Young Creative Award Winner: All Flesh is Wax by Amy Child

I scrub my bones over the bathroom sink. That’s all teeth are, really: bones, piercing through flesh. Bollocks to collagen and any other technicalities. Those scientists don’t know how it feels to be knocked in the face and see a piece of your skeleton go flying.

When nobody’s watching, it’s too much effort being tidy. Warm, frothed-up toothpaste pours over my lips and down my chin. I support myself on the flat ledge of the sink (false marble, as if that’s fooling anyone) and hunch over it like a drunk. Overhead, the yellow bathroom light buzzes – there might be a wasp trapped inside – but I focus on the ceramic bowl, the way it bends the light, its silver press-down plug ringed with mould and the streaky black stains caused by the leaking tap. 

I spit into it and there’s blood in the white foam. Could be a sign of gum disease. That’s what mouthwash ads say, but then, they’re just trying to sell you something; they’d rather you think that you’re dying. I turn on the tap, cold water jets, and the blood swirls pink then drains away. 

I scoop water into my mouth, the way people did when they drank from rivers, and slosh it from cheek to cheek, threading it between my teeth, before expelling it in a bile-like stream. It burns with the aftertaste of mint. You know you’re in bad shape when your vomit’s clear and burns like that, like your stomach’s trying to strip your throat raw. 

I swipe a wet hand down my face, over the beard which isn’t long enough yet to be his, and rinse it clean. The mirror over the sink diagnoses me with another ten years, pitilessly inflicted by the overhead lighting. My skin looks like wax, half-melted. The shadows beneath my eyes tug downwards. God, I could do with some sleep.

Then, Francis claps and stands and says, “great work, Myles. Let’s stop there,” and the bathroom lights up and disappears. 

At home in my darkened study, Roger Soper stares me dead in the eyes. His prison mugshot’s blown up to fill my computer screen, streaked with bars of light which cut through the gaps in my blinds. I don’t bear him more than a passing resemblance, but that won’t matter; I’ve seen them turn a young man into an old man, a living man into a corpse. 

I lift my beer bottle over the box of tissues and stack of semi-organised papers cluttering my desk and take a swig. It’s warm, of course, and sticky. Christ knows how long it’s been sitting there. 

Soper’s expression is comically deer-in-the-headlights, as if the photo was captured moments before collision. 

He doesn’t have his weird hipster look in his mugshot: the too-small coat, the checked waistcoat, the fully buttoned shirt with no tie. His beard and outgrown curls make him look like a werewolf in a ‘70s horror flick. But in other photos, he’s artsy, eccentric. His posture’s awkward and he’s never really smiling, only parting his lips, but all the great artists were fucked in the head – Van Gogh cut his own ear off and gave it to a prostitute – so it’s no wonder no one looked twice at him.

I use the mouse to zoom in on his eyes until they blur. They’re deep set, buried in pits of shadow. 

In one YouTube interview, after his US exhibition opened, before anyone knew what was in his statues, he said in that monotone way of his, “art’s about capturing life, is all. If art ain’t got soul, it’s dead.” 

He was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He died in Thamesmead, London. Not five miles from where I grew up. 

Oh boy, you gotta see this here goddamn fool, fellas. Now, ain’t that something; mighty strange, real special, I’ll be damned, and dang, I sure as hell ain’t seen nothing like that ‘round these parts, and that’s just about the size of it. 

“Uhhh.”
“That’s good. Keep going.”
“Uhhh. Uhhh.”

Does Francis realise that it sounds like we’re fucking? 

On the shabby rehearsal stage (cheaper than a studio, though this isn’t for theatre), I stretch my facial muscles in circles, trying to work them like chewing gum until they’re soft and elastic. I’ve already ‘released the tension’ from my fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders, hips, legs and ankles. It reminds me of that time I saw a therapist, who told me I should start yoga: “that’s it, ladies, aaaaaand release.” They never have a goddamn clue what they’re on about.

Francis sits on a battered prop chair downstage, tapping a ballpoint pen, which might as well be a meat tenderizer, against his knee. He’s got that stupid silk scarf on again, along with a tan blazer and those thick-rimmed glasses which make his eyes too big. His bald head gleams beneath the floodlights: a wannabe Oscar.

“And the brows and forehead,” he reminds me. Forred. That’s how he says it. Brows and forred. 

