The Second Hand

The morning started with me hurting my second hand. I cursed and swore at the unexpected and sudden pain that had intruded my morning reverie. “What a perfect start to the day”, the cynical side of my brain scoffed. The reasonable side hushed her, and on I went to get ready for college. Afraid of getting late, putting aside the thoughts of pain for matters of urgency, I went out to the bus stop. The bruise had taken on a beautiful purplish hue by then, which got me shaking my head in self-pity. There was no one around to look at the token of my misery, a memento of my suffering!

At long last, my bus came, and I put out my second hand to board it, only to hit myself right on the bruise again. “Why is this happening to me!” I cursed, again, and again necessity bade me focus on more pressing matters like college, and assignments, and not getting late for my class. The last part was certainly not agreeable to me, and I pressed on.

The span of the day went by, my second hand hanging by my side, at times carrying the load of my bag, at times sitting idly by, as it had day after day, forgotten, naturally. We sat through lectures together. Some of them delighted us, some we liked, and some we barely survived through. Life is tough when you are a college student. Only then can one understand the trials and tribulations of life as one starts to navigate through the deep waters of adulthood. The company of my friends did take me out of the dramatic monologue that was going on in my brain (Yes, I had not yet forgotten my bad luck at hurting my hand first thing in the morning!). Life was beautiful again, filled with laughter and carefree bantering of youth. Soon enough the episode of the morning took a backseat, and fate was forgiven for being so unkind.

Nearly six hours later, on the bus ride back home, along came my second hand, never leaving my side. I had a book in hand to take me through the journey, both literal and fantastical. We had had a long day, my hand and I, and the prospect of reaching home was making my head giddy with enticement. As my stop was nearing, being ever the anxious thinker, I began strategising on my plans to deboard the bus as seamlessly as I could. I had my bag in one hand, a pen in the second. The book had, safely and thoughtfully, been tucked away in the bag some few stops ago. A diary was lying in front of me, and I was wondering how I would ever be able to carry it. Both of my hands were full! How would I pick it up with my second hand?! The memory of the pain I had gone through in the morning came rushing back. The dark clouds of sadness on the misfortune that had been handed to me gathered around me as I sat there, benumbed by the dilemma that awaited me. Ah, surely there was a better way to live a life than being bogged down by everything at every step of the way!

As the crescendo of my self-pity was reaching a climactic magnitude, at that precise moment, I chanced to look out of the window, sighing in tiredness at a fateful day that was not ending soon enough. I was obviously still fuming in annoyance at the injustice of it all, at how everything was conspiring against me, at how unfair life was being. The bus was stopping now, causing a flurry of activity as people prepared to board and deboard. Eventually, my eyes fell on a man who had started boarding the bus.

He had a bag in one hand.

He didn't have a second hand.