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I used to have one tattoo and a couple scars. When I was still asleep, still a human being, that was it…simple as my life used to be. I had handcuffs on my back, some piercings, a pale white patch on my right knee, and a surgical scar on my belly. Simple.
Then my life changed, and with it my body. Nothing’s the same now, and nothing is simple.
The scar on my knee was my first basketball injury, I skinned it when I was ten. The surgical scar was from my appendectomy when I was fourteen. Piercings were the usual teen rebellion and avant garde artist chic: three holes in each ear, one eyebrow, couple cartilage, navel and nose…think my nose has closed up since then, though.
The tattoo came in college, an art piece from one of my classes. I sketched a pair of handcuffs for a still life project, and later I found myself playing with it. I gave them a seven link chain, each one bearing a letter to spell the word “Houdini.”
I didn’t realize at the time that I was branding my future into my own skin.
The art and the scars have accumulated since then. To start I have the red spot on my palm, where I caught the bullet that should’ve killed me the night my powers awoke. My wrists and ankles are permanently red and pitted by cuffs and chains forged by The Darkness, scarred by evil itself. Got those when I was bound and tossed in the basement of a building slated for demolition…I almost didn’t make it out. Those scars got deeper after The Darkness switched my bonds at Buried Alive, leaving deeper gouges in my skin. I have a few scattered marks on my back where I didn’t fully heal from the SUV nail bed stunt, and I have a human bitemark on my shoulder that Zee left when we…uh…ya know. Our last time was pretty rough, but that’s the only lasting mark she’s ever left.
As for tattoos, I have my Fraternity brand: a pair of handcuffs tattooed on my left wrist done in black and white. The color’s solid and bright, it’ll never fade with time. Unlike most of my Brothers and Sisters, though, I have a second pair just above that…not as vibrant, but just as clear, a pair of single action cuffs from the turn of the century that appeared on my wrist after I regained my memories of Harry Houdini. They were his mark, and now they’re mine.
The newest tattoo’s on my left ring finger. Yeah, that’s intentional. It’s a black crown with a Latin inscription at the base reading nunc scio quit sit amor. “Now I know what love is.” It was my way of marrying a woman I thought was gone forever…my pledge of fidelity to the dead because I couldn’t give my heart to another woman. I couldn’t live in Hell when I’d already tasted Heaven.
It’s a lot of ink and a lot of pain for one man, but I’m not your average Joe. Now that I’m awake, now that I’m no longer human…I just learn to deal with it.
Then my life changed, and with it my body. Nothing’s the same now, and nothing is simple.
The scar on my knee was my first basketball injury, I skinned it when I was ten. The surgical scar was from my appendectomy when I was fourteen. Piercings were the usual teen rebellion and avant garde artist chic: three holes in each ear, one eyebrow, couple cartilage, navel and nose…think my nose has closed up since then, though.
The tattoo came in college, an art piece from one of my classes. I sketched a pair of handcuffs for a still life project, and later I found myself playing with it. I gave them a seven link chain, each one bearing a letter to spell the word “Houdini.”
I didn’t realize at the time that I was branding my future into my own skin.
The art and the scars have accumulated since then. To start I have the red spot on my palm, where I caught the bullet that should’ve killed me the night my powers awoke. My wrists and ankles are permanently red and pitted by cuffs and chains forged by The Darkness, scarred by evil itself. Got those when I was bound and tossed in the basement of a building slated for demolition…I almost didn’t make it out. Those scars got deeper after The Darkness switched my bonds at Buried Alive, leaving deeper gouges in my skin. I have a few scattered marks on my back where I didn’t fully heal from the SUV nail bed stunt, and I have a human bitemark on my shoulder that Zee left when we…uh…ya know. Our last time was pretty rough, but that’s the only lasting mark she’s ever left.
As for tattoos, I have my Fraternity brand: a pair of handcuffs tattooed on my left wrist done in black and white. The color’s solid and bright, it’ll never fade with time. Unlike most of my Brothers and Sisters, though, I have a second pair just above that…not as vibrant, but just as clear, a pair of single action cuffs from the turn of the century that appeared on my wrist after I regained my memories of Harry Houdini. They were his mark, and now they’re mine.
The newest tattoo’s on my left ring finger. Yeah, that’s intentional. It’s a black crown with a Latin inscription at the base reading nunc scio quit sit amor. “Now I know what love is.” It was my way of marrying a woman I thought was gone forever…my pledge of fidelity to the dead because I couldn’t give my heart to another woman. I couldn’t live in Hell when I’d already tasted Heaven.
It’s a lot of ink and a lot of pain for one man, but I’m not your average Joe. Now that I’m awake, now that I’m no longer human…I just learn to deal with it.