I shut my mouth, which has been working like a cow chewing grass for the past minute, and begin writhing my eyebrows: raising, frowning, questioning. I sculpt my flesh like clay, or wax. I look comically deer-in-the-headlights. 

Soper’s artwork’s beautiful, on the surface. The piece that made him famous, Daedalus Before Morning, is the sort of wax statue you can imagine breathing; Daedalus holds up Icarus’s wings and somehow knows he’s going to lose his son. 

After Daedalus’ bones were found, the real Icarus, only nineteen years old, held a vigil over his grave for four nights.

I stare up at my darkened ceiling, in bed, and watch the headlights of passing cars stretch and shrink across it.

His artwork’s more beautiful, if you look deeper. Mighty tragic, yes, and real grotesque, I’m not denying it – but it moves you. Art ain’t art without soul.

In a later interview, in which he wore a jumpsuit, Soper admitted it was the idea of reanimation which attracted him; he liked bringing bodies back to life, making them perfect. An artist, in their own way, was God. So, it was an act of Creation, sculpting those statues, like when God made Woman from the rib of Man. 

I don’t remember much about church, except that service was on Sunday morning. My bruises were always fresh from the night before. All flesh is grass, is all.

Before he used bones, Soper never got the proportions right. Something was always off. Which makes sense, when you think about it.

God, I could do with some sleep. 

Francis buys me KFC. It’s too early for lunch and he’s vegetarian, but he wants me to focus on the sensation of meat.

The chicken legs in the bucket are more brown than golden, and soggy with grease, which has left transparent stains on the cardboard. They never show the stains on the posters.

I lift one out and inspect it, like a critic. The glaring stage lights are too exposing, showing up gaps in the batter, places where it’s almost sliding off. I probe at the makeshift skin with my fingers and the light sticks to the grease.

“Good, now give it a sniff,” Francis instructs. Goddamn fool. Treats me like a dog. Sit. Stay. Paw. 

But hell, I haven’t had much for breakfast, only a bowl of dry cereal – the milk was off – so I sniff the chicken as commanded. It’s rich. It still smells warm. My stomach growls. Francis probably wants me to lick it, real slow, porno-style. I sure ain’t doing that.

Instead, I take a bite. Really sink my teeth in. When you’re hungry, it’s hard to eat slowly. Your stomach reaches up through your throat and tries to snatch what’s in your mouth before you’ve even chewed it. 

The chicken gives way beneath my teeth, softening with the rush of saliva. Fatty juices spill out. I suck the flesh off the bone. It’s a primal kick, you get from eating meat. No plant-based shit could ever replicate it. I grind the chicken into pulp, listening to the increasingly wet chomp, chomp, chomp. Then, at last, I swallow.

In my shed, late at night, I bring the chicken wing back to life. The bone glistens, pearlescent, under the amber-red spotlight of my desk lamp. There is a silence like that of Sunday Mass. 

Steadily, I drip wax onto the bone, beginning to form a fifth layer. The wax is from a lavender-scented candle I bought years back, after that same dogshit therapist told me lavender helps you sleep, but then, they’re just trying to sell you something. The heady, thick smell crawls down my throat. 

There’s a reason I moved this desk lamp to the shed, to sit amidst the congregation of metal tools: the bulb burns too hot, hot enough to melt wax, if you bring it close. I do, and wax encases my fingertips, smoothing and tightening the skin. When I was young, under the spotlight myself, all my skin felt like that. Now it’s just the scars.

The wonderful thing about sculpting with wax is that you leave no fingerprints.

My chicken wing will be golden, greaseless. There’ll be no gaps in the reconstructed batter, no places where the skin is sliding off. I could give back its feathers, if I wanted. Use the smallest screwdriver to draw in the lines. The wax yields, soft, beneath my fingers. I stroke the wing. I cradle it. I hold it up to examine in the light.

Daedalus’ trepidation, fortitude and grief was so well-captured in the wax, it might have been real. I ain’t seen nothing like that before, not ‘round these parts. 

The following morning, in the shower, I try to sculpt with soap but it’s not the same without the bone. 

“I’d like you to think back to your childhood,” Francis instructs. “Pick a memory; one that stands out. Focus on the sensations. Hone in. What can you see, feel, smell?”

If I gave him a good shove, he’d topple off the edge of the stage, taking his chair and scarf with him.

