Puff

Chapter One

Mole

I am aware of the moles. I am aware of the moles because I am covered with moles. Why, I have no idea. Not one member of my family has even so much as a blackhead, and here's me, a walking sheet of Braille. I am also keenly aware of the poster. The poster of the mole. The poster of the mole I see on the Red Line coming home from Catechism Wednesday nights. The poster that magnifies the mole about 350,000 times, depicting the mole in various stages of metamorphosis, with big serious black letters beneath each stage warning: SEE MOLE. SEE MOLE CHANGE. SEE A DOCTOR. I am now so aware of the moles I can practically see them changing before my eyes. Changing color, changing texture, changing size. Threatening to bubble over in hideous disease. I can feel them incubating on the small of my back like a colony of ticks. I look at them in the morning before school, with mirrors and magnifying glasses, making detailed mental notes of the slightest variations: the deepening crease on the one under my left nipple, the ever-multiplying cluster of them under my armpit, the one three inches from my navel I've never seen before in my life. It's like trying to identify constellations on a chart of the midnight sky. I feel compelled to give them names. I am ... read full excerpt from: Puff ebook