Contempt Festival

BY FRANCIS CROT

. . . at that moment Lemon ran into the playing area, took a knife from his joggers and opened his throat. The blood leapt out all at once, like something waiting to be free, and he folded up. To put this into perspective, it was not as surprising as a sudden latticework of mellifluous dogs, a structure some fifty feet high, or anything like that. All players but one crowded around the corpse – the “injury” paradigm was what they had to deal with this. Chris, riven with hysterical panic, yet deft enough to braid a kettle, deft enough to snatch from you your iPod, but not its song from your ear, dribbled around the bloodshed. He faced an open goalmouth and tapped it in there.