Author’s Note
During a film festival, within the flurry of film watching trips, I sat beside a woman who wore a floral scent and a chunky knitted cardigan. There was a large scar on her arm that became revealed every now and then as she gestured. She didn’t seem to notice my stare. Perhaps she was used to the attention and ignored it.
That one moment caught in my imagination, and that evening I wrote the first draft of the story in one sitting. It’s been polished many times since, but didn’t completely gel until I figured out Marshall’s character: his obsession with horror movies and how they began invading his waking world.
I expect the phrase ‘torture porn’ had a very real, and perhaps too literal, influence as well.
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- Published in jamscary.com (June 26th 2022)