23 June 2010

Making Up Stories

When I noticed the discreet "Gramercy Tavern" embroidered on his messenger bag, I figured he'd get off the train at 23rd Street, and he did. But then I had to wonder about the scar, an inch or so long, running northeast up his forehead from the bridge of his nose. Was it a kitchen accident? A knife fight with a dishwasher? A spat with the waitstaff over tips?

Was it a girl? A long ago playground fight? A car accident?

Or domestic violence? Or maybe an incendiary device?

So many possibilities in that one little scar.

10 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:19 PM

    My son has a scar under his right eyebrow. When he's olDer, it will look like someone punched him in the eye and cut the skin against the bone. But actually, he fell on the coffee table when he was a baby.

    I hoped to come up with a fanciful suggestion, but I clicked over to the menu and my stomach took control of my brain.

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  2. Not going near that menu. Angus has a bit of colour in his face from all the baseball, and suddenly the scar that was high up near the top of his cheek where they nicked him cutting him out of my belly is really visible -- much further down and to the side. Skin is cool. Now I have the John Lithgow skin song running through my head.

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  3. I should post a picture of the scar on my husband's hand and invite guesses. Tempting!

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  4. i have those moments often.

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  5. My husband has a scar in his eyebrow. Unfortunately, it has aged to look as if he still fancies the early 90s craze of shaving lines into your eyebrows.

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  6. That is quite a fun game to play.

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  7. scars are so intriguing -- inside scars and outside scars.

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  8. My daughter has a scar across the top of her scull, like a permanent tiara. I told her once it's a story she can tell her whole life long. The next Monday, it was her show-and-tell.

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  9. You are brilliant at making up stories from just one little scar.

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Go ahead, leave a message. I don't bite.