Skin

It begins with a visit to the reptile sanctuary. The one-tonne saltwater crocodile and his neighbour - an octogenarian giant tortoise – impress the crowds. But it is the next section you have come for.

Corridors of illuminated glass cases. Those marked VENOMOUS reside behind a locked grille. Brass plaques with long Latin names. Look but don't touch. Oh, but can you see that Fijian Crested Iguana! Low exhalations of awe.

You gift your time and respect – after all, respect means "to look again" and so you do.

Refusing to hurry – being with each specimen, inhabiting their primitive bodies. Your forked tongue flicks and flickers, your sinuous scaled underbelly slithers slowly over the rough pine bark and aspen shavings. Your dewlap extends and flares in warning when a toddler bangs her fist on the edge of your world.

Tearing yourself away from each tank, you proceed to the next. They all deserve careful attention, and each one will be honoured. Then, the last. Disappointed, you think: this one is empty. But wait. There is something, right at the back, partially obscured by a terracotta water bowl. A thick ring perhaps half a metre across, exquisitely patterned in deepest crimson with charcoal and cream bands.

You cup your hands to the vivarium glass to peer in more closely. It dawns on you in an epiphany both giddy and sickening. The Mexican Milk snake's jaws are stretched to perfectly encompass the circumference of its body. The skin around its mouth is so thin as to be translucent. There is drying blood where mouth meets tail, or where tail becomes meat. The creature's head is angled oddly so that you see one cloudy eye staring at nothing.

You continue to regard this beautiful abhorrent aberration of nature, forehead pressed to the backs of curled fingers, but your mind is flying far away. You feel slow and cold, as if the sun has gone out. Only when the reptile keeper reminds you of closing time do you allow your hands to collapse to your sides like dead-weights.

"Self-cannibalism. Ouroboros," you say.

The young woman approaches slowly, noisily chewing gum. "Whatcha say?" She follows your gaze, leans up against the glass herself. "Ah, shit."

You take your leave.

The hour-long walk along the highway takes nearly two. Every step is torture. There is a sense of disconnection between torso and legs. During one of many rest breaks, an old woman shoos you off her garden wall with a gnarly walking stick.

Then finally, it is over. You have never been so glad to see your peeling front door. A strange sensation pervades your guts — at once empty and full. It is way past suppertime but with no appetite, all you can do is shed your clothes and stand under a steamy shower until the water runs cool. Without bothering to towel off, you leave wet footprints across the floor and burrow into bed.

After hours of battling the blankets, you reach into the nightstand drawer for an old bottle of sleeping pills. You take three, just to be sure. It is bliss when toasty fuzziness finally consumes you in its sweet chemical embrace.

#

Calling and screaming, clunks and scrapes of school shoes on tarmac. A gaggle of giggling girls drifts by. A soccer ball hurtles past the bench where you sit reading a comic. One of the kids in your homeroom jogs towards you.

"Kick it over then," commands the boy.

"Don't ask him," sneered another. "He couldn't kick it if he tried."

"Get lost. Get it yourself," you mutter quietly, mentally giving them the bird. You stand in case you need to fight. You feel a shove in your back which makes you stagger. Inside, you wilt. More laughter.

When you get home, you throw your satchel onto the kitchen linoleum in a mixture of rage and relief. Your jumper is torn, and your shirt is missing buttons. Blood crusts around your nostrils.

Mum works four jobs despite being close to her due date. Dad's away on an oil rig for a few more weeks. But you pause and listen, just to be sure. Yes, you are alone.

Out comes the loaf of bread, butter and jam. Once that's gone, licking your fingers free of the sticky raspberry preserve, you hunt for more sustenance in the cupboards. You climb onto a chair to get to the top shelf. Bingo. An unopened packet of chocolate biscuits, one of Mum's latest pregnancy cravings. Leaning against the counter, you rip into the packaging, stuffing the digestives down, sometimes two at once. Bite. Chew. Swallow. Repeat. The sweet-salty crunch is all you need, all you need to know. You pause and consider saving some for Mum but what's the point, you're in trouble anyway.
To crush the seedlings of guilt, you tidy up and get out your homework.

