On a mild day in late March, Professor Cavanaugh
sat on his padded rolling chair organising the various objects which coated his
desk. He scooped up a collection of assorted paperclips and pads of sticky
notes and encouraged them into a basket held at an angle at the edge of his
desk before tucking it lengthways into the drawer. The Professor always worked
better with a clean desk, and there was work to be done today. After he was
done, the Professor would need to take the spare data collations back to the
lab, and then make it back upstairs for his eleven-thirty class.
As he was walking, the Professor noticed a
strange feeling on the roof of his mouth, almost as if he had grazed it on a
sharp piece of food; he had no idea. He was still running his tongue along the roof
of his mouth as a student stopped him in the hall.
âProfessor Cavanaugh?â, she was older for
a second year, maybe in her mid-twenties, and if the Professor were to be
honest with himself, he had no idea of her name. She continued, âSorry sir, I
was just wondering if we had class next week, seeing as the other group wonât
have their lesson on Friday.â
Right,
the Professor would need to put a notice up soon, âNo, Iâll make sure to let
everyone know by this Thursday.â He chewed on the inside of his cheek, feeling
the irritation move backwards in his mouth.
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âThank you!â she seemed to have started
walking away before she was even finished talking.
Distracted, the Professor kept along his
way, still chewing on the inside of his cheek. The feeling had moved again,
farther back and behind his back teeth. He could not decide if it itched or
not, but now that he had begun paying attention to it, it seemed to bother him
even more.
Later, the Professor was back at his desk,
reading through a syllabus change for the following year. He had forgotten
about the feeling in his mouth while he was teaching but, at that moment, it
crept back into the inside of his upper lip. Why? He began digging his
tongue into his lip, pushing the feeling around. Had he eaten something?
Minutes went by before the feeling settled
once more, but only for the briefest of moments. Irritated, Professor Cavanaugh
pushed the syllabus away, taking the back hall to the janitorial bathroom downstairs.
He leaned over the sink, avoiding the patches of water littered over the basin,
turning his head back and forth with his mouth open. In that moment, he thought
of himself like a clown whose mouth waited open for a ping pong ball at a
carnival. Despite the amusing thought, Cavanaugh saw nothing in his mouth. He
took his thumbs unceremoniously shoved them under his upper lip to expose the
pink flesh that was, unfortunately, no more pink than normal.
Sighing, Professor Cavanaugh ran his
finger along the inside of his upper lip again, feeling for something,
anything. In the most irritated patch of his mouth for that time, the Professor
felt several tiny raised bumps, but perhaps his mouth was covered in them, if
he really felt it. He checked his watch, four oâclock, almost time for him to
go home. He must remember to post that notice.
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The Professor stared at himself in the
mirror once more, this time at home. He had been home and showered, feeling
better having washed off the heat of the day. He still felt hot. The feeling in
his mouth had evolved to tingling, and sometimes even â at the most unexpected
times â a burning. The bathroom door was open, and the Professor had already
confided in her, or perhaps complained, about the feeling. She had
half-jokingly told him he had âone of those wormsâ that get under your skin and
crawl around.
âDonât be silly, Bianca.â Professor
Cavanaugh had teased her for her hypochondria, âbesides, worms slither, not
crawl.â, but the thought played on him. He did not sleep well that night.
The feeling came and went over the next
few days, appearing spontaneously to bother the Professor and, with just as
much spontaneity, disappeared. Sometimes, it would disappear for hours at a
time, and sometimes, it bothered him for as long. Blessedly, the Professor
found that if he did his best not to disrupt it, the feeling would settle.
Still, it bothered him, and with persistence.
On another of his staring matches with the
feeling in his mouth, he scratched at the area in hopes of opening the protrusions
and willing them to spill their irritating contents. It stung, and he bled
slightly, coating his mouth in a metallic taste, but he was sure he saw a flash
of white under the broken skin. This appearance would not be strange, if it had
not disappeared a moment later. Professor Cavanaugh felt sick, had he just seen
something move inside his mouth? Inside the inside of his mouth?
Weary of the irritation, the Professor pulled
open the second drawer with once hand, one hand still pressed into his bottom
lip, holding it away from the rest of his mouth. He rummaged for a moment
before finding the sharp end of the metal utensil for which he had been
looking. Prying his lip away further from his teeth, he dug the tweezers into the
wound he had made a few moments before, attempting to grab the thing he had
seen. It was gone. Dejected, the Professor set the tweezers on the basin and
waited for the thing to return to the front of his mouth.
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The next morning, a Saturday, Professor
Cavanaugh had his upper lip pinched between his thumb and forefinger and
pressed against the side of his nose. Bianca was out that morning, her yoga
class. He was pricking and prodding the invisible tingling with the tweezers,
breaking the skin and sinking the sharp ends of the tweezers into the wound to
pull the thing out. Drool seeped out of the open corner of his mouth and
Professor Cavanaugh leaned further over the basin to catch it in the sink.
Eventually, the Professor had worked the
entirety of the ends of the tweezers under the skin in his mouth. The pain became
searing, and more blood came the deeper he went. Desperate, he kept digging. Finally,
his efforts paid off as he squeezed the tweezing ends together underneath his
skin and pulled them out, slowly, pulling some of his mouth with them but not
wanting to let go of his prize.
When it was out, Professor Cavanaugh
stared at the tweezer ends, his hand still clamped firmly on the handle of the
small instrument, lest the creature caught in the end managed to squirm free. It
was white, tiny, just barely taking up the space at the end of the closed
tweezers, and it was moving.
