Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Rings On His Toes And Other Parts

There is a man in his early sixties living in town who has facial piercings. When I first met him had just a few rings in both ears, both eyebrows, both lips and one ring in his nose. As the years passed he added more rings and small metal balls to his face. It was noticeable but not too shocking. This morning I ran into him at the post office and did my best not to let the shock I was feeling show on my face.

He now has so many piercings and so much metal on his face and ears that I no longer could really see what he looked like. He had rings completely encircling the outer rims of of both ears and large bead work earrings hanging from the upper part of each ear and both earlobes. His eyebrows were now two rows of tiny rings lined up closely together. His lips were circled with tiny metal balls. He had some kind of faux aboriginal markings on the skin that was still visible and when I glanced down to his hands I saw that they were also covered with the same kind of markings and that he had also painted his fingernails black. It was very hard for me to concentrate on what he was saying since his face was so distracting.

As he walked away I noticed he was wearing sandals and I could see that he had painted his toenails black and was wearing a ring on each one of his toes. I wondered if he also had a bellybutton ring or any piercings in his tongue. Then my mind leaped to a place I never thought it would go. "Oh God," I thought, "I hope I never see his penis."

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