SPIDERS IN THE BUBBLEGUM
SHAMPOO TEARS: Official release 14.10.26
#01
SIDE 1
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TITLE: SHAMPOO TEARS
AUTHOR: RACHEL MAKEPEACE
STATUS: SLEEPWALKING // SöMNGåNG
SIDE 2
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RELEASE DATE: 14TH October 2026
Avaliability: Kindle & Paperback
In Moody City, 1996— Cherry hears whispers of an eclipse, and the somnambulist that will come upon its arrival. Breaking down on the moors, she finds Stevie up there, wandering around in the dark.
Cherry has insomnia, at a late-night cafe she meets a boy reading poetry. She sees him again through a mirror but walks away...
The next day, Stevie mentions her friend Thackery, taking her to meet him before disappearing, leaving her with the boy who she met once in a cafe. He's different now. He gets under her skin. Tells her how blue her veins are, tells her to wake up, tells her not to dream about him.
Meanwhile, Stevie follows a stranger, sticking to the walls, stepping into the local bar. He's wrapped in heavy fisherman’s knit and smelling of Lakritol. On the outside; an unhurried Swedish boy who blushes easily, like he's got pink blood. But he's a method actor sweet at playing parts. And she's a writer good with dry lines. She tells him about the eclipse. They talk cosmic. She clings to her profession unto darkness, but he's skin over ink.
Cherry is slowly unraveling, trying to escape her father's control through letters to a forbidden boy named Howl. It cannot be, so it in itself is like a dream. And, that Thackery is still bugging the shit out of her...
The city is concrete but the vices are lush. The lipgloss, the lakritol, the heavy wool and the skin underneath it.
And in the background, a grainy television screen constantly loops the news of the recent murders, draining the town's bodies of blood.
There's a lot of dark stories that sound exciting, but theres often a lot of brooding romantic truth hidden deeper in the lines.
SHAMPOO TEARS is a Psychological Romantic Noir, and work
of literary fiction coming 15.10.26
'Do you believe that Mary Shelly kept Percy Shelley’s heart?’
‘Pulled it out a fire?... I don’t know- If it really was a heart… It might have been calcified-’ he said.
‘A calcified heart. It sounds nice anyway.’ She mimicked his smile. ‘How darkly romantic.’
EXCERPT:
'I’m from Sweden,’ Christian said, answering her earlier question.
Swedish. But the black eyes didn’t suit a Nordic boy.
Stevie's eyes settled on the flowers behind the bar. ‘Can you stand to see their petals fall?’ she heard him say.
‘Isn’t that the beauty? I mean, you know it won’t be that way forever. Fragile …Already started to die.’
‘You think beautiful things shouldn’t last?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I think beautiful things can’t last.’ So she has a thing for doomed romance… he thought.
‘You think love should be like glass,’ he said indifferently, pausing to raise his hand to the waitress, calling her over. ‘Fragile, right, so you have to take care around it. Delicate …But also it keeps things out; keeps things at bay. Keeps out the cold.’
‘What do you want?’ the waitress said, staring at him expectantly.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Ummm. Just give me a shot of whiskey.’ The waitress nodded, keeping her eyes on his as her shoulder shifted down, then back up again, materialising a bottle from under the bar, tipping it upside down as the liquid moved silently; as the blood moving in the body it was silent.
The group of people that had been beside them left to get a table, freeing up the barstools to their side. They were plush and pink, almost the brightest colour in the bar. Stevie glanced at it, staying on the spot, watching the bartender slowly slide a small rectangular glass with dark treacle liquid inside it to him.
The music changed once more. Almost at the same time, they shifted as if to move to the vacant barstools. He stopped, pointing to the one closest for her before slipping into the one by its side.
Stevie crossed her legs at the shins, smooching her heels together. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘Again?’ he said. ‘Did we know each other before?’ She shrugged. ‘It’s Christian. Chistian Moon.’
‘Christian Moon…’ she said. ‘In a town that’s already obsessed.’
‘What?’
‘The moon… There’s going to be an eclipse, but already they’re all looking up.’
‘Lunar or solar?’ he said blankly, as though he already knew.
‘Solar …Not blood, just black.’
‘Just black,’ he said.
‘It’s just that Swedish people have the best names… you know like Lars and stuff …That’s why I asked.’
‘Okay.’
‘But you don’t.’
‘I lived there until I was 25. But I’ve just been in London for five years.’
He lifted his drink to his mouth as some guy bumped into him, making his body ride forwards slightly though his feet stayed on the spot. ‘Watch it,’ the guy said, turning to give Christian a pissed look as he receded.
‘5 years? Stevie said, ignoring what had happened. ‘But you only look 25 …At most.’ He met her eyes. ‘Well, maybe you stopped aging at 25.’ She paused. ‘…How do you feed your blood curse?’
‘I pick up girls at bars.’
‘Bad luck for me,’ she said with little emotion, finishing the last of her milkshake. She hadn’t taken her jacket off and she pushed her hand absently into her pocket as a lightbulb flicked above them in steady bursts, their eyes lingering to it as it flicked once more before dying. ‘It’ll be darker now.'
‘It wasn’t really so bright before,’ Christian said.
THE INK CUTS OFF HERE...
The screen fades to black, but the dream isn’t over. Deep within the mist-shrouded moors of the town of Moody, the writer is still calling the shots. SHAMPOO TEARS can't be touched for 9 weeks. Until then, the lines between writer and actor, puppet, and dreamer, remain dangerously blurred.
Are you a reader, or are you just playing a part? If you are a romantic-minded creature of the night, love deep and slowburn romance with a bit of a psychological kick, and are desperate to slip behind the velvet ropes—your private invitation to the studio floor has just been printed.
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the perfect gift for that romantic minded -ever-so-slightly brooding person of your dreams (or if you want to snog them (behind tombstones) in real life too-) ...