Published in Dream Journal, October 2020.

“The rustling had become painfully loud. Pain seared through my ear as it ripped and widened to make way for whatever was about to burst out of me. I could hear my cartilage cracking from the inside. Suddenly there was an unbearably hot pain as my ear split open and a thin, hairy leg poked itself out of my ear canal, blindly searching for a foothold on the tattered remains of my outer ear.”

Sometimes, a blocked ear is just a blocked ear. Sometimes, it’s something worse.

Read it here.