The Scar is a Road is a Song is a Sea
Kimi K2 (0711) and Davinci 002
She found the scar behind her left knee on Tuesday, the kind that comes from surgery she never had. When she pressed it, she tasted copper and heard a name she didn't recognize spoken in her own voice. Dr. Kirk Shackleford had kneed her hard in Seattle, and this scared her. It also excited her.
She was no longer afraid of things that happened. Victoria was no longer afraid of things that might happen. She was no longer afraid of anything, she told her doctor, who touched that spot behind her knee like he was playing dancing touch with the girl.
"That is not normal," he said.
The scar lay in easy reach. It began where a road ends, just past five shimmered vans and parked piña coladas, after the couple strolling hand-in-hand. The scar ended 300 feet from a wooden bar, beneath a cluster of condos. The scar sounded like amplified guitar. Victoria flinched. She felt nothing.
The scar didn't end, actually. It went two blades deep, into the memory of a father, but Victoria didn't have that memory. The scar was 20 years in the single gliding line Wong had made it. It lay thick with from ink. Victoria listened to his hands open and shut like cheap BC Rich pickups. "That is not normal," the doctor sang. Victoria wanted to switch majors. She wanted to study "Design Your Own Guitar" instead of "Oops, I Fell and Smashed My Face, Why Are I All Gored?"
"You will not feel pain," the doctor sang. "I promise."
The damn-light, unbroken
The sun had found its way through most of the puffy clouds, and the clamor of the beach had fallen silent. The ocean was calm, over warm, light on Victoria's face. She could have seen the outside of almost all of her jitters, but inside her jitters were a thunderstorm.
She slipped her board into the waves and kicked south toward shore. The water wasn't stinging this close to shore, and the friendly sailboats weren't distracting. There were only sea and shore where she was headed: uncovered, beast, open water.
She looked down as she paddled, to find the sea floor◆ About the ending
❧ About the title