What I Have Done Today: Hands, A Short Story

The full version of Hands is available on Smashwords right now and will be available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iTunes, etc. shortly. Check out Hands here.

A Preview:

I
I am of the earth but I do not remember being a part of it, for I awoke one day as a block of clay, as I am now. I am happy to be a block of clay. I am whole. I am solid. I am firm. I know what I am, and I am content with my lot. I have been dug out of the earth to breathe the air and exist in the dark, quiet room.

II
Light floods my eyes. It is the first time I have seen. His hands are on me, taking me to a place do not know, and I am afraid. I cannot keep my eyes open, for there is too much light at first. At first.

At first, I panic.

"Where are you taking me, Hands?"

His hands do not speak. Instead, they hold me.

We travel together to a different place. It is another one I do not know. It is dimmer here. It is fresh here. It is clean here, but it smells of me. Of clay.

I am afraid.

"Hands, what is this place?"

His hands do not speak.

I am being violated now. His hands touch me. Everywhere. Water bathes me, and I am slimy, filthy, and not myself. I am being handled, smoothed, and cut.

"Hands, please don't do this."

His hands do not speak.

"Oh, no. No. Not the wire. Do not cut me with the wire. I will do whatever you ask, Hands, but please do not cut me again with that horrible wire."

His hands do not speak.

I am cut into pieces with the wire until I am but a fraction of what I once was. I hate the Hands for hurting me.

III

His hands take me to the center of the room. I am again violated. I am spun until I am so dizzy that I cannot focus on anything.

"Hands, why are you doing this to me?"

Rather than being solid and firm, I am now hollowed out. His hands have touched every part of me, and I am sure the Hands are finished abusing me.

"Hands, what is that metal thing?"

His hands do not speak.

Unlike the wire, this metal does not slice through me completely, but it might as well. His Hands dig the metal into the outside of me, the entire outside of me, until I can stand it no longer.

"Hands, please don't do this any longer. This metal..."

I pause because he is hurting me so badly with the metal that I have a difficult time speaking.

"This metal that you dig into my sides is unbearable. I do not bleed, for I am Clay, but if I could bleed from this, I would surely have no blood left from all that you are doing to me. Why are you digging these hurtful scars into my sides? Don't you care that you're hurting me?"


His Hands speak. "Patience. I am almost finished with this part."

I cry out, unable to take anymore. His hands have a voice, yet he has been silent as I have begged him to stop hurting me? How could the Hands listen to me and say nothing all this time?

"With this part? Hands, tell me. Please tell me that you don't mean to hurt me any longer." There cannot be another part. I cannot bear there to be another part. I don't understand how the Hands can willfully continue to hurt me. I hate his Hands for hurting me.

IV

His Hands finish with the metal scarring tool. They now paint me from top to bottom and then also on the inside where I have been hollowed. The brush tickles while it is inside my hollowed part. When it is on the outside and painting many colors onto my sides, I do not feel the brush. When the paint seeps into where I have fresh scars, I cry out. The paint burns me.

"Hands, please stop painting. Don't you realize how badly I am hurting? If you understood, surely you wouldn't continue to do these things to me."

His hands do not speak.

"Why aren't you answering me, Hands? I'm speaking to you. I know you can hear me and that you can answer me."
I hate the Hands for hurting me, but I hate them more for staying silent when I know they can speak and at least explain why they are hurting me.

His hands dip a new brush into another color and continue painting me. One of the Hands holds onto and caresses me lightly inside, where I am hollowed. Where the Hand holds me, the paint smudges a little. The other one of the Hands holds the brush and paints the new color on my outside.

His Hands are finished with the brush and paint. Finally, I am finished.

But I am wrong. I am far from finished.

Enjoy It While Ya Got It

I felt good today. I'm trying to enjoy it while I got it. I took a walk and visited with family. I also slept in until nearly noon, but it paid off. I had a wonderful day.

I am trying to notice the little things. All these pictures were taken today in the dark or near dark.

Enjoy the really little things...

And the not so little things that are hard to see in pictures because my husband was blindly shooting pictures at the pond while it was nighttime.

I hope you enjoy the little things as well as the big things, too!

Peace and hugs,
Jen

Round Things are Good

I like this picture because it pretty much sums up the last month of my life. Lots of electricity, lots of fire, and lots of trying to keep myself centered, bright, sunny, and aligned.

