The old man kneels on the pebbles by the brook and lowers his hands into their gelid waters. He watches his fingers warp under the liquid crystal as the sunlight wraps around his aging skin in dappled patches. Then, raising his hands from the brook, he observes the flow of the water across the folds of his palms, the sheen that it leaves across his skin and the way it highlights the minute details of his fingerprints.
Clean and cold, his hands. But it wasn’t always that way. On the contrary, he imagines they will never be clean again, not with the time he has left. Immortal stains across his palms, that outlive water, memory and time. But perhaps it is not his task to cleanse them. That might be a further crime, to erase what has been done.
No, he thinks, his path is clear now. He rubs his hands together. He cannot undo evil, but he can do some good. He leaves judgement in the hands of entropy and stands away from the brook.
Paddy Dobson
5th January 2021