Crying for your Achilles finger

By Breda Nathan

Sitting looking out at the rain and listening to all the terrible news bulletins, you feel lost.

Angry at times too, the feeling of being helpless and your finger bandaged and badly swollen.

You think back and back and back… does your memory improve with what is happening in this new world?

You are not yet three years old. Sitting on the counter of the local pharmacy sucking a stick of barley sugar. You can actually taste it tonight.

“Tell Mr. Burke what happened to you.” Your Father prompts. And as the pharmacist paints your finger blue, you explain.

“A spider with horns bited me.”

The shop erupts with laughter, as Mr. Burke assures your parents.

“She will always be able to speak up for herself.”

A bee sting, YOU DON’T CRY.

The blue finger was quiet for some years, and then…

While babysitting, a neighbour pops in and offers you a real holiday job in a printing house, she explains.

You had just completed your commerce course and topped the shorthand and typing marks.

Maybe the word printing meant the written word in your mind.

Commercial print meant nothing to you. You were fifteen years old the day you started.

Surrounded by huge machines and noise.

One engraving print machine was causing problems. Something was sticking. The man’s hand was too big to flick the sheets.

Several people try without success, or maybe they were smarter than you.

You produce your skinny finger and it works. One man objects and points out the danger.

The order is in a hurry and you feel great doing it. All goes well for a while and then something happens… Your hand is going in with the paper.

You pull it out, but it is too late. Your fingers are engraved forever.

You turn in shock with your mashed hand and show it to a man working behind you.

“I caught my hand in the machine.” You say.

He passes out as crowds gather screaming. One man lifts you up in his arms and screams for help. They are running with car keys from all directions.

The rest is a blur… You wake up in an operating theatre with your entire family crying. A doctor speaks.

“I’m afraid I couldn’t save all of your finger.” He explains.

You are still in shock… consoling all around you. You are not brave. But maybe more brave than your devastated parents. The medical dressing helped for a few days and your mother lights candles for a week to get the courage to look at it… not pretty. Your family are already experiencing a difficult time in business. They are troubled enough.

You develop a clenched fist for life.

YOU DON’T CRY.

Dreams of becoming a war correspondent and reporting back from troubled countries are somehow forgotten as ‘now’ gets in the way and financial difficulties have a way of changing your hopes and plans.

Nothing stops you though. You still manage to work and travel and take up causes that smarter people may have ignored.

It certainly made life more interesting and exciting. Women’s rights in the printing industry were non existent. You take on the Unions, Labour courts, Civil and Supreme Court, YOU DON’T CRY.

You start slowing up…

Then these strange times draws you to the garden. You’ve survived a blue finger, a mashed finger and pointing the finger, why not try a green finger. Another big mistake.

The ivy growing through the wall looks ugly and you start pulling and plucking. Within hours your finger is re-acting strongly.

It swells and turns purple. You open your hand in public for the first time.

“Poison.”

The GP tells you, “a course of antibiotics.”

It’s painful. You look at the colour. Purple with red lines spreading.

Back home you sit back and switch on the television.

You are awkward with the bandages and drop the remote control… Control…

Picking it up, you turn awkwardly and fall on your finger, as the news announces another invasion and shows starving children

Suddenly you are crying. Here in the safety of your own lounge chair, the tears flow.

You sob uncontrollably for several minutes.

What’s wrong? You have survived a blue, mashed, green and now purple finger

Tonight, you shed those tears held back over your lifetime, for your Achilles finger.

It’s a strange time indeed. You wonder as you clasp your damaged hand under your arm…

When will these war mongers ever learn? The tears are still flowing…