I did not admire his other hand --

I did not admire his other hand -- his lack of a hand, rather. I was afraid to look at that handless wrist, lest he think me impolite, an ogler. I had heard that, even when a hand is lost, the one who has lost the hand will still feel it as if it is there. I did not admire his lack of a hand, but I wondered about it. I wondered about whether he had a phantom hand.

I wondered if he used his phantom hand to touch people without their knowing, with a touch only he could feel. If he had a phantom hand, he could stand behind a woman in line at the grocery, and lift his arm on some pretext, and graze her hair with his missing hand, and he would feel her hair, or feel that he felt her hair, and she would not feel his ghostly hand. He could grow bolder, and rest his hand on the small of her back, as if they knew each other intimately, as if this were a commonplace affection, and she would not resist that gentle familiarity, that touch too light to be felt, too subtle to be seen. I wondered about that for a long time, long after I saw that he was missing his hand.

Short, short story #1

She was afraid to enter the revolving door.

Her friends laughed and laughed. Still,

who walks without even a little fear

into a blender?

I watched a man with one hand make himself a cup of coffee once.

I watched a man with one hand make himself a cup of coffee once. I admired the dexterity that one hand had. I watched him open a box of brown sugar, put some sugar in his coffee, and close the box again. He did it quickly, connectedly, exactly, as if it were all one fluid, daedel movement. He popped the cardboard tab on the top of the box open with his single index finger, then widened the mouth of the plastic bag that held the sugar with his five fingers. He bunched them together, then spread them apart a few times, quickly. (It reminded me of a squid's propulsion, that spreading of his fingers.) He picked up the spoon to lift out a rounded mound of the brown granules, stirred the sugar into his coffee with a few quick flicks of his wrist, then brought the spoon to his mouth and sucked it clean. As if as a finishing flourish, he tossed it, clinking, into the sink's metal basin.

He picked up the sweetened coffee with that one hand, his left hand. His left arm was very strong; I saw how strong it was as he lifted the mug to his mouth. I wondered if he had always been left-handed, or was forced to be by the loss of his right, or whether he was born without his right hand and so never knew whether he would have been right-handed, if he had had both. He toasted me with with his upraised fist, curled around the cup of coffee.

In the moment before he turned away, I found his one hand very beautiful, very nobel and worthy of respect. I held back the flooding impulse to kiss it. I resisted because I did not know how steady his hand was, despite its strength; I did not know how his hand would react to my untoward kiss. My pressing his hand with my lips would probably have knocked the coffee cup, anyway, and would have burned my face, and his fine fist.

Shaken

You live alone in an apartment building beside a freeway. Where you live is always trembling. Whenever trucks rumble by on the freeway, your apartment shakes. It is often shaken by these trucks. But it does not take something very large to make the apartment tremble: if your neighbor above walks with a sufficiently solid tread, it will shake you too. Even a heavy step in the hallway will make your cup clink in its saucer, the water tremble in your glass.

On top of this, you live in California, where sometimes even the earth will shake. You have been through enough earthquakes that you are skittish of them. Your heart begins to pound anytime you feel a tremor, an imbalance, out of fear of an earthquake.

It doesn't help matters that you have vertigo, and often feel a swaying when there is none; it goes without saying that your heart often pounds from fear.

You are old and unsteady on your feet as it is. And so it is hard for you to tell whether the shaking you feel is internal or external, natural or artificial, real or figmentary. You only know you feel shaken, most all of the time.

The Eyepatch: a fable

You have decided that if you ever lost an eye, for whatever reason, you would wear a black eyepatch. You would accept the piratical jokes, and maybe even embrace them. Get a parrot or something. You wouldn't get a fake eye or try to hide it with your hair or do whatever people who have lost eyes usually do. You would wear an old-fashioned black eyepatch. If they even sell such things anymore. It would give you character, maybe even distinction. People would know that you weren't afraid to draw attention to this thing about yourself that would always demand attention anyway.

And one day, improbably, some man would fall in love with you. He would look into your one good eye with so much love and affection that it would tire you out, having only one eye to stare into both of his, so full of love. Sometimes, you would lay your head on his shoulder, or his chest, just so that your eye could rest from looking into his eyes.

And when he had loved you for a while, a long while even, sometimes when you were comfortable and unguarded, he would ask you to take off the eyepatch. He would ask you to show him your scarred or missing eye. You would shake your head, maybe hiding your face behind your hands, your eye and your eyepatch behind closed fists. You would cry and cry from your one good eye and tell him No, No, No. You would walk around without an eyepatch all day, let every stranger see and look away, before you would let him look full on your injury even once, you would tell him.

Eventually, of course, you would show it to him. But you know that you would keep your good eye closed while you did. And you know that you would not let him mention it afterwards.

Smoking Cigarettes

Smoking cigarettes does wonders for your social life. Or, it would, if  the sort of people you wanted to meet smoked cigarettes. Correction: if the sort of people you wanted to meet bummed cigarettes. Smoking a cigarette while sitting on a park bench, or at a cafe table, or while loitering is  like holding a sign while sitting on a park bench, or at a cafe table, or while loitering -- a sign that says "WILL TRADE CIGARETTES FOR AWKWARD CONVERSATIONS TRANSPARENTLY INITIATED FOR THE SAKE OF CIGARETTES." 

Everybody's a palm.

"I always believed in you."