“Can I take a cigarette break?” I ask, but he’s frowning before I’ve finished talking. 

“After this exercise,” he agrees with a dismissive nod. He’s got his pen between two fingers and is drumming it against his thigh. I wonder which – the pen or the fingers – would be easier to snap.

I massage my forehead – forred – grimacing. “I’ve got a bit of a headache. Could do with some fresh air.”
“You can get some after this,” he says. “If I let you go every five minutes, we’ll get behind on schedule.” I went for a piss once, two hours ago. He’s acting as if I’ve hardly been in the room. He points his pen at me and his glasses flash. “It’ll be quick. Just this exercise.” There’s no arguing. 

I sigh and inhale a cloud of low-hanging smoke. 

Mum’s slumped on the sofa as if she’s melted into it, smiling, just smiling, with those vacant, glassy eyes reflecting the stretching and shrinking light of the TV. She’s watching some soap with a laugh track in the background. The stump of a cigarette hangs from between her fingers.

“That’ll be you one day,” she murmurs, and I don’t know if she’s talking to me or to herself or to no one at all. “You were so good in that school play.”

I gaze towards the TV, at the made-up people strutting and posing in their bright, modern apartment. They look so perfect. So happy. Nothing could ever touch them. 

Mum’s eyes shutter and reopen slowly, like a wind-up toy. Tinny laughter rumbles through the room. The dented lamp beside the sofa illuminates the far side of her face, exposing the swollen hint of a bruise on her cheek. Red. Soon it’ll be blue, then purple, then green, then yellow. All the colours of the rainbow.

The same tinny laughter loops as a car pulls up outside. Its headlights pierce the curtains, flooding the room with twin beams of orange light. Mum’s eyes flicker. Her smile wilts slowly. I should have said thank you, when she said I was good in the play, but I hadn’t learnt my lines. 

There are heavy feet outside. A key clicks in the lock, boots thud into the hall and in sweeps the stench of rain and petrol fumes and beer mats.
“Now, recall a time when you experienced a specific, sharp pain,” Francis hisses, in the back of my head. 

A damp fist collides with my mouth, dislodging a tooth. It’s like someone’s struck a match inside my skull.

I scrub my bones over the bathroom sink. That’s all teeth are, really: bones, piercing through flesh. Bollocks to collagen and any other technicalities. Those scientists don’t know how it feels to be knocked in the face and see a piece of your skeleton go flying.

When nobody’s watching, it’s too much effort being tidy. Warm, frothed-up toothpaste pours over my lips and down my chin. I support myself on the flat ledge of the sink (false marble, as if that’s fooling anyone) and hunch over it like a drunk. Overhead, the yellow bathroom light buzzes – there might be a wasp trapped inside – but I focus on the ceramic bowl, the way it bends the light, its silver press-down plug ringed with mould and the streaky black stains caused by the leaking tap. 

I spit into it and there’s blood in the white foam. Could be a sign of gum disease. That’s what mouthwash ads say, but then, they’re just trying to sell you something; they’d rather you think that you’re dying. I turn on the tap, cold water jets, and the blood swirls pink then drains away. 

I scoop water into my mouth, the way people did when they drank from rivers, and slosh it from cheek to cheek, threading it between my teeth, before expelling it in a bile-like stream. It burns with the aftertaste of mint. You know you’re in bad shape when your vomit’s clear and burns like that, like your stomach’s trying to strip your throat raw. 

I swipe a wet hand down my face, over the beard which isn’t long enough yet to be his, and rinse it clean. The mirror over the sink diagnoses me with another ten years, pitilessly inflicted by the overhead lighting. My skin looks like wax, half-melted. The shadows beneath my eyes tug downwards. God, I could do with some sleep.

Then, Francis claps and stands and says, “great work, Myles. Let’s stop there,” and the bathroom lights up and disappears. 

At home in my darkened study, Roger Soper stares me dead in the eyes. His prison mugshot’s blown up to fill my computer screen, streaked with bars of light which cut through the gaps in my blinds. I don’t bear him more than a passing resemblance, but that won’t matter; I’ve seen them turn a young man into an old man, a living man into a corpse. 

I lift my beer bottle over the box of tissues and stack of semi-organised papers cluttering my desk and take a swig. It’s warm, of course, and sticky. Christ knows how long it’s been sitting there. 

