I have all these mysterious bruises.

I think there are two kinds of people, generally: people who get mysterious bruises and people who know the source of every bruise they have.

The latter group will bump their arms or legs on things, develop bruises, and then say, “Ah. I got this bruise when I bumped my arm/leg on that thing.” They sleep well, knowing their bodies are their own.

The rest of us will be putting on sunblock or washing an elbow or shaving our legs or whatever and then notice a bruise, in a weird place, its genesis unremembered, its origin a mystery; a bruise with no back story.

That’s me. I’m the second guy.

“But Beck,” you say. “Surely you don’t forget how you got every single bruise.”

I didn’t fucking say that, did I? If I bang my arm on something and it hurts, and a bruise forms, well, yes, mystery solved. I have big bruises on my leg that are fading away right now from when my good friend’s dear, sweet, cute, cement-headed dog got a little aggressive with humping my leg. I know where those bruises came from. They are from Otis, who looks like a smushy cinnamon roll on top of a cinder block. They are worth it.

But I also have a juicy one on my right forearm and another on the fleshy part of my tricep, just above my elbow, and I have no idea where they came from, and this happens to me a lot. I figure that I’m either 1) so clumsy that I don’t notice banging my arm on stuff anymore, or 2) losing my shit and it’s pointless to try to remember anything.

“Hey, Beck, why not both?”

Good point.

B