I have but one skill

November 02, 2024

My name is not as important as my looks.

I have ulnar dimelia, aka mirror hand syndrome. Both of my hands have eight fingers each. I have no thumbs. I have been this way since birth. Barely seventy people, world-wide, present as I do. There are many reasons for this.

I cannot wear gloves. I will not shake hands. I avoid people who make thumb wrestling jokes. I can flip you four birds. I have trouble grasping objects. I can't tie my shoes. However, I can tie a Double Windsor. I use a straw for most beverages and (some) soups. I have been x-rayed. I have never been fingerprinted. I will not make a movie appearance. I do not wave. Forget playing baseball or the piano. I will pass on bowling and clapping.

Despite all of my obvious shortcomings, I do one thing very well.

I am a master locksmith. So much so, for those who know me and what I can do, I am always in high demand.

Why?

Because I can feel tumblers fall. I can feel a pick travel into a cylinder while I measure the pressure required to raise the individual pin tumblers. I am also just as adept with other locking mechanisms.

How adept?

I work off of touch, not sound. I can measure differences of force and pressure within .0002%. I can do all of this both at the source and as far away as two meters (personal best). If it turns, if metal moves across metal, if any part of the mechanism moves, I will know.

Once opened, then I will know what the lock was protecting.

My few friends wonder how I can remain legit. How can I forgo stealing a stack of money here or a diamond necklace there. It must be tempting.

It is very tempting.

But, so is an accusation against the someone who looks like a freak. So is responding to bogus legal requirements that I register with this agency or that agency in the interest of public safety.

No one sees my face, only my hands. No one listens to me, only the sound of their own voice denying my rights. The ADA people wish to characterize and classify me. The FBI wants to interrogate me for every unsolved crime they have. Insurance companies will deny me coverage. The police think I can shoot a pistol. The DMV thinks I shouldn’t drive. I haven’t tried either.

Yet.

So why am I making this announcement? Because I now have confirmation the worldwide number of people with my condition will soon increase.

I am going to have twins.

So, if you have the penchant for making my life miserable, I might just find a level of reciprocity to make your life miserable. What do you have locked away? Money? Papers? Jewels?

Raising children is expensive.

Do you have a secure system? I will teach two apprentices my craft. From the look of their x-rays, they already come with the tools.

Time is on my side.

See you soon.

And often.

I don’t want to die bored. I don’t want to die tired, or even fat and happy. I don’t want to die when the cold wind slaps my body to the ground, my world upside down. I refuse to die still, or dried out with a permanent frown. I just can’t die tonight.

I want to die on fire. Electric. I’m going to explode my worth in all directions. I plan to light my world ablaze and die alive.

So I will take what I want, and do who I please. I’ll eat the flavors of every corner and always pull over to touch the water. I do not take the easy route, but I will take my time.

And after every mile I’ll absorb every experience, until I bubble and boil and burst my way out.

“Tower 18 requesting green light.”

“Negative. Once word spreads that signal is available, maximum target rich environment will be attained. Standby.”

The Commander was right; crowds began surrounding Tower 18’s base. Signal was life to them. Their tech dependence made this almost too easy.

“Engage at will.” The order came.

Curious, he first checked what the targets were viewing:

Political arguments

Porn

Conspiracy theories

Social media influencers

Cat singing “go meow”

TikTok challenges

Woman spitting

Clearly, this operation held value. Some looked up from their screens long enough to see the incoming ballistics. A handful managed to livestream their demise.

Mariah closes out what area_man opens, while anchored in the middle beetween is something from ModernAntigone that can only be described with words like addictive, gorgeous, seasoned... Just like the piece before and the piece after. From the finest dining to feed the arts, to the light blocked and two litanies of sorrowful flavor so deliciously dark and told with iron breath, to the sweet song of what has died on the vine, number 53 on Prose. Radio features three writers with something beautiful to say, no matter how we slice it

Here's the link to Prose. Radio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpGJ5qRys8Q

And here are the featured pieces.

https://www.theprose.com/post/822012/blocking-the-light https://www.theprose.com/post/819551/litany-i-ii https://www.theprose.com/post/811664/loves-death

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team

My past lies viscous

Unleashed when pressed upon

Squeezed between good and bad

A forever-disheveled Rubik's cube

Uncapped and unable to be undone

I can't put the past(e) back in the tube

ENVIRONMENTAL TRIGGER:

A tube of toothpaste, on a shelf, uncapped, with a blob of paste at its opening, gumming up the cap and the shelf it lies on.

The things I have conquered today, may not seem like much to you.

