There was an arm I knew of, it was of particular interest to me for it was in my possession. I had known it from a short time after my birth. Myself and the arm had lived and grown together for more than twenty years. We worked together, we played together and we had (please excuse the pun) grown quite attached to one-another. I knew the arm well, although I would not say intimately. I could describe to you the arm such that you would maybe recognise it, but not so vividly that your recognition could be guaranteed - you may see another arm or maybe something that looked like the arm in some way. I would say that the arm and I shared an empathy of sorts. I also admired the arm a great deal, it had more than a functional beauty. It's work was so incredibly diverse and always held a high standard of accuracy (though somewhat less than that of it's right-hand counter-part).To touch it was soft and warm, such a beautiful thing.
I was (with the arm) on a social engagement. Such an outing that I would, on occassion, consider as something of a chore, but a valid one. This socialising was important to keep my persona living in the eyes and hearts of my peers (in turn important so that in times of need I may have a friendly shoulder to turn to, and may very willingly provide one for they who are in need). Despite my looking on such outings as chores, in their actuation I frequently enjoyed myself immensely when the company sparkled with an intriguing charm. Such was typically manifest on the female side of things!
It was a girl responsible for the biting. She was in less years than I, I think. She was very pretty with a smile as broad as her lifespan (so broad it was still in no sign of a limitation, that was good). She held her heart just above her eyebrows and very plain to the eye unlike most in the days emotional climate. This and her wonderful smile provided those charms which had me giggling - giddy with intoxication on the sweet stuff that is life. The two of us reeled around in merriment on the railleries of the night and those in our party were swept along in our general tide. In the switching of a moment she sank her teeth into the arm through my shirt (my shirt was not intended as protective, like the suit of armour shielding, but more like the wrapping on a present). The nerve endings in my arm around the general area of the bite screamed in unison - I saw God, a gaunt figure in grey robes. A smile stretched across my lips. I realised that God's robes may not necessarily have been grey after all and that on reflection he wasn't necessarily as gaunt as I had thought he had looked. It was not for a while that she became apologetic, this is like the dieter who eats a cream cake - it is not after the first bite but after the entire cake that a feeling of recrimination creeps into being!
Dogma would tell me that the arm was impaired (albeit slightly). The arm was, after all, wracked in pain and swelling too. Yet somehow the wound seemed so contrary. The attack was less of an attack and better assimilated with a cuddle of affection. Could Roosevelt have bombed Nagasaki out of his undying love of the Japanese? That is unlikely. This was a highlight of the relationship between pragmatism and chaos.
The bite marks were not to last - a week, maybe two, but it was a time when the girl was always with me. I need only look at the dis-coloured flesh of the arm for the memories of the night to flood my head.
From the moment that the marks had left the arm and no evidence remained that the biting had ever taken place, I would speculate as to why she had bitten me. It was an act to be attributed to a hedonist, yet it's results would prove it to be far too far-sighted for hedonism.
Maybe it began as a kiss that she would send at a moment so right, yet a difference in height caused it to land upon the arm, short of my face. Realising that a kiss on the arm, far from affectionate, would probably go unnoticed, she sank her teeth into the buoyant flesh.
Another theory that I have toyed with is that she imagined the arm (you will remember that it was veiled by my shirt) in the beauty in which I would see it. When one is so moved by the beauty of an item one wants to eat it, to savour its beauty, to hold it within them forever. So enraptured she decided that she would eat my arm, yet on the first bite reality slapped her face and brought her back to terra-firma. She had realized that it would contravene all laws of ettiquette to eat a limb of a living, speaking human being - a friend yet!
My fondest thought is that maybe she was hungry. She saw me as comforting as a mother. Deluded by our bonding, she suckled (with a dash too much vigour) on the arm. Finally happy that she would see no sustenance from the arm, she unbraced her teeth and accompanied me to a fast food establishment.
I must say that while carrying the bruise, the clouds would seem to travel so much slower through the sky as if waiting for me to see each and every one of them as they paraded past.
THE END.