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Emma J Lannie
Author: Emma J Lannie interviews herself 3 comments
  Q: What’s with the “J”?
A: The “J” is a divider. Without it I’m convinced my name sounds like a weird, elongated version of “Melanie”, which is not good.
Q: What inspired this story?
A: Looking up the wrong thing on Wikipedia.
Q: What helps you write?
A: Bourbon Creams.
Q: What hinders you?
A: Online Scrabble.
Q: What’s your favourite quote?
A: “Words not as precious things, but as necessary things.” Bukowski
Q: Anything else?
A: A bit – here.
Submission Date:
03 Feb 2008 Category:   Short story In Podcast and Chap-book
in my mouth

I have it in my mouth. I don’t think I am supposed to. It tastes salty and other things too. I don’t know why I do it. It’s not that I am hungry. I eat all my food. But every day I come out here to the garages and I put it in my mouth.

Sometimes I think that it will dissolve on my tongue. It never does though. I have to scrape my teeth against it to make a powder and I make my tongue white with it. And it contents me, in a mineral way. And then it is gone and my mouth feels like there was never any spit in it ever and I have to swallow for something like two or five minutes until all is normal. Then I go home and listen to the radio and when I do, I always have to have my finger ready on the “play” and “record” buttons, in case a song I love that I haven’t got on tape yet comes on. I have lots of tapes. The ones I like best are the ones that not only come with side A and side B stickers but also with other stickers. Like the yellow ones with musical notes or the pink ones that are hearts with wings. If it is an excellent tape full of very good music and with not much of the man talking over the song, then I put transfers on it and give it a good name. My favourite transfers are hearts that have letters in them. I have one tape called “Schools Out!” that is my favourite. I play that one quite a lot, especially the times when I want to just relax and not have my fingers on the “play” and “record” buttons, which I have to do if the radio is on just normally. So it is a break.

I watched a film with a really sad song in where the boy dies and the hooker he’d run away with is holding him and he says, “why is it so cold?” And then she cries because it is summer and she thinks he is going mad, i.e. near the end. Of his life. And I really liked the boy and wished it was me that was the hooker, but with my hair because her hair was ginger and Sally Allthorp has ginger hair and everyone calls her “ginger nuts” and “Duracell”, so I definitely wouldn’t want to have that kind of hair. But I got jealous of the hooker kissing the boy and I wanted to pretend it was me and so I put the film on and pressed “play” and “record” at the parts where the boy talks and says nice things with the hooker. I listen to that tape, which hasn’t got a name, just one of the heart transfers that has a number 1 in it (because he is my number 1 dream), at night through my headphones and it is almost as if I am the hooker. I didn’t do the part when he dies though. Just the song and then I pressed “stop”. So in my version we are happy forever. I think after “Schools Out!” this tape is my favourite.

There are other things that look kind of the same but I don’t put them in my mouth. I think that they will be too hard for my teeth. I lick the cement between the bricks sometimes but that is as far as I go. It is dusty but a different kind. One that has no flavour. It is just something to do. And I did it with soil once. It had gone hard like a little stone and it had a dusty look, so I went to scrape my teeth on it but it just broke and some of it fell down the gap between my lip and my teeth and it felt horrible. It dissolved though. Soil dissolves. But soil is also mud and that is not nice to eat. Because of worms. It is only the clay that I eat every day. It is grey and cool like pebbles. Sometimes I will hold a bit to my cheek and just keep rubbing it because it is so soft. It is so good it can make cups and saucers. But that is not why I like it. I like it because it is a thing that I need.

In hide and seek, I am always the best hider. After the garages is some grass but it is steep because the bottom part fell down but it is okay, none of it went on the railway line. If you climb down a bit, you can get under the grass so it is like a roof. And it is not soil there. It is clay. I don’t know how I first found out that it would taste like it does to me. I think I knew this all along. I love the part when my teeth scrape at it. It doesn’t hurt. It is a bit like if you did it with chalk but chalk gets all over you and makes you cough too. But it is the same kind of hardness.

I keep it a secret because I am not sure if it is normal and I don’t want to be a weirdo. If you’re a weirdo you have to sit on Paul Neelan’s table at dinner and he smells. Also, he has nits. Also, he has wee stains in his pants. So I keep quiet and never mention it.

Except one time I was hiding and Daniel from number 17 was hiding with me and he whispered I dare you to eat this bit of mud. And in his hand was some clay but he thought it was just mud but I knew and so I picked it up and popped it in my mouth and swallowed it. There was no time to do the teeth scrape thing. And I didn’t get to taste it properly, but it was still good, especially to do it in front of someone. For that he said, “you are cool.” And I knew it was because he thought I was good at dares but it still felt nice. After that he whispered I dare you to show your knickers when the train goes past. And I had on my knickers that have the dogs on them, which are my favourite ones and I also had a minute to decide because the train was not there yet but I decided I would do the dare because only the people on the train would see, not anyone I knew. So I lifted up my skirt and showed them all my dog knickers as they went past. And Daniel said, “you are the coolest.” And then we both went quiet and I was smiling and Daniel whispered I dare you to close your eyes and sit still for one minute, no matter what. And I smiled even more because that wasn’t even a dare for me. That was just what I did.

To catch me out Daniel put his finger in my mouth but it didn’t work. I kept my eyes shut tight. I could hear him counting 41...40...39 and then he took his finger out and put it back in. I was dying to laugh but I thought about the clay and about how statues were the stillest things ever and I thought about me being a statue, about all the clay dust inside me mixing up with my blood and then setting hard, turning me into stone.

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Zeke Iddon's comments
That was awesome! Not a word out of place... very atmospheric. 		11 Feb 2008
Jake the Mus's comments
I enjoyed this story, evocative and lonesome........... 		04 Feb 2008
Amanda's comments
You are so much more than a writer, sat in awe after reading and also messing up my last comments. you write like kurt vonnegut - damn you. 		04 Feb 2008


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