Do you dare cross the Vermilion Border?
It sounds like a setting from Game of Thrones. A legendary place where epic battles were fought and kingdoms won and lost. A setting long ago and far away.
Nay, the Vermilion Border is right in front of your face. Literally. In front of your face.
It’s the exposed pink or reddish margin of a lip that connects the lip tissue to the rest of your face.
What an exalted name for an ordinary facial feature. Yes, even you can lay claim to your own Vermilion Border.
I learned of the Vermilion Border when my son suffered a laceration to his upper lip which required stitches.
The doctor at our local urgent care sent us up the road to the hospital emergency room with the excuse, “Standards of care forbid us from treating injuries which cross the Vermilion Border.”
Such injuries require specialized treatment because misalignments of millimeters are noticeable at conversational distance and can change your smile or speech.
Eventually, a physician’s assistant in the hospital emergency room sutured my son’s lip so well that the scar isn’t even visible now. 
The only epic adventure we had at the Vermilion Border that night was to find the right person to sew him up.
I still want to write a novel set in Medieval times and call it The Vermilion Border. Hell, I want to trek the Vermilion Border. Who’s with me? Round up the caravan and load the camels. We’re headed for the Vermilion Border.
