$40.00
The lathe spun. J.R.S “Media Reps” 10-inch hissed and rattled in the corner, the remix CD record set stacked precariously beside it. But it was not the music alone that demanded attention. The muscles—the muscles torn from somewhere between reality and audio—twitched and stretched across the grooves like restless spirits. They pulsed in rhythm to the lathe’s rotation, as if trying to mimic life while knowing decay was inevitable.
Inside this mechanical ecosystem, the mouth larvae thrived. Not metaphorically—they were real, crawling, gnawing in the gaps left by poor oral hygiene, alcohol-soaked nights, mouths left gaping in sleep. The 10-inch lathe spun, slowly at first, then faster, faster, until the grooves themselves shivered. J.R.S “Media Reps” hummed like a living organism, remix CD beside it layering dissonant echoes and fractured rhythms. But it was not music alone—it was the muscles, the torn flesh, stretched across the platter and platter grooves, pulsing like heartbeats, twitching like they had a mind of their own.
From the shadows between vinyl ridges, the mouth larvae emerged. Screwworm analogues bored into gaps between teeth and muscles, small cylindrical bodies wriggling with precision. Botfly larvae buzzed and embedded themselves in sinews, vibrating in rhythm with the remix CD’s distorted counter-melodies. Flesh fly larvae fed opportunistically, gnawing at residual tissue, leaving soft, spined tracks on enamel and vinyl alike.
The muscles twitched in synchrony. One tendril lifted, mimicking the percussive scrape of a larva’s mandible. Another twisted across the grooves, producing low-frequency hums, almost like a bassline of gnawing. The remix CD’s tracks interlaced with these organic rhythms: extraction wounds became rhythmic stutters, oozing lesions became smeared glissandos, necrotic gums vibrated in microtonal harmonics. Every condition that made a mouth vulnerable—alcoholism, poor oral hygiene, psychiatric disorders, senility, mouth breathing—manifested as a separate, audible riff in the composition.
Side A hissed with hidden Screwworm gnawing, microbursts of static representing minute tissue decay. Side B groaned under Botfly vibration, buzzing embedded in melodies like a low, persistent drone. Flesh flies added chaotic ornamentation, scratching across surfaces in unpredictable patterns, as if they had learned the tempo from the larvae already nesting in muscles. Pupae reemerged in delayed loops, amplifying motifs, creating recursive infestation patterns.
The muscles themselves had become instruments. Torn fibers flexed and snapped in sync with gnawing larvae, plucking loose skin and sinew to produce percussive clicks. The boxset’s sculpture rattled in sympathetic resonance, amplifying the chaotic orchestra. Every turn of the lathe spun a new generation of larvae, each mimicking the rhythm of the one before, creating layers of infestation, a fractal of chewing and pulsing, tissue and vinyl fused into one grotesque, sentient symphony.
Health risks were audible. Oozing sores became smeared static, extraction wounds pulsed like low-frequency drum hits, necrotic gums warped into feedback loops. The listener—if brave enough—could feel every gnaw, every crawl, every squirm. Microbial toxins seemed to vibrate through the air, carried by amplified frequencies. Even in the silence between tracks, larvae hummed, muscles twitched, and the lathe itself seemed to breathe.
The remix CD overlapped, producing counterpoints: screeching, buzzing, gnawing, pulsing, layered infinitely. Time folded. 10-inch grooves spiraled into themselves. Muscles became bridges for larval movement, forming new, percussive passages. The LP was no longer a record; it was a living, breathing, gnawing orchestra of flesh, vinyl, and larvae.
Even if playback stopped, the larvae remained, embedded in grooves, muscles, and sculpture. They whispered in microtonal frequencies, continuing their performance, multiplying, feeding, conducting the torn muscles in an endless symphony of gnawing and decay. Every spin was a recurrence, every listener a participant, every moment a chance for the infestation to evolve, to mutate, to play forever.Every missing molar, every slackened jaw, every psychiatric lapse became a banquet for them. The larvae twisted through tissues and grooves alike, embedding themselves into vinyl like eggs glued to blood-sucking insects.
The remix CD hummed a counterpoint: dissonant, fractured, echoing pulses that reminded the listener—or the observer—of why mouth larvae appear. Alcoholism, dental extractions, mental illness, mouth breathing while asleep, nosocomial infections, psychiatric disorders, seizures, senility, substance abuse: each one was a separate riff, a separate gnawing melody. The grooves became living anatomy, walls lined with tiny oozing cavities, soft tissue of wax and plastic vibrating with tiny mandibles.
Every spin accelerated the infestation. Muscles ripped further from their intended positions, stretching across the platter, twitching in time with larvae that burrowed into gums, lips, and the vinyl alike. The remix CD added layers: screeches of tiny teeth on enamel, the faint hiss of toxic secretions, rhythmic scraping like a high-speed brush against the grooves.
Health risks were palpable. Infection spread. Necrosis whispered through Side B. Lesions emerged as warped audio textures. Extraction wounds pulsed, oozing sonic decay. The listener could feel the gnawing, the creeping, the slow multiplication of larvae that somehow knew the music’s tempo better than the human hand could.
The 10-inch lathe spun endlessly, muscles tearing, larvae multiplying, remix CD wailing, until time folded in on itself. Audio, flesh, vinyl, and larvae became indistinguishable. Every crackle was a bite. Every hiss was a crawl. Every pulse a reminder that neglect—whether dental, mental, or auditory—creates a host, and the host becomes feast.
Even as the music ended, the larvae remained. Twisting in grooves, buried in torn muscles, hiding under plastic inserts, whispering, gnawing, pulsing. They had learned the rhythm. They would play forever.
Edition of 1.