Author : Melannie Jay

I ran a thumb over the milky flesh of my inner forearm, marvelling at what Mark had done to me. What used to be a knotted mess of puckered flesh had been made smooth again, without even a silver sliver to indicate what had happened three months ago in Augusta after a night of heavy drinking and regret.

Mark smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck as I touched the other arm, then felt under my shirt for traces of the other familiar scars he had erased. Thousands of dollars leading up to remaking the perfect body and he had done the procedure for three hundred. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the first thing I wanted to do was hack and slash to make it feel like mine again.

“I made a couple of enhancements. Free of charge, and I can take them out if you don’t like them. Do you want to see?”

I nodded and he led me to a full-length mirror where I could see what he meant, but it barely fit in sight. Two massive pairs of mechanical wings extended from my shoulderblades. The folded top was just above my head and the bottom of the feathers cut off at my knees. The silver gleamed even in the dark light of Mark’s basement surgery room.

“The scars on your shoulders… They kind of reminded me of wings, and I had these laying around. I was waiting for someone to put them on. Thought it would be a surprise. You can tell me if you hate them, I won’t be offended. Promise. Probably should have told you before.”

Mark trailed off, jammed his hands in his pockets, and the only sound was the gentle whirring of the wings he had put on me. They were lighter than I imagined, not so heavy that my shoulders slumped forward. If anything, my posture seemed better.

“They’re too heavy to actually fly with, but they make a statement. And you can move them if you want.”

I didn’t look at Mark, but I clenched my shoulders and watched as the wings unfurled, showing off his craftwork while almost taking off his head in the process. The face in the mirror broke first into a small smile, then a grin. Silver had always been my color.