And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed And each in the cell of himself ... [+]
Sydney Sackett is a speculative fiction author and poet pursuing her English major in FSU, Maryland. Some of her work appears in Menacing Hedge, Blue Marble Review, MONO., and Not One of Us. Find her at https://sydneybsackett.wixsite.com/website. "Asymbiotic" is in Short Circuit #09, Short Édition's quarterly review.
Like pasteboard, the seeping planks buckle underfoot, marked easily with fingernail or jagged branch. A cool fungus stench that prickles throats, let off in filmy pockets when another door eases open. Decay fruits here from the kitchen, sore, spore-forested, to the bathtub film of yellow mold and bedclothes thick as brocade with a mossing mass of gray. Warped and off-hinged, cabinets open onto murky pickle jars, crusts of black tomato sauce, pungent lumps, and other delicacies unclaimed even by the fuzzes that have bled inside the house's flesh to feed.