#untitled hit 1500 hits today and that's an enormous number to me

[cchapsticck]

The stick and poke above his left knee says 1965-1986-1986- surrounded by little flowers like you’d leave on a headstone, or that’s what they’re supposed to be, at least. It’s upside down, legible to him when he looks down at himself, if he were to take stock of his remaining entirety. He’d done it sort of clandestinely, after he was out of the hospital, released into Wayne’s care after he was able to sit up for longer than a few minutes at a time and wasn’t handcuffed to the hospital bed anymore. He probably should not have gotten away with it, with the way that medical professionals were privy to pretty much every square inch of his shambling cadaver while he was still about 30% open wounds and oozing bandages. He’d maybe been a little dishonest about getting the supplies needed, asking nurses and his visitors alike for certain things under the guise of some unrelated need. Pity: Hey, doc, could you leave the pen? Moved into a new place and don’t have much, you understand? Wayne could use one for the crossword. Entitlement: Hey, Dustin, could you get one of the lighters out of my van? No I’m not going to smoke in the house, what, I had a punctured lung, listen to yourself dipshit, I’m bored and need something to do with my hands. Self-Improvement: Hey, Robin, do you think I could borrow one of your art books? I don’t know, like one with nature and shit the view out this window fuckin’ blows. Self-Destruction: He’d really dug deep for those innate Munson slight of hand skills to swipe a needle from a prep cart at his final mandatory check in with the government docs. He’s a serviceable artist, with all his years of DMing and drawing battle maps and NPCs and magical items, but he’s not like. Great. So the flowers all look a little samesey, and some of the ink had bled and pooled so the lines are a little blown out in places but he wasn’t necessarily giving himself a tattoo laid up in bed to show off. Because the haunted house of a body he’d grown up in was different now, and it would be forever. And some days in recovery he’d wake up in a cold panic and not recognize it. Looked down at himself and not know what he was seeing. A stranger in a strange land only it's what’s left of the body you were born into that you can’t leave. Or look down at himself and know exactly what he was seeing and its creation would replay and replay and replay. Forced on him. He couldn’t leave. He’s trapped in here. He didn't read the book when it was assigned in 10th grade English, but he saw the movie, and maybe he understands now what Boris Karloff had been so terrified of.

UNTITLED RECORDING rcd ca. 1987-1988 on Ao3