Scars are tattoos with better stories.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

The body is but a pair of pincers set over a bellows and a stew pan and the whole fixed upon stilts.
- Samuel Butler

You're sick of hangin' around and you'd like to travel;
Get tired of travelin' and you want to settle down.
I guess they can't revoke your soul for tryin',
Get out of the door and light out and look all around.

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it's been.
- 'Truckin'', The Grateful Dead

January 6th, early evening

I walk along the southern road to Excolo, the grey halflight of a January day fading into a sullen sort of blackness. There is little charm in this weather, road hard packed with ice. As I get closer to the town I find the snow has been sprinkled with salt and grit, but to no great effect. I flip up the collar of my coat as if I need to shield myself against the cold.

This is a new body. I felt the desire for it, something with no history worked into its flesh. And I am not interested tonight in a body that encourages sexual desire; I have had enough of those for now. This body is a fine work of art, but it is not beautiful, skin slouching into wrinkles except where it is stretched tight across high flat cheekbones, hands knotted, greying hair. The body of a man of perhaps sixty, faint traces of age spots on his hands but as yet no tremor to them. A man who is sure of his step. A face that is lived in but gives little away, and eyes like bright sparks in a skull. Full small lips to take the edge off that steady cold gaze, to make it show the possibiity of kindness. Yes, it will serve.

I walk into town and find the tavern, hefting my bag as if it has some weight. When I set it down I sigh softly, as if relieved, and I roll my neck and click it.

"Hail friend," I say to the barman easily, "a toddy do you have to ease my bruised bones on this cold night?"

When the rum comes it steams, and I hold it in my mouth and let my cheeks splotch a grateful pale pink on the act of swallowing.

[OPEN]

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[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

I taste the stew that Melania puts in front of me. It is good, as these things go.

"Lovely my dear it is, and you must compliment your cook," I say.

"Dreams from can to can't. Fine enough, I'm sure."

"Mistress Beddau," I say with a smile, "sounds as if she has no time for such pretty bubbles as these. Dreams they are, miss," I say to Melania. "Some dreams, some wishes, all of them short and sweet as a bright day in winter." I smile. "Drink this," I say, lifting a bright red bottle, "if you have a long afternoon of washing tiles ahead, and you will find the hours pass with the brightest daydream of a sunny seashore. Or take this," I say, lifting a blue bottle, "if you had always wondered what it would be like to be a teenager again, and for a span of six hours you will pass as one, a glamour passing over the eyes of those who see you. Though you are young enough, perhaps, for that to not appeal." I smile at her. "What do you dream of, mistresses?" I ask them both. "Perhaps I have a bottle for it."