I took my lunch to the park. I scurried past the skelped roses, the burgeoning rhododendrons, and some bare earth borders hungry for geraniums. I headed for one of the benches around the statue. Beside the path, I noticed a new border: small, circular, with a pair of hands planted in it, surrounded by hessian.
Five paces on, my mind announced that this observation was so bizarre as to need further inspection. I reversed. The hands were slightly grubby, but very lifelike. Their wrists were embedded in the cloth; their fingers curled, left hand resting over right.
I recalled the previous week seeing two workies digging a hole there. Perhaps they were installing this... what was it? A statue? I peered closer, wondering if it was made of clay or stone. The breeze rolled a beech leaf across the hessian, grazing the uppermost fingers. The left index finger twitched. I started.
I reached to touch the finger but squeamishness overcame me. I hadn't explicitly thought this through, but I suppose I was imagining the hands as real, amputated, human hands, still galvanically twitching. Before I could rationalise, I crouched down, picked up the leaf and scratched its edge against a knuckle. The whole hand flicked to brush away the stimulus. I rocked back in my heels, dropped my lunch, and fell on my arse.
I looked around, not so much embarrassed, but looking for a second witness, a second opinion. The park seemed deserted on this chilly spring day. I grabbed my lunch tub and retreated to the nearest bench, all appetite lost.
Were the hands incredibly realistic robotic mechanisms? Was I on some stupid reality TV show? If the hands were real, living, then they must be attached to the rest of a human. But then the person must be buried. But if they were buried, surely they could gesture their distress? The hands were even now at rest, in a relaxed, half-folded posture.
These cogitations were scrambling my head. I abandoned my lunch and set off around the park perimeter at a brisk pace. I sucked in great lungfuls of air and worked up quite a warmth. As I completed the circuit and approached the mystery installation, I slowed down. I half expected to see nothing at all but uncut grass.
As I rounded the rhododendron, the small, circular bed was still there, but the hessian cloth and hands had gone. I crept closer. The hole yawned up at me. I made out the top of a dark-haired head just below ground level. Within this apparent shaft in the earth, the person was shaking their arms and dusting off their hands. I walked past.
I should have spoken! When I reached the bench and my lunch tub, I turned back, no longer able to pretend this situation was unremarkable. The person had both hands and one foot on the edge of the hole, having almost hauled themself out. In a second they were upright, striding away, the hessian cloth hanging out a trouser pocket.
Now there was a six foot deep hole in the park that could easily eat a dog or unwary pedestrian. I wondered how that would play as an excuse for not returning to work that afternoon.
[This is the dream I woke from on 23 February. No idea.]
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