The Hands that Quiver

The skin was pale as it stretched thin over the whitened knuckles, hands folded together tight enough that fingerprints were being indented onto the skin in red blotchy patches. The fingers themselves were carved to perfection, strong and perfectly spaced, though the skin itself was tattered with scars. Some were rough and old, others an angry pink with the long process of healing. Fingernails on a hand are never to be ignored, they tell much about a person and what their personality is like. These ones are unpainted and rugged, the edges of them look to be torn off or chewed on, but definitely not well manicured. There are white spots in the wide fingernails, their color standing out awkwardly against the fingers reddened with force. A sign of calcium deficiency, no doubt. Or maybe there's been serious trauma?

The hands move-separating- one moves to a sleeve made of red wool and yanks it down with a tremble that jerks the smooth motion ever so slightly. The fluorescent light that cascades down on the skin light up multiple marks, thin and shallow they look to heal quickly, but where did they come from? The hands open wide to their beholder, palms visible and unscathed besides the thin sheet of sweat that quickly gets wiped off onto the pair of dark blue jeans. The ten fingers on the hands twitch and spasm with their own life, the jittery landscape would make a terrible home for a pencil or even a paintbrush, but as they fold together again toned muscles seem to flex with the motion. Perhaps lack of skill is made up with strength. A long moment passes as the hands grip each other as if for dear life, the knuckles turning bone white with their one force turned against them as they rest against the blue denim.

Suddenly the hands move, splitting apart again only this time much more quickly as they slide rhythmically over the jean material. Wiping off the rest of the sweat, the hands are in motion, moving upward now with purpose and another tremble though it's a different kind. They move swiftly and gingerly as they caress what's handed to them, a blue blanket that feels softer than any material they've ever touched before, though it's not the blanket that causes the shiver to run a wave of goosebumps up the arms. No, it's the hand 6 times smaller than the ones that cradle the filled blanket that stirs the reaction, as it calmly falls onto the pale and scarred skin. It's what those worked hands had been waiting to hold their whole life.