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Challenge: Scars
December 3, 2003

By Sylvia
December 5, 2003

~ Scars ~

Sometimes, when the weather was bad and the rain turned the Caribbean air unnaturally cold, the ache would begin all over again. Puckered skin would pull and tense, long closed wounds would pulse with remembrance. Daylight rarely saw the scars he carried; they were not for boasting. Nor were the memories that came with each wound. No, they were not for sharing.

She had opened up his wounds with her cutting words. But she had asked with such innocence in her eyes that he could not let her romanticise his life one moment longer.

God, but he needed a drink.

By Spacepirate
December 8, 2003

~ Wounds ~

He lies staring up at a high, blinding sun; the hard deck bites into his back. Dampness seeps through his shirt and across his chest. The sun is momentarily eclipsed as the ship’s doctor—really the cook—bends over him and pulls away the saturated material.

“The shots are lodged deep. It’ll take some doing to get ‘em out. It won’t be pretty.”

“Just do it.” Jack grits his teeth. Sweat co-mingles with blood. More scars to add to his steadily growing collection; he can map the path of his life by the puckered and intricate configurations marking his skin.

~.~

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