Excerpt: Whittle Hands

My hands are covered in thick bark-like growths. It is as though they were whittled from giant blocks of wood by a poor craftsman. There are bumps and divots throughout. There are longer extrusions that curl back, terminating in tight, brittle spirals. They hang at the end of my arms like crude, irregular cudgels. They make me something other than entirely human. It's like bark, it's like carved-up wood, it's like coral, it's like a turtle shell with jagged, diseased scutes. Whatever it is like, it is not like skin.
[...]
Earlier tonight, after I had returned from the show taping--a joke I loved was cut, one I hated got a huge laugh--I went into Flynn's Grocery. Belle was working, as I knew she would be, and we circled the store together as I picked out my cereal, milk, and cans of soup. She held the milk so I could see the expiration dates; while I'm still able to grasp, rotating objects is one of my more significant weaknesses. She asked about the show, and I told her the guest had been that guy from the vampire movie. She failed to suppress a little giggle and I extemporized for a few minutes about how gorgeous he was. She laughed and blushed. It wasn't brilliant comedy, but it was appropriate to the moment and found its mark. As her cheeks reddened, Belle dropped her head a little and looked up at me with her chin near her chest. The vulnerability in her posture caused me to trail off of my bit and lock eyes. If she hadn't punched a clock to be there, if this had been a third date, we might call it a "moment." Or not? It's been a long time. In my dramatic moods when I look at myself through writerly eyes, I imagine the essence within me is hardening like my skin. This banter and the genuine feeling that gestated in the space between us reminded me that this is just one interpretation. I do not have to be Pinocchio in reverse: the real boy turning to wood. Talking to Belle made me realize that there is more than one way for me to understand what's happening to me. Those few minutes of easy conversation are why I'm willing to dredge this up now, to put in the extra writing hours. I now believe that I will be able to finally make sense of this inscrutable situation if I can only put it in words. Narrative is how we understand, it's how we endow meaning. I have to embrace the sad clowns and silly monsters. I have to find community with the freaks. I need to reconcile that which is trite about me with that which is anomalous.