Connect the dots

Her eyes were like sieves; silver, shot through with dark holes. Everything went in, but nothing came out; save the occasional drizzle of water. Her skin was spat all over with freckles. Clusters of them shivered out from beneath her clothes. Like stars, constellations. One time, she took a pen and played connect the dots with them. There were flowers and stars and bears and fish all over her. Her mother screamed when she saw them; she scrubbed her clean, raking her skin off with soapy scourers and hot towels “Never do that again, never.” She had trembled. She had always been neurotic; always blinking as though she were scared of crashing in the rain. The girl had secret tattoos though, on her hips and thighs, they shuddered and made pulsing veins of the blue biro lines. Her mother would never see those.

Hopefully.