|
After a slow series of several hours, and a fatigued mind, I left my project completed and entered the kitchen to hydrate not only my body, but my mind. I drank a glass of water and then began to boil a pot of it in preparation for tea. I turned to look upon the piece of fabric, expecting---out of peculiar imaginings---to find it missing, collected again by the clandestine noisemaker, but it was there just as it had fallen: threads extended, coarseness exposed. I decided then, upon looking at the alien thing, that I did not want to look at it anymore, or ever again. There was no reason for me to keep it when it was nothing but an evil nuisance.
The giant, dense lid of the trash bin opened easy enough out back. I pushed the lid completely around so it fell behind the large container. In a hand protected by a flock-lined latex glove, I held the fabric over the opening, letting out a sigh of relief before releasing all of my fingers in one motion.
But the fabric did not fall.
I shook my hand vigorously, and still it did not fall.
An uncanny terror suddenly besieged me while rage and disgust exasperated between the grinding of my teeth. In panic, I attempted to take off the glove, praying that the material had only attached itself to the latex, but the process ended with the glove unable to fall from the ends of my fingers, hanging inside out while enveloping the piece of fabric. I recalled the tiny root that had been lodged in my finger previously and shuttered with horror.
I did not want to repeat my last experience with the thread, so I decided to cut the attachments off instead. In the tool shed, I found a pair of rusty pruners. With metal blades in my hand, I returned to the trash bin and held my hand over it once more, this time using the pruners to clip the nasty threads between my fingers and the hanging glove. The horrid material fell away from me.
However, had I known what I was doing, I would have just ripped the insidious cloth away and suffered through the pain once more---for when the glove and fabric fell to the bottom of the trash, five tiny stubs of thread remained protruding from my fingers.
At this point, I began to wonder who the horrible weaver of such material was and who, by the name of all that was sinister, had left it for me.
Feeling more than troubled, I pried at the threads, but could not loosen them; the threads were so short that I could not attain the necessary grip. Even with the use of pliers, I could not pull them. Deep into the night I continued to plot against the threads, tearing and clawing at them, but getting no closer at removing them.
After exhaustion, emotional and physical, I gave up on my trivial strategies. I retrieved again the pruners of my previous usage; I pressed my hand flat against the kitchen table, palm up, and cut each of the very surfaces of the fingers off. A chunk of thread and flesh fell from each severing. Adrenaline voided the pain and allowed a contentedness to consume me.
Shortly thereafter, with bandages covering each of my fingers’ ends, I collapsed upon my bed, falling instantly to sleep.
The doorbell rang and I found myself staggering into the frailty of consciousness. I hurriedly shook myself into alertness and ran to open the door. My son stood there waiting with his blue and yellow backpack, stuffed to capacity with belongings. We said our hellos and I gave him a huge hug before we moved inside. I guided him in with my bandaged hand upon his shoulder.
We did not get far before I realized that my hand was stuck. My son also noticed that I my hand was strangely placed and became awkward. In a slight scuttle, he tried to get away.
|