ETCHED IN RED
BY
Kenneth Curtis Brown
Blood trickles along my chest as sanguine streaks caress along my torso. Droplets cascade in crimson rain drops onto the tile floor. The trickles combine into a waterfall of red ichor. Before the full length mirror I gaze at my naked body and the artwork I have bestowed upon myself. My grasp on the knife grows difficult, the blood now seeping between my fingers.
Each slash and blade stroke holds meaning, every searing nerve a necessary price paid over countless days of work. The wounds are deep, some even scraping the top of bone. It is in this torment I attempt to grasp at what haunts me. For so many nights these auspices, now marking my skin, had visited my dreams. They flash in my subconscious, appearing in a painful light. Going beyond sleep these signs break into my open eyes, a view into another realm ripping into my world if just for an instant. Now the blade is the pen and my body is the journal which I record these elder signs.
The pain from the countless etchings on my pink flesh finally penetrates my brain. My reflection winces, eyes begin to water as the air kisses the deep red marks. I drop the slippery knife causing the only audible noise in the room. The clangor of the steel reverberates in my ears. A sharp hum pierces my ear drums and shoots through my brain. All my thoughts go blank. Reflexively, my hand begins to form a tight ball.
Glass shatters. My hand, now torn to shreds, adds to the puddles at my feet. From the pieces of broken glass inside of the cheap wooden frame, countless doppelgangers glare back at me, unblinking. Our hundred pairs of eyes lock in a tangled mess of bewilderment. Those unfamiliar eyes see do not stare with anger or madness. No, what I see is clarity, a light of crimson that bestows me with a revelation I would have never fathomed.
Pain, despair, love, joy, all feelings I realize are one and the same in their hollow worth. Inside my skull where the primitive brain housed within is awakened, to this in thanks to the elder signs now marking my being. I continue to stare at the broken mirror, my breath paused and body unmoving except for the damaged twitching skin along my torso. Sets of unblinking and milky eyes continue playing sentry over me to ensure the truth sinks deep. I do not refuse what has been blessed to me.
My body trembles as I start to move after what seems an eternity. Almost losing balance I crouch down, my hand shaking as it grasps the wet knife handle. The weak legs that hold the canvas of truth begin to back away from the doppelgangers and their gaze. My feet set out of the four walls that cannot house the knowledge I must spread.
END