The art of fiction deals with events that are not real, whether it be based on reality or purely fantastic. Generally this applies to situations where the statement "This event did not happen in this reality." is true, however you conjugate the verb "happen". The purpose of this essay is to set a framework of a fictional universe concept that will be the basis of some stories that I will write. Save for tagging the work for sorting purposes, the stories set in this universe will only be apparent by inference to save my breath every time.
As we step away from fiction from the restraints of being set in the world we are in, sometimes minor alterations can cause heavy implications as to how the world will function, as a thought experiment on the butterfly effect. In the current state of affairs where the concept of there being multiple universes is tenable, the easiest way to visualize this is to imagine these different worlds in increments of small but visible differences from the current world, in each and every case we run the whole thing to its conlusion and watch, which becomes apparent before a plot even begins.
The idea is simple enough, this universe setting is a world where no one has a head from the very start. While the idea is simple enough, questions will be raised as to how I will work this concept. Obviously the first question is how these creatures will function, as we will get rid of the part of the body where most senses (and the brain) are. This is where I use the very risky power of the handwave and simply make it that somehow they can see and hear, and even let them function. In the simplest of terms, they will have a soul appropriate to their form that can allow them to do their tasks.
The following questions and topic will focus on the headless person and his society. Do not worry about any gore as in place of a head, the top of the neck is covered with a flat layer of skin. Now how does this neck look? As stated before the neck ends at a flat stump and this end is perpendicular to the height of the neck. This stump can have some thin hair growing but will not normally be hairy.
As with regards to eating, drinking and other activities that the head usually does, the most certain manifestation I can give is an inability to speak. While they can vibrate their throats and cause some sound off their necks, this is not practical enough to be a language and so is not used as much. For food and drink we can assume they do enjoy a nice meal but how they do so is most preferably not to be thought about too much.
Now, I cannot in the life of me be able to fully enumerate every consequence of this alteration from then until now and will instead write these stories with a bunch of a priori concepts about the setting of a story, such as places and customs. Whether one can get to this point in time from headlessness is beyond my scope. Also, do not think that these stories are already connected to one another without a sure sign that they are.
And thus I explain the world in which the stories of people living life without a head reside. As with all fiction, I can only write what I would think would happen in such conditions, but rest assured that there will be as much realism as such setting gives.