Last night, I went to the store. I purchased a CD as an impulse buy and was all excited about it. It has been ages since I have bought a CD, both because of the advent of mp3s and because of life happening. I was excited to put it into iTunes and whatnot and then I stopped dead in my tracks.

In order to put the CD into iTunes so I could share the disk with my hubby but still have it in iTunes, I would have to eject the disk of my MRI showing my spine. I have ejected the MRI disk before. I took it to chiropractor, for example, and I will take it to the neurologist tomorrow to discuss it in detail, but I froze. Could I stop obsessing about the black and white pictures that have put a reason behind the tingling, pins and needles, spasms, ticks, pain, and sleepless nights long enough to put the new music into iTunes?

I ended up just taking the music CD into my car and called it a time crunch to go visit my friend who lives an hour away and has dogs and cats she offered up for me to pet. They do make me feel better. I recommend pet therapy.

I still have the CD of my MRI in my laptop, but since I have to take it out in order to bring it with me to the neurologist appointment tomorrow, I'm going to chew on this tonight. Stop obsessing over the damn pictures of my spine.

But how?

Since today was a good day, I'll try to stop obsessing by thinking about the fact that I only had tingling and pain. No electric jolts. No spasms. No ticks. I was able to go and visit my friend and then go and visit my family tonight. I heard some live music by way of a dear family member. I forgot about the disk for most of the day. I will try to do the same tomorrow.

Breathe.

Live and just breathe. I will tell myself this and hope it sticks like gum on the bottom of a sneaker minus the fuzzy stuff that inevitably gets picked up on the bottom of my shoe along the way.

Peace and hugs,
Jen

Why the Flames?

Why the flames in background?

I chose flames because the sensations I get from this syrinx vary, but one of the predominant feelings is burning. Burning and electric shocks. Both have been fairly strong today. I hate looking like random appendages are going haywire. That slight look I get when I make people uncomfortable is a little unnerving at first.

Having a conversation generally helps. It goes something like this:

"Hi, sorry I'm making you feel uncomfortable."

"Um, hi. Do you want fries with that?"

"Yes, please. Oh, by the way, aliens have taken over my body. Pod people, man. Pod people." [Insert my arm, neck, or leg having a violent spasm].

"Do you want to supersize your order for twenty seven point nine cents more?"

This is the place in the conversation when my brain returns from registering the weird sensation that just caused my body to do the strange muscle spasm-tick dance on my left side. I hand the nice young man my credit card and nod because we're both flustered.

Ok, I'm making up the dialog and the aliens. It does make for a more rational explanation for why my body is going haywire than saying, "Oh, no, I don't want to supersize. By the way, I have a cyst inside my spine. Have a great day."

A simple nod and eye contact can take the awkward look away. I don't talk about pod people or aliens or spines, at least not out loud. I hope I don't actually say it out loud. I'm pretty sure I don't. I think I only have these discussions with my friends, those people who know I have vampires and werewolves and whatnot living in my head, so aliens aren't exactly a stretch.

Flames and electricity are such bizarre sensations that they are the closest way to describe what this syrinx does to me.

I took a brief walk today before I realized it was hot enough to melt candles and people and whatnot. Then, THEN the jolts started in my left leg and foot. This was the first time I had jolts that were entirely independent of the neck/arm/shoulder jolts.

But hey, I can still walk. I can walk, although now it hurts to walk and I limp. I am convinced this is how the aliens mark their prey. They catch people the first time around and have a little fun with cattle prods. Then, when they actually get hungry or want to conduct medical experiments, they can find us easily because we limp from the first go-round.

Yep, that's it. That's the reason all this crazy, random stuff is happening to me.

That, or I'm supposed to learn something from all of this. I'm trying. I really am.

I think I have learned to still appreciate that I got to go on a walk. And eat ice cream. And go shopping at a big box discount store without requiring the use of a scooter or any other assistive device.

And I'm still able to type, blog, and work on other writing. Just a second ago, when I got a jolt of fire into my foot, I had to stop typing for a few minutes because the pain made my vision go blurry until the electricity stopped. This one was burning electricity, not anything that induced limb movement.

I shall be grateful that my vision came back from being blurry.

I smell a metaphor or imagery here. Does pain ultimately make me see more clearly? Is that what I'm supposed to learn? Perhaps. Time will tell I guess. Perhaps taking nighttime meds will give me greater perspective on the grander scheme behind all this.

Peace and hugs,
Jen