My name is Francis Joseph Cassavant and I have just returned to Frenchtown in Monument and the war is over and I have no face.

Oh, I have eyes because I can see and ear-drums because I can hear but no ears to speak of, just bits of dangling flesh. But that's fine, like Dr Abrams says, because it's sight and hearing that count and I was not handsome to begin with. He was joking, of course. He was always trying to make me laugh.

If anything bothers me, it's my nose. Or, rather, the absence of my nose. My nostrils are like two small caves and they sometimes get blocked and I have to breathe through my mouth. This dries up my throat and makes it hard for me to swallow. I also become hoarse and cough a lot. My teeth are gone but my jaw is intact and my gums are firm so it's possible for me to wear dentures. In the past few weeks, my gums began to shrink, however, and dentures have become loose and they click when I talk and slip around inside my mouth.

I have no eyebrows, but eyebrows are minor, really. I do have cheeks. Sort of. I mean, the skin that forms my cheeks was grafted from my thighs and has taken a long time to heal. My thighs sting when my pants rub against them. Dr Abrams says that all my skin will heal in time and my cheeks will some day be as smooth as a baby's arse. That's the way he pronounced it: arse. In the meantime, he said, don't expect anybody to select you for a dance when it's Girls' Choice at the Canteen.

Don't take him wrong, please.

He has a great sense of humour and has been trying to get me to develop one.

I have been trying to do just that.

But not having much success.

I wear a scar that covers the lower part of my face. The scarf is white and silk like the aviators wore in their airplanes back during the First World War, over the battlefields and trenches of Europe. I like to think that it flows behind me in the wind when I walk but I guess it doesn't.

There's a Red Sox cap on my head and I tilt the cap forwards so that the visor keeps the upper part of my face in shadow. I walk with my head down as if I have lost money on the sidewalk and am looking for it.

I keep a bandage on the space where my nose used to be. The bandage reaches the back of my head and is kept in place with a safety pin.

There are problems, of course.

My nose, or I should say, my caves, runs a lot. I don't know why this should happen and even the doctors can't figure it out but it's like I have a cold that never goes away. The bandage gets wet and I have to change it often and it's hard closing the safety pin at the back of my head.

I am wearing my old army fatigue jacket.

So, I am well covered up, face and body, although I don't know what I am going to do when summer comes and the weather gets hot. Right now, it's March, cold and rainy, and I will worry about summer when it gets here and if I am still around.

Anyway, this gives you an idea of what I look like when I walk down the street.