Just A Scratch
“Oooh!” Stanley looked down at his hands through the lenses of his new spectacles. It had taken such a long time to admit that he needed a pair. However, this new unimpaired transparency contradicted his previously stubborn view and confirmed that he had required their intervention for some considerable time.
“Just like your false teeth Stanley, you’ve gotta keep wearing them until they feel comfortable,” the lady at the opticians told him as she had passed him the alien appendage, but he was reassured by the Optician that he could return them for re-alignment or replacement if he had even the slightest of concerns.
“Only for reading,” he congratulated himself as he inspected the contours of his aging hands; as if seeing them for the first time. He studied the small irregular lines that flowed from joint-crease to joint-crease and then he distorted the translucent skin covering the fleshy pad beneath his thumb, which had supported many a heavy tool during his labours, by pressing into it the yellow-tipped forefinger of his left hand.
“Seen some history these hands,” he thought, then mused about the origins of small scars that revealed themselves between the natural lines. He remembered being a child and spending a day at the sea-side pulling over mossy-stones and searching through the rock-pools for crabs and similar marine inhabitants. That was the day he pushed over a large boulder onto his sister Rosalind’s foot. It wasn’t his fault, he remembered telling his Mother and Father, but they didn’t believe him as per usual.
“Just a scratch,” was all the nurses said to him when he showed them the small cut on his hand which was stinging from its interference with the salt-water. They were too busy fitting the cast to Rosalind’s leg to be really bothered with him and he also remembered being shot a glare of betrayal from his Mother for even mentioning it.
“Such a small scar for such a big event,” Stanley thought to himself and recalled how he was outraged at the time that all he received was punishment and scolding while Rosalind had all of the fun with everybody wanting to stroke her forehead and sign her cast.
“Must be 75 years ago,” he mouthed a bittersweet smile as he fingered through the characters in his most treasured possession; a collection of four hand-worn old photographs. Although they had all passed away, he remembered each person from the pictures taken that summer. They also included a staged picture taken of his Grandparents when they were young before the Grandfather he never knew had died in the War. It was taken in a local photography studio and arranged in such a pose that they looked if they had just been delivered from the taxidermists.
“I miss them all,” Stanley confessed to himself as he ran his rough fingers over the flat contours of his Mother’s perfect countenance; Rosalind in her Sailor-Girl bathing costume that was blue with white horizontal stripes and a little red anchor on the skirt. He even missed his Dad too who had been a very hands-on kind of Father, but not in the way he would have preferred. Stanley knew he would never find on the palms of his hands the scars that his Father had left behind.
“You’ve got your Father’s hands,” Stanley’s Grandmother always said to him and he could see them now through the transparent lenses of his new spectacles, and in exquisite detail. It had been so long since he had had such clarity of vision that the appendages seemed magnified and not of his owning. Just like looking at his Father’s hands when he was small as he sat behind the windbreak crunching his way through jam and bread sandwiches generously sprinkled with airborne sand particles and downed with a bottle of water.
“A great man of the community and a friend to all,” the Priest read at the Funeral, and from the pulpit too. He remembered at the time that it sounded like the Priest was talking about somebody else and not his Father, and the people who filled the church were all strangers, but were uncontrollably upset which was both puzzling and frightening in equal measure. Stanley recalled holding his Grandma’s hand, as old as his now, but not feeling sad at all. Unlike everyone else, she had always been nice to him whatever he had done. To Stanley she was the only warm thing in the vast cold and Godless room.
“You have to go with the Police Lady,” his Grandma said, and she was very upset when she said it. She even sounded a bit angry which upset him. He remembered not being too disappointed that he was not allowed to go to the church for the funeral of his Mother and Sister the next day, but he was aggrieved that he didn’t see his Grandma until she made the long trip to visit him some time later. He was allowed to go to her funeral when that sorry day came.
“There’s one of the four of us together that my Grandma took of me blowing out the 12 candles on my Birthday cake,” he sighed as he traced the outline of his Father, Mother and Sister on the photograph. That was a happy day.