One thousand times the following night, you score angry graphite grooves in a pristine exercise book you stole from school. I am trapped in a prison of flesh. I am trapped in a prison of flesh.

Around tenth grade, your mother forces you to see the local doctor for a stubborn florid rash. It has taken residence in a fold of flab in your burgeoning belly. It is impossible not to scratch, day or night, during class, during dinner, going to sleep, waking up. The relatively benign sweat slick has evolved into oodles of creamy pus escaping from turgid boils.

A visit to the doctor. The hot humiliation of stripping off before your mother is perpetuated by the following examination by deft, latexed hands. The inflamed and sick tissue is now just a beast to be slain with capsules and unguents. The doctor recommends your mother apply the creams and ointments. Your mother snaps, "He is old enough to do that himself, thank you." For a sweet moment, you are so proud of her for standing up for you.

Alas, once you're in the car, her frosty gaze crushes all hope. She snarls, "You are an embarrassment. You're a fat, lazy blob, just like your father. See where all your gluttony has got you?"

Dignity fragments into a million splinters. You wish you could be far away. You wish you could be taken into her arms.

Back home, you slink to your room in disgrace. Supper is out of the question. Door closed, you reach under your bed for the emergency stash of sweets. Your hand grasps only empty wrappers.

#

Not long before waking, you are pulled into a profoundly sensual dream in which your body is naked, limbless and lepidote.

When you wake, there are pieces of dried orchid bark in the bed.

#

As night relentlessly plunges into day, the phone rings. Grateful for the end of your fitful slumber, you flip it open. "Hey," you slur.

A blurry video appears. "Hey bro. Didn't you feel like coming over last night? We ate your share of Nan's roast. Lamb studded with feta and garlic, your fave."

You shrug.

"Huh? Did you say something?" she says.

You say nothing. Can say nothing.

"Did something else come up?"

You look back at her, unblinking. Time seems to be in a state of suspension.

Your sister sighs. "You're getting too old to be gaming all night, bro."

"I feel weird," you whisper, half to yourself.

"Get a pint of water and take some aspirin, will you? Oh, I have to go, my train's here. Call you soon." She blows a kiss, and the screen darkens.

You roll onto your back. Something in the back of your mind tells you it is the weekend. On these halcyon mornings you normally stay in bed, binge watching some TV drama. Breakfast comprises party packs of chips and orange soda, devoured until sated and sluggish.

This is not one of those days. A slow-building crescendo of itching, tingling and tightness grows in the skin. Every millimetre crawls. Adding to the distress is a new comprehension that it is not just your sister's video that is out of focus. The world appears as if peeking through a bluish net curtain. Is this a migraine? You rub your eyes. Squeeze them shut a few times. Lightly rub them with your finger pads, starting with the surface of the eyeballs and then radiating out, as if loosening a stubborn mark.
Soon you find yourself vigorously massaging forehead and cheeks, using any convenient tool — your fingers, heels of palms, the orthopaedic pillow. The act hovers somewhere between conscious and compulsive. After you have been all over the body, an eye-watering relief infiltrates your being.

Your head hangs over the side of the bed, limbs and sheets randomly arranged on the mostly bare mattress. The nightstand lurches on its side, exposing dust bunnies and a long-forgotten copy of 'Larger Ladies'.

You let out a long groan. Your pride and joy must have tumbled onto the floor in the night. Yesterday, the antique bronze cobra rose regally from its heavy base, poised in strike position, a silver vintage pocket watch dangling from its lower jaw. Today it's a piece of fractured junk. The second hand twitches sporadically.

Still, the breeze from the ceiling fan wafts pleasingly over your fresh skin. Here, you bask with only birdsong outside to measure the passage of time.

Finally, a resurrected version of you slides out of bed. Gossamer slivers hang haphazardly from your body. Many more are woven into the tangle of bedding.

Feeling lighter and more alive than you have ever felt before, you glide outside. Ah, sunshine like warm silk. The heat allows you to move through the overgrown Kikuyu grass and its islands of chickweed, slicking off the last of the slivers.

And now your forked tongue flicks and flickers, and you wait.