Snuff Fiction

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Authors: Robert Rankin
Tags: Fiction, Humorous, sf_humor
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could be done.’
    ‘So, she snuffed it, did she?’ said Norman.
    ‘No, Norman, she did not snuff it. She went home.’
    ‘That’s a pretty crappy story,’ said Norman. ‘And a pretty cop-out ending.’
    ‘Oh, it’s not the end.’ Professor Merlin shook his ancient head. ‘It’s not the end at all. I sat beside her bed and watched helplessly as she slipped away from me. I watched as that faultless skin began to wrinkle up and lose its colour and those eyes grow dim. She begged me to leave her alone, but I refused. I realized what I had done; how, in my greed, I had brought her to this. And then one night it happened.’
    ‘She
did
die,’ Norman said.
    ‘She
screamed!’
cried the professor, making Norman all but wet himself. ‘She screamed and she began to writhe about on the bed. She tore the covers from her and she tore away her nightdress. I tried to hold her down, but as I did so she fought free of my grip and it happened. Her skin began to come apart; right before my eyes, it fell away. She rose up before me on the bed and shed her skin. It fell in a crumpled heap and she stepped from it, beautiful, renewed and naked. I staggered from the shock and fainted dead away and when I awoke the next morning she was gone. She had left a note for me and when I read it I truly realized the evil thing that I had done in taking her away from her village.
    ‘You see, she was sworn to the Gods. When as a child she had been bitten by the king cobra her mother had prayed to Shiva, offering her own life in exchange for that of her daughter. The Most High must have heard her prayers and taken pity upon her. The mother died, but the child survived. But the child was now the property of the Gods and from that day on she never aged. Each year she shed her skin and emerged new born. The old man in the village was not her grandfather, he was her younger brother.
    ‘She had taken all the money I had made from displaying her and bought a passage back to India. I made no attempt to follow her. For all I know, she is probably to this day still in her village. Still as beautiful and young as ever. I will never return there and I pray that no other Westerner will.’
    We lads had finished our cigarettes and sat there struck dumb by this incredible tale.
    Norman, however, was not struck dumb for long. ‘That’s quite a story,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity you can’t prove any of it.’
    ‘But you have your proof,’ said the professor.
    ‘What? That the story is true because you say it is?’
    ‘What more proof should you need?’
    ‘You could show us the skin.’
    ‘But I have.’
    ‘No you haven’t,’ said Norman.
    ‘Oh indeed, my boy, I have. I had the skin tanned and made into a box. The one you’ve been eating the sweeties from.’
     
    I had never seen projectile vomiting before and I do have to tell you that I was impressed. Norman staggered grey-faced from the caravan and fled across the fairground.
    Several very large dogs gave chase, but Norman outran them with ease.
    The professor stared at the mess upon his floor. ‘If he made such a fuss about the box,’ he said, ‘it’s a good thing I didn’t tell him what the sweeties were made out of.’
     
    ‘What exactly
were
the sweeties made out of?’ I asked the Doveston as, a few weeks later, we sat night-fishing for mud sharks.
    ‘Beetles that bite, I believe.’
    I tossed a few maggots into the canal. ‘I don’t think I want to meet any more of your so-called uncles,’ I told the lad. ‘They’re all a bunch of weirdos and they give me bad dreams.’
    The Doveston laughed. ‘The professor is all right,’ he said. ‘He has the largest collection of erotically decorated Chinese snuff bottles that I have ever seen.
    ‘Good for him. But what about that tale he told us? Do you believe it was true?’
    The Doveston shook his head. ‘No,’ said he. ‘But it had the desired effect upon Norman, didn’t it? He’s a much nicer fellow now.
    And it was

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