But while you were at work away, I did laundry and then went though

Our old baby's old clothes and his room, Some I threw out or gave away.

A few I kept, because quite soon, our boy's child may come here to stay

A night or two, with me and you.

If I keep up my health and smile, our son might allow me to hold

The precious girl just for a while and keep me from growing too old.

I washed the dishes and dried them, and I changed the sheets on our bed.

In your pants, I took up the hem. I painted the chicken coop red.

I wanted to spruce the lawn up.

A two-toned, red and white Chevy pickup truck was parked in a bare spot which wouldn’t grow grass underneath the shaded limbs of one of the two magnificent pecan trees which dominated either side of the old farm house’s front walk. From the covered front porch the excited voice of Eli Gold could be heard describing action from The Charlotte Motor Speedway clear out to the road, even through the hand-sized transistor radio. Beside the truck, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a dripping sponge in hand, a man was caught in a curious pause from his truck washing, having stopped to watch his four year old at play. The child was behaving in an unusual, if enticing manner, having climbed down inside her pink, pedal-powered plastic Barbie car to remove the bicycle-chain linkage which acted as the little car’s transmission. The man’s ’Lil Miss had managed to identify the master link, then had used some unknown tool to pry it apart, and was currently attempting to shorten, or tighten up some slack which had grown with time and use between the gear sprockets.

The man with the dripping sponge didn’t have nearly enough time at home with the kids, so it was with great effort that he resisted the urge to jump in and help his baby girl, though it appeared that his youngest had gotten herself into something that he was uncertain if she could resolve on her own. A good father, the man determined to let her try, just as he would have let her older Bubba try.

The child’s chubby, undeveloped fingers struggled with the tiny pieces of linkage. He watched as she dropped a part, found it again, and spent some time figuring how it fit back with the larger pieces. But she did figure it out! His pride swelled nearly to bursting as he watched her remove a link from the chain and slowly jigsaw the thing back together. Unable to contain himself any longer the man finally did step in as his little girl fought to snap the master link back together again, knowing she would not have the strength to do it.

”Here.” He handed a pair of pliers up under the toy car’s chassis, then he watched on amazed as his Missy pondered the pliers for a long moment before finally gripping them correctly, centering the linkage between their jaws, and snapping the chain almost expertly back together with them.

”Fixed it.”

”Yes! Yes, you did. And you made a nice job of it, too!” There was no camera present, so the man made a snapshot of the moment in his mind, desperate to hold on to the memory of it forever.

But the child’s expression remained serious. She took the car in a quick, neat circle around her father before handing up the pliers to him. ”It needs woobwicant.”

After a moment lost in translation the man chuckled aloud, the pride which had swelled his breast having pushed its way up through his choking neck and into his eyes, embarrassing him no little bit. “Yes Missy, it probably does need some lubricant, but how could you know about that?”

”Fiwabaw is teaching me to be a wace caw dwivuh.”

”Fiwabaw? Fireball? Fireball Roberts?

The girl’s smiled sparkled. “Yea! Fiwabaw!”

”Honey, Fireball Roberts has been dead twenty years!”

Ignored, the man was forced to keep up as the little car sped off towards his tool bench in the barn, and the can of 3in1 oil atop it. He watched from the doorway as his baby girl expertly held the can in place, turning the car’s pedal to rotate and lubricate the entirety of the chain beneath the can’s dripping tip as if she’d done it hundreds, or even thousands, of times.

”Fireball Roberts, huh?” He smiled as he said the name.

”Yea! Fiwabaw!”

You know, Fireball was your Grampa’s favorite, back in the day.”

”Yea! Gwampaw!”

The truck gears ground down as the man pulled out onto the highway towards both town and the Western Auto, his Lil Missy perched happily up on the seat beside him. Momma wasn’t gonna like it one bit, but who was a mother to interfere with fate?

Daddy’s girl was getting herself a go-cart today!

He knew immediately when he woke. It was so cold that his skin burned in little bursts. He could feel a layer of frost crackling under his nose and on his eyelids as he fought his body. He gasped, the sharp pain of frozen air entering his lungs drove him into full wakefulness. How did I get here? He wondered. He couldn’t tell how long he’d been out, but it couldn’t have been long - he wouldn’t have woken if it had been long. But what had roused him?

Something pawed at his back. It was warm. Suddenly, uncomfortably warm. He turned very slowly. It was a baby dragon.

His frozen mind fought to make sense of this new puzzling piece of information. He was nearly frozen, half-dead, in the snow, with a baby dragon at his back, prodding his quilted coat and melting the snow to slush around them. How had he gotten here?