thing away on to the grass and chases after the joker, furious, to thrash him. Exeunt clowns down dawn streets, gibbering.
We do not know which hand it was, right or left, because we are all afraid to ask John, who considers us ghouls.
But suppose, said someone else, that it was an accident victim found in the mountains days after a fatal fall, or perhaps it was a drowning. The body decaying out of doors or in the river would account for the bloated flesh. Then suppose this was the left hand and there was jewelleryânot a watch because that could be unbuckled or slipped off easily, but say a bracelet, a heavy gold chain too tight to slip off over the swollen, disfigured extremity. The swelling may have extended up the arm, burying the bracelet in the wrist.
Perhaps some sub-mortuarian has been humiliated by the funeral director. Say this brooding tech spies the gold and uses a handy funerary tool to sever the bulky hand and slip the bracelet off the wristâ¦but then why would she take the hand away with her? To disguise the loss. No, maâam, she might say, that hand must have been lost in the wreck, he arrived handless, as you see him, and if any bracelet were attached it must be lying in the brush of the gorge, or the bottom of the river. Terrible, terribleâ¦
One of the proponents of this theft theory declared that it was equally applicable to the shadier levels of the hospital staff. The actual doctors and many of the nurses and technicians live in the neighbourhood. They are slim, like the other residents. They drink high-octane coffee in flavours at the outdoor cafés. They shop for aubergine and endive, pilaf and focaccia beside us at the grocery. But this affair of the hand triggered a resurrection of vile, old aspersions about the habits and hygiene of the wider people in green work pyjamas who arrive and leave the hospital on buses. They are seen to buy microwaved lunches at the convenience store across the street from the employee entrance. They are thought to empty bedpans, change filthy sheets, scrub tainted surfaces and pump the gas jets beneath the chimney.
These green-clad wage invaders from across the river have incited our suspicions beforeâmost notably during the last labour contract dispute when their striking pickets were wrongly associated with several late-night bricks through the plate glass of boutiques on the avenue. An ill-timed spate of ferocious rhetoric ended when the brick hurlers were found to be a larking trio of our own cosseted adolescents.
Some at the café tables that night recalled this old embarrassmentand objected to targeting the hospital workers. Accusations of blatant classism erupted, and the resulting scornful exchanges threatened to halt the game entirely with a series of flouncing or stomping exits.
The freelance web designer rescued us from our bitterness by flippantly hypothesising that a bird flew over and dropped the hand. Others seized on this immediately, proposing that it could have been one of the many gulls thriving this close to the river. The voracious and indiscriminant gull has both the appetite and the size to carry a substantial hand.
An Audubon member reminded us of the pair of turkey buzzards frequenting the crest of the hill behind us. If a gull or a buzzard were involved, the relieved theorists proposed, the hand might have come from anywhereâa collapsed cemetery in the hills, oozing open in the heavy fall rains. Despite the presence of Hennessey, Gooch & McGeeâs esteemed funeral parlour, there is no cemetery within miles of our neighbourhood.
The bird image captivated the gentler among us, including our lone witness, John, who we ambushed as he passed by with Daisy. Bribed with hot chocolate, he agreed to perch briefly at a table as we demanded his opinion. He confessed a preference for this bird explanation. He seemed soothed by the notion that it must have been a far-off and long-dead person, not a local sufferer who
We do not know which hand it was, right or left, because we are all afraid to ask John, who considers us ghouls.
But suppose, said someone else, that it was an accident victim found in the mountains days after a fatal fall, or perhaps it was a drowning. The body decaying out of doors or in the river would account for the bloated flesh. Then suppose this was the left hand and there was jewelleryânot a watch because that could be unbuckled or slipped off easily, but say a bracelet, a heavy gold chain too tight to slip off over the swollen, disfigured extremity. The swelling may have extended up the arm, burying the bracelet in the wrist.
Perhaps some sub-mortuarian has been humiliated by the funeral director. Say this brooding tech spies the gold and uses a handy funerary tool to sever the bulky hand and slip the bracelet off the wristâ¦but then why would she take the hand away with her? To disguise the loss. No, maâam, she might say, that hand must have been lost in the wreck, he arrived handless, as you see him, and if any bracelet were attached it must be lying in the brush of the gorge, or the bottom of the river. Terrible, terribleâ¦
One of the proponents of this theft theory declared that it was equally applicable to the shadier levels of the hospital staff. The actual doctors and many of the nurses and technicians live in the neighbourhood. They are slim, like the other residents. They drink high-octane coffee in flavours at the outdoor cafés. They shop for aubergine and endive, pilaf and focaccia beside us at the grocery. But this affair of the hand triggered a resurrection of vile, old aspersions about the habits and hygiene of the wider people in green work pyjamas who arrive and leave the hospital on buses. They are seen to buy microwaved lunches at the convenience store across the street from the employee entrance. They are thought to empty bedpans, change filthy sheets, scrub tainted surfaces and pump the gas jets beneath the chimney.
These green-clad wage invaders from across the river have incited our suspicions beforeâmost notably during the last labour contract dispute when their striking pickets were wrongly associated with several late-night bricks through the plate glass of boutiques on the avenue. An ill-timed spate of ferocious rhetoric ended when the brick hurlers were found to be a larking trio of our own cosseted adolescents.
Some at the café tables that night recalled this old embarrassmentand objected to targeting the hospital workers. Accusations of blatant classism erupted, and the resulting scornful exchanges threatened to halt the game entirely with a series of flouncing or stomping exits.
The freelance web designer rescued us from our bitterness by flippantly hypothesising that a bird flew over and dropped the hand. Others seized on this immediately, proposing that it could have been one of the many gulls thriving this close to the river. The voracious and indiscriminant gull has both the appetite and the size to carry a substantial hand.
An Audubon member reminded us of the pair of turkey buzzards frequenting the crest of the hill behind us. If a gull or a buzzard were involved, the relieved theorists proposed, the hand might have come from anywhereâa collapsed cemetery in the hills, oozing open in the heavy fall rains. Despite the presence of Hennessey, Gooch & McGeeâs esteemed funeral parlour, there is no cemetery within miles of our neighbourhood.
The bird image captivated the gentler among us, including our lone witness, John, who we ambushed as he passed by with Daisy. Bribed with hot chocolate, he agreed to perch briefly at a table as we demanded his opinion. He confessed a preference for this bird explanation. He seemed soothed by the notion that it must have been a far-off and long-dead person, not a local sufferer who
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