Teetering between comically pathetic and genuinely heartwrenching, this story recounts the surreal picaresque existence of a seemingly inanimate object, born from the chance encounter of an octopus with the mermaid on the prow of a decommissioned ship. The sconce is stolen by USSR soldiers, sexually mistreated, sold, sold again and so on until even the author loses sight of him. He has emotions like loneliness, pain and longing for his mother but no control over his destiny. The bizarre footnotes about a boy with sardines for fingers and women finding severed fingers in sausage tins also enhance the sense that this is a world in which anything can happen to anyone regardless of whether they are believed. The tale captures with great acuity the sensation of living through history both as spectator and unwilling participant.
First published in The Doll’s Alphabet, Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017
A Personal Anthology 