My hand and wrist are so small that it looks like I’m 1/40 Cabbage Patch Kid. The hand is little and fat and feels like fabric and the fingers are stitched together. My forearm goes from regular flesh and starts tapering down until it’s this thin little mushy tube that ends with a cartoonish, flat hand.
It happened while I was bingeing Friends on Netflix. I didn’t even notice until I looked down to scratch my palm. I saw the hand I was scratching and flinched a little bit. Then I saw that it was connected to my forearm. Then I thought, hey, my hand hasn’t always been this small.
I was right. Before, I had a regular sized hand with which to do regular sized things. I could cook with it, vacuum with it, do other cool stuff.
So small and useless. If it were just a really small version of my regular hand, I’d probably be fine with it. It would be cool at parties. “Hey, can you hold my cup,” someone would say to me. I’d stick out my hand and say, “I would, but as you can see I have a tiny fucking hand!” We’d all laugh so much and I’d be really likable for once and people would call me to ask to hang out with me even after we’ve already hung out for most of the week.
If I could masturbate with it, it would give me a confidence boost. So much of a boost that I think I’d walk into the headquarters of a Madison Avenue ads agency and say, “Hire me, but I don’t want to work. I just want to get paid.” I’d be wearing the confidence like a second skin and the head ads guy would look right into my eyes and say, “You have a deal!”
I’d shake with my left hand and they’d find it unconventional. They’d ask, “Are you left handed? I’d say, “Nope, but look at what I’ve got going here!” I’d stick out my little hand and wiggle it around, watching it fold where the stuffing is starting to thin out at the wrist. Everyone in the whole office would be cracking up. Someone would jump out the window, land on a car with his feet, do a back flip, land on the sidewalk, and buy me four hot dogs. Then I wouldn’t have to spend my money on groceries for the next few days.
But no. It’s just a useless little floppy hand. The fingers do not articulate. I can’t even pick up a beer bottle with it. Now, since I have to use my left hand, my beard is always wet and sticky with imperial stouts.
The cats like the little hand because they can chew on it and it doesn’t hurt me. It’s how they show me love. Sometimes when they claw at it I can see a bit of polyester fluff seep out, but I don’t feel it much. It usually closes up within the day and it makes me feel like Wolverine.
Someone’s at the door.
I open it (with my left hand).
It’s a tall guy, a complete stranger to me. He lifts up his right hand to reveal a little fabric shit-hand like mine.
“I was watching Friends and I had a premonition about you and this happened.” He wiggled it around. We both laughed. If anything, the hand was charming.
“Do you want to have a seat?” I ask. I’m just being polite. I don’t expect him to come inside my house. But he does and he sits on the couch and puts his feet up on the coffee table, just like me.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I only came here for one thing. I came to jerk each other off.”
I never thought it would come in handy.