He pulls open the sliding glass door and lumbers onto the balcony, a trail of scarlet footprints behind him. Sunlight explodes all around him, a stark contrast to his apartment’s penumbral guts. The blazing sphere in the sky sets off fireworks in his vision, and with no eyelids to dampen the glare, he trains his sight on his feet until the flares dissipate. As the Catherine wheels spin across his corneas, a breeze laps at his raw, exposed muscle. He grits his teeth and shudders.

When his eyesight stabilizes, he lowers himself onto the balcony’s concrete flooring. His flesh squelches, his unsheathed nerves scream. With his body supine, he turns his face away from the sun and allows its rays to penetrate his skinless form. He catches the reflection of his flayed countenance in the glass door; an anatomy textbook illustration incarnate. He remembers the first time he exposed his gory visage, how the sight of his body free of its largest organ repulsed him and sent him traversing the uncanny valley. Now, the Halloween mask staring at him fills him with relief, for he has temporarily ridded himself of life’s poison.

***

Each day finds him shackled to a workspace, forced to grin and bear the hours with others who are equally immiserated by the systems that crush them underfoot. Menial tasks. Bureaucratic red tape. The dissolution of self to blend in. He suffers it all for a salary that tentatively keeps a roof over his head and allows him to exist in a rapidly accelerating world that wants to kill him. Environmental disasters. Cancerous food. Technological advancements that deplete vital resources. Hordes of desensitized people stumble over each other, their noses glued to these apocalypses broadcasting from their devices. They process the information numbly, compartmentalize, and then move on. He, however, cannot exist comfortably with the Anthropocene’s jaws around his neck.

The body’s outer covering absorbs the brunt of the violence existence deals out. The stress, the anxiety, and the toxins amass within the tissue, causing it to pulsate and itch. When it all becomes too much, the skin writhes and aches, begging to be peeled from its canvas. He then happily obliges and shreds the flesh off in tattered sheets onto the bathroom floor. With his poisoned, battered shield removed, the air feels clean again, and the horrors so very far away.

***

The skin begins to regenerate, as it always does, stretching tightly across every inch of him. The reprieve is over. When the prison finishes ensnaring itself around him, he forces his nude body to its feet and shuffles back inside his apartment. He collapses onto the couch with a huff and runs a hand sullenly down his restored face. His free hand finds the television remote entombed between the seat cushions and presses the power button. A news anchor appears and reports that multiple school children have been slain. He throws the remote at the screen, shattering the anchor’s face.

He begins to itch.