The next two months that I spent recovering, were like a syrupy drop, just hanging at the mouth of the bottle, priming itself to fall, but not entirely sure of the decision. There was booze, there was opium, and there were some hallucinations which I mistook for real thoughts. My sister was taking care of me, which more or less meant that I had food whenever I wanted it. It also meant that I had to deal with a disgusted look on her face and her entreating tirades when I wasn't high. While I was dumbing my brain down, my body was handling the trauma surprisingly well. Being a tattooist, I had lectured several of my clients, about how tattoo was a wound, how the immune system will treat it as an outsider, how it will be covered with clot in a week and how they had to deal with the temptation of peeling the scab off.
And now there I was, watching the same kind of slow healing as if it was a miracle in making. Barring a few more stitches administered by a friend, the design was untouched. The friend also gave me a few balls of charas to wade through the recovery. They lasted a week, then I took to booze. One crutch down, another crutch up.
Every time I was sober enough, I would ask my sister to hold a mirror behind my back, and I would observe the wound in dressing mirror. It became some kind of medication for me. I could stare at it for hours, hell I could even feel that subtle recuperation happening under my skin. Cells savaging pathogens savaging cells. So slow, yet my fucked up immune system still managed to close the wound in five days, another two to get rid of that mishmash of stitches, and still I could feel my cells working incessantly under the scar tissue. My sister had a new role now, much to her chagrin, I would ask her to trace the scar tissue using a sharp pencil. That pricking used to soothe me. Since that tissue was still soft, almost like baby skin, it would puncture and bleed. And surprisingly it soothed more than it hurt, as if it liked to be fed on the blood.
This obsession had led my sister believe that all this shit was my own doing. Already she had a tough time believing that some girl would come within a touching distance of a hygienically retarded person like me. Every now and then she would ask me if it was some kind of sick experiment I agreed to be a part of. I told her it was. A slap and a lecture later, I was kicked out, luckily healed enough to be on my own. If I hadn't been kicked, I guess my lazy ass would have sprouted roots in her place, content in being taken care for like a toddler.
And now there I was, watching the same kind of slow healing as if it was a miracle in making. Barring a few more stitches administered by a friend, the design was untouched. The friend also gave me a few balls of charas to wade through the recovery. They lasted a week, then I took to booze. One crutch down, another crutch up.
Every time I was sober enough, I would ask my sister to hold a mirror behind my back, and I would observe the wound in dressing mirror. It became some kind of medication for me. I could stare at it for hours, hell I could even feel that subtle recuperation happening under my skin. Cells savaging pathogens savaging cells. So slow, yet my fucked up immune system still managed to close the wound in five days, another two to get rid of that mishmash of stitches, and still I could feel my cells working incessantly under the scar tissue. My sister had a new role now, much to her chagrin, I would ask her to trace the scar tissue using a sharp pencil. That pricking used to soothe me. Since that tissue was still soft, almost like baby skin, it would puncture and bleed. And surprisingly it soothed more than it hurt, as if it liked to be fed on the blood.
This obsession had led my sister believe that all this shit was my own doing. Already she had a tough time believing that some girl would come within a touching distance of a hygienically retarded person like me. Every now and then she would ask me if it was some kind of sick experiment I agreed to be a part of. I told her it was. A slap and a lecture later, I was kicked out, luckily healed enough to be on my own. If I hadn't been kicked, I guess my lazy ass would have sprouted roots in her place, content in being taken care for like a toddler.
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