Vermiform
Parasite! Parasite! Parasite!
Vermiform
Congratulations on your newly purchased Stupendix and welcome to the Ithax® family! Together, we’re building the human of the future. This short manual will guide you through the initial set-up of your new organ.
Warning: Once the installation process of your Stupendix has begun, it must be finished to completion. Terminating the installation prematurely may result in a rejection and Ghost Organ Syndrome (GOS).
Step 1: Press the sync button on the Stupendix External Transponder provided with your procedure discharge. Simultaneously, open the Ithax® mobile app and scan for nearby organs. Once synced, your new organ will automatically begin installing and updating software, firmware, and drivers. Your organ will take over from here!
Warning: Some Stupendix users have been known to experience pain during the installation process, including pinching, aching, tearing, rending, and stinging. Rarely, Stupendix users have experienced vivid night terrors, haunted by the sac of tissue that once clung to their large intestines.
Step 2: While your Stupendix completes the set-up process, use the Ithax® mobile app to browse and preload over two thousand Stupendix compatible modules available on the digital marketplace. Become a wireless hotspot, enjoy body temperature regulation, or subscribe to CDC approved BioLinks©.
Warning: In rare instances, the body resists, shuts itself down to suffocate the alien within it, a fatal sacrifice. In especially rare instances, the body surrenders, becomes compliant to the wormlike machinery inside, subservient to lines of code hidden in the carefully arranged transistors and circuits. The body obeys.
Step 3: Enjoy!
Did you know that the scientific name of the appendix is “Appendix Vermiformis?” To be vermiform is to resemble a snake or worm, which the appendix, of course, does, but it also extends to literal worms, like any of the roundworms parasitic to humans. There’s something so incredibly frightening about the idea of being a host to a parasite, and especially being a host to a behavior-altering parasite, and that idea feels like the engine to this microfiction (which was written, though didn’t make the cut, for Apex Publications’ Strange Machines: An Anthology of Dark User Manuals). The call had some interesting perimeters: a microfiction in the form of a user manual, FAQ, or how-to guide for the use of/by robots. I often find that setting “rules” and constraints can make for more interesting writing, or at least more calculated writing.
Speaking of behavior-altering parasites, I’ve been watching Scavengers Reign, and I’m obsessed. Scavengers is an adult-animation sci-fi show new to HBO or Max or whatever it’s called now, and I’ve been describing it to friends as “Moebius illustrating a Jeff VanderMeer story,” but it’s really so much more. I was surprised (and so happy) to see that it also veers into eco and body horror territory. The show follows a group of space freighter crew members who are scattered around an alien planet after their ship is damaged. The crew have already been surviving for several weeks when the narrative begins, and by the end of the first episode, their way off the planet is already in sight. But the planet is as brutal as it is beautiful, and the flora and fauna is unforgiving.
One creature, a parasitic amphibian-sloth-monkey… thing? uses a kind of telepathic mind-control to use one of the survivors for… well, I think that will become more clear later, but part of its manipulation comes from projecting visions of the survivors wife to him.
Another creature, a large bug/roach, climbs into a host’s egg-sac to eat the eggs.
And there’s even a parasitic fungus that gains more and more control over a surviving robot as it spreads across the robot’s motherboard. What’s interesting about the robot—Levi—is that as the parasite gains control, Levi seems to be gaining a kind of conscious.
The show rules, and there are extended shots that highlight some new and strange alien creature or plant or anomaly in a way that makes it feel like a Planet Earth-esque documentary that I really love. It really feels like anything can happen. I’m looking forward to watching the rest of the season play out.
The bangers continue to come over at hex. The last few we’ve published, “When We Became Trees,” by Danai Christopoulou, and “Spin Cycle,” by Judith Osilé Ohikuare are both so fun. Danai’s story is a creepy eco-horror story that envisions and end that… honestly doesn’t sound too bad? And Judith’s prose poem is a dreamy wonder about a washing machine that holds more than expected. Both have that sense of the weird that we love so much at hex. Check them out if you haven’t!
I think that’s all for this week. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do for the next post. It will be a surprise. Tune in November 10th for… something?
-Dan