Elemental by Steven Savile

it would have been for the best if he had checked his suitcase before leaving home.
    He peeled away the layers to find a sturdy silver box and a note which read: My dearest, darling Jared. So it begins!
    Jared Spoon took umbrage. Surely this was not where it began but where it continued?
    A swift exhumation of the contents suggested it was neither. This was where it veered wildly off at a tangent and ploughed catastrophically into the ground leaving nothing but the depressing smell of singed artichokes.
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    Herb Foresight said, “What’s that?”
    His homeless, ear-stitched friend prodded the vacuum-packed plastic lump with a finger. “It’s a foot in a box.”
    â€œA foot?”
    â€œIn a box.”
    â€œWhat size?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhat size is it?”
    â€œA size eight, I think. Why?”
    â€œMight help track down the owner.”
    â€œYou think its size will be the deciding factor?”
    â€œWhat are you going to do with it?”
    Jared Spoon said, “Well I’m buggered if I’m putting it up my bum-bum.”
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    Jared Spoon sat on the toilet clutching his head.
    Nicozing chewing gum came in six incredible flavors. Spearmint, peppermint, freshmint, coolmint, aquamint, and menthol.
    All of them produced the same incredible side effects! Mouth ulcers, jaw ache, dizziness, headache, and upset stomach.
    Try as he might, he couldn’t blame his squits on the chewing gum.
    How many more pieces of this poor unfortunate footless person would be paying him a visit?
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    Jared Spoon went home to discover that the answer was three and a bit.
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    Herb Foresight stood in Jared Spoon’s kitchen and peered down at the deep freezer in awe.
    â€œFuck me, she’s been busy.”

    â€œThere’s nearly half a person in here.”
    â€œJust like your girlfriend.”
    Jared Spoon said, “That’s uncalled for.”
    He stashed the new vacuum-packed appendage in with the peas and closed the lid.
    â€œAll week they’ve just kept coming. Yesterday it was a gall bladder with a note that read: This is how much I love you .”
    â€œA gall bladder is a lot of love.”
    Jared Spoon chewed on his fingernails and nervously paced the two-meter-square patch of linoleum.
    â€œDo you think it’s a good thing that she finally trusts me?”
    â€œI don’t think she even knows you moved back in, my friend. You need to talk to her. This is getting out of hand.”
    â€œShe comes, she goes. She never says a word. Where’s she getting these things?”
    Herb Foresight had a theory. “From people,” he said. “From people.”
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    This had to stop.
    So far he’d tried patches, pens, gum. Nothing had worked.
    Herb Foresight said there was this pill he could try that would make him chunder if he so much as looked at a cigarette.
    Jared Spoon said he wasn’t convinced by it. Nobody ever caught cancer of the eyeballs from looking at a cigarette.
    He contemplated abstinence instead.
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    The invitation read: My dearest, darling Girl 77 .
    With any luck that would get her attention.
    The invitation continued: I have received your intimates and I have kept them in a place that’s almost as safe as the other one. Why don’t you come to dinner and we can moo about them? Yours as ever, Jared Spoon .
    He was hesitant, he had to admit. Meal times were when she got
feisty and he owned knives. So he lit scented candles to try to soften the mood.
    They didn’t help.
    She said, “Are you a nancy boy?”
    â€œWhat? No.”
    â€œIt would explain a lot.”
    â€œI’ve done everything you asked.”
    â€œWell, you’re out of luck, nancy boy. I didn’t ask you to do anything.”
    â€œI kept your intimates safe.”
    Girl 77 seemed genuinely perplexed. She said, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
    Jared Spoon