With My Own Hands

Jan 19, 2016
1 min read

It’s such a strange thing, she thought, growing old. Huh, she almost laughs, in some ways it feels like I’ve lived a thousand lives and it’s taken forever to get here. But, oh! In some ways it feels like it’s just sped on by. Time. Oh! It’s such a funny thing, isn’t it? She glances down to her hands, and straightening and bending her fingers. Her mouth curls downward, and she holds it for a moment. Why, looking down at these fingers you’d hardly know they were mine! Huh! She flips her palms over to examine them closer, squinting her eyes tight so that her face creases hard around them. Ah, but they are mine. Her face relaxes as she finds what she’d been looking for: a scar. That, I remember like yesterday. Oh, my hands were so much smaller, finer then. Not like these old see-through things! Mmm, she nods. Yes. Oh my mother gave me hell that day. Never could leave tools alone, even at that age. Oh, like that would stop me, it didn’t matter to me that mother didn’t think it was ladylike or if I almost lost a finger. No sir. I loved it. She watched her fingertips rub over the faint scar. It always was my malfunction. I don’t know if I’d’ve stopped right then and there if I knew what a problem it would’ve led to? Taking her eyes off her hand, to nowhere in particular. She thought of Fred then. Oh sweet, loving, awful Fred.