Soper’s expression is comically deer-in-the-headlights, as if the photo was captured moments before collision. 

He doesn’t have his weird hipster look in his mugshot: the too-small coat, the checked waistcoat, the fully buttoned shirt with no tie. His beard and outgrown curls make him look like a werewolf in a ‘70s horror flick. But in other photos, he’s artsy, eccentric. His posture’s awkward and he’s never really smiling, only parting his lips, but all the great artists were fucked in the head – Van Gogh cut his own ear off and gave it to a prostitute – so it’s no wonder no one looked twice at him.

I use the mouse to zoom in on his eyes until they blur. They’re deep set, buried in pits of shadow. 

In one YouTube interview, after his US exhibition opened, before anyone knew what was in his statues, he said in that monotone way of his, “art’s about capturing life, is all. If art ain’t got soul, it’s dead.” 

He was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He died in Thamesmead, London. Not five miles from where I grew up. 

Oh boy, you gotta see this here goddamn fool, fellas. Now, ain’t that something; mighty strange, real special, I’ll be damned, and dang, I sure as hell ain’t seen nothing like that ‘round these parts, and that’s just about the size of it. 

“Uhhh.”
“That’s good. Keep going.”
“Uhhh. Uhhh.”

Does Francis realise that it sounds like we’re fucking? 

On the shabby rehearsal stage (cheaper than a studio, though this isn’t for theatre), I stretch my facial muscles in circles, trying to work them like chewing gum until they’re soft and elastic. I’ve already ‘released the tension’ from my fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders, hips, legs and ankles. It reminds me of that time I saw a therapist, who told me I should start yoga: “that’s it, ladies, aaaaaand release.” They never have a goddamn clue what they’re on about.

Francis sits on a battered prop chair downstage, tapping a ballpoint pen, which might as well be a meat tenderizer, against his knee. He’s got that stupid silk scarf on again, along with a tan blazer and those thick-rimmed glasses which make his eyes too big. His bald head gleams beneath the floodlights: a wannabe Oscar.

“And the brows and forehead,” he reminds me. Forred. That’s how he says it. Brows and forred. 

I shut my mouth, which has been working like a cow chewing grass for the past minute, and begin writhing my eyebrows: raising, frowning, questioning. I sculpt my flesh like clay, or wax. I look comically deer-in-the-headlights. 

Soper’s artwork’s beautiful, on the surface. The piece that made him famous, Daedalus Before Morning, is the sort of wax statue you can imagine breathing; Daedalus holds up Icarus’s wings and somehow knows he’s going to lose his son. 

After Daedalus’ bones were found, the real Icarus, only nineteen years old, held a vigil over his grave for four nights.

I stare up at my darkened ceiling, in bed, and watch the headlights of passing cars stretch and shrink across it.

His artwork’s more beautiful, if you look deeper. Mighty tragic, yes, and real grotesque, I’m not denying it – but it moves you. Art ain’t art without soul.

In a later interview, in which he wore a jumpsuit, Soper admitted it was the idea of reanimation which attracted him; he liked bringing bodies back to life, making them perfect. An artist, in their own way, was God. So, it was an act of Creation, sculpting those statues, like when God made Woman from the rib of Man. 

I don’t remember much about church, except that service was on Sunday morning. My bruises were always fresh from the night before. All flesh is grass, is all.

Before he used bones, Soper never got the proportions right. Something was always off. Which makes sense, when you think about it.

God, I could do with some sleep. 

Francis buys me KFC. It’s too early for lunch and he’s vegetarian, but he wants me to focus on the sensation of meat.

The chicken legs in the bucket are more brown than golden, and soggy with grease, which has left transparent stains on the cardboard. They never show the stains on the posters.

I lift one out and inspect it, like a critic. The glaring stage lights are too exposing, showing up gaps in the batter, places where it’s almost sliding off. I probe at the makeshift skin with my fingers and the light sticks to the grease.

“Good, now give it a sniff,” Francis instructs. Goddamn fool. Treats me like a dog. Sit. Stay. Paw. 

But hell, I haven’t had much for breakfast, only a bowl of dry cereal – the milk was off – so I sniff the chicken as commanded. It’s rich. It still smells warm. My stomach growls. Francis probably wants me to lick it, real slow, porno-style. I sure ain’t doing that.

