H.A.N.D.S.

by Pablo Arimany

 

My grandfather is at the head of the large table, he is screaming about politics as he moves his dark hands in the air. His hands tremble constantly, making it hard for him to grip his fork and knife. My fingers tap against the table, like horses slowly trotting to battle, as I presence him dropping his silverware. Those same fingers with which he so fruitlessly cuts his meat were long ago used to head strongly sign checks at an office table.

 

My grandmother is besides him, holding his hand with her pale one. Having their hands together, they seem to be like black coffee and milk. My parents are also at the table, holding hands. I have the hands of my mother. I also have the hands of my grandfather, of my grandmother. I have the hands of my brother. We all have long, bony fingers, emerging out of equally thin hands, were blue veins cross all over them like roots, planted into the ground.

 

I would constantly complain about them never setting their hands apart. Little did I know that in a couple of years, my father would not place a foot in that house at all again, and there would be no engagement ring in neither of their fingers.

 

Alessandra. She is a painter, a dancer, a designer, a creator. She uses her hands to shape dresses, although her pen has been lying still in a forgotten case for a while now. She uses her hands to express an emotion, a movement, as she tiptoes across a neon lighted stage, creating imaginary circles with them.

 

Adela, or nonna. She is Alessandra’s mother, and my grandmother. She doesn’t really create anything, the years have left her hands uncreative. Her delicate hands are constantly clasped together, as she kneels in front of a female sculpture in an altar. I could say, though, that she has shaped my family’s faith, with the utmost care any artist would put on their piece.

 

Adrian, my youngest brother. He has the skinniest hands I have ever seen. They are white like and albino’s skin and narrow. He tried to play the piano at a young age. His dainty fingers defiantly helped him. Now he uses them to press keyboards and kill the opposing team, who have a surplus of soldiers across the battlefield.  

 

Esteban, the middle child, does not have hands like ours.

 

His are like my dad’s. His are like my grandfather’s.

 

They have the same hands, more masculine, broader, stronger. Meant to slap someone across the cheek rather than smooth the wrinkles in a piece of fabric. The veins do not underline out like ours do from our paper thin skin. He certainly does not create anything. He has no desire to seek inspiration, to express, to look deep within his mind, in search of a tiny, hidden seed that can somehow transform into something colourful.

 

We are all somehow artists, though. We all sculpt our lives with our hands as the days go by. In a way, our hands are like those of the K’iche Gods, who are believed to have created the human race from today after a lengthy process.

 

We all have a forest inside our minds, but after a while, it grows too big for our mind to handle. We can’t water the thick roots that are sinking into the soil of our minds, infecting our thoughts, our imagination, affecting what our hands create.

 

But sometimes, the venom will run through our veins and into our hands, helping us create the most beautiful of things.