a dingy, sepia-toned bedroom. Her mouth is open, her eyes strained shut, holding the material to her stomach. Turning her back on the window, she peels off her clothes one item at a time and rips them like paper. She sprinkles the rags over the floor. She lifts a jerry can, sloshing the golden liquid over her skin, before she pours it over the pile of shredded cloth. A spark emanates from the end of a matchstick; the room becomes an orb of light, which absorbs her until she is gone. Fuck.

Fast and thick the panic comes on you. Nearly as quickly, a torrent of vodka and mixer makes its way from you to the tiles. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He’s behind you again, but this time blocking your exit. In the other corner of the room, a group of people are making decorations out of carcasses: leathery heads with dull eyeballs; hooves; bunting made of feathers and pelt. They are quietly laughing, in preparation for festivities yet unknown. From a doorway at the far end of the room, a man appears with a cow’s head, which he delights in lifting high above his own like a trophy. You run.

*

Bursting out the back door, you run. Knees high, twigs crack like limbs under your bare feet. There is no sound but that of the sighing rustle of leaves in the wind. You keep running among the trees, noticing in your peripheral vision that bonfires are dotted around the woods. Glowing faces of people. At full pelt you run into one gathering, though they are gesticulating and responding to one another; you cannot hear what they are saying, only the crunch of the fire.

As you stand among them, the mud underfoot sticks to your bare feet, soft and gritty. You flex and contract your feet to feel the squelch between your toes. The undergrowth bubbles thick around your waist. Leaves bouncing off your hips, like claps from an encore audience. The noise of the fire builds to an unbearable symphony, your body drops to the ground. Folding in on yourself, you look left and right, hunched, scared. Slowly standing, you see a sea of glowing televisions settled within the greenery.

            The forest floor erupts into tar-thick bubbles, with tree boughs snapping like toothpicks then falling into the soupy ground. An arched back pushes through the surface. The reverberations underfoot intensify. A banshee unfurls, dripping in sludge. Reverently, the bonfire people move towards her, their mouths creating a semblance of a scream. There is no noise except the howl from her. You, too, fill your lungs with air, but cannot hear a sound of your own.

            As quickly as it began, the mound has been absorbed back into the earth. You hear only the breeze. As if in offering, animals lie burned and dying all around you. The people float towards the carcasses, severing the heads before carrying them back to the house. You cannot stop yourself from following, lifting a skull as you approach.

Back inside, blinking takes a lifetime; each eyelid weighs a tonne. You cannot fathom how long you have been here, how long you have to remain. You don’t remember the last meal you had, but you are sure you are about to imminently be reacquainted with it. Open your eyes, the room is dark. There is not a sound around you. If there are people here, they are silent. Hello?

*

Feeling along the corners of the room, you dig your nails under the thickest edge you can grab, tugging at it until it gives way. The edge of the carpet juts towards you; you lean back with all your weight, and pull it over you. Limbs heavy with tiredness, you settle onto the floorboards, and feel as if the ground is swallowing you. A lightbulb flickers on and the silent people enter the room and tuck you in, holding the carpet duvet over your arms as tight as a swaddled baby. Your exhaustion does not allow you to call for help. A pulsing hangover begins to wash over you. The need for a Lucozade and a chicken fillet roll to bring you back to yourself is overwhelming. But two of the people begin to thrash their feet at the edge of the carpet, directly beside your legs. You notice that they are taking edging steps from the outer length of your body to your head, sealing in perimeters of the carpet. The last vision you see of the decrepit room is a man spooling thread around his hand, while he looks away from you. You cannot speak, as they begin to fold the carpet over your head. Now mummified in fibre and pile, the darkness invades your eyelids, open or closed, you are unseeing. A piercing screech reverberates around the room, like nails on a chalkboard. The pressure eases from your sides as the carpet canopy loosens, footsteps falling away like stones skimming on water: you are free from your cocoon, but there is no way out.