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Hands - College App. Essay : 10.16.03 @ 9:56 pm I'm supposed to write two essays for my Early Decision Application to Bennington College. One of them still needs some work, but I think this one is just about done, or as done as it ever will be beyond grammar corrections. Comments and Suggestions Encouraged!!! Essay Option Four Prompt: We challenge you to turn an image into a piece of writing. Please include a copy of the image and information about its source along with the piece of writing it inspired. Image: Symbolic Mutation by Jerry Uelsmann, 1961 (view). Response:
I never forgot his hands. They were big and rough, the hands of a man who had clocked into The Mill every morning since he was sixteen. The musty rank scent of The Mill would cling to his clothes, his skin, his hands. The scent stayed with him long after The Mill shut its doors on the town, packed up, and moved to Mexico. It was then when his hands that used to work quickly in The Mill first grasped the cold, wet neck of the beer bottle. His hands never did dry after that. They only warmed when they found my skin. My hands are small, their fingers long and tapered. I used to take piano lessons with the old lady who played the organ at Church, but when she died there was no one left in town to tune the organ or the church piano. There was no one left to coax the music out of the ivory keys. My hands are small, but they are rough and cracked from my days at The Diner, washing the dishes in the scalding hot water until they turn red and I no longer feel the heat. I�d come home at mid day and manage to get some cleaning around the house before I needed to go back, but it was never enough. I�d never have enough time to dust, or make the beds, or remember to thaw the turkey. Something small would always slip through the minutes I had. He liked his house clean and his turkey hot and ready for him when he came home. After The Mill closed down I stayed at work during mid day and he stayed home with his hands cold. It would be long into the night when I came home to the hollow sound of empty beer bottles rolling across the floor. By then his hands were ice blocks and they stung just as much. I always thought it funny how hands so cold could heat my skin more than the steaming, scalding dishes at The Diner ever could. Their was no music at Church any more, so I stayed home, cleaned, and made sure his hands were kept cold and full. If they were left warm and empty too long, the world would blur and bleed together and I would never be able to finish the chores around the house. One Sunday I was washing the cracking and aging green tiles of the kitchen floor, the bleach water biting into my hands something awful. He came in to see how much colder his hands could get, but there weren�t any more bottles in the fridge. I was tired, and said something I shouldn�t have. I said his hands were cold enough already and he didn�t need more of that. He didn�t like that very much. I remember hitting my head against the stove door, hard. The bleach water spilt all over the floor and my clothes, biting into my skin during the time where I don�t remember. When I woke up, he was gone and the bleach water had dried. The dishes were still soaking in the sink, glinting under the flickering fluorescent light. I knew where he was though, and I found him there, at the bar with some of his friends from The Mill. I told the judge I don�t remember what happen that day, and I don�t. All I remember is the flickering fluorescent bulb that he was going to replace months ago and the thick smoke that curled around me when I walked through the crowded bar. I think my hands did something awful though.
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