It was there a lifetime, upon a forearm, lying flat, brown and surrounded by an out growth of self-conscious stalks of hair. The spot was often confused as a blot of ink, those accidentally implanted by the tip of a ball point pen, say, waved about in conversation or fiddled with during a thought process, and carelessly, without thought or realization, injecting tip to pore, leaving behind a dark, bruising color that when finally noticed, imposes a sense of shock, at first, then concern, questioning this new marking's origins. The pad of a thumb would be licked, embedding its salt and finely separated loops into the papillae of a tongue, who, beating their heads against the ridges of a fingerprint, vibrate, tickling moist glands about the cheeks. Their laughter is but a scant amount of spittle, leaking through gaps of teeth, rolling down the curvature of the tongue, to splosh against the fingerprint and wash away the salt and brine, leaving but a puddle of saliva. Thoroughly damp, the thumb is placed above the spot in question, hovering, for a moment, as it is recalled when and if such a violent conversation took place, or thought process imaginative enough, that in its wake a mark would remain. Before an answer can be deduced, the thumb is scrubbing away at a neurotic pace, thrusting from its middle joint, up to down, left to right, wiping the fingerprint as a rag against the buoyant flesh of the forearm. Sensitive, it responds to the abuse with quiet red bruises, blushings, the width and length of the fingerprint, flaring brighter with each passing wipe, until the friction develops into a visual warning, of a threshold being met, of tussled stalks of hair, of a deep red smear across the skin, enveloping the spot, which, after surviving the beating imposes a sense of brow lifting realization, for a moment, that this spot is actually a lifelong freckle.

*

Years ago, decades actually, during an infantile state, skin and organs settled; clumps of cells, nameless and faceless, took the identity of popular organs-a liver, stomach, a kidney-after nine months of spontaneous organic bursts. All was wrapped, neatly and plainly, within an organ itself, a package of skin seven thin layers thick. Lacking a history, it contained no marks or scars brought about by emotional stress or clumsy misjudgments in surrounding environments. There were no overlapping folds of flesh at the boney intersection of an elbow, nor any curling at the large knotty midsection of fingers; the skin was plump with sugars and lipids and young enthusiasm. Those stalks of arm hair now dark and overgrown, were then simple fine threads attempting to keep all the innards just underneath warm and dry. Indeed, the blood gracefully flowing within and without a functioning kidney and heart heated to a pink, stable degree reflected in the lips and toes, squirming. The body and its newly acquired parts were doing their part, locomotive, digesting and excreting peas, contributing to growth, laterally and horizontally, producing laughter through pink lips and an inquisitive flailing of outstretched limbs towards recognizable maternal faces. Lost in this noisy, well crafted production, within the population of organs and current of several liters of circulating fluid, a cell, whose ingredients included air, waste and a flamboyant knot of stringy proteins, an unassuming shade of grey. Crumpled, as though a discarded shopping list, it twitched.

*

Squirt from a flat gland in a tight neck, a purple hormone hastily sped between capillaries, ignoring the shapes and charming demeanor of thousands of attractive cells. With undeniable intension it traveled into the chest, swallowed by the chamber of a pulsing muscle that would eventually fatigue one day, in the distance, yet at the moment, proudly thumped in between soft ribs, rhythmically propelling the thin liquid through the heart's fibrous exit and into the shoulder-a baron coastline of miles of breathing red muscle, formed to perform, to toil under command, to lift, struggle and sigh, and, only, occasionally accept the reassuring placement of a hand rounding the shoulder's boney structural support, poking through, during a dehydrated state caused by exertion. The purplish wisps moved with silence between the slices of resting meat, entwined and muted, of separated strings, yet at once an entire mass, prepared. The path curved into the bicep, a straight decline, a depth of inches fingering pressure between the ears of the hormone, a nuisance merely, ignored, buried by blind determination, blind to an extensive change in environment, composed of dry elbow bone, jointed and bulbous, a uniform significant grey dwarfing the little purple dot. Alone and courageous it traveled, slipping through deep gaps of cartilage, seeking, through this clear gunk, for a particular cell containing a particular crumpled set of proteins, whose only purpose of being, in this mammal's entire existence, of decades in length, of sorrow and sublime moments, no, they have nothing to do with success or happiness, only to produce one identifiable mark on the span of this body. It was time.

*

The cell was snug and warm, tucked shoulder to shoulder among billions of likeminded Melanocytes in the forearm. By Chance, each had formed to compose the last layer of skin (or the first, counting from within to out, rather than out to in-as they are quite optimistic of their placement in the body), they chatted with nerve endings frequently, curious of the violent and exciting happenings going on beyond their fastened location, say, asking of the acidic deterioration of Brussels sprouts in the belly, or further still, wondering about what occurs in the toes, so far off and distant that only imagination seemed like a plausible way of accessing that part of the world. The nerves replied, perhaps with a smidge of pity, with electric pops and subconscious squirts of potassium that, for simple pleasures, tugged at erector muscles in the skin, puling them, simulating the glee of a draft leaking through an aged window, speckled with led paint. The reproduced chill rose as bubbles of clear soda pop from our last layer to first (or first layer to last, depending on how one looks at things in this big old world), providing a refreshing, and a tad light headed, sensation, a distraction, from being limbless and immobile, stuck shoulder to shoulder, snug and warm between billions of Melanocytes, who's eyes, chin and faŤade mirrored the cell's to a boorish T (what a towering letter). As the bubbles burst and faded, exhales were emitted to settle the cell's little stomach after such excitement, exhales, followed by the occasional giggle and sigh expressed in realization, of the brief event's end. As the silence settled, as the cell resumed its wonderings of toes, there was a sudden purple collision.

*

Solubility occurs under dynamic equilibrium, in a cell whose ingredients include air, waste and a knot of stringy proteins, an unassuming shade of grey. Filtering through the cell's body inked a hormone, succumbing to the fatigue of travel, to the mass of speckled pores, sifting into hundreds of liquid purple columns held weightless in the cell's little belly. Separated into manageable herds, there began a dissolution of the liquid, a slow relief and retraction from the flamboyant wavelengths of mauve to anorexic smoke rings, silently, curling, fading and flailing with the exceptional aged grace of feminine hands, evaporating into an unseen presence in the distance. The hormone detached from its joints, bled from the inside out, spontaneously collapsing every ounce of its being, submitting to the creation process of a Freckle, becoming an irreversible mess for a crumpled stack of grey proteins to inhale, to revive, to awaken, to bloom. Indeed they unraveled, arrogantly stretching all appendages, twisting the waist, bending the spine, unfurling from head to toe (those almighty toes!), absorbing through their spongy makeup the invisible breakdown of the liquid, using it to feed and grow, to mix, with purple and grey, and blood and waste, with air and command, to become a brown blot, inking through from last layer to first, no, first layer to last, a blot, filling sacks of skin in its path outwards, a mark exposed to the surrounding environment for the entire lifetime of this one mammal, yes, right here upon the forearm, shaded amongst inherited stalks of hair, yes, exposed, a granulated puff of color meant to be.