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Monday, June 14, 2010

Incredible Life and Death of my talkative middle finger

The middle finger of my right arm is talking to me... Absurd? It was quiet difficult to get used to this fact at first, but when I found out this was a situation I have to live with, I did a deep research on this phenomenon, through Google and Wikipedia, coming up surprisingly with much less information than I anticipated, actually almost nothing. So the situation is unheard of, unique and ... absurd.

My finger was not always like this.. well I cannot tell it for sure because I too found it accidentally. It was my 30th birthday, I was giving a candle light dinner for my family, my wife and two kids when a small fly entered my right ear... and impulsively I put the middle finger of my right hand in my ear...At first I thought it was the fly making some sound, but it had something humane in it... it was a very low rumble, continuous and sounded like a complain, but I was not at all able to decipher it, the volume was so less... I took my finger back and after a second, took it near my ear and  listened again... nothing. 

After this episode I waited for my finger to make another sound, just to make myself sure I am not going insane and I had to wait for another two days... I was in my office, giving a staff presentation, silence prevailed and all others were absorbed in the facts and figures. Suddenly I could hear some whispering, I was expecting it all the time, but it was louder this time... at first I pretended not to hear it... then I could not concentrate on the presentation and I took my hand from my pockets and stared at the middle finger like giving a rebuke... Probably it understood and was quiet... I am sure my colleagues might have found it revolting to see me poking my middle finger during a serious meeting but I was relieved that none complained later.

That evening when I reached home I could hear the grumbling sound from my finger. I asked my wife,
"Do you hear a grumbling sound?"
"May be the washing machine." She replied.
During dinner I asked her again,
"Do you hear a grumbling sound?"
"May be from TV."
I pushed my luck in bed, 
"Do you hear a grumbling sound?"
She turned around and slept without replying.
Next morning the first thing I asked her was,
"Do you hear a grumbling sound?"
I had to go to office without breakfast that morning.At least I am sure no one else hears the noise that my finger was making other than me.

Another month passed and I am learning the art of managing whispering fingers ...  Now the whispering has turned into audible sound, but I was unable to find out what it wants to convey because that language is a foreign one with no ring of familiarity.I tried showing my finger, the World Movies TV channel on the hope that it will pick up any of the language featured... But other than my family's wrath for not letting my wife watch her soaps and my kids their cartoons, this try also was a waste...

By now finger has possessed a new habit, it wants to speak eye-to-eye with me... or finger-to-eye, whatever it is... and it also likes to touch my other body parts... like ear, nose, like conveying some secret to them but most irritating is it wanting to touch any private parts, especially in public. It seems to live a life of its own, suddenly coming alive in the most embarrassing circumstances.. I suspected it was planning a mutiny against me along with my other body parts. I went to a shrink.
"Yes Mr. H. How are you?"
"Doctor, my finger is speaking to me."
He had a dead pan expression as if waiting for me to jump, or cry or behave the way people who are nut cases find ciivilized... We waited for some minutes... He was still staring at me with the same expression and I was feeling like acting demented just to make him comfortable...
"But it is not talking!" He exclaimed suddenly but with a calmness and depth that resembled an ocean..
"No! It is not."
"But you told it is!"
"It was! I don't know why it is silent now and any way only I can hear it talking." There! Now the guy will jump from his seat and will shout victoriously " Man, Congrats! You are the latest entrent to the crazy world of nuts!" 
No, he is keeping the same dead pan face, like I had just stated Newton's third Law...and the finger was silent! It is probably scared of shrinks...
I don't remember much about the rest... probably the guy hipnotized me and I just wished I didn't gave any of the skeletons in my closet away to him. I remember coming out of the consulting room and realising I have forgotten some thing inside. I returned without knocking and caught the guy talking animatedly on phone.
"You won't believe what all weird guys enter my office." or something like that with a vicious and gosippy grin on his face. He stopped after seeing me and wore his dead pan mask... I took my cell phone that was on the table and returned to office...

But the finger resumed blabbering once we were out... By the next week it was shouting... And I was not sitting idle. I went to a Baba Bengali who was the mobile cure for any problem below the sky... I had to run away from his den, a stingy room on the second storey of a building, that should have been taken over by Archeological departent long back, when my finger shouted at him, scaring him so much that Baba fell through the window to the pavement infront of the building  and probably broke his spine leaving him paralysed for life. 

I knew it was my destiny to live with this talking finger my whole life, unable to understand a word that the little creep utters andalways left to my imagination. I was returning from Baba when probably the finger felt a need to talk to my eyes... It came suddenly, without any provocation that I was jolted by the sudden-ness and I was on the road.. Something hit me hard, probably a Volvo truck, judging by the impact and I was flying high and long , maybe a couple of miles, for I was in  the air for an incredibly long time.. Darkness was creeping around from all sides and there was a sudden pain on my right hand... and my finger was screaming hysterically, and then every thing turned black. 

After a very  long time, may be years later, I opened my eyes to an irritating assault of white light, then blue and then every shades of every colours that ever existed in spectrum... A stout guy with a bum expression was staring at my face. I recognized my family doctor, it is funny how distorted familiar faces seem  when their noses are touching ours, or are almost close to ours, as was apparantly the case now...
"Hi Doctor."
"Welcome back dude. You gave all of us such a scare!"
"Well, what happened? How am I alive yet?"
"Come on, no one dies when hit by a scooter... You just got shocked senseless for a couple of hours. But bad news is that when you fell on the road a car ran over you, the middle finger of your right hand to be precise. We had to amputate it to prevent infections and other complications."
"Wait, you mean to say you cut it off? THE middle finger of my right hand?"
" Yes, as you were unconscious we had to get a consent from your wife and being a fine lady who is concerned of your well being she gave it easily."
I looked at my hand with a gaping hole in the middle, not knowing how to react...

Later my wife confessed that she was relieved give her consent to chop my finger off, as I was consistently embarrasing her by poking it in undesirable places in public... Years later, I still think of the middle finger of my right hand that used to talk incessantly, and used to wonder about all those endless conversations that took place between us, which I could never comprehend due to the language barrier... I will never know whether a part of my body was planning a revolt against me or if it was just announcing the next day's lottery results....
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This is a rough draft of a story  I conceived in a sleepless night some time back which I was unable to put in words then... Need some editing, more humour and some finishing touch. Please give your suggestions. 
Note: If you find it similar to any other works of fiction that you had read before, probably I also might have read it. Please include it in your comments so that I can include that book also in my shelfari profile, where I keep track of books that I have read...

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