Digital Poetics #22 – SLUG OPs: Sarona Abuaker

Deviant slime
i find myself

its springtime again
sun ra shines loudly
my first memory of being
in the night
my cousin finishes pouring salt
over a slug [sounding a ghostlike cream]

a knock on the door: Soldiers [they smelled the death of their comrade]

following the slime

wafting in
to open cupboards and doors
they are looking for someone/trying to put the blame on me blazes through our eyes

The particularities of understanding a sluggish impact on an environment lies upon the fundamental unearthing of their paths
alleviating devastations.

Life is created through systems, not an event [it ignites once it contacts air]

It is strange but not unseen
typically surviving off of leaves, stems and roots
after the slug seeped out
its contents consisted of:

• Two Parabellum shells [Uzi]

• Five metal activation mechanisms including safety pins and levers [Skittering Tear Gas Grenade]

Once the salt draws
the water out from the slug
it bursts into flames
smoke producing agents
garlic bulbs fill nostrils [glowing as it dies]
melting illuminations
the slug is an incendiary munition.

[There are a multiplicity of methods which arerecommended for ensuring slugs are not able to access your grounds. It is a spectrum of possible actions. The one chosen depends on a number of factors. Slugs are known to damage crops, seedlings and new growth. The way to restore these known affects can be handled in gentle and simple manners: planting indigenous herbs and roots containing a scent they interpret as a pesticide (Majorana syriaca and Gundelia tournefortii). Placing copper tubing or shiny tape around the perimeter of your space can attenuate a slug’s desire to approach; it is thought by scientists the metallic quality of these materials induces a shock to the slug’s senses once it discovers the shape of itself]

[Whilst these recommendations historically and presently can be of assistance, it is incredibly important to note the distinctions in these various phenomena. The slugs were not always like this. It is noted there was a dramatic shift starting in the late 1940s. Radical reconfigurations in the landscape reflect firstly in the ecosystems. The natural diet of the slug found within this region consisted of indigenous plants, herbs and fruits (Salvia fruticosa, Rhus coriaria and Ceratonia siliqua). After several extensive case studies, I am finding they have developed a taste for steel, metal and white phosphorous. New reports from sectors 67 and 48 show there is one week in the year where aging slugs go to a perimeter near the dead sea to die and make way for the young, inducing such clusters of light their passing’s resemble the geography of India during Diwali]

Harboring deep
thriving in thick sediments
white phosphorous burns alive
building itself as a fact
particle by particle
slugging itself up to
crunching; steely; waxy; metastasizing
the
top/ meeting us
halfway, brined in stubborn-ness
this soil poisons the earth
dirt decaying terra firma
sprout metallic trees
bullet picking season lasts
from when the snakes’ head begins until the tail slides into its mouth

[The only way to ensure future growth is to break up the compacted soil layers, a deep ripping. This effectively loosens the hardened grounds, respecting the soil types and crop rotations indigenous to the space. A new birth requires immersive organic matter, allowing unconstrained access to uncontaminated water lying below. Exposing the steely slugs to healthy debris will ensure their environment supports a new trajectory. Without soiled reconfigurations their surroundings will not support any new potential. Without a change in relationalities there is no shift]

[SLUG OPs specialize in the smuggling of hybridized gastropods into the central regional sectors. The gastropods originate from the group Pulmonata (taxonomic name Sigmurethra), which are characterized by having pallial lungs rather than gills. The land-breathing gastropods, as all gastropods, produce slime consisting of water, mucus and salts. The properties of this slime are elastic and great, serving multiple functions. Enveloping the slug, slime allows it to move, prevents the drying out of its exposed tissues and can be rubbed onto the human body to promote wound healing. Above all slime is hygroscopic. Gastropods are able to absorb moisture from the air due to the protein structure of the slime, which creates sticky, moisture-capturing gels. SLUG OPs developed a hybridized gastropod by genetically modifying the slime’s hygroscopic properties to extend to the trapping of steel, white phosphorous and metal existing within the soil and water]

Atmospheric totalitarianism where steel cannot be separated from society
eating itself inside out

[The aim of SLUG OPs animalia integrations is to effectively detox the soil, the foundations upon which the society rests. The slime works to break down and syphon the toxic materials out of the soil through a filtration system. All gastropods can create an epiphragm, a temporary sealing structure made of dried mucus. SLUG OPs extended this ability to create a filtration system trapping the toxic materials with the slimes amplified protein structures. The gastropods will strain steel, white phosphorous, and metal from the water and soil molecules through the hybridized sealing epiphragm and create new, freshly clarified slime which will return to the environment through a large gland located below the slug’s mouth. SLUG OPs is pleased to report the non-hybridized gastropods currently living in the region seem averse to their hybridized counter-parts at first introduction, based on previous experiments, however after a few hours within the same air-space and newly clarified soil the non-hybridized gastropods colors are less grey and brighter, crawl with no twitchy demeanor and no longer carry the scent of roasted garlic bulbs]

*Slugs create two kinds of noises: a rasping whilst eating and a whistling or whooshing when crawling fervently. Curiously, slugs residing within the sectors where drones proliferate in the skies have begun producing the same buzzing sound as the drone. This new affect was discovered by a farmer residing outside of these sectors, who reported the ground holding their olive trees began humming and vibrating slightly, only to pluck a slug from the ground to find it shaking and buzzing with a great tremor.

[Any levers, shells from weapons consumed by slugs are broken down and suctioned out. The newly sieved slime will heal whatever toxic material it touches thereafter that exists within the earth]

[The central regional sectors encompass a total of 6,020 km2, or 2,320 square miles. SLUG OPs have smuggled a total of 6,000 hybridized gastropods into the sectors by forming meaningful understandings and relationships with local farmers, political prisoners, unions, sewing circles and students. Each gastropod is allocated approximately 1 square mile, and the operation will last an estimated 750 days for the gastropods to completely sift through the molecules. Material signifiers alluding to the incurring success of the operation include newly sprouting vegetation in zones where local infrastructural support has been denied, water becoming fit for human use in areas where sewage systems have been destroyed by military assaults and soil color returning from grey to light-reddish brown in areas where military equipment was tested on the local populations]

A deep ripping, a slimy return
i will report back.

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Sarona Abuaker is a poet, artist, activist, and educational outreach worker exploring the interstices of visual cultures, Palestinian futurisms, and queer phenomenologies. Her poems have been published in Berfrois and her debut collection will be released by the 87 Press in 2021. She is based in London.

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This publication is in Copyright. Sarona Abuaker, 2020.

The moral right of the author has been asserted. However, the Hythe is an open-access journal and we welcome the use of all materials on it for educational and creative workshop purposes.