The Hands

August 15, 2011 at 11:35 pm (Short Stories)

Walking into the room she can hear a child happily babbling in the hall. The sounds seems out of place in this institution. Most of what she hears are hushed whispers and quiet whimpers, the sounds of hearts breaking and lives ending. The bubble of life that floats her way through the open door seems foreign and unwelcome and yet it is like the smell of flowers at a funeral; something happy amidst the gloom. It lights on her for a second leaving a warm golden glow in her heart and then, as the door shuts, it is gone.

There at the end of the row is a woman whose face she has known since birth. The very woman that hung the moon and lit the stars. So frail, so pale, so very lifeless even though she breathes. The spark has left her red hair making it a pale orange against the pillow it lay upon. The fire has left her eyes making them watery pools of despair behind rose tinted glasses. The blush of life has left her skin making it a pasty white flecked with brown kisses of the sun. There was something in her voice that is now gone leaving it resigned and meek. This once great woman is now just a shell and they both know.

The younger one approaches the elder calling her Grannie. A word only she has ever used, a word with meaning only to them. It is so much more than a title, so much more than a place held on the family tree. It is their love, their bond, put into a single word, two syllables; one for each of them. She places her hand on Grannie and a tear falls from her eye, she’s not much for crying but with this she cannot help herself. To her right is a machine that is attached to Grannie. It’s hard plastic tube is jammed in Grannie’s left arm and Grannie’s blood flows through it. She tries to ignore it but the whirring it makes demands attention. The blood goes in the machine whirls around and is returned to Grannie’s body by another tube. The scrubber, that is how she will always think of it.

She is standing by shear will power, she lost her strength long before that door closed. Standing there with one hand on Grannie and the other at her own throat rubbing the pendant from her necklace for some sort of solace. She feels the breathing of Grannie, slow and shallow, beneath her out-stretched hand. Her breathing is far from slow, it is fast and short matching the speed of her heart beat. She almost wishes she had not entered the room at all.

The white walls seem to close in on her squeezing the very life out of her. The row of beds seems to go on forever and blur in the distance. The whispers and whimpers fill her head until they are like sirens blaring out, threatening the very ears that capture their sound. The room becomes confusion, a prison of misery that claims her very heart. She feels it will swallow her whole and then she feels a hand on hers.

The long, thin fingers caress her hand and she looks at them and sees Moonstone. A ring she is so familiar with that it brings her back from her nightmarish situation. Those hands, the very ones that hung the moon and lit the stars, they are holding her hand now. She knows every line, every sun kiss and they bring tears to her eyes again. One patch on the wrist of Grannie is soft and smooth and pale as it has always been. It is that spot she kisses now, the very spot she sat and stroked as a child, the one spot Grannie always hated and she always loved. The skin is like silk under her lips, cold and soft.

She looks into Grannie’s eyes and they smile a knowing smile, the final smile. They both know, they both agree and they both surrender. Through tears she says her goodbye and conveys her love one last time. There is nothing more to be said, there is nothing more to say and there is nothing more to know. She finds her legs and moves them one in front of the other never looking back. She opens the door and lets life back into the room through the playful babbling of the child in the hall. She stops at the door, holding it open, to regain her composure and dry her eyes. Stepping into the hall she smiles at the child that throws its arms out to her calling her Mommy. She takes it in her hands, the hands that hung the moon and lit the stars, and they walk down the hall together.