Page 62 of These Tears

Maybe that’s the lie I’ve been telling myself.

Maybe they’re both him.

‘They will always find a sin to punish me for.’ It’s the last whisper that catches in his throat.

He turns towards the aisle and doesn’t speak again.

12

Two hours into the flight, the lights have dimmed and the world has slowed to a crawl. The engines hum steadily, lulling the passengers to sleep.

But not me.

I sit with the horror still polluting the air – and my lungs can no longer hold it. So I do the only thing I’ve ever known to do when the world turns sour: I reduce it to pieces small enough to process.

Seat-belt buckle off. Tray-table latch pushed. Armrest swung upright. I take the camera out without looking at him. I check the settings by muscle memory, let the familiar weight anchor my hands so I can put all things terrible and all things beautiful into a frame and pretend it has clear edges.

The seat pocket ahead is chewing on the aircraft’s safety card; the grey of the fabric around it matches the armrest, making them look duller in this light – and making Elias’ skin appear almost luminous against them. I glance at his large, calloused knuckles resting against his thigh.

My eyes catch a faint arc of ink beneath the cuff of his black jumper – a curve that doesn’t seem to belong to fabric or shadow. They snag on it. Latch on. Won’t let go. My finger is already finding the shutter – again and again.

I look at his face. His chin is tilted up, head against the headrest, eyes closed. The chest rises slowly beneath the dark knit. Falls. Rises again. His shoulders have gone slack against the seat, a faint rasp beginning low in his throat and threatening to blossom into a snore.

Slowly, I lean closer, pinching the very edge of his sleeve between two fingers as curiosity gnaws at me. He makes no move, though his breathing changes slightly. It’s loud enough to make some cold part of me wonder whether he is asleep at all. But it soon settles into a languid rhythm again.

I continue rolling up the sleeve until it reveals a fresh tattoo still protected beneath clear adhesive film. My attention flits from the hand to his face, and back.

Finally, I see them: thick chain links circle his wrist and begin their climb up his arm in perfect, devastating symmetry.

My first guess is punishment. Then captivity. Control.

He keeps saying he was never free. Perhaps the chains aren’t there to make him remember what used to hold him. Perhaps, in his mind, the chains never came off.

But the tattoo is beautiful all the same.

Not in the way scars become pleasing to the eye when one has already forgiven the pain – but in the way poetry is, once the ink has dried. The detail and the shading… none of it feels rebellious. As though he needed his demons visible on the outside.

The chain circles his wrist as if holding something back. Like rusted links vanishing into the open mouth of a kennel, where something dangerous waits just beyond sight.

I lift the camera for comfort, bring it up and catch macro shots from every angle I can steal. The lens hovers so close to his skin that the space between us feels almost indecent and makes me feel like a trespasser.

And in that moment, he turns his palm over with slow grace.

I flinch, smashing back into my seat. But he doesn’t snarl at my intrusion. Doesn’t move, just sits there, head tilted against the headrest, eyes half-lidded from sleep. Watching me.

‘“What you do not want, and yet is stronger than you, sweeps you away,”’ he murmurs drowsily. ‘Carl Jung. More or less.’ He lifts his hand slightly off his knee, voice roughened by sleep. ‘Go on then. Get those demons out.’

He may not be wrong.

Maybe they are demons. Maybe this is the only way I know how to expel them. Or maybe I’m just a pain junkie.

I grit my teeth. Leaning slowly forward, I hazard another glance at the links. His gaze follows every inch of air I cut through.

This time, the hood of the lens brushes the inside of his forearm.

Click. Click. Click. He moves his hand subtly – fist to open palm, flex to curl – as if indulging the compulsion, as I chase the devil over vein and sinew.

‘How far does it reach?’ I ask.