Not seconds later, the Professor felt the
tingling return, now damp compared to the stinging in his upper lip. There must
be more than one parasite in his mouth. Thoughts crept in of a whole colony of
worms living in his body, thousands of them. His skin began to crawl. In the
mirror, he could see that the right side of his mouth was swollen, and his
teeth were stained red like he would see in the movies.
Professor Cavanaugh was overcome; he had
to get rid of this feeling in his mouth. He dumped the tweezer in the sink and
ran the water over them to be sure that the thing was gone and pried open his
mouth again. The feeling had moved again, and the Professor was forced to make
a new incision in his cheek. Using the tweezers once more, he began digging.
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Soon, he had found the creature, pale and
exposed due to the broken skin inside his cheek. The pain was worse than it had
been in his lip, but the Professor was determined to get it out. He had a hold
of the worm and was twisting the tweezers inside the wound in an attempt to
free it from his mouth, his eyes watering. Suddenly, it came free, sending
shockwaves through the entire left side of his face, through his neck. He felt
dizzy.
The blackness faded away as Professor
Cavanaugh came to. He felt as if a great tiredness had come over him, and a
great heaviness too. He lifted his hand to his face â which had already begun
to throb â only to find that his arm had stopped about half a foot above the bed.
The Professor looked down at the restraints around his wrists. Not yet fully
conscious, words floated to him from the other side of a curtain pulled shut.
âMrs Cavanaugh, I am afraid he will have
to be admitted.â
He recognised Biancaâs voice, âI have no
idea what happened, all that bloodâŠâ
âWeâve stopped the bleeding. Heâs on some
pretty heavy sedatives.â
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Blackness.
Again, the Professor blinked, awake, more
awake this time. He could no longer hear his wife. He wanted to scream, what
was going on? Adjusting his eyes to the light, he realised the whiteness of the
room. Again, words seemed to drift toward him, this time from a farther place. It
came to him in pieces.
A different voice, ââŠtweezers. I
donâtâŠsaid the levator anguliâŠlost some function of his jawâŠâ
It all returned to him, the worms. The
pain. Drowsily, he listened.
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ââŠtore his tendon rightâŠcouldnât imagineâŠâ
a young Australian author who picked up writing as a hobby and fell in love. Enjoys profound writing that strives for an emotional response from the reader most of all.
Continuing our AI journey from last time exploring Little Red Riding Hood herself as the Big Bad Wolf… All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
How very… Phantom of the Opera predatory… this is definitely not what I had in mind. Maybe something more cutesy?
Ugh. Maybe not.
Wow, that seems like such a cop out, cropping off the head so you don’t have to depict it. And I don’t want to lose the Little Red Riding Hood reference completely.
So no surprise there, I knew that was too many references to work.
And as promised in Big Bad Poetry, we shall embark on our next AI journey, this time looking at Little Red Riding Hood. I had wanted to depict her as the Big Bad Wolf one and the same, although maybe not so big nor bad. But it just wasn’t happening quite as planned. All of these are based upon the AI generated art and prompts using NightCafe and then created as posters in Canva.
So I actually like this even better than my original vision, it is playful and even a bit serene (especially given the Sinister style). The wolf is just being a wolf. It’s quite lovely, really. But it wasn’t what I had in mind, so I revisited the idea later to see if I could get that result…
Over the river and through the wood flashed the fleet-footed Red Riding Hood on her way to her âgrandmotherâsâ house.
When running past, who should she see but just one of the little pigs three cowering like but a tiny mouse.
âBut my dear piggy, what do you fear?â Red Riding Hood asked as she slunk near, teeth hidden under a sheepish smile.
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The nervous small pig looked up in fright and decided that Red was alright, missing the subtle clues by a mile.
âThe Big Bad Wolf, that horrible beast upon the other wee pigs did feast!â the last little pig said with a squeal.
Red Riding Hood laughed with a great growl and threw back her heavy long-robed cowl, in a vast terrifying reveal.
For she was really the wolf Big Bad hidden beneath the cape that he had stolen from Red Riding Hood at point.
âAnd now Iâve caught you too my pretty and surely tâwouldnât be a pity if I gobbled you up in this joint.â
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Tâwas then the wee pig leapt to his feet And cried, âBig Bad Wolf, I shall defeat, for I am no ordinary swine!â
The little pig also wore sheepâs clothes spun in spells every woodland witch knows; Old Granny herself was quite divine.
âNow give me back my granddaughterâs cape, before I grab you by your ruffed nape and send you pig-squealing down the roadâŠâ
The wolf dropped the cape and ran, that cur, but Granny was swifter and hexed his fur and the wolf she turned into a toad.
Thus the moral of this story goes, when in the woods, no one really knows what sheepish sheepâs clothing is a ruse that big bad wolves and old witches use.
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So this is actually an intro to my next AI art journey with NightCafe which developed from me not getting the results I wanted (Little Red Riding Hood herself as a wolf). Here’s a preview with Eric’s versions as he is much more literal in his prompting than I am, but where’s the fun in that? đ
Prompts (from left to right) in Dark Fantasy style, executed Aug. 1, 2023:
Bipedal wolf in Red Riding Hood’s cloak
Bipedal wolf in Red Riding Hood’s cloak close up portrait
Bipedal wolf in red cloak close up portrait
Portrait of myself with dark makeup and crow skull headdress, backlit by the sun.