Skin Song — Melissa Yuan-Innes

...a medical student who is anything but ordinary...

Kyla has a strange gift: she can hear skin songs. To her, a person's skin has a song and each person sounds differently. On arriving at med school she finds herself in a quandary: does the skin song continue after death? Mixing mystery in with sheer humanity and splendid characterization, Yuan-Innes's story is a delight.

-- Alicia Curtis, A&E Editor, The Stormy Petrel


Gift or curse, power or schizophrenic hallucination, the narrator does not know, and struggles with the difference. She hears other people's skin when she touches them. It is a compelling metaphor for the transition from childhood to adulthood, from being the center of your private world to having to reach out to other people and negotiate your social contracts on a case-by-case basis. The story pivots around medical school detail, cadavers and exams, compellingly rendered. Imagine the skin song of the dead, stretched on a cold aluminum table.

-- Jay Lake, Tangent Online