Many people I've met over the past couple of years have had severe scarring on their arms or faces and necks. I want to travel those smooth pink streams that must have been created by horrible torrents of pain and agony. I've even started remembering scars I've encountered in the past, before I learned of my secret fetish. For example, during my first year in college I met Liz who had a scar on her hand. One day I touched it, and she twitched for several minutes afterwards.
My own scars have developed even more significance: the nice, straight scar on my head from chasing my sisters and aunt through a barbed-wire fence on my grandma's farm when I was probably five years old; the fat, thick scar on the back of my left leg caused by a rusted bicycle seat when I was in third grade; the horizontal, grinning scar on my right hand I gave myself while cleaning out a tin can for a science project; and the tiny, nick on my nose from a metal dump truck given to me on my second birthday.
Scars tell all kinds of stories and bind you to past events and people around the globe. I know I'll never forget Chris's scar; I was even tempted to ask to see it again when we hung out in London last December. Nor will I forget Olivier's scar on his hand from a drinking glass that broke while he was washing dishes (yeah, what were the chances of that!), particularly after I cursed him in such a way as to make my Gypsy grandmother--at least the one that taught me about the evil eye--proud: "Every time you look at that scar, I hope you remember how happy we were together." Someday he will die with that scar, remembering how happy he was all those years ago.
Now I have Stephen's trinity of scars from his appendectomy a couple of weeks ago to keep my morbid fascination company:
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