Short Story: [Something to attach Meat to] vol. 2: Close-minded Skin

By Maya Gadley

Early in the morning, at 0600 hours –January 14^th, 2012, Artho dressed in perky neon orange clads, laid face down on a cot, hands dangling from both sides. Artho understood his circumstances more than anyone. Yet he couldn’t find himself more uninterested in its tale. His existence had grown dull in the last decade. Artho felt the corners of his mouth curve upward. A New Year’s resolution seemed necessary given the circumstances. Yes, suicide seemed like the perfect resolution for a shitty decade.

                He had been incarcerated for more than a week now. Or was it a month? Artho no longer cared to recall the hour. He placed his head into the folds of his hands and was startled by the feeling of indifference they admitted. Ashy hands, he thought. Mum always told him to be weary of hands and face; “Don’t want ya walkin’ around looking like you done dipped ya body in flour.” she’d tell him every morning before school. “It ain’t cute.” In Artho’s opinion, cute was not an adjective to be associated with men. It was something to be partnered with babies and kittens. Shit like that.  

                “Are you unhappy?” Silence had become a great acquaintance in Artho’s new lifestyle. Silence listened. It didn’t question. It’s didn’t judge. Nor did silence complain. However, every blue moon emanated a nauseating voice from everyplace, everywhere. Some fucking place, Artho guessed. “Are you unhappy today?” Artho turned to watch Nancy twirl unstopping in the middle of the room. Her wiry black hair, now pulled into a back ponytail, looked to be unattached to her head.  Her hands flailing out like wings as she spun.  It made him dizzy. “I am…”

                “What do you want?” Artho asked, impatiently.

                “What do you want?” she replied mockingly.

                “Nancy?!”

                “Nancy?!” she sung, with laughter. “I am Nancy. You are Nancy. We are all Nancy!” The girl stopped “Are you unhappy with my gift?” Artho did not answer. “Daddy said you are unhappy – he said, maybe he was incorrect to give you the gift.” Artho pressed his palm against the bed rails, of the tired cot, and watched the Nkyin-Kyim symbol appear upon it. Artho cried out, once his body hit the floor. The rails of the cot now no more than a pile of jagged iron rocks. Nancy did another twirl, her bones clattered like dishes against the pavement. “I gave you change.”

“It’s fuckin’ curse!” Artho screamed, rolling his body off the debris. He let out another wail; this of mental agony. Aziman...when the last time he'd seen his brother? Did he hate him now, like his parents? Did the fear of public humilation prevented him from stepping past the thresholds of his apratment -"I..." said Artho. "regret 'changing' my brother..." Nancy cocked her head to the side in amusment; humans, they'll never learn. "He wasn't ready for the reality like I was. I overestimated him..."

Artho stared up at the ceiling. The entire world was against him. The old woman with the purse at the bus stop had been his first “change”, he’d shed her of her skin; transforming her into a chubby old woman with a hollow eye and no teeth. The guy who gave him cigarettes, he shed him of his skin as well. Then his ex-wife (that tit job he paid for was now long gone). After her he took to his landlord, to Charlie, to Tamara, then Glenn – Artho carried his “change” from Toronto Canada up to Hollywood Florida before he was apprehended. They called him a terrorist. And that was how he was to be tried in the coming month? Or was it a week?             

“I changed them…”Artho whispered more to himself than Nancy. “I unraveled their skin…” Artho glanced at Nancy who had stop twirling, but now engaged in building the iron rocks into some fucked up building thing. Artho grabbed Nancy’s foot and travelled the course of her legs to her behind. However, what he searched for, no longer remained. “Where are your other legs?” he asked. “Why do you hide your legs?”

“I do not like my legs.” Nancy objectively. “I told my Daddy, I did not like them. So I changed them – I like two – no more!”

Artho sat stunned. “But, you we’re the one gave me the gift of change!”

“Change?!” Nancy laughed. “Change! I am changing as I want.” Nancy wiry black curls fell straight, and cloaked the center of her back. She then pressed her head until the black became white. “Sometimes I get bored of being this or that.” Nancy became a spider, then a mouse, and finally an adult woman. She pressed her hands against her now developed breast and laughed. “You have not changed at all.” Nancy sang happily. “You want to change, see the change! But you not have begun to change.”

“If wasn’t supposed to change they things around me, why the hell did you give me the gift?” Artho crawled to his knees and pressed his hands against the cold ground. “A world without skin Nancy! This is what we wanted! The BONE! The sheer white BONE of the body. Such truth – so clean it is. A fucking utopia I want! A world without skin.”

Nancy smirked at Artho. “A foolish man you are.” Nancy pressed the tip of her fingers to Artho’s head. Artho felt the spot go warm. “You will learn to change.” Standing up, Nancy opened the door to the cell and watched Artho as he watched her leave. “Daddy said you need the Nkyin-Kyim symbol.”

“Yes and I –”

“Never did Daddy say it was needed upon others…” Nancy slammed the door closed just as Artho ran up to grab it. “You want to change everything else because you’re too afraid to change yourself…Not everyone wants to see the bone…I do not like you I think.” Nancy said, and then she disappeared.

Artho cleared his throat, stunned by Nancy’s statements. Who was she to say who he was? She was just like everyone else unwilling to change! To see the bone! The perfect world skinless people! Where we all walked around free from superficial ways! He knew he did not need to change! Not at all! He was already a skinless man! He was here to give the world what they need, a true utopia to all those willing to be free from plastic veils. And if they we’re not convinced he what would do it for them! Artho would make people understand how he saw the world, and why his world would be best.  Why they we’re wrong, why they we’re ignorant.

 Artho let out a yelp of satisfaction at the thought and threw hands in the air. Only to then notice the color of his skin had changed to a bright yellow. Unconvinced Artho began to shred his clothing from undergarments to his socks, only to find his whole body encoded with yellow. He let out a shriek. He was now worse off than had been, a freak of fuckin’ nature for all to see. “Nancy!” he screeched slamming himself against the door, what did you fucking do to me?!”

“You're too afraid to change yourself.” A voice echoed around him. “Saw now you see yourself as you are - Not Black or White.” she laughed. “You yellow!” she said with happiness. “Yellow like a coward.”

The End