The gloved hands

2
The gloved hands

“Truth is what is real to me”, whispered the voice in the penumbra. But wait, look down, a gloved hand is also writing the same phrase on a white piece of paper. We can fairly conclude that the voice and the hand belong to the same body, to the same brain. It is the same mind directing the act of writing, the symbol of language, herein written, not spoken.

The hand is using a fountain pen made of black lacquer. The ink flows rich and dark blue on the rugged surface of a paper that seems to be handmade, with one of those kits you can buy in a neighborhood store like Target or an on-line website like Arnold Grummer’s. We infer this because of its rustic texture and odd mix of several hues of white and fibrous appearance. The rasping of the metal tip on the paper surface resonates in the stillness of this moment. This is a left hand writing so the tip stays away and from the humid letters, not cursive letters but block letters, as to not blotch the phrase. The right hand, also wearing the same black leather glove, holds down the paper to assist in the writing.

Now they fold the paper, it is a note written at the center of an 8 inch by 5 inch piece of paper. They fold it, the hands, that is and now they move away. We catch a glimpse of an old dark oak desk the person was sitting at. We still don’t have enough light or a reflecting surface, like a mirror or a window pane, to make who this person is. We just see the gloves and a long black coat moving through the shadows.
The person stops in front of an open box. It is one of those brown boxes with a lid that you use to place your meager belongings when you quit a job or are fired. But instead of some dear files, personal books, the quasi dead orchid your other half gave you, or the photograph of rigor, this box in particular contains… books? No, not books, journals. Yes, journals like those a teenager or an amateur writer acquires at Barnes & Noble or Borders. Or better yet at Michael’s when they are on sale at 99 cent apiece. These are not the famous Moleskine, nevertheless, the ones that advertise “culture, imagination, memory, travel, personal identity” and claim these are the same used by van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin, as if using them will make you a better writer or a writer at all. The journals in this box look different. They are not black. They display different covers. One has a Doric capital in sepia with the words Kirche zu Constantinopel (nacht Salzen.., another has a series of fountain pens of all types and colors sitting atop postcards with post stamps from different countries, France, Luxembourg, Bettlembourg, Munsing, etc. Another one has a map of the world and the date 1752 at the bottom. This is all we can see when the hands open the flaps of the box and place the note inside.

The person folds the flaps, tapes them and places a glued white 4 inch by 6 inch card on top that reads “HORACIO P. 1234 MOLERA DRIVE, AUSTIN TX 76108”. The person then turns in the shadows and we see another person standing close by. Again, because of the lack of light we only see a gray dress shirt with black buttons. This person moves away along with the one with the gloved hands, and we see a room. It is a bedroom, a bed, undone, in disarray. Someone is in there… dead? Sleeping? We can’t say for sure. We hear a door slam. A lock click. Then, silence. We move closer to the bed, are those blood stains? We can’t tell for sure. We must end this chapter and move on in search of the truth.