what draws me to decay i think is how utterly it rejects dichotomy. it comes from both within and without; it’s the mechanism that forms the clock counting down the days until we die, and it finds its way back to itself inside the body through inertia and opening. rot is a connective force that reaches out to itself through us, and rot is a destructive force that pulls everything apart, literally and metaphorically. to exist is to be marked; to be stained indelibly. to touch is to accumulate that stain and spread it. corruption is the tie that binds and the teeth that fray the cord between them until it breaks.
this is what makes medical horror so effective when done right, i think. the idea of a “clean” invasion, of a sterile cut that excises all traces of its existence after it passes through you, save perhaps a neat and tidy ridge of scar tissue; a fading point of entry with no exit. an isolated site of violence and violation meant to halt the progress of infection that is nevertheless seething with pain and inflammation, struggling against its restraints. the exertion of another’s will, another’s dominance, over one’s own body, and the wiping of the feet that walked all over it, the hands that grasped and tore into it, to remove all traces of their having ever been there after. the denial of any real connection, however grotesque and unwanted. gloves and masks and scalpels separating skin from exposed skin. a bloodless wound, a sickness and soreness whose reality is denied.