Tips, bitter missives, love letters: He put upon his shoulder a mark, drawing a circle with his knife into the skin, and carved a pattern inside the circle. Then he gave the mark a name; a secret name which he resolved to tell no-one.
Into that cut design, he projected his deepest beliefs of the spirit, of his notion of self and his place in the world.
The mark became all of this, and as the blood dried and the cut scabbed over, the meanings held.
He knew the mark was what he intended it to be. He had succeeded in transferring part of his soul onto his body and that part had become its own being, secured by a name that would never be spoken.
