The Lucid Flipside

When referring to cannibalism, everyone paints a picture in their minds about a tribe living on a lost island, throwing visitors alive into a giant pot with carrots and unions. We imagine how unhygienic the dish will be when we lose control of our bodily functions, but what if the process was refined?

The lucid flipside is about a futuristic society where cannibalism is a refined practice that keeps people healthy. It is deemed normal, but when a mental patient is released from hospital, he seems like the normal one. What would you do if everything you know that used to be associated with insanity, all of a sudden becomes normal? Will you protest against it or join the world? When normal is what the majority does, the majority could not agree with your practices, and you will be the crazy one.

Summary

Mike Peters suddenly is kicked out of a mental institution where he doesn't remember the outside world, but is determined to fit in, starting his new life from scratch. Apparently he's married, but his wife neglects to collect him at an agreed time, so he takes to the streets on his own.

At first, everything seems normal, but with a slight abnormality of meat that tastes awkward and technology that track your every move. It becomes clear that people take great care in tracking what they eat. The meat they eat, is human flesh from natural diseased, because they know exactly what their food was exposed to, in contrast to animals that eat whatever that's in the vicinity.

Mike gets arrested for not having the proper identification and his wife bails him out. She explains to him the cannibalism situation, so Mike needs to adjust to the new world. His inspiration to become a butcher, motivated by a cellmate, is short lived when instead of chopping up carcasses, he comes to realization of an awkward reality when a truck filled with cadavers arrive at the butchery.

Mike tries to adjust, but opted to return to the asylum.

Story Explanation

The story is quite straightforward, but it makes you internalize what you would to if the world suddenly acted according to a new normal. Changing your perception to understand another's reality makes you wonder who is right and who is wrong. Whatever you do is neither, because from your view, everything you do is normal. You're fitting in, or you are not fitting in because you don't like the way the majority think.

Everyone is different and in our reality, we find ourselves as the normal ones. It's a simple matter of perception.

I purposely left gaps in the story for those who like to think about the situation. Wherever you notice an inconsistency, ask the question, why?

For instance:

• Why would a mental hospital suddenly release a patient? Was he ever mad to begin with?

• Why could Mike return to the hospital when he was kicked out initially for not paying the costs? Society didn't fit in with his believes, and made him an outcast. He doesn't fit into the new normal, so society rejected him, not the other way around, so the government pays for his medical treated stay.

Discussion with the editor

My editor seemed a bit upset about me turning Mike's wife into a prostitute. She felt that the wife could have resorted to other means of using her talents to generate an income, like hairdressing or something. I felt that the world isn't all roses and rainbows, but in the dark corners of depression, something beautiful is born. Mike's wife did what she had to, to survive. She didn't give up and she refused to quit. That tells us much about her character from a different perspective, but another reason is because in our reality, prostitution is frowned upon. It was part of this world from the beginning, and the moral problems we have with the practice is merely our perception. What if prostitution was normal? It basically is.

If you like to read the story, you are welcome to buy the book from our store page. It is available in eBook format at Smashwords, Amazon Kindle, as well as in a Print on demand paperback format at Amazon Paperback. In South Africa, I recommend buying from Takealot.