Mr. Skeleton plucked out a doleful jangle of notes on the ribs of his thoracic cage. The weather was no longer cold. It had not been cold for so long that he no longer recalled winter’s throbbing ache in his bones. Instead his bones were now bleached bright from long hours spent baking in the sun. People averted their eyes when they saw him clackity-clack-clacking toward them. This didn’t bother him. He called it his summer glow.

Mr. Skeleton’s vagabond thoughts wandered to the skull, where it was, whether she was taking good care of it. Ah, the skull, the skull, he mumbled into his clavicle. He wondered if he’d ever see it again. Well, certainly not on this beach in Majorca, he thought, chortling to himself. He took another sip of his mojito and watched the fluid dribble down his cervical vertebrae onto his sternum. Not feeling at all drunk, he wondered idly if that squirrelly bartender had stiffed him on rum once again.

He gazed out at the calm sea, absently tapping his phalanges against his right femur. The percussive nature of his jaunty body pleased him. A woman walked by, nodding her head to the quiet beat. He smiled at her, but it was as if he were invisible. Skins never see bones, he mused. Again the skull flashed across his mental plain, carrying with it an image of the one who took it away, the one whose strong arms he hoped still cradled it. Yes, she saw me, he thought. Maybe it had been her bones peering through skin to my bones beyond. He tried to imagine her, bared of all skin, his bones consorting with hers. Yet was that really what he wanted…he could not say for sure. And so he offered up his bones to the sun instead, taking its heat inside, hoping to fill his hollowness with light.

(with musical accompaniment by XTC, spun by none other than DJ SlimAlien.)