The silver languorously danced along my skin, a feather of a touch, leaving the skin raised and pink in its wake. Flowing lines decorated the skin of my wrist, slight pink overlapping the ghosts of old. I shuddered as the blade bit into the sensitive skin, as it parted with practiced ease. I watched as the white of my skin became stained with a dark crimson, as it flowed from the depths to break over the norm. It was a continuing piece of art work, something that would never be finished, and never should have been started.

My arm dropped to hang at my side, and I watched – enraptured with the sight – as the crimson flowed down my arm as it did in my veins, as it broke over the edge of my palm and down the crevices of my hand, down the long artistic line of my finger, to drip from the pad of my middle finger. I watched as it fell through the air, pulled by gravity, as it splattered along the stark white of the tiled floor. The blood surged along the tile like the outer banks of a river, before dipping into the spaces between the tiles to fill them like the small rivers they were.

The knife continued to slice at the skin of my wrist, dark lines of crimson adding to the artwork left from previous blades. I was filled with tranquility as the crimson came from the depths of my soul, bringing all of my pain, all of my damnation, all of my sorrow and desire with it. A sick smile broke across my features as I dropped the blade with a clang to the ground, as my blood seeped into the white surface and the grout was stained with a red so deep it was near black, as my soul was purified.

Copyright C.R. Golden.
The Silver 2007