The Spinal Cord Perception

The Spinal Cord Perception is the first novel by Joshua S. Porter, better known by his stage name Josh Dies, the singer/songwriter for the band Showbread. Self-published by Porter in 2006, the book revolves around a small-town substitute teacher named David Rivers, who is haunted by a small black monster which he refers to as the "Llapasllaly". Written in a stream of consciousness narrative, the story is told in a series of bi-polar rants by Rivers, and chronicles his thoughts in non-linear sequences from childhood through his adult life. It depicts his downward spiral into depression, apathy and an apparent anti-social personality disorder. The novel depicts many hallucinations from Rivers' perspective, and the reader is left not knowing which scenes are reality and which are fantasy.

Porter has described the book as "Equal parts black comedy, scathing satire, bleak horror and love story."

David Rivers, a 24-year-old substitute teacher (most likely with anti-social personality disorder) begins the story by moving back to Georgia after spending several months in California fleeing from an undisclosed incident involving a classroom full of children. As the story progresses, we learn that David suffers from visions of a treacherous black creature he calls the Llapasllaly. During these visions terrible things occur, namely the death of his childhood friend, girlfriend and parents among other things. As David becomes increasingly disenchanted with his life in California, his depression culminates with the discovery of his girlfriend's unfaithfulness. After witnessing the Llapasllaly kill her, David returns to his hometown in Georgia and takes another substitute teaching job. He soon meets a woman named Samantha, whom he falls in love with and proposes to. His dark visions seem to subside. Things take a turn for the worse however when David realizes Samantha has a Llapasllaly of her own (who she calls Amelia) and who takes the form of an eating disorder. At the time of this discovery a police investigation into the killing of David's Californian girlfriend finds David in Georgia where a detective issues a warrant for his arrest, believing him to be responsible for the killing. David flees police as Samantha is taken to the hospital for treatment after collapsing. Returning to the elementary school that was the home of the incident that forced David to move to California, David attempts to prove the Llapasllaly's existence by revealing it to a classroom full of special education students. The plan backfires when the Llapasllaly kills a child with Down's syndrome. As David leaves the school, a taxi carrying Samantha arrives and the couple run to reunite before the police car arriving at the scene crashes into Samantha and kills her. David manages to escape the police temporarily and returns to the trailer he was living in. He has a final vision in which the Llapasllaly invites him to commit suicide with sleeping pills. In the final moments before the police arrive to arrest him, David realizes the Llapasllaly exists only in his mind and that the option to live or die is up to him and not the creature.