The Head: A Novella

A surreal and penetrating tale of academia, work life, and surviving trauma.

On the morning of her thirtieth birthday, Dr. Trish Russo, a math professor at Cascadia University, discovers a disembodied but living infant head on her dresser. Attached to nothing, somehow it still manages to wail and produce tears. Unsure what else to do, she takes it with her to work, if only to keep her neighbours from complaining about the head’s terrible cries.

At the university, her colleagues are mortified, not of the head itself, but that Trish has brought it into the office with her. She is soon put on leave and hopes that visiting her parents might provide some solace and advice on what she should do with the head. But no matter where she turns, Trish finds no help and is instead vilified for not knowing what to do with this impossible thing that has happened to her.

The Head is a bizarre journey through trauma, bad relationships, and toxic workplace culture.

Excerpts

On top of her dresser quivered a mass of fleshy pink sludge, slurping and snapping. Cold horror shot through the back of her neck and across her shoulders, freezing the breath at the bottom of her throat.

—

Maybe she could put the thing in the freezer? Anne couldn’t hear it in there. And, well, wasn’t it possible that the cries might stop altogether? She wobbled her head back and forth, thinking. Maybe she’d found a course of action. But then she’d have a dead head on her hands. A note of nausea at her unwitting 1970s pop culture reference. Jerry Garcia was no easier to stomach than this thing.

—

They needed to know. As their professor, she was a mentor—her students needed to benefit from her knowledge of the world. They needed her to show them that the world was a horror, a proving ground. She had survived and she could contribute to their lives in this way. … She pinched the bottom corners of the purse and turned the whole thing over, spilling the crying head onto the paper in her binder.
A few people, sitting on the aisles, stood, and left. At first it was merely a smattering. But there was soon consensus that class was dismissed. …A lone student made his way slowly down the risers. When he reached the bottom of the stairs he stopped and called to Trish, “Ma’am, will any of this be on the exam?”

—

Her boarding pass was already on her phone. She wasn’t checking any luggage. Security, then. Straight to security. She inhaled deeply.
In the back-and-forth line for security, the head began to cry. Of course. The woman ahead of her craned her neck and looked around. When she looked back at Trish, she did a double take but then smiled politely. As the line lurched forward, the head’s cries grew louder. Now more people were looking around for the crying baby. Trish’s face burned. Where the line tacked back towards her, a couple began to whisper.
The woman in front of Trish turned around again.
“Is your phone ringing?”
Like an idiot, Trish looked down at her purse. Between her breasts, her shirt was dotted with sweat.

—

Trish tossed aside handfuls of them and found the head, wrapped in paper towel, sitting on a bed of banana peels, used tissue, chewed gum and soft plastic wrap. Its face was cut deeply on the right-hand side, from the bottom of its eye socket all the way down to its jawbone.
“Ooooh. God. Are you okay???” Trish mewled. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Sh. Sh. Sh. We’ll get you fixed up. Don’t worry. Sh. Sh. Sh.”

Release: May 7, 2024
Pre-order here
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160 pages
Published by Enfield & Wizenty
ISBN-10: 1773371150