Hands, Eventually

I learned it very early. Words can be fatally futile. They can hold your entire world, cup it gently like water in careful palms. They can also let it all slip, collapse in one moment. But that’s not how I began to discover their deception. The treachery revealed itself when I learned that the world was already doomed. Words had only spun a delicate web of false contentment, meant to betray the heart.

Then I learned that faces are as devious as language. Those charming smiles, those glistening eyes rehearsed in mirrors and perfected in daylight. A façade of deceit. A face can lie as beautifully as a poem; mine did, even when my heart was bleeding sorrows. It becomes instinctive after a while. Especially when no one around you wants to peek inside you. Everyone wants a portrait, not a pulse. Appearances are everything. 

But when the souls bruise and the faces gleam, the hands tremble. What the mouth omits, hands confess.

My hands are not beautiful. They are simply mine. Full of lines. Deep etched lines. My friend said my life line had a very poor silhouette, like a tired road full of obstacles and a life full of troubles.

 I don’t believe her. I try not to believe her. Sometimes, I wonder, though, if they are not predictions but inheritance. These are the maps drawn in blood long before I was born. I cannot run away from the destiny engraved on my skin.

With these hands, I make myself tea every day. I hold the warm cup, longer than necessary, letting the heat sink deep into my skin.  I cook myself food. I comb my hair. I run my fingers through it. I smooth my sleeves and press my shoulders. I try to take care of myself. Just like a lover would have.

 There seems to be a space between the hill of my palm and the base of my fingers, shaped exactly like some stranger’s hand.

Sometimes I imagine a lover’s hands. Not their face. Not their voice.  But their gentle hands. Caressing my face, stroking my hair. Maybe their life line would turn towards mine, complimenting each other like two paths winding around but never frazzling.

 Strangely enough, I haven’t experienced a lover’s touch. Stranger still, I am not sure I want to. I fear hands that hold too tightly or let go too easily, I fear hands that play with the concept of tenderness like a hobby. I would not like to hold hands that are already preparing to leave. 

 What I want is a perpetual hand in mine.

 Would that be possible? It seems unlikely. As if asking fate for a favor I won’t be able to pay back. But if those hands ever slip into mine, I won’t let go. Not for pride, not for fear, never. I would not let them pass.  

My mother’s hands never passed me by. I remember how she would place her palm on my face, her thumb pressing into my cheek as if memorizing the shape of my face. Even though I am so far from her, I can see her cradling my face. I can see myself crying into her hands. Her hands are soft, a bit wrinkled, yet the most beautiful hands in the whole world. If I could, I would disappear in those hands forever and ever. I would hide my face in those soft hands, smelling like soap and spices. I will fold and stay there till the world lets something gentle come towards me. 

My father’s hands were different. Rough. Calloused. Darker than my mother’s, broader, heavier. Those hands lifted things.  Endured things. If they had not hardened the way they did, my life would not have softened the way it has. I remember biting his fingers when I was just a child. I think I still remember the taste, faintly bitter, like long days and unspoken sacrifices. 

And when I look at my own hands, I see both of them here. My mother’s softness in the curve of my fingers, my father’s endurance in the thickness of my knuckles. Maybe my hands are not empty after all. Maybe they are inhabited by ghosts. Maybe every line in my hand is not a warning but a continuation.

Still, I cannot help but notice how much hands lose as they live. Warmth fades, grip weakens, skin loosens. I wonder what mine will look like after they have held everything they are meant to hold and lost everything they are meant to lose. 

In the end, it seems, I will be left with my own hands.

Sohyal Zafar is a 3rd year veterinary student from University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. She has won several All Pakistan Writing Competitions and her work has been published in The Wise Owl and Pandemonium Journal. In her free time, she likes to write and discover niche television shows that no one else watches.