Dirty Hands

He scrubbed tirelessly to remove human waste from underneath his fingernails and the creases in his hands. He noticed even his palms’ heart lines were shellacked with shit. An apt metaphor for once being labeled ‘emotionally constipated,’ he thought to himself as he applied another coat of antibacterial soap.   

The house reeked of what the hospice nurse called “crappy little accidents” and shame; the latter being more noxious and inescapable. Shit could be mopped, rinsed, wiped, sprayed and polished away, but his father’s shame, rivaled in gravity only by the burden thrust upon his son, hung over the house and suffocated its inhabitants like a blanket soaked in oil.  

His obligations, assumed begrudgingly, were a printing press, he thought to himself, slowly, mechanically and consistently crushing him under unforgiveable pressure, and staining him with the indelible permanence of regret. The rotating hands of the clock a turn of the press wheel. More antibacterial soap.  

And then the hammer fell with an irrevocable finality. His body tightened as the echo reverberated over the sound of running water. He continued scrubbing his hands, staring blankly out the window above the sink. In his reflection a tear glistened as it rolled down his cheek until meeting a faintly cracked smile. A finality that brought freedom from pain, shame, embarrassment and burden but created a vacuum to be filled with his guilt. He turned off the water and looked down at his hands. They were dirtier now.