The Man with Ember Eyes by Tom F-J

His eyes are the colour imagined in the aftermath of the big bang, the colour of the embers that burn throughout the galaxy, throughout our world. They are hidden or protected behind bags and bruises. His eyebrows are dark brown and soft to look at. Skin like adama, dark, and holy. His hair is stark white, like sheep’s wool. His body has been broken, battered and beaten, but he sits on his metal bed. His hands pierced, his arms prodded to test his mortality, to test the claims of his humanity. He remains strong, reading the King James Bible, one of the few books he’s allowed in his barred cell. It is new for him. His cast iron cell is surrounded by glasses of wine he was instructed to make for the guards from bottled water. At first they were shocked when he arrived, bagged and tagged, then bemused, and now he is no more or less interesting than his neighbouring prisoners: Bigfoot and the Plutonian. The man with the ember eyes learnt that the Plutonian came on a diplomatic quest to see if Earth should count as a planet, when he was bagged and tagged. Bigfoot was just out getting water for his orchid garden when he was bagged and tagged. The man with the ember eyes was on a similar errand, off to get bread. Now he leans back against the cold metal wall, takes a sip of wine, and continues reading. He thinks the man in this Bible sounds interesting.