These Hands

These Hands


  Deathly pale hands with vibrant red nails. Immaculate, if only at a glance. However, the bright paint and golden trinkets she habitually adorned them with hid a certain discomfort that, to the casual viewer, you would never imagine her to possess.   Her hands were on the chubby side, or so she believed. There were a pair of scars on the heel, but the snowy white complexion did well to conceal them. Very few noticed them – very few noticed anything down there – but they were only another unwelcome addition to her numerous imperceivable insecurities.

She'd painted her chewed, irregular nails every day since she'd arrived, at what she took to be 7 o'clock on the dot. There was no real indication of time down below, but she needed it. Time kept her grounded. The sense of regularity – it kept her human.