“I was always told never to play with matches,” but the temptation was too great.
Stanley took off his new spectacles; they were too painful to wear.
“Just like your false teeth Stanley, you’ve gotta keep wearing them until they feel comfortable,” the lady at the opticians told him as she had passed him the alien appendage, but he was reassured by the Optician that he could return them for re-alignment or replacement if he had even the slightest of concerns.
“Only for reading,” he congratulated himself as he inspected the contours of his aging hands; as if seeing them for the first time. He studied the small irregular lines that flowed from joint-crease to joint-crease and then he distorted the translucent skin covering the fleshy pad beneath his thumb, which had supported many a heavy tool during his labours, by pressing into it the yellow-tipped forefinger of his left hand.
“Seen some history these hands,” he thought, then mused about the origins of small scars that revealed themselves between the natural lines. He remembered being a child and spending a day at the sea-side pulling over mossy-stones and searching through the rock-pools for crabs and similar marine inhabitants. That was the day he pushed over a large boulder onto his sister Rosalind’s foot. It wasn’t his fault, he remembered telling his Mother and Father, but they didn’t believe him as per usual.
“Just a scratch,” was all the nurses said to him when he showed them the small cut on his hand which was stinging from its interference with the salt-water. They were too busy fitting the cast to Rosalind’s leg to be really bothered with him and he also remembered being shot a glare of betrayal from his Mother for even mentioning it.
“Such a small scar for such a big event,” Stanley thought to himself and recalled how he was outraged at the time that all he received was punishment and scolding while Rosalind had all of the fun with everybody wanting to stroke her forehead and sign her cast.
“Must be 75 years ago,” he mouthed a bittersweet smile as he fingered through the characters in his most treasured possession; a collection of four hand-worn old photographs. Although they had all passed away, he remembered each person from the pictures taken that summer. They also included a staged picture taken of his Grandparents when they were young before the Grandfather he never knew had died in the War. It was taken in a local photography studio and arranged in such a pose that they looked if they had just been delivered from the taxidermists.
“I miss them all,” Stanley confessed to himself as he ran his rough fingers over the flat contours of his Mother’s perfect countenance; Rosalind in her Sailor-Girl bathing costume that was blue with white horizontal stripes and a little red anchor on the skirt. He even missed his Dad too who had been a very hands-on kind of Father, but not in the way he would have preferred. Stanley knew he would never find on the palms of his hands the scars that his Father had left behind.
“You’ve got your Father’s hands,” Stanley’s Grandmother always said to him and he could see them now through the transparent lenses of his new spectacles, and in exquisite detail. It had been so long since he had had such clarity of vision that the appendages seemed magnified and not of his owning. Just like looking at his Father’s hands when he was small as he sat behind the windbreak crunching his way through jam and bread sandwiches generously sprinkled with airborne sand particles and downed with a bottle of water.
“A great man of the community and a friend to all,” the Priest read at the Funeral, and from the pulpit too. He remembered at the time that it sounded like the Priest was talking about somebody else and not his Father, and the people who filled the church were all strangers, but were uncontrollably upset which was both puzzling and frightening in equal measure. Stanley recalled holding his Grandma’s hand, as old as his now, but not feeling sad at all. Unlike everyone else, she had always been nice to him whatever he had done. To Stanley she was the only warm thing in the vast cold and Godless room.
“You have to go with the Police Lady,” his Grandma said, and she was very upset when she said it. She even sounded a bit angry which upset him. He remembered not being too disappointed that he was not allowed to go to the church for the funeral of his Mother and Sister the next day, but he was aggrieved that he didn’t see his Grandma until she made the long trip to visit him some time later. He was allowed to go to her funeral when that sorry day came.
“There’s one of the four of us together that my Grandma took of me blowing out the 12 candles on my Birthday cake,” he sighed as he traced the outline of his Father, Mother and Sister on the photograph. That was a happy day.
“I was always told never to play with matches,” but the temptation was too great.
Stanley took off his new spectacles; they were too painful to wear.