A Mockery of Roundness

My nails hurt. They're little more than stubs now, jagged things scraped and peeled into a mockery of roundness. Nails are tougher than we give credit for, filled with the kind of stubborn determination you'd see in a dehydrated wildebeest, refusing to die even as it is bitten and picked at by hungry, circling vultures.

Even the dim light of the cheap motel lamp, which illuminated so well the various piles of unclean laundry lying about, has failed to hide the absolute war zone my fingers are reduced to. Outside, the air is sticky. It is suffocating with the smell of car exhaust smoke and barbecue smoke, of mothers and babes alike crying and screaming. I dare not open the window, for outside there is cacophony that can drive a saint mad. I dare not look beyond the glass, for outside there is terror no movie can replicate.

It is too loud. I hide under the bedsheets and pick at my nails, and when they are bleeding I pick the skin beside them.