One Night Hands (in Her Line of Business)

An idle Id does the Ego's work . . .

One latish afternoon, a shopkeeper — bored by a midweek trough — sat down with a steaming cup of tea to cast off her scarf. Rocking slightly as though buffeted by her steely needle, she labored over each stroke of her fingering yarn. The scarf itself tallied incalculable months of lonely hours spent at the shop, while commemorating the anniversary of some long-forgotten milestone.

As she sat hunched, the ecstasy of reaching the final stitch saturated her senses such that she failed to notice a customer materialize in her shop. The man, if one is generous in their definition, appeared as a head suspended over a swarm of hundreds upon clouds of disembodied and gesticulating hands, each trending, trolling, or clambering for the essence of something hidden, lost, or perhaps underdetermined . . . but definitively rare.  

The man’s lips opened and shut rapidly as two anterior hands formed the universal sign of choking. The woman, quite shaken out of her reverie, bravely penetrated the swarming hands in search of a navel. Seeing nothing but grayish fog, she sharply retracted her hands — lest they betray her — and fell back into a stupor until two hands clapped, snapped, and pointed at her tea. Relieved for an actionable measure, the woman swooped up her teacup and presented it, handle exposed. The two recipient hands formed an Añjali Mudrā before accepting the bone china finery, which depicted a hand-painted, blue otherworld filled with dragons splayed over wooden houses. 

Tea in hands . . .

Click the button below to request the full story.

Send a Request