There sits in a square a building, and sat in that building an atrium. One not for birds or anything other than great volumes of air. Almost three-fourths of its total existence is allocated for space, of the kind where nothing and no-one can go because it is so tall no one could reach it if they jumped twice in the air. A great vertical doughnut where academicians huddle and toil around the peripheries and if one ever had something they needed desperately to say to the other, well it was a full arc around the column of nothing that sat between them. No bridges, no walkthroughs, not a corner cut. For when say, a professor should take it upon themselves to visit a colleague from overseas, and the colleague she was visiting occupied a room within this concrete noodle, well it was pertinent that the colleague’s first impressions as they stepped into the professor’s territory of employment were of complete bewilderment and abashed jealousy.

As it so happens, a Professor Shel was taking leave of a visitor after a good hour around the tea kettle discussing Ribosomic processes and glogging Darjeeling. The visitor left in the state in which they arrived: boggled by architectural excess. They intended to construct an atrium just like the one Shel worked by.

“Ho! Shel, good day and God day, may I say,” sung the voice of none other than a Frelk who was a automaton completely constructed from recycled loin cuts. Such a construction gave him an inverted appearance, one that might be found on a friend frightened by a filmed horror scene, or hidden inside a gutted trout.

Shel never blamed one for their own appearance. “Frelk, what a full day it is indeed. You look divine, my friend!”

“Careful, such ungodly words will get us both in trouble.”

“For the likes of you, I would have to rebirth twenty times over to achieve that perfection.” Shel glanced at her wrist where a watch sat. More a habitual twitch than any need to know the time.

“Ha ha, ho!” And Frelk, who though he was a conglomeration of red meat strips weaved like a wicker basket, did not adopt the primal manners of the swine from which he was built, always donned a full tweed suit from ankle to collar. The color would rotate daily and today was a muddy blue.

Yet, with a sudden lowering of the voice, Frelk dropped the grin across his face, stooped in low to find Shel’s ear and with tones softer than the echo of a moth on a windowpane he spoke:

“It is dark. And tonight the devil will come and witness a dark, a dark of no other – like the soul has been dipped and dried in a vat of ink too thick for a spoon to stir.”

Shel protested this absurdity with a noise, but Frelk continued as if not to hear.

“There is a rumor, Shel. So swollen with the intent to harm is this idle chat that I cannot ignore it any longer. For either it was the devil who gave it to the first ear, or a vile soul – not of human origin! – lives among us.”

Shel glanced at her watch and, not reading the time, decided she was late for something and made to walk around Frelk. A hand with a tweed blue sleeve attached grabbed her arm.

“Shel, listen, I implore you. You might think me insane but I need someone to hear these words, for right now I feel as lost as a sentient labyrinth inside its own labyrinth!” Felk cooled his rising voice.

“Shel, this may disturb you and I apologize with a thousand bows and a thousand more to your great-grandchildren. But hear me: there among us is a person who is not of human birth, but is in fact“ – and here the corners of Felk’s chins pulsed as if he was chewing his tongue – “there is a man completely built by the flesh of pigs that once were!”

Felk pulled himself away from Shel so as to take witness all at once of what her face might say. Shel noticed the action and complied, boggling her eyes and covering her mouth to hide a scream that was not. Once recovered, she began: “Felk, this is certainly news that I wish had not stained my ears with its unwell undertones. I will need a day or two to recover – “

“Of course, take your leave, as you need.”

“– But, allow me to also advise, for I think I can see clearer now than you who, although of great mind and body, have perhaps been gestating with this vile discovery for too long.”

“Yes! Any advice, any action is most accepted – ”

“Don’t,” she looked calmly at her wrist again and then settled upon the face of Felk, where she traced along it the intricate workmanship. She thought to herself how impressive the placement of the loins had been, so as to match the depth of an eye socket, or how the cheeks came and settled – not stretched – over the bones of the skull. The thatched pattern of left-right loin placement almost added a charm, an artistic flair, to the whole thing.

“Don’t utter a word more to anyone else. For as of now we cannot trust a soul beyond us two.”