Words
I reached into the mailbox today, and I lost my arm.
I opened the little door on the front of the black box, and peeked inside. Yep, the mail lady had come. So, I reached inside, like I do everyday, when SNAP! The door slammed shut and severed my right arm. In shock, I opened the door back up and looked. Nope. No arm. No blood. Just a stack of envelopes and the Brylane Home Catalog. Hesitant, I glanced down to where my arm use to be. It wasn’t there. The sleeve was sheared off at the shoulder, and the skin was healed over, smooth- like I never had a right arm at all. I could have sworn that I had arm. I mean, I remember reaching into the box with my arm. And yet, there was no arm; nor was there evidence of an arm. But if I didn’t have an arm, why would I cut off the sleeve?
Still in a daze, possibly shock, I left the mail in the box (wouldn’t want to risk loosing the other arm now, would I?), and wandered back up to the house. About half way there, I ran back to the box, opened the door quickly, and looked inside; almost as if I hoped to catch my arm hiding from me. But no. There was nothing remotely arm-shaped inside of the box. I grabbed a stray willow branch from the lawn and stuck inside the box.
Nothing happened; no SNAP!; nothing.
I bounced the branch in little circles, clanking it against the sides of the box. Other than disheveling the mail, nothing happened. Using the stick to pry and pull, I knocked the mail to the ground and stared at it. Perhaps my arm was tucked away inside the catalog, stuck between the 200-count percale sheets and the southwestern fiesta tablecloths. Or maybe it was tucked into the water bill, mysteriously flattened.
With my left arm and my teeth, I ripped the mail open, tore through every page of the catalog, and nothing. No right arm. Only slick confetti and open letters scattered on the brown grass at my feet. I grabbed the letters and headed once more for the house. I needed to make a few phone calls.
Holding the receiver between my shoulder and my ear, I dialed my mother. Surely she would want to know that I had lost my arm (and more importantly, she could tell me that I did indeed have a right arm). Mom answered on the third ring.
“Mom! Mom! Something terrible’s happened!”
“What is it!? What’s happened?” She asked.
“I lost my arm!” I was quickly nearing hysterics at this point.
“You what!?” She asked.
“I lost my arm!! My right arm, it’s gone!! I was reaching into the mailbox to get the mail, and then it slammed shut, and now my arm is gone. It’s like it was never there. But it was there. But now it’s not th...”
“Wait. Your right arm?” She interrupted.
“Yes, my right arm! It’s gone!” I screamed.
“Well, of course it’s gone.”
“What!? What do you mean ‘of course it’s gone’!?”
“Well, what did you expect to happen?” She asked.
“What the hell are you talking about? I don’t think you get it. MY FUCKING RIGHT ARM IS GONE!!!”
My mother then reminded me, in that same matter-of-fact tone, that I had promised my right arm to someone else. I had totally forgotten that. I mean, it’s a figure of speech, right? We say it all the time; “I’d give my right arm to have that such and such”. It doesn’t mean that we’d actually give up our right arm, does it? If it did, wouldn’t there be a lot more people running around without their right arms?
As my mother’s voice continued droning out of the phone, I glanced down at the pile of papers that I brought into the house. Sitting on top was a letter that I did not remember opening outside. It was from the Publisher’s Clearinghouse. Apparently I had won their million dollar prize (but not the ten million dollar prize, no, they come to the door for that one), and would I please sign the paperwork and send it back to them. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the letter.
“I won a million dollars..” I mumbled into the nearly forgotten receiver.
“…you said it yourself, sitting right here at this table, ‘I’d give my right arm to win a million dollars’,” my mother responded.
“I said that, didn’t I?” came my distant reply. I stared at the letter. I glanced to where my arm use to be. My vision started to blur. I think that the receiver hit the floor a split second before I did.
~*~
I awoke, just now, to voices talking quietly outside my door. Apparently I had some sort of fit and have been put away here for a while now. My room is nice; there is this comfortable hospital bed, this old, beat-up laptop, and a small desk and chair in the corner, and I have a wonderful view of the duck pond behind the building. My mother and doctors say that I never had a right arm, and that it’s all just a fantasy that my fevered brain concocted while I was in the coma. I guess I’ve been really sick with some sort virus. They told me what it was, but I can never seem to remember. I’d write it down, but the pencil never works quite as well in my left hand. You see, I know the truth. I know that my arm is gone, like it never was, but that it indeed was. I can’t tell them that, though, or I’ll never get out of here to cash in on my millions. I have to pretend that they are right; that I never had a second arm. I can’t let them know that I know.
The attractive, grey-haired woman shook her head grimly, as she watched the younger woman through the window.
“I don’t know what else we can do, Dorothy, she will just have to come to accept the truth of her deformity in time. I have no idea why she suddenly began denying it after 32 years without a right arm.” The doctor looked through the small window at his patient. “We’ll just have to keep her here until her mental state stabilizes; We don’t want a repeat episode.”
Dorothy nodded. “I know, Dr. Melbourne, I know. It’s just so hard to see my baby like this.”
With a pat on Dorothy’s arm, the doctor turned to complete his rounds.
Dorothy absently rubbed the folded up paper in her pocket, as she continued to watch Emily from the hall. With a glance to be certain that no-one else was watching, Dorothy slipped the folded up letter from her pocket to look at it once more. She smiled. Yes, it shouldn’t take long at all to get Emily fully committed to the hospital for long-term care. Emily’s employers had provided a generous insurance policy, and with a small monthly ‘gift’ given to the hospital administrator, her daughter would not be going anywhere for a very long time. The hearing was Monday, and Dorothy’s lawyer didn’t think that there was any reason at all that the judge would not declare Emily as unfit, and give Dorothy her power of attorney. Then it was just a matter of collecting the cash. Dorothy smiled again. I mean, really, there was no reason for all that money to go to waste- not after what it cost to get it. Yes, child, she thought, you really must be careful how you word these things. It was a good thing that no-one else remembered Emily’s missing arm. That made things much simpler.
~*~
Fragments of a conversation drifted through Emily’s drug-addled mind, as she drifted off to sleep.
“Look at this, mom, one million dollars! Wow, I’d give my right arm to win a million dollars,” Emily showed her mom the sweepstakes entry form.
“I’d give your right arm for a million dollars too!” Her mom replied, laughing.
Emily had laughed too. It was pretty funny, considering that she didn’t have a right arm. Right? She didn’t, did she? Did she...?
S. Nycole Bridle 1/3/07