(There was a beat, longer than a heartbeat, but not much longer.)

"You never believed in me."

"What? That's so not true!"

"You've never said one encouraging thing to me. You'd ask to read my stories, and you'd read them and read them, and you never said anything. Nothing. You said nothing."

"That does not mean I don't believe in you. That has, like, zero to do with whether I believe in somebody."

"Well, it made me believe you didn't believe in me. Which is the same thing."

"I can't believe this. I can't believe you."

(Another beat. Several, actually.)

"It's the same thing to me. What am I supposed to think? It feels the same."

"Well, I don't understand why you always have to read into everything all the time."

"I read into things because that's what you do. You read into stuff. Everything's just there to be read into. Like, the way you're sitting there right now is just--just--like, asking to be read into! You're telling me I'm not supposed to be reading into stuff when there's so much stuff there to read?"

"I'm not telling you to read me! Stop reading me. Don't read me -- I'm telling you to not read me."

(Beat.)

"Well, how am I supposed to not read into that?"

"Fine. How am I supposed to not read into your reading into me? Like I’m--like I’m a hand or something and you’re this palm reader, this God-almighty palm reader just--just freaking reading me all the time, like I’m so easy for you or something. Maybe I’m the back of the hand, huh? You ever think I could be the back of a hand, and you’re trying to read me, and you’re just reading me wrong?”

“You’re so not the back of the hand. Don’t be stupid. Everybody’s a palm.”

“You don’t be stupid. I don’t have to be a palm. You know what? I might be a leg. A leg with no lines and you can’t read me because you don’t even know I ‘m not a hand. You win some award, and you think that’s it. You think you get me, that you know what I think about you, because you can make shit up. You think that’s a way to get people?”

“Ya, thanks, well, now I don’t have to make anything up. I don’t have to read into anything. You’re just, you’re just spelling it all out and now I know I was right! I was always right about you.”

“F. off.”

“No, you f. off.”

“No. I’m staying right f.-ing, fucking here. I was here first.”

“Fine, a.-hole. I’ll leave, but don’t act like I can’t read into you because I know I can, because you just showed me I was right. You’re right I’m a palm reader. I’ve read you all the way down, okay, and I know you don’t think I can do it, but I’m doing it anyway.”

“Whatever. I’m just sitting here trying to watch TV, and, like, relax, and you’re all demanding -- I tried to say something nice, do you get that? I try to be supportive, and this is what happens. You have to be able to read me.”

“Well, I have to read you because you don’t just tell me!”

“I -- I don’t -- what the h-- I just told you. I told you I believed in you.”

“No you don’t.”

“Fine! I don’t! Whatever. You’re the mindreader.”

“Palmreader.”

“Shut the fuck up, please.”

“Great sentence. Great sentiment. Thanks for adding the ‘please’ or my feelings would really be hurt.”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I’m trying to watch TV.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

(A lot of heartbeats, pretty fast ones, but not too many.)

“Look, do you want some popcorn or something?”

“What? Do I -- what?”

“Look, I’m just gonna make some popcorn. I want to know if you want some. It’s not a hard question.”

“Are you trying to be nice now? Because you’re not doing a good job.”

“I’m doing a better job than you.”

“Yes, YES. Okay? I want POPCORN. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my whole life. I’m starving for popcorn. It’s a popcorn famine over here. Please. Thank you. Popcorn. Yes. Great. Gimme.”

“Screw you.”

(Many beats.)

Yelled into the next room, “I did too believe in you. You can’t read my mind. My mind believed in you, just because you couldn’t read it doesn’t mean it didn’t.”

“Then why -- you know what? Never. Mind. I’m making popcorn, and you’re not getting any.”

“Right. Like I wanted any.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Whatever.”

“And I did too believe in you.”

Coming in from the other room, “I can hear you, you know. I’m not dumb. Or deaf or whatever. Why didn’t you ever tell me, then?”

“Why do I have to tell you if I believe in you?”

“Because how else am I supposed to know?”

“You said you knew. You said you could read my freaking mind.”

“Well, I can’t. Hello. Obviously I can’t.”

“Well, I did.”

“Fine. You did.”

(A beat exactly as long as a heartbeat.)

“But you should tell me if you did.”

“I’m telling you I did.”

“Fine. Whatever. Fine.”

(Maybe only a single heartbeat, maybe two.)

“Thanks, I guess.”

(Beat.)

“But you should’ve told me then. You should tell me when, not after.”

“Okay, okay. Jeez. I will. I’ll tell you then.”

“You don’t have to be a palm, you know. But I don’t want you to be the back of the hand either, with no lines.”

“Well, maybe I’ll be...like, an old back of the hand with, like, wrinkles and stuff.”

“No. Wrinkles aren’t lines. You can’t read wrinkles, everyone knows  that.”

“Fine, I’ll be the front of a hand then. I’ll be the front, so you can read me.”

“No! That’s the point! I don’t want to have to read you. I want you to read yourself to me. Because I can read wrong.”

“Well, I can read wrong too.”

“I know, but -- I know. But. Please?”

“Fine. I’ll read myself to you. When I believe in you, then, then I’ll read myself to you. Okay? Alright?”

“Okay. Good.”

“Fine?”

“Fine.”

(Beat. Beat. Beat.)

“I guess I’ll have a half a bowl.”

“I already made you a whole one, with the butter and stuff.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

(More beats.)