My Cardboard Balcony

Everyone had some kind of scar. Red or black or brown. On their arms, their legs, their faces. It was a sign of the illness. A sign that they had been infected. Like a large scab that poisoned everything beneath the skin that was meant to protect us. I was off for a cure. My scar ran from my forehead all the way down the left side of my jaw. I looked like a warrior. I felt like a doomed child.