I enjoy it when my more strange stories find homes—especially when they’re meaningful. This story is weird and gross and pretty all at the same time. With it, I tried to capture what it feels like to have urges you can’t control—the very same urges I try (with varying success) to suppress every day.
Yep. It’s an excoriation story, and with it come content warnings for skin-picking, mentions of blood and, due to the theme of the anthology, body horror. When I describe this story, I do so with six words: excoriation disorder, but make it pretty.
When I saw the submission call for Crawling, I took a chance. I had a story, a story that fit the call perfectly, I thought, except for the fact that it was ever so slightly too short. Luckily, Cat Benstead, editor extraordinaire, was gracious enough to let me submit anyway. Luckier still by far, Cat Benstead, editor extraordinaire, thought it was a great fit too.
If you would like to read a story that might make you want to curl up like a woodlouse while also thinking Oh, hey, the prose in this is lovely, here is my humble offering.
It begins with an itch at the base of her neck. Deep, probing. If she can just get past the skin, the muscle, right down to the bone she can pluck it out and clasp herself back together like jewellery. A pretty necklace, slipping red.
This, she does not do. Instead, she roves her wardrobe for a distraction—something rough that makes the itch seem superficial, surface—and pulls on a puce turtleneck, so high that even when rolled, her jaw sits on its top. If she opens her mouth, it squeezes her throat, so she does not open it.
— ELOU CARROLL, “PEELING BACK, RIGHT
DOWN TO THE BONE”, CRAWLING
elou carroll 