Deep Wounds Are Not Only Physical... #Literary #SuspenseThriller [under $3]

The Depths of Deception

by Ian Fraser

Despite appearances, the following extract describes emotional pain.

Deep wounds are an educational process. It begins with the realization that a piece of flesh is gone and will never return. The body knows it has been disfigured; the conscious mind must be restrained from self-disgust, and the continual pain must be perceived as merely signals from torn nerve receptors. The jagged perimeter of the wound and its exposed tufts of severed muscles flex perpetually – an internal forest of scratching claws. The nostrils enter the picture; one becomes accustomed to the metallic tang of an open wound.

Deep wounds require daily attention; their owner becomes intimate with its crevices. Few wounds are symmetrical, each has unique features. Lubricated with saline, the fingertips must slide into the wound and pat it with dressings to dry the exposed layers. From doing this, a familiarity comes. The glistening flesh becomes a landscape of points and indicators on a map. Here is blissful nothingness; there a stabbing pain makes the world darken. The secret artwork of the body’s interior is displayed in the wound: vermillion streaks of raw flesh, the tempura brilliance of exposed muscles and tendons.

The owner of a deep wound learns that skin itself is a liquid as the body attempts to seal deep holes with viscous fluid. But when too much flesh has been lost, the body gives up trying to use the seeping liquid. Dark-brown purple clots start gathering like barnacles around the wound’s perimeter. The slowly-shrinking wound resembles the iris of a camera lens, or a dark clotting sphincter. Finally, once this growth is complete, the body abandons the interior crater, a pocket of liquid hidden by a thin veneer. Some catastrophic wounds can never heal.

These are my scars. This is my blood. This is my body.

From "The Depths of Deception" by Ian Fraser

I knew without looking that on the wall beside my head there’d be a piece of reflective metal: a notional mirror. Do I want to see myself again? Shall I pretend to know me?  I turned my head, opening my eyes. In the mirror, my distorted cheekbone swam into view like some asteroid in space slowly rolling, revealing flaws and features. A bloodshot eye regarded me. Every time I looked in a mirror, awkwardness descended, as if my reflection and I were former friends with nothing to say, both of us co-existing in an uneasy silence.

You’re me.

 I told myself I wasn’t lying. My eye observed me and I returned the stare, searching for traces of judgment or disapproval. But the reflected eye was neutral, answering me with an impassive gaze. I watched the flesh around the eye crinkle, as if its owner was smiling. I didn’t think I was smiling. But I knew the eye had seen everything I had done, and intended to do, and, for whatever reason, it seemed content to convey nothing of substance about its opinions. I turned the light off; darkness returned; the pressure diminished. I need sleep. I shut my eyes.