A young, mid-20s man was at his house hosting a gathering for his friends. He was wearing baggy brown pants, a green hoodie, with a black beanie hat on his hand. His hair is light brown, medium width down to his neck, and he is a drifter. He takes odd jobs during the day and at night, he would do drugs with his friends. He had no idea where he wanted to go with his life, and he did not care. He saw his friend from a distance took a hit from a huge glass bomb with the pipe from where the with meth flower inside was metallic. His friend used a torch lighter. His friend looked up to him coughing. He gave a questionable nod to him as if he was saying, “Want a hit?” The man gave a glare and laughed. Of course, I do!
The gathering was only a few people. He put up his green hoodie and walk forward. He passed a few people by going around while people are talking, laughing, smoking vape, weed, etc. He did not want to interrupt the conversations nor that he cared about their conversation. He just wanted a hit and go to bed upstairs to enjoy the hit. He came close to his friend and grab the bong and torch lighter. He was about to turn to walk to his original spot when suddenly, he was tripped by another person who was walking behind him. When he tripped, what he was holding was in the air. Shit! He tried to go where they might land. He quickly caught the bong and tried to grab the blowtorch However, the blowtorch went down so fast that it hit the table hard and bounced the floor several times while he was chasing it. A small explosion from the blowtorch initiated and the flames were bursting already. The man’s hands were the first one to be affected by the explosion. Then a fire hit the couch and would start spreading. Everyone started screaming and rushed out of the house. The man was screaming in agony of his hands being burnt. His friend was about to run away, but one noise of the scream, he looked and grabbed his friend with both hands on his shoulder and said, “We got to go! Come on!”
Firefighters arrived at the scenes and so did the police shortly afterward. People at the gathering were giving mixed version to the police on why they were there at the scene as if to cover their own asses. However, when it comes to what happened prior to the explosion, all gave a version they saw differently that the man was doing wax with a blowtorch and that he accidentally dropped it. The police suspected that there were illegal drugs involved, but as far as they found alcoholic beverages and weed on people, their state just legalized weed a year ago, and one look at the man needed immediate medical assistance, they decided to chalk it off as a recreational hazard accident and left them all off with a warning. The man was rushed to the hospital.
After X-rays, examinations, and a long night, the doctor came to the man in one of the patient rooms where they watched him overnight in the morning and gave him the bad news. Bad news is that the torch was really flammable that it resulted his hands in a third or fourth degree of the burn. His deeper tissues are badly damaged or possibly destroyed. The doctor gave him an option where they could do an expensive treatment in which it is possible to try to recover some tissues from his hands but that it would not be the same as before or that to amputate his hands because the burn is so severely infected that it could affect different parts of the body. The man looked at the doctor in disbelief on what he was hearing and asked for time to think about it.
When the doctor left, the man’s mind was in a whirlwind. How could this happen? How could I be so stupid? He thought angrily. My home is probably burned down, I have no feelings in my hand, and on top of that, I really needed a hit, but I can’t because of the house fucking burned down! Fuck! How was I supposed to get to work and do my job? How am I supposed to…survive? He was all agitated, his leg started shaking. He needed to be out of the hospital, and he needed to find a hit to escape all of this. He looked around and decided to do his best to take off the IV. He looked at the chair and saw that he still has his shirt and pants. Only his hoodie was gone, burnt away. He went to the bathroom to change the clothes. He looked out in the hallway and tried to sneak out of the building without anyone alert. He escaped through the door and noticed no one was watching him suspicious. Easy!
First thing the man saw was a bus was about to arrive to the stop right outside of the hospital. The man rushed to go on it. He knows exactly where to go. Just needed to go to a specific stop to get on the next bus. If only he knows what hospital or place, he was. He decided to let it go and enjoy the ride. It might be a good thing to breathe, to think on what he needed to do next. He saw a guy next to him. He looked like a junkie sleeping off. The man asked him in a whisper, “Do you have a hit or know where I can get one?” The guy looked like he just woke up from a drunken nap and looked at him and grinned, “Well, we are going to the same place then! I will let you know when we get off!” Perfect timing! As if the universe is showing me where I need to go! Ha, funny!
He breathed a huge sign of relief. He looked around and saw two people doing something with their hands. What is this? The two people were both men in their mid-thirties. They looked well dressed and while doing something with their hands, they were laughing! Oh, are they deaf? Is this sign language? One of them noticed the man staring and looked down at his hands. The man pulled out his phone and started texting. He pulled out an app of big text that says, “What happened to your hands?”
Shit! How do I explain? I don’t have my phone! He thought. He looked one look at them. Fuck, I will try to act it out like charades. He tries to use one hand to point to them and wave them up. He made a gesture of “psssh” while doing it. The other person mouthed, “Fire?” The man nodded. It worked!
The man with the phone started typing and showed it, “Wow! I am sorry for the fire that caused your hand. Would you recover?”
The burnt hands man hesitated. How does he explain this? He decide to gesture with one hand by trying to fold it like he was holding a scapel. The pain hurts a little when he did it but the man still couldn’t feel his hands or gesture it right. He shrugged and mouthed “Or” and then try to gesture by putting his arms around his back and mouthed “Cut off”.
The man with the phone looked in horror. He pondered a moment and typed on his phone, “You see, we are deaf. We used our hands every day. Without our hands, we would not be able to communicate or to show people we can do anything we want to do. Our hands are our most precious body part. I could not imagine going through life without our hands. I hope whatever you choose, that you would recover from it.” The man stared at the second last sentences over and over again. He felt something shifted inside him. He looked at the people and did not want to show it. He shrugged. It is what it is!
The two people shrugged too, and one grabbed the rope to signal their next stop. They both waved to the man and the man with the phone did a pray gesture. The burnt man watched them get off on their stop. The bus rolled away, and the man looked up, lost in thought. He remembered when he was a kid, he would love drawing. He would make portraits of his mother, his sisters, and his friends. He would make a cartoon story of a funny, dorky superhero that would save the day and it became a series. He loved when he was in high school working in workshop class. He would build chairs, dressers, anything that the teacher put him to work on. In college, he was in the art major and enjoyed his work and would continue crafting something from wood as a hobby. But since his mother and sister died in the car accident, it wasn’t the same ever since. He had no family and no one to turn back to. He dropped out in his sophomore year and went through a life with bad crowd through drugs and working on jobs to feed his dirty vices.
The man noticed in each and every one of those memories he had, he loved using his hands as well, even when he was in a dark place doing drugs. There was something about holding something in his hands. He looked at his hands and smiled. “We are almost there! Next stop! Ready?” “Yeah, I am!”
As they went off the next stop, the man walked in a different direction away from the druggie. “Hey, it is this way! Where are you going?” The man looked at the druggie and paused for a moment. He then responded, “I am going to the hospital for that much needed surgery, no matter how much it cost!” then continued walking away. He knows it may not work to help his hands function normally. It is better than nothing! My hands are all that is left of me. All that is left of my mother and sister! I am doing this for you both! I am sorry! I love you! I miss you! I will not fail you this time!
Justis' MultiStories 