Bomber looked at himself in the full-length mirror, studying the entwining snakes down his arms.
On his right was a pair of undulating snakes, one a rattler, one a cobra. The rattler’s head started at the top of his shoulder and went down his arm, coiling around his bicep, and then down his forearm, it’s tail stopping just above his wrist. The cobra’s head, hood not extended, started at the back of his hand and went straight up in a line, the tail ending just before the rattler’s head.
His left arm held a black moccasin and an anaconda, both heads ending entwined almost in a kiss at his hand, and the tails looping together under his bicep, ending at his armpit.
He remembered where he got them – from an artist in Kuwait, when he had two days’ leave from his unit. For both days, he sat in a tattoo artist’s chair, one artist working on one arm, the other on the other arm. They told him it was dangerous, that he could get a blood infection.
They spoke Arabic between them, and he watched and Arabic soap opera on TV, in between the news reports. Sometimes he couldn’t tell the difference.
Why did he want snakes? They asked him. “I like sidewinders,” he replied. It was a dual answer – the Sidewinder was the type of rocket he used in his Apache helicopters. He also had a fear of snakes when he was a kid.
The captain of his unit said that the best way to deal with a fear was to let it mark you. One of the guys, Kyle, had a fear of scorpions. In the desert, that’s all there are. He learned to deal with it by looking in his clothes, his bag, his cot, and when finding a scorpion, shaking it out, barely keeping himself from screaming. Kyle eventually got a tattoo of a scorpion, its tail at the most painful part of his hand, the webbing. He said that seeing that scorpion every day helped him get over it, because he felt he was kindred to the creature, now that he had its mark.
Bomber thought, at first, he was crazy. But as Kyle went on his tour, he no longer was so afraid of the scorpion. In fact, he once picked one up by the tail and carried it outside.
If he could do that with scorpions, maybe there was something for it.
Also, after the tattoos, Bomber felt that he was more akin to the Sidewinders, so started going in with them without guidance systems. He then became one with his name, Bomber.
The snakes were the only ink he had. He was happy with it, and the little Arabic style of the tattooing. He knew it needed touching up, but now that he was Kindred, would it matter anymore?
He walked away from the mirror, slipping on a white t-shirt, and headed out into the club. He felt like hunting tonight.
Writer’s Book of Days prompt, yesterday’s date.
SSP number of words yesterday: 2076. Total SSP words thus far: 17700 words.