The following is a short story I wrote some months ago titled: "The Hand."
There was once a hand attached to a body with no heart
Its forefinger was as full of malice and accusation as its little finger was filled with rage and jealousy,
Its thumb throbbed with self-hate and violence,
Its middle finger was an ugly wraith that would scream obscenities until it passed out disgusted with its own anger.
Its ring finger would scratch at everything around it and itself, howling to break off of the hand and run away ‘cause it couldn’t bear the thought of spending eternity attached to so much pain.
The hand was black with poisonous thoughts, red with the desire to hurt, and aged from so much envy that it couldn’t control its hunger to take what it didn’t belong to it, and when it couldn’t possess the things it wanted, its fingers twisted in agony and misery.
It was afflicted from a life-long fever that kept it hot with exhaustion and turning its fingernails rotten-blue.
It gathered enough strength to command its fingers to follow orders, and scavenging around, it collected all the necessary parts to create ________ and use it to break, to take, to corrode, to distil evil, and to kill.
It played with ________ and commanded it to bring chaos to its victims.
It whispered threats to _______ willing it to leave no victim with a second of respite.
Like an octopus, it wrapped its fingers around ________ so that it would transfer the pressure felt onto those it aimed to attack and leave with no bone unbroken, no last breath, no voice, no knowledge, no reason, no hope.
Though twisting with the pain of its own poison, and full of hot rage, it found a way to celebrate its murderous conquest; it found a way to lay its fingers still, as if in peace, and laugh at the terror ________ brought on its name. It grew darker and more rotten than ever before, and it cried in pain, but through that pain, it felt satisfaction, and let itself rest.
But during that period of rest, ________ was no longer on guard, was no longer a weapon, and the hand was found.
A fishing line was wrapped around the base of each crying finger and at the wrist. Each day the line was tightened a bit more, and each day the hand grew darker, but not from malice, not from its poison.
The line cut off the forefinger first, then the little finger. Like fishes out of water, they thrashed around until they moved no more.
The ring finger was next. For half a minute it celebrate its long-time-coming separation, its freedom, only to realized that without the hand, it couldn’t survive, so in a bout of searing agony it died.
The thumb embraced its fate and didn’t even move once it fell off.
The middle finger snapped off last, though it remained attached to the hand by small stitch of skin. There, suspended in mid-air, it howled, it wriggled in misery, and turned purple out of fury and terror until it too, died.
Not one finger bled, though the hand suffered even more than the fingers did with each cut off digit, and once they were all dead, the line cut it off at the wrist. With four of its digits spread around it, and the one still attached to it, it agonized, it cried, and it slowly died, never to spread its malicious poison on anyone again.
There was once a hand attached to a body with no heart
Its forefinger was as full of malice and accusation as its little finger was filled with rage and jealousy,
Its thumb throbbed with self-hate and violence,
Its middle finger was an ugly wraith that would scream obscenities until it passed out disgusted with its own anger.
Its ring finger would scratch at everything around it and itself, howling to break off of the hand and run away ‘cause it couldn’t bear the thought of spending eternity attached to so much pain.
The hand was black with poisonous thoughts, red with the desire to hurt, and aged from so much envy that it couldn’t control its hunger to take what it didn’t belong to it, and when it couldn’t possess the things it wanted, its fingers twisted in agony and misery.
It was afflicted from a life-long fever that kept it hot with exhaustion and turning its fingernails rotten-blue.
It gathered enough strength to command its fingers to follow orders, and scavenging around, it collected all the necessary parts to create ________ and use it to break, to take, to corrode, to distil evil, and to kill.
It played with ________ and commanded it to bring chaos to its victims.
It whispered threats to _______ willing it to leave no victim with a second of respite.
Like an octopus, it wrapped its fingers around ________ so that it would transfer the pressure felt onto those it aimed to attack and leave with no bone unbroken, no last breath, no voice, no knowledge, no reason, no hope.
Though twisting with the pain of its own poison, and full of hot rage, it found a way to celebrate its murderous conquest; it found a way to lay its fingers still, as if in peace, and laugh at the terror ________ brought on its name. It grew darker and more rotten than ever before, and it cried in pain, but through that pain, it felt satisfaction, and let itself rest.
But during that period of rest, ________ was no longer on guard, was no longer a weapon, and the hand was found.
A fishing line was wrapped around the base of each crying finger and at the wrist. Each day the line was tightened a bit more, and each day the hand grew darker, but not from malice, not from its poison.
The line cut off the forefinger first, then the little finger. Like fishes out of water, they thrashed around until they moved no more.
The ring finger was next. For half a minute it celebrate its long-time-coming separation, its freedom, only to realized that without the hand, it couldn’t survive, so in a bout of searing agony it died.
The thumb embraced its fate and didn’t even move once it fell off.
The middle finger snapped off last, though it remained attached to the hand by small stitch of skin. There, suspended in mid-air, it howled, it wriggled in misery, and turned purple out of fury and terror until it too, died.
Not one finger bled, though the hand suffered even more than the fingers did with each cut off digit, and once they were all dead, the line cut it off at the wrist. With four of its digits spread around it, and the one still attached to it, it agonized, it cried, and it slowly died, never to spread its malicious poison on anyone again.
