Bohemia Village Voice

Hand Me Down

When you’re walking your dog in the woods before breakfast, you expect him to bring you a stick. Failed hunting dog that he is, my Rufus is more likely to bring me something less fun, a dead bird, squirrel or rabbit.
Even so, I wasn’t expecting him to bring me a hand. At moments like this, not that I’ve had any others, my mind escapes into trivia. It skipped shock and horror and went straight to ‘Damn, I’m going to be late for work’.
My subconscious is busily suppressing that this changes my life forever. From now on I will divide my life into before and after ‘the hand’. I will have a story not to tell my grandchildren, even though we haven’t got any kids yet. More immediately there’s the police, the questions, the bureaucracy, the insinuations; how dog walking is suddenly on a par with global terrorism. Even more immediate is the self-guilt, if only I hadn’t chosen this path, someone else’s mutt could have got lucky. After a millisecond of ‘Dashed inconvenient!’, autopilot is dialling emergency on the mobile.
I get nothing, despite a clear line of sight to the mast peering over the trees. I must change my network! As I trudge back to the road for a better signal, I can see myself down the phone shop asking to end my contract early, while Uriah Heep tries to sign me up for eternity to this week’s new gizmo, with more apps than follow ‘cr’ in an outhouse.
Walking the dog is my one health kick, so I’d left my fags in the car. Now I can get in, settle Rufus, light up and then make the phone call; it’s a question of priorities. It answers, I am in a queue, finally followed by ‘Calls may be recorded for training purposes’. Train them how to pick up first, numpty! Still at least I didn’t get Andre flipping Rieu and the entire Johann Strauss Orchestra. Then a robot announces a mobile call, my number and the source of my transmission. I won’t be impressed until it can scan my microcard for mp3s and ask ‘Does he really listen to Barry Manilow?’
At last a voice, a real one. I tell them my phone number (ten bonus points for me matching the robot), my name, my address, my postcode, my date of birth, my mother’s maiden name (hardly a secret, she’s still using it), my N.I. number, my car reg. and even my dog’s name, before I can finally say “He found a hand.”
By this time brain fade was kicking in, so the next question was less than well received. My Daddy always said ‘Ask a silly question, get a silly answer’.
“What sort of hand?” – “A right one.”
“Anything unusual about it” – “It wasn’t attached to a wrist.”
“I don’t think you’re taking this seriously.” – “You started it.”
“Where are you, sir?” – “On the phone.”
I knew I couldn’t squirt up the wall any further, so it was time to reel it in.
“At the car park at Comblebury Woods on the B3490. Please send the police.”
They finally turned up three king-size later, by which time I was cold, hungry and paranoid enough to expect a SWAT team to Taser me flat, cuff me and drag me backwards into a van. If I’d had a few more thousand words, they would have done, but this was never going to be a novel, so he just said “OK Sir, we’ll take it from here. Thank you for your time.”