Author S. K. Nicholas

x and i: a novel

a journal for damned lovers vol 1-3

Anxiety

  • Neither I Nor X

    There are bones in the garden. They rattle in my sleep and play tunes upon my teeth, but once I wake, they’re as dead as the pets they once lived within. The ground’s frosty. When I place my feet on it, my balls go rock hard and tiny. As tiny as Elton John’s Tiny Dancer,… Read more

  • Not X and I

    Notre-Dame burns and there are piglets on my mind, so many juicy, well-fed piglets. They burn too. Like a scrunched-up newspaper stuffed through someone’s letterbox and set alight at three in the morning down some quiet cul-de-sac off the beaten track. It’s one of those mornings where you drift for hours on end not quite… Read more

  • Electric Blue

    The birds cut through the sky like a one-armed scissor slicing through velvet. They parted the electric blue curtain and X followed, laughing, singing and dancing as if she had never before done any of the three. Kicking off her shoes, she ran upon the grass leaving footsteps of flowers, for wherever she went, she… Read more

  • Flaming Sun

    Fetching the clothes scattered about the ground, I found myself shifting between two worlds; between what had been and what had yet to become, and all the time her song was a tidal wave, drowning me in love. Getting dressed as quick as I could, the summer sun beat upon my burnt skin. The pain… Read more

  • Spiritual Womb

    With Herbie sitting in the palm of her open hand, X spun in circles and the world spun with her, as did the stars and the planets and all the moons, for she was the centre of all things, just as she always had been. With his little paws raised high to the sun, Herbie called… Read more

  • The World Spun

    With her name escaping my lips, I opened my eyes to view a sky that knew only the meaning of beginning. It bore the face of God, and the face of God was just like my own. Not as ginger, mind you, but similar. Getting to my feet, I raised my hands as high as… Read more

  • Warm Air and a Sneeze

    Before she opened her eyes, she felt the hot kiss of the sun on her face and the mild sting of burning flesh on her bare arms and legs. There was birdsong too, and a gentle breeze that tickled her the same as the blades of grass that swayed this way and that around her… Read more

  • Before she crossed over, X was in synch with all things to such an extent that the strange and spirited girl we have grown to know and love vanished in the blink of an eye. Little Herbie, too. There was a time when to disappear was what she craved more than anything, but this was… Read more

  • 80’s Beat

    On her tail as she fizzed and sparked came the distant call of windchimes, and I knew it wouldn’t be long until the way station delivered me to the place which I belonged to above all other places. Years had passed. So many calendar days peeled away since I’d last gazed into those tricky brown… Read more

  • Invisible Tongue

    X kicked her spectral feet, and so did little Herbie, and as the two of them swam in a moment that had no beginning nor end, she felt him so intensely. He was in every atom, and although she couldn’t make him out among the many orbs that twinkled and shone, she knew he had… Read more