I once read Guts, a short by Chuck Palahniuk of which he said caused people to pass out and claim head injuries at public readings, and it was the grossest, most disturbing thing I’ve ever read. I haven’t stopped thinking about it. When I finished reading it, as I unclenched my tense stomach muscles and tried not to barf, all I could think was, “Damn, I want to make people feel like that with my writing.” I don’t recommend reading the story but then again I certainly do. But don’t. Seriously. You’ve been warned. I’m not joking.

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I won’t tell you I’ve been picking my scabs since childhood.

I won’t tell you it’s become part anxiety-soothing, part anxiety-triggering. 

I won’t tell you I do it anyway and usually have a rotating open wound on my face because I can’t keep my damn hands away from it.

I won’t tell you I used to pop zits with my friends in grade school, standing by the mirror with hot washcloths, seeing if we could get the blackheads to emerge and instead gave ourselves massive mountains of sebaceous pimples from all the touching.

I won’t tell you my youngest daughter developed a habit in her first year of life where she picked at her face and also had a rotating open wound on her face.

I won’t tell you I acknowledge it being out of place but still do it anyway.

Well the tiniest little dot caught my eye, it turned out to be a scab, and I just had this funny feeling like I knew it was something bad. 

My fingers try to squeeze it, but they run into tendons, gristle, and bone. Was that one an artery? Too much going on. Too much to mess up. The index and thumb work in tandem, crawling over to the mount to inspect. They grab it from both ends, lifting it with their legs and not their back. Thumb is pretty over it by now. He pulled an all-nighter and is dragging ass. He wants a cup of coffee, a greasy omelet with sauteed mushrooms and salty American cheese, and then he wants to smoke a joint and go back to bed for a few hours. Once his stomach juices mix with that omelet, boy it’s off to the hangover curing wizard we go. But he can’t do any of that because he’s stuck with Indie making the moves on this colossal one. If they get this one, they can retire for good.

Index, or Indie from college days when he threw the football farther than Indie could pull out his whip to fight the resurrected heart-stealing fire worshippers, was also tired but kept moving knowing the payout for today was pleasurable and would support his littles, Pinky, Midge, and Ringer. Thumb didn’t have anyone. He never wanted any more than one; he said he could do it all by himself.

Indie and Thumb go for it, they press into one another, beer guts touching while muscles flail to eject the rotten queen from her throne. But the pain becomes too much and it pries them apart in weariness. They’ll never get it to come out; like coaxing a kitten stuck in a pipe after following a lead on a stray mouse. The skin rushes back to it’s initial position, this time reddened and splotched with attempts to evict the yellowed leftover abscess juices living inside. 

Thumb and Indie retire. The skin is too loose, like floating on a river made of oil. If they got it to work, it would harm something else, and is it really worth it at that point?

Their favorites were the ones who were already white. A perfect white tip of a pencil waiting to escape through a small pore of skin opening, oozing out like a snake and smelling of rotten, infected stink. Sometimes the blood would follow, other times it was a clean cut and the clot had formed behind the pus pocket days before the volcano erupted.

Thumb and Indie quiver from lack of activity. They scour the skin, hands moving in tandem up and down like a methodical spider in its web, searching for anything to put pressure on, anything to irritate or investigate. But nothing happens, no craters on this moon to tend to today. 

The scalp told them to come back next time if they ever got “the itch” or if a sticky scab “showed its face in these here parts again.” They liked hanging out on the back. It was a wild ride but the white hot ones were there when they needed a good release. The face was a given, but sometimes the Master tried new habits and put up the No Trespassing sign. 

One day they will get it. One day they will be victorious. Restless as ever, they move on.

I just couldn’t leave it alone, I kept pickin’ at the scab. It was a doorway tryin’ to seal itself shut. But I climbed through.