Swallow, Starving Faithful | ONC 2020

3. EN LOS SUEÑOS NO SE SIENTE DOLOR.

"Hey," says Bloodmouth Scarface. She peers down from the tree. "You alright? Fucking hell."

I can hardly see through the blinding afternoon brightness, which slips through the ombú canopy in shards of light and the occasional shiny raindrop. I'm bathing in the gold light, on my back, sunk into the damp ground. I don't think I've injured anything, and my head is finally clear. That delicious clarity you only achieve after experiencing something that ravages your skinny body avidly, and you're left a pleasurably disoriented, pleasurably sobered. The monster I've feared for months asking how I am is a pleasurably sobering experience.

"Listen," Bloodmouth Scarface continues, "I haven't killed you, have I?"

"No," I say easily, marvelling at the glossy lubricant coating that word, allowing it to slip from my mouth so clearly and heavenly. I don't hate my voice for once. I feel it gild up and find its place among the birds' singing. The birds are happy to have the sun back again. 

Bloodmouth Scarface squints down at me. "Come up. It's wet down there." 

"Okay," I say. This also slips out coated in my newfound lubricant. I'll come up and meet her as if it's the most pleasant thing in the world.

Bloodmouth Scarface waits for me in my usual groove, but shifts to the side to allow me an easy space on a thick leper's arm. My mind should be whirring with fear and angst and denial because I am about to be swallowed up by the beast in front of me. It's not. I understand with clarity that I was wrong, and that doesn't need to be troubling. I just observe that face of her's: the grungy roots now parted to reveal a face pale and pudgy, but with a beautiful shapely look. Her body is beautiful and shapely also. I marvel at the journey it takes me, my gaze travelling up and down and all around. Through valleys and fjords and misty mountains, I'm finally on that pilgrimage to the Andes Father Pierre mentioned offhandedly one morning. I'm rising and falling with the limpid vision of curvature. 

She's pretty. Bloodmouth Scarface is as pretty as Valentina, only wrought with a huge, scraping gash travelling diagonally from her forehead to her jaw. It's as if a giant void has opened where her beautiful features should be, threatening to suck me in with perverse buoyancy. I can't tear my eyes from that scar. They're stuck in the lacuna, pulling me into its crisp macabre. She grunts, "is it my face?"

"Sorry," I say absently. "I was looking at your body. And then at your face."

"Ah..."

"Sorry," I say again.

"You're pretty fucking weird. It's fine, though. I'm used to it."

Are you?"

"Yeah. This yours?" She's gesturing at my bedding. 

Her face reminds me of a shrivelled plastic bag, though not in a bad way. Congregating around that devastating scar, it crinkles and morphs around a bony skeleton, layered on with depth and liveliness. That's where the effect of the clouds come from, from the crinkles and grooves in her abnormal skin. I find myself wondering how it would feel compared to the Kind Man. I'm staring; I need to reply. 

"It's mine."

"You sleep here?"

"No," I say automatically. I reconsider, deciding that the evidence is right here and there's no real reason to lie. I coat my proper response in lubricant and slide it out, enjoying how nice it feels to tell the truth. "Actually, yes. Sometimes I do."

"You have a dorm, right? What's your name?"

"Sarah."

"Oh, right." I realise she's smoking. I've been too busy observing her face and body to see the cigarette, and it's only now, with the smoke blown in my direction, that I fathom it. She must be hiding here so she can smoke in peace. "You're that Sarah, are you? The girls talk about you sometimes.