Bumps on a Log

We lay in bed that night, like most nights, sifting through homes and farms online, saying one day we'll have a place like this one and that one. Nothing like our apartment in the city, a real farm, our forever home with space to breath and grow. She wanted babies and kittens everywhere, I talked of goats and barns. We drifted off to sleep, my right hand underneath her beautiful head.

The land was lush and green, grass and wildflowers swaying on rolling hills, blending into the forest beyond. Mountains in the distance, rivers between. The house stood on a knoll in the center of the valley, white and pure. On the porch we stood, hand in hand, feeling like royalty, planning our kingdom together. The barn and animals over there, the swing on that tree for the kids, the garden on the sunny side of the house, we would all grow here together.

The realtor had seemed uncomfortable telling us about the other buyers. She said they were very stubborn, giving their offer even after she told them we had already put one in writing. I joked at the time, asking if it was an offer she couldn't refuse. Little did I know how right I was. Someone else wanted our home, our fields, our kingdom. That someone else didn't care if we were already closing on the home. They certainly didn't care about our dreams, they were the stuff of nightmares.

I had already promised my bride, she was so excited, I couldn't let them have it. We went through with the deal. We signed the papers and that was that. The next day the realtor was missing. So was the lawyer, we had invited them both over for a celebratory drink at our new bar. A new lawyer, a man we had never met, came instead. This lawyer told us the deal was off and to walk away. He had walked right in and sat down at what would be our bar. She had been so proud picking it out. It was a huge log, an oak tree from the nearby forest, cut and treated and brought in especially for us. The barstools were made from the same tree. We had vowed to plant one in the yard to replace it. Our first piece of furniture in our new home. Perhaps it gave me strength, that oak log. More likely it angered me seeing this imposter sitting at my bar. I protested, loudly. The lawyer took a hard tone and told me this was our last chance. I told him to get out, and accused him of not being a lawyer at all. I was right again. He reached into his briefcase, I started to yell another obscenity about not caring what document he had in there. But there were no documents, just knives. He chose a long butchers knife, calmly pulling it out and placing the briefcase aside on the oak. He spoke with cold experience, and without fear. My wife grabbed me and tried to pull us away, but large men we hadn't known were there held us in place. The words I had prepared dried in my mouth. The man held the knife on the table blade up, next to the briefcase.

"Place your hand on this bar sir, if you want your pretty wife to live." I struggled one last time against the grip behind me. I was met with a punch to my kidney that took my breath away, and the last of my fight. She started to scream but a hand muffled it. It occurred to me with bitter certainty that these men had done this before. I, however, was treading on very new ground. "You will just have to find another home. And, you sir," he paused to point the knife at me and then my bride, "you will decide if it is with or without her."

I was pushed to the bar and forced to sit down. My right arm was brought up for me and my hand placed on the table. My fist clenched, more from fear than defiance. Again he spoke in that flat voice of his.

"I would take your left, but I myself believe in marriage." He flashed his own wedding band. "You may keep your ring finger. But you have spoken against us. So you may not keep these." The man behind me smashed a huge fist down on my right hand and flattened it against the table. "Now hold steady and we will let you leave very soon." Leaving our forever home suddenly seemed like all I wanted in the world. I heard my wife's muffled cries behind me. Anything to get her out of here, and to be away from these people. I took a breath and tried to relax my fingers, I had to look at them to make sure my hand was open. My hand, like the rest of me, was numb. It would be the last time I saw my hand in one piece. He swiftly took the knife and chopped the tips off of my longest three fingers. Once he chopped, then twice, the shock took me, I don't know if I screamed or passed out. Everything got very hazy. I had a vision of my mother cutting celery from my childhood. She would cut off the ends until she had kid sized pieces. Bumps on a log she called it, with peanut butter and raisins. A few pieces of celery always remained on the table.

I shot up in bed, nearly taking my wife's head off beside me as I raised the arm she was sleeping on. Screaming, I reached for my hand. It was numb from being beneath her. In the dark and sleeping haze I couldn't tell if it was in one piece. Breathing heavily, I finally found the nerve to feel with my other hand, the fingers that were still there. I looked at my confused wife as she rubbed her head.

"My fingers" I said. "They cut off my fingers. Like, like bumps on a log."