A Prison, A Person, A Mark

She sat in the middle of the room, cold, vulnerable, excited. And strangely, liberated. The feel of the cold metal surgical bench, sterile and clean, against her forearm both soothed and scared her. The end of the old, and the start of the new. Funny how they seem to always go hand in hand, like two barely consenting bedfellows who rely on each other for continuance.

They placed a mask on her face, sealing her off from a world of judgement and prejudice, and for the first time, she welcomed the isolation, knowing, fully understanding, that in its cruel selfishness, it unknowingly offered her the chance to break free for good. Per the doctor's orders she counted backwards, breathing deeply, pulling the happy anaesthetic into her lungs as if it were a life rope, but the effort became weaker, seven...six...five...four...thr...

Don't touch me. No, I don't want to, just leave me alone. It's my face. It's my mark. Leave me alone, I don't have to share it with you, and I don't have to show it you, I know you're my friend but it's my problem. No, please don't touch it, pretend it's not there, can't you just look at me and see me? Leave it alone. Don't go, please, stay, just don't touch me...

Stop it. Stop. Come on stop it I don't say dumb things to you and you are hurting my feelings please stop if you don't I'm gonna tell on you. I'm not a teller just stop looking at my face. I'm not ugly, my mom says that God made me this way, leave me alone GO AWAY.

You said you loved me. I believed you. And now you want to go? Why, did I do something wrong? What did I do? Just tell me, tell me what I said, what I've done. Is it my mark? Do you find me ugly? You told me I was beautiful, you told me you love me, you told me I was the one, please don't leave me.

A slow meandering pace to the surface, and the chatter of voices, getting louder now. She opens her eyes, or tries to, but for some reason, she is cut off once again, and can see only the blurry outlines of people, hearing them speaking slowly, serious like, in that obvious when people try to mask fear behind interest. Her vision focuses, slowly, as if reluctant to make her privy to an exclusive clique. They are whispering now, and she realizes that what they are saying cannot be good news, because once again, she has been excluded, her own life held hostage by those with her interests in mind.

Can't I see it Mommy? Can't I? You said. You said that that if I was a good girl, you'd give it to me, Mommy, I want a puppy more than anything in the whole wide world, and you said. I don't care what it looks like Mommy, it was just borned. Why are leaving, you said, and we didn't even get to see it, I picked out a name for it too, so why can't I have it?

She moves her lips and as if to confirm her break with isolation, sound escapes and is carried on the back of the isopropyl alcohol-laden HVAC-induced air current into the ears of her father. She is ecstatic, excited, expectant. Her father looks over at her and smiles weakly, the product of too many years spent worrying over an ugly duckling, knowing full well how beautiful she was on the inside. She asks him excitedly if he would hand her the mirror sitting nonchalantly on the bedside table but he does not respond.

Her anticipation lends wings to her voice, and she calls again for the mirror, that she might see for herself the broken chains that modern medicine has cleaved, freeing her from a lifetime of isolation and imprisonment. But her father continues to smile that sad smile, not quite looking her in the eyes, as if acknowledging the rift between them that separates those who have been accepted into the norm, and those who fate and genetics have, with a curled upper lip, left behind.

But she is ready, for the first time, and with confidence that seems to have grown with vanishing of her branding, to cross that chasm and be embraced by a world which has left her on the cold outside. She reaches for the mirror herself, and she sees her father drop his gaze to the floor.

Holding the mirror up to her face, she studies her eyes, bright and wide with expectation, her lips, pulled back into a wide smile, her chin, held high with an infantile pride barely minutes pulled from the womb. Slowly, her eyes trace the familiar path to her left cheek, where they come to rest. And in a moment, it has all changed back. Her face, frozen in a smile, chin held high, and eyes still wide, though bright with the blinding glare of surprise, and on her left cheek, a huge laceration, pink and pulpy and shaped like a lopsided heart, where a brown birthmark had once lay.