Pink Fingers

I came back home with pink fingers.

I was five. I had gone to my friend’s place that evening and he had taught me how to play with rubber bands.  He would hold one end and I another, and we’d count till three and take turns to let that red rubber band slip off and hit the other one’s tender hands. It was fun. Maybe those were the signs of a beginning of a lifetime of sadism. Maybe I was plain stupid. But every time I knew he was going to let it slip from his fingers onto mine, I’d squeeze my eyes shut. Praying for a moment that somehow that rubber band would get caught up in mid air, or he would change his mind and just stop it with his hand.

He never did. He rolled from one side to another in innocent laughter as I braved a ‘Oh-that-didn't-hurt’ face. I didn't want him to know that my eyes were cowering in pain. I hope he’d notice I’m flinching with closed eyes. But he never did. I’d laugh it off, because come on, who makes a puppy face after taking a hit? That’s shameful.

When it was my turn, surprisingly enough, I used to flinch too. I used to flinch thinking that my dear friend at the other end of the rubber band will feel what I felt, and how could I do that to someone, knowing how much it hurts? So instead, I’d just tilt it someway so that it didn't hurt him as much as it did to me.

That’s what life is about in the toughest of moments in my belief. About flinching at the thought of the pink fingers in someone else’s hands. People forget how they might impact others. They remember only their own pink fingers.

Funny how today I am five no more and I can relate rubber bands to words and sometimes their absence.  People remember what words do to them, and forget what their words do unto others. But here’s the catch. Be careful, all. Stretch the rubber bands only as far as your friend at the other end can take. Because if someday their fingers bleed and they choose to let it slip at their end and walk out on you, that day what you’ll have is a broken rubber band in your hands and you’ll be sitting friendless in that playroom called life.

Who will you share your evenings with and who will you steal candies from?

Nah, you’ll probably find new playmates and buy candies all for yourself.

But what about your pink fingers then?

Truth is, no one would give a damn.

Funny thing how I came back with pink fingers today and I am five no more. Funny thing how I didn't care as I let slip the rubber bands and walked out of the door. Funny thing how I am five no more.