FICTION

Psoriasis

A Tale of Body Horror

Photo by Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash

It felt like a scab, but it wasn’t. His fingernails caught it by accident that morning, when his scalp itched, turning an ordinary head scratching into a blind self-inspection with nail and finger. The patch of crusty skin was about the size of a dime, just beyond the start of his hairline, above his widow’s peak. It felt like dried blood, but when his nail scraped into…