Kente
Woodcut, 8" x 8"
The Battle of the Index Fingers
Sarah K. Abel
One of my fingers hurt the other. I know that it did not mean for this to happen. It was sudden and a mistake, an impulse without thought. What I mean is that sometimes when you have a stick blender in your hand, you squeeze the handle and it turns on. You do not mean to do this but we all like to squeeze squeezable things. What that hand did not remember was that the index finger on the other hand was trying to get something out that was stuck under the blade. It happened in an instant and I am pretty sure that the criminal hand was instantly aghast and contrite. My attention immediately went to the innocent and hurt left index finger. In situations like this, it is fair to take sides. The index finger had so much pain and blood.
My head was overwhelmed, it does not like blood. I called my friend who is also a doctor. She gave me the directions I needed: clean, wrap, apply pressure and wait 30 minutes to see if it will stop bleeding. Fortunately, after 30 minutes, my husband appeared and took charge. We took the finger to the hospital where it was stitched up. Once it was numbed and bandaged, it could rest.
My head could not rest. It had seen too much and was very frightened. How could one finger lash out at the other like this? Would these fingers ever learn to live together again? The trust between right and left fingers had been broken. My head now knew about real pain. When re-wrapping the finger in the morning, my head passed out. It was too frightened by what it had seen the day before. The sight of the naked, mangled finger was overwhelming.
There was no longer trust between the fingers and It is very hard to live with divided body parts. The fingers on the right began to overcompensate for the fingers on the left. Instead of being able to cut meat for dinner using all the fingers together, the fingers on the right used a pair of kitchen scissors independently. There was sadness at the meal. For their entire life, the fingers had all worked together. Now, they were on different sides. The left index finger was injured, the right index finger had caused the injury. The head agonized because it desperately wanted peace and collaboration. There is so much war around us, was the head’s thought, we can not tolerate a war at home within this body we share.
Nevertheless, the body had to go to work on Monday, Many people noticed the bandaged finger and were sympathetic. One boy had many questions: how did it happen exactly? Was there a lot of blood? Did you go to the emergency room and did you have to wait a long time? How many stitches? What did it feel like? What time did you leave the emergency room? With each answer he was given, he shared a little more about his own injury. This past winter, his legs jumped so far off of the couch that he hit his head on the corner of the coffee table. The head, like the finger, bled profusely. He, too, was surprised by the amount of blood. He also was at the emergency room until very late at night and he also got stitches. The finger felt so understood that the whole body relaxed.
Emboldened by this boy’s empathy, the left finger stood proudly. The right finger noticed and was reassured. Seeing its twin, the right index finger thought, maybe we can live through this together. The head seized this opportunity and began to daydream a next step. In this dreamy state, the head thought about a ring for the left index finger. A ring would be a symbol of bravery. A ring for the pain and suffering. A ring to remember with pride would attract attention even though the finger will have some lasting deformation. The head held itself high, it felt very pleased to have something new to think about.
