I'm tall tonight--over two meters, I'd guess, though that's not extraordinary in our world. Many people here, though not all, evolved from dinosaurs not mammals. I still have two legs, but with clawed birdlike feet. And a tail. No clothes, but scales. Proud of my elegant coloring: jade green on my back, paling to white on my flanks and belly, to rose on my breast and neck.

A friend, also saurian, has been upset about something lately. He's been getting moody, impulsive, even violent. I fear I may have to fight him to protect our more fragile human friends. By custom, this should be a fistfight, which means no use of your hindclaws. You can slash with your foreclaws, because these cuts rarely go deep, but it's considered cheating to leave the spurs or spikes on your knuckles--because of their position, a solid punch can leave deep puncture wounds prone to infection. Traditionally, duelers file them down to blunter cones before a fight--still capable of painful cuts, but nothing deep.

So I look around for a useful scraper, and finally pull the white spiral seashell off the head of my friend Dawn's giant statue of a bug. I'll fix the statue later. I use the shell's ridges to scrape down the spurs on the back of my knuckles. I'm thorough about it. File and file, pare down past the usual cones to bumps, and file on, trying to flatten even the white nubs.

Reluctant to fight my friend. I trance out, scraping nervously, trying to think of a way to restrain him peaceably.

Ow! Come back to my body to find my knuckles are sore and bleeding. I'm so upset I went too far--I've scraped down my spurs entirely, and now I'm grinding away at my knucklebones.

I'm so worried about fighting fair, now I'm trying to file my fingers off!

NOTES

• Scaly person, sculpture = a sea-dragon-woman I met in dreams, who I just sculpted: Wyvern.
• Fear my friend'll flip out = just saw the film RELAX, IT'S ONLY SEX. In it, a gay writer's friends all fear he's flipped out after he violently counterattacks a gay-basher. Who, after all, was ready to kill him for fun.
• Shell from Dawn's bug-sculpture = guilt. She gave me a half-done statue of a bug, and I stuck a shell on its head, but felt guilty for messing with her design, even though Dawn herself liked it better. Yet my guilt persists. You just don't alter other people's art!
• White knuckles = Alcoholics Anonymous slang. A "white-knuckle drunk" stays sober only through desperate, constant vigilance, taking as much time and energy as drinking. It may be alcohol-free, but it's not considered real sobriety.
• The sobriety I'm worried about isn't alcohol, but violence. I was beat up a lot in school, and refused to fight back, partly due to the Gandhian pacifism my mom believed in, but partly due to the other boys themselves. Their horrible example of male pack behavior made me fear my own anger and violence.
• Snappish friend = that childhood anger, re-surfacing. I'm dealing with it in therapy, but I AM snappish with friends these days... I repress the anger strictly, fear my impulses... fear masculinity itself! Grind down my spurs till I bleed. Not exactly castration--something subtler.
• ACTION = Quit self-examining! Scraping away my violence has gone too far--has become violence itself, violence TOWARD myself. I've done enough. Just be.