Never a crossed word

I slept for three and a half hours at the back of my mind, thereby leav­ing my cereb­ral cor­tex free to per­form acts of incred­ible dar­ing as it delved into the withered recesses of my memory, atten­tion, per­cep­tual aware­ness, think­ing, lan­guage and con­scious­ness. “Did you find any­thing?” I whispered, hoarsely. But there was no answer. There never is. This line is out of order. Num­ber changed.

It was an exhaust­ing night. I have never woken feel­ing so drained.

I thought some­body had been chis­elling let­ters into my bones, carving me with their words, shap­ing my frame into what they wanted me to be rather than what I always ima­gined I was. As I pressed my hands across my chest, watch­ing the inter­est­ing pat­tern of fin­ger indent­a­tions emerge, I real­ised that I felt out of place within my own rib­cage. It had been stolen overnight and replaced with sticks of warped bam­boo. Fresh from the Ori­ent, batched together with lengths of sil­ver wire.

I don’t know my own body. Noth­ing chis­elled. No blood and no bloody rifts. Just four let­ters tat­tooed into my fore­head. First let­ter M. Com­mon word. Double mean­ing. Ownership.