Asterisk Week 57: Sobre Mãos
Keep those hands off me
Asterisk Project: Grupo de Escrita Criativa
Na semana de 19 – 26 de fevereiro, o Alan escolheu a frase “Keep those hands off me” como prompt.
Confira as composições abaixo:
Whenever Filipe walked around the city, the city stared at him. Filipe never stared at anyone though. Filipe stared at nothing.
Whenever Filipe had to use the metro alone, there were hands on him. Guiding and helping he could do nothing to get them off, it was needed.
How to keep those hands off? He thought.
For as long as he was alive, there were hands on him.
Mother, father, cousins, teachers.
Then women. Men.
He couldn’t see them. Nor stare. But there they were, always.
For peace and quiet, Filipe had his room.
Outside, only hands.
I saw a bird coming at me.
“Keep those hands off me”, I said.
But when I looked back
It was my love trying to reach me.
“Keep those hands on me”, I said,
but it was too late to apologies and to beg.
You touched me in places
I never thought I could be touched
- and touché! — I surrenderred.
Well, I’ve just heard of love
in those fairy television tales.
You came along and I could only shout:
- Keep those hands off me!
Real life has never been so good to me,
so I couldn’t trust lightly.
Alan
All the kids in Mrs. Alcantara’s fourth grade class walk into the room in a single file. Mrs. Alcantara is a stickler for discipline and makes sure all of the students are lined up by our surnames in alphabetical order, and as my name was Hansel Yeung, mine happened to be at the bottom of list and I was the last kid in the line. This was usually the case, as I am also taller than the other kids, so I usually sat in the back of the class. Being so far away from sight from the teacher has its benefits, however — I could distract myself by looking out the window, drawing or reading from a book while she was giving class. She also rarely calls on me to participate.
Field trips are always a fun experience for kids — besides the opportunity to explore new areas and have a brief respite from the usual droll of classwork, I always take it as an opportunity to make mischief and talk and play with the other kids. As soon as Mrs. Alcantara announced last week that we had a trip lined up, I gleefully took the permission slip and had my parents sign it. I wasn’t sure where the trip was, but I did like the idea of spending all day out of the classroom, so I was absolutely on board with the trip.
The bus ride was pretty typical as far as field trips with rowdy 4th grade kids are concerned. We played games with one another and waved at people as we passed them by, making sure to implore the truck drivers to honk their horns. Pretty innocent fun. When we arrived at the place, it was different than anywhere we had been before: a circular white building with no windows and a large ominous chimney of sorts, which was strange as the temperature in South Florida is usually high enough that buildings don’t need heating systems. We get off the bus and made our single line, where we are greeted by the unsmiling face of our guide. She is an elderly woman, and was very matter-of-fact in her way of speaking, emanating none of the fake cheer we so often get at that age from adults. I am paying attention to what she was saying, as I am chit chatting about the X-Men cartoon with Abraham, the kid ahead of me.
After the brief introduction, the guide, named Dolores, states the rules. Well, not stated — more like barked them. She barked loud enough for me to stop talking to Abraham and listen attentively. She said “You are not to touch anything, speak out loud or making any sort of noises. They react badly to it and we can’t be held responsible for what happens to you if you do”.
All the kids are acting pretty disciplined at this point. Her veiled threats put the fear of God into us, and we instinctively know this woman, and by extension this place, are not to be taken lightly. Kids, no matter how reckless or antsy, always know when grownups are not in the mood to be taking any lip or misbehavior from them.
So, we make our line and walk into the building; to our surprise, there is only one giant circular room inside. There isn’t even a restroom! In it, I see that there is a large conveyor belt alongside the curved wall, with two-man sized tunnels that feed the belt. It smells strongly of disinfectant and some flowery scented all purpose cleaner, the kind your mom uses to mop floors with. The walls in the room are white and bare, with the tiles on the floor a bright blue color and the overhead lights extremely bright, all of which give it an almost operating room feeling.
Or like a butcher’s shop.
After all the kids are assembled in the room, Dolores walks up to a lever and pull it, which causes the conveyor belt to start. The awful sound of gears turning, cranks and metal vibrations begin. The racket caused by the conveyor belt is contrasted with the kids, who are uncharacteristically quiet.
Then, from one of the tunnels, a person emerges. It is a middle-aged blonde woman who is standing upright and wearing a hospital gown. She is pale, with messy hair and expressionless. She doesn’t move an inch of her body besides that of her eyeballs, that are darting across the room, examining all of the children. Next up emerges a man, who is dressed similarly to the previous woman, but bald and slightly hunchbacked. Like the woman before him, he is expressionless and is a still as a statue besides for his eyes moving rapidly, looking at everyone. This was followed by another person, and another person, each similar to the previous. The conveyor belt keeps moving around the room, and the first person who emerged from the tunnel was now entering the other tunnel.
All us children stand silently, some with jaws agape. We don’t dare make a sound, so as to not bring out the ire of those we are observing. Each new person to emerge from the tunnel has a more displeased expression on their face, to the point that the latest ones coming out all look incredibly pained, yet still, none move.
Then, the ones coming out begin to be quite grotesque looking. With misshapen faces, or large bug eyes or deformities. They are grimaced in pain and rapidly looking at all of us. The last one to appear is the most grotesque of all — she has giant eyes with no irises, a large, crooked nose, and a clenched tooth smile. I make the mistake of making eye contact with her — unlike the previous people in this odd exhibition, she didn’t look at any of the other children. Only me. And we stare at each other silently. I am too afraid to look away, too afraid to speak, to move. I just stand there and look at her big, ugly eyes.
The conveyor belt continues to go around the room, when suddenly I heard Dolores call my name. She begins to reprimand me for not paying attention — attention to what? What was I supposed to be looking at? What was the purpose of this? Who were these people? What is this place? And wait a second… how did she know my name?
I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could, the thin fingers of the woman I have been staring at are pressed against my lips and with her other arm, she begins to hold me in a choke. I try to scream, but I can’t. I try fighting her off, but despite how frail she looked, she is incredibly strong. It is like fighting off a bear or something. Her fingernails are like claws and are piercing deep into my skin. I cry for help, but no one, not the other kids, not Mrs. Alcantara, not Dolores, even bothers to look in my direction. I could feel the life being squeezed out of me. I am helpless. Please help, please help.
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Notas:
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