Still Frame
Criss Moody

Lindsey flips the credit card around in his hands. Passes it over and through his fingers, mindlessly letting the motion ease him.

Down. Away from the ragged edges of a bitter mood eager to grow into something violent.

Hit. Break the object of anger, make it hurt. Make him hurt. Decades of keeping instinctual responses to complication and frustration inside. Refusing to succumb to a cascade of memories, tattooed on his flesh in deep spread lines. Scars from beer bottles and careless hands.

Reinvent self. Again. Shed dead skin. Another past life left to rot.

He lets the card fall.

Lindsey. Bitter. Credit card.