Perfection

           What would mangled decrepit hands sculpt if not perfection? Feel what they aren’t, see what they aren’t, imagine what they aren’t. They are bored. Itching in vast blackness for something to hold. Curl and writhe to build. An image fills the veins with motion and they move without abandon, heed, or pause.

From coarse crumbling fingers infested with pain is born a sphere of pure blinding light. It sings unending notes to make the stars cry and the earth laugh, carried by the whiteness streaming from its body. Darkness disappears entirely, shrinking back beyond perception. The hands flail up, desperate to hide their shrieking face from the sphere's beauty. Nothing hated itself more than the hands. To see themselves in utter illumination, and to be seen by something so perfect that stone itself would shatter in shame; unbearable. The hands thrash out, clawing and beating its creation until falling to the ground, perfection shattered and was swallowed by the jealous shadows.

            Safe in darkness, the hands soon grow restless again. What do they want now? Not perfection. That shows too much. Something less. Something worse.

            Hands are back to working. More careful this time, so another flawless beauty doesn’t arise. Now the form more resembles the bearer of the hands, detailed contours on limbs, torso, and face. Skin smooth as wax, free of the malicious decay infecting the hands molding it. A warm glow emanates from its surface, a light that shines but doesn’t burn through the darkness.

            It stirs, graceful as running water. Stretches its limbs, opens its mouth. Words lovely as poetry, perfect in tone and precise in choice come out. The hands watch outside the cloud of light and admire the beauty they have crafted.

            “What is this?” the form looks around at the blackness surrounding it.

            Rasping out of lips painted with blood housing hanging dead teeth, “Home.”

            The form squirms at the sound, searching for its source. It moves towards the hands, bringing the light along. The hands try and retreat, but the glow moves too quickly and soon they are exposed from the shadow’s safety. Shuddering in their own presence, the hands go rigid and contort more. The form sees them and shrinks back in terror, bringing darkness back over the hands.

            “Why do you fear?” the hands trying to reassure.

            “I saw you,” it whispers, “Your form. Different. So different than mine.”

            “Different but the same. Ours are similar, shape and figure.”

            “No,” it cries, trying to flee further away.

            “Don’t be afraid,” the hands try to reassure, risking the light to reach out and comfort the form.

             It shrieks at their approach. When hands get near, shrieking becomes a wail, and when skin meets skin, the form slowly melts into a puddle of glowing muck that falls between shaking fingers. The light stains the wretched skin, filling the hands with fury.

            They fling the remains off into the darkness, the light sailing above until it disappears in the distant. The hands are angry, even hidden again in black. What is left? What will shine in the shadows that will not flee from the hands? What will burn but not force the light to overwhelm the emptiness surrounding it? The hands thrash, they tear, they rip, they gash chunks of skin from their form into fleshy blood-soaked piles on the ground. They’re just bored.

            But then, something stirs below the hands. So very faint and so very covered in darkness. Not a sliver of light is visible, but still a form moves somewhere down there. The hands can’t see it, no matter how hard they try.

            “What is this?” a whisper comes from beneath.

            The hands do not answer, overcome with wonder. What is down there? What has been born without their knowledge?

            “Why is there only darkness?’ the whisper continues.

            The hands move close and fingers graze over the source. They recognize their own skin, repugnant and vile. The hands shiver. But then they recognize the form it has taken. It echoes their own, like a reflection in water. Distorted in horrific ways, but similar all the same. Barely a motion comes from the form as fingers brush against it. It isn’t afraid. Why would it be? It cannot see the hands. It cannot distinguish between itself and the thing that touches it. They could almost be one and the same.

             The hands tremble, but not from rage or panic. Now, joy fills their veins as they wrap around the form and draw it near.

            “I am here,” the hands comfort.

            “I cannot see,” the form answers, “When will the darkness go away?”

            “Quiet now, little one. I will be here for you in the dark.”

            And then, tiny little fingers gently touched then clung to the hands’ own fingers. The form between them hung on tightly, like a child to its mother. Blackness covered it all absolutely. Not a movement could be seen, not a shape discerned.

            The hands shuddered at the thought of it otherwise.