The boy with paper skin...
He walked beside the sea. In his mind. Dreaming of a fine summer's day, such as this one, when the cool fresh water may wash over his feet and tickle his toes, as it did before.
Gazing out his window, he watched the happy couples stroll across the promenade, making their way to the beach. The barely covered bodies of the beautiful. The healthy.Their skin seemed flawless as it reflected the shimmer of the sun. Perhaps a cut or bruise disrupted the sheen of their perfect golden limbs but that was all. How he wished for such trivial markings on his own skeletal wrapping.
He'd sit for hours, looking out of the window. Watching the world go by. Sometimes he'd liken the window to a TV, only he couldn't change the channel or adapt the brightness. He often preferred it though. It gave more scope for the imagination, he thought.
The soft breeze carried the sweet scent of honeysuckle past his fragile face. Cracking a smile, the boy reminisced of the times he'd pick them on his way to school and suck their sugary sap. He paused to reflect on the fact that he never could predict what flowers would taste sweeter than others. The colour, size and youth indicated nothing of particular significance. Although this miffed the boy, he was somewhat entranced by the mystery and enjoyed the surprise of a particularly sweet bloom, especially when he guessed it to be nothing more than average. Perhaps this was nature's way of reminding him not to judge a subject's potency by its appearance, he thought. He wondered if the flowers were aware of his superficial assumptions of them before he plucked their lives away. This saddened him and he hoped it wasn't the case.
With the image now turning sour in his mind, he switched his attention to an itch on his wrist. He scratched down hard, gaining a moment of distraction and relief before the impounding pain set in.
A trickle of blood dripped down from the small tear he'd created on the crease of his wrist. The sight of destruction always broke the scratch trance. Like a sharp awakening, he was whipped back to reality. The boy watched it fall to his elbow then wiped it off with his finger, leaving a wet red smear across his arm.
...
-To be continued -
© Shay Crinkle, 2017
Comments
Post a Comment