Even if you don’t know much about Jonathan Lyon, one thing you’ll soon know is that he wears big furs and is stylish in a very artistic kind of way. I first met him in Shakespeare and Sons. He read a piece that was as polished as it was graphic and twisted. A short story that started in a comfy kitchen setting with a talking toaster flirting with the microwaves and gradually turned into an incubus of of extreme violence.
Born in London, Jonathan Lyon has made the bold move everybody in London is always talking about: he lives in Berlin! Last time I checked, he was finalizing his latest manuscript for a novel. He gave us permission to present this short breath of his new writing, so enjoy:
Flies swarmed out in a stream that soon filled the room, clouding the lamps, crawling down sleeves and into ears, multiplied into a plague by the mirrors that baffled them. The crew howled and spluttered, dropping their tools to beat them off. Flies covered Stella’s nose and lips and hair but, blinking, she kept her head over the casket with the light of the camera behind her – to stare upon her own face.
Her own face inside the casket, below her, calmly preserved, eyes shut. It was her own body, or exactly the same as hers, but another, a double, below her hands, embalmed in palm wine and incense, wearing the same cheerleader costume, same red leather heels, same earrings. It was her – fewer flies emerged now, having fed off the honey that infused the bricks of money she lay on – her flesh undecomposed.
Stella reached down to stroke her own skin – mildly cold – and as her fingers felt along her stomach, she noticed there were slits above her kidneys. She felt under the top – larger incisions above her heart and lungs, as though the organs of this second her had been exhumed for harvest. The stacks beneath her body were of $100 bills.
Find Jonathan Lyon here.
