Enigma

Homework assignment to describe your character from someone else's POV in one page, one scene. Used Eugene for this. Originally published May 2023

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My eyes investigated his body as we each sat on opposite ends of the bed. I was trying to figure him out. We'd only met an hour earlier and he was already the most fascinating thing I've ever experienced. And I only talked to him. Not even talk. A taciturn outbacker he was. Every word that left his mouth only drew me in closer. I liked the tattoo he had. Never seen anything like it before, a real work of art. He mentioned he didn't even like crocodiles that much. Odd, to devote your entire back to an animal you don't even love.

Everything about him was odd. The tattoos. How he appeared to smoke, but as you looked closer he wasn't doing anything with the cigarette. The [void] expression that always loomed over his face. The scars. Oh god the scars. There were so many of them. A morbid curiosity arose in me when I first saw them.

I inched closer towards him, the bedsheets falling off my chest. "Where'd you get those?" I asked again.

"Here and there." He didn't look up from his cig, his eyes staring off into the distance that appeared to be closer than usual, eyelids hanging, half of his blue irises covered.

"Come on. Tell me. I'm interested in them." he turned to look at me. "I don't like 'em. They're a stain. Of a time long gone that I wish would stay gone. There's nothing about them." he took another puff and continued lazily staring into the nothingness of the room. I persisted and mentioned that there has to be something. No one has scars like that. A line of red stitches from his shoulder to his elbow, another one that started at the belly button and ended in what I presumed to be his hip. The biggest one was left on the best part of the canvas, a massive almost y-shaped scar that started right below the chest and split just under his collarbones. My fingers traced over them. He flinched at first but he accepted my touch. His body was cold. The room was warm.

"Did you die?"

He raised a brow. "You ask too many questions." Another fake puff from his cigarette.

"God forbid a girl like me is curious about her customers."

I know he didn't want me to see, but I spotted a subtle smile on his melancholy face.

"I applaud your curiosity but a girl like you can't be curious about men like me." I hated that. I hated that he was right. I hated that he was right and I'd never get answers.

I laid back down and watched him get dressed. I didn't want him to leave. That was a first. "Will I see you again?"

No answer. He tucked his piece back into his pants. Laid two paper bills of a hundred dollars each on the dresser. Generous.

"One as a thanks, another for you to shut up. I wasn't here."

I saluted him and he was gone. What a man. What an enigma. I wonder if I'll ever see him again.