Here's the short blurb:
Daniel Avari awakes in a hospital bed to find that he has been the victim of a terrible accident. He should have died; instead, he has been the unconsenting patient of experimental surgery: he is now permanently joined by a hose to a thurga, a possum-like native of the planet on which Daniel is living and working. This creature is to be his living life-support system ... if he still wants to live.
I posted a short extract from the story on my blog here.
You can read a large sample, and purchase and download the story in a format of your choosing, here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/658269
You may also find it at your preferred e-book retailer (though the price may be different).
The story was inspired by a bizarre and slightly disturbing dream I had on the morning of 7 November 2014. In the dream, I or someone else was joined by a tube of skin, containing internal organs, to a strange rat- or possum-like creature with bald patches. Unsettling though this idea was, I woke feeling fascinated by the concept, and, instead of dismissing the idea as silly and the fascination as macabre, I wrote the idea down and started expanding upon it. This, by the way, is one of the chief differences between writers and other people: we run toward our bizarre ideas instead of away from them. The story was finished on 8 April 2015: six months and a day: a remarkably quick time, for me.
