A Funny Thing

I nicked my wrist.

A bent nail had been sticking out of a shoddily-repaired drawer and it caught me, tearing a small hole my skin. I forgot all about the spoon I’d been reaching for and set the cup of yogurt on the counter and examined the wound. An orb of black velvet had beaded atop the little nick and when I tilted my hand ever so slightly, it rolled down the side of my wrist, trailing stars in its wake.

Eyes wide with wonder, I squeezed as much out of the little hole as I could but it wasn’t much use. Thinking quickly, I grabbed the serrated knife and began carving into my arm as though it were a loaf of fresh-baked bread. Almost at once the sky began to pool up around the blade and though I screamed and screamed I kept going, tearing through muscle and cartilage. The sawing motions made me sick and I felt bile rush up my throat and spill out my mouth onto the tile. Sagittarius was visible in it. The rest of the ordeal did not go easy. I never expected flesh to be quite so resistant. When I finally got to the bone, that’s when the cosmos started to bubble over and trickle all over my leafy trousers and bare, unwashed feet.

I laughed because it just kept coming and coming, so many constellations pouring out of my body. In a rush of enthusiasm I grabbed hold of my hair with both bands and began tearing it out in thick clumps, howling in pain but gleeing over the thin black strands that oozed like puss from each vacated shaft in my scalp. My hands were wet and throwing my mouth open in ecstasy, I smeared firmament in my eyes until all I could see was a canvas of stars. My fingers streaked it over my face, painted me infinite. Inspiration struck and I pulled my jaw apart, cracked it just like stale peanut brittle. That’s when it started to overflow, Mercury coming out my mouth first. Each planet followed in succession and I nearly choked around Jupiter. My clothes had melted off my body in a bright swirl of color on the floor below my feet, or where a floor had once been anyway, and gradually went adrift. My pores expanded into black holes, binaries, burst into Cepheid variables and supergiants, blue and red. Ripping at the skin of my chest, my belly, my thighs, my fingernails were torn away to form multiple spiral galaxies.

And when I finally made the move to breathe, I imploded and my body formed the Milky Way.