Coda IN FRANK LAZORG’S STUDIO, upon the paint-splattered worktable, the dead woman was stretched out, her naked body covered with pungent red enamel that had dried to a hard insectoid shell. Outside the studio windows, the sun was just coming up. Blood on the floor was just congealing. The gore-clotted cane leaned precariously against a stool. Suddenly the dead woman’s crushed skull recovered, brains re-gelling, bones re-knitting. She experienced a tremendous galvanic convulsion as life retook her, and all the enamel shattered into a crazy paving that began to flake off her as she writhed. Her legs splayed open involuntarily as her eyes rolled back and showed their whites. Her vagina dilated instantly, and the crown of a child’s head showed, although her flat, toned midriff exhibited no signs of pregnancy. It was as if her sex were a mere gateway to the origin of all worlds. The child plopped effortlessly out amidst womb-blood and amniotic fluids.
