Ring.

I looked down at my right hand. I had forgotten to put back on my ring for the first time in months, and my ring finger felt naked. I hated that strange sensation of a nonexistent ring. Nothing I could do about it now. I'll just have to wait to get home before I can clothe the knobby twig that grew out of my palm. Something caught my eye. A mosquito bite? I looked closer. It was then I noticed the skin where my ring had been was dry, red, and cracked. The wrinkles in just that part of skin looked almost fifty years older than the rest of my almost twenty-year-old hand. That had never been there before.

"Don't worry," my sister assured me, when I showed her. "It happens to me all the time. It'll just crust over and peel off in a few days, and your finger will be good as new." Apparently I've worn my ring for too long.

I waited, and sure enough, my finger is healing. The dead, dry skin that made my finger look diseased is peeling. The cracks and wrinkles are no longer dirtying my finger. Now it is as good as new.

I've worn this visage, this mask, too long. Each sin, each wrong-doing, each foul act I have committed has been pushed under and hidden by this mask. Then it's left there to be forgotten, to rot and decay. For the first time in months, I've forgotten to put my mask back on. The skin underneath has become dry, cracked, and wrinkled irritated skin. It's a strange sensation- I feel naked, and vulnerable. All who I love and adore are seeing me for what I am. I am ugly. I am diseased. They turn away in disgust. Give it some time, the dead skin will peel off, and I will be healed, I tell them. They look, hesitant to come back. The skin under my mask is healing, and I will be good as new. Then we can carry on like nothing happened.

However, there is still a white mark where my ring once laid, despite the healed skin. A reminder of something that once was.

Perhaps I should hide the imperfection with my ring.