Instead, I take a bite. Really sink my teeth in. When you’re hungry, it’s hard to eat slowly. Your stomach reaches up through your throat and tries to snatch what’s in your mouth before you’ve even chewed it. 

The chicken gives way beneath my teeth, softening with the rush of saliva. Fatty juices spill out. I suck the flesh off the bone. It’s a primal kick, you get from eating meat. No plant-based shit could ever replicate it. I grind the chicken into pulp, listening to the increasingly wet chomp, chomp, chomp. Then, at last, I swallow.

In my shed, late at night, I bring the chicken wing back to life. The bone glistens, pearlescent, under the amber-red spotlight of my desk lamp. There is a silence like that of Sunday Mass. 

Steadily, I drip wax onto the bone, beginning to form a fifth layer. The wax is from a lavender-scented candle I bought years back, after that same dogshit therapist told me lavender helps you sleep, but then, they’re just trying to sell you something. The heady, thick smell crawls down my throat. 

There’s a reason I moved this desk lamp to the shed, to sit amidst the congregation of metal tools: the bulb burns too hot, hot enough to melt wax, if you bring it close. I do, and wax encases my fingertips, smoothing and tightening the skin. When I was young, under the spotlight myself, all my skin felt like that. Now it’s just the scars.

The wonderful thing about sculpting with wax is that you leave no fingerprints.

My chicken wing will be golden, greaseless. There’ll be no gaps in the reconstructed batter, no places where the skin is sliding off. I could give back its feathers, if I wanted. Use the smallest screwdriver to draw in the lines. The wax yields, soft, beneath my fingers. I stroke the wing. I cradle it. I hold it up to examine in the light.

Daedalus’ trepidation, fortitude and grief was so well-captured in the wax, it might have been real. I ain’t seen nothing like that before, not ‘round these parts. 

The following morning, in the shower, I try to sculpt with soap but it’s not the same without the bone. 

“I’d like you to think back to your childhood,” Francis instructs. “Pick a memory; one that stands out. Focus on the sensations. Hone in. What can you see, feel, smell?”

If I gave him a good shove, he’d topple off the edge of the stage, taking his chair and scarf with him.

“Can I take a cigarette break?” I ask, but he’s frowning before I’ve finished talking. 

“After this exercise,” he agrees with a dismissive nod. He’s got his pen between two fingers and is drumming it against his thigh. I wonder which – the pen or the fingers – would be easier to snap.

I massage my forehead – forred – grimacing. “I’ve got a bit of a headache. Could do with some fresh air.”
“You can get some after this,” he says. “If I let you go every five minutes, we’ll get behind on schedule.” I went for a piss once, two hours ago. He’s acting as if I’ve hardly been in the room. He points his pen at me and his glasses flash. “It’ll be quick. Just this exercise.” There’s no arguing. 

I sigh and inhale a cloud of low-hanging smoke. 

Mum’s slumped on the sofa as if she’s melted into it, smiling, just smiling, with those vacant, glassy eyes reflecting the stretching and shrinking light of the TV. She’s watching some soap with a laugh track in the background. The stump of a cigarette hangs from between her fingers.

“That’ll be you one day,” she murmurs, and I don’t know if she’s talking to me or to herself or to no one at all. “You were so good in that school play.”

I gaze towards the TV, at the made-up people strutting and posing in their bright, modern apartment. They look so perfect. So happy. Nothing could ever touch them. 

Mum’s eyes shutter and reopen slowly, like a wind-up toy. Tinny laughter rumbles through the room. The dented lamp beside the sofa illuminates the far side of her face, exposing the swollen hint of a bruise on her cheek. Red. Soon it’ll be blue, then purple, then green, then yellow. All the colours of the rainbow.

The same tinny laughter loops as a car pulls up outside. Its headlights pierce the curtains, flooding the room with twin beams of orange light. Mum’s eyes flicker. Her smile wilts slowly. I should have said thank you, when she said I was good in the play, but I hadn’t learnt my lines. 

There are heavy feet outside. A key clicks in the lock, boots thud into the hall and in sweeps the stench of rain and petrol fumes and beer mats.
“Now, recall a time when you experienced a specific, sharp pain,” Francis hisses, in the back of my head. 

A damp fist collides with my mouth, dislodging a tooth. It’s like someone’s struck a match inside my skull.

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