ring

(better title soon)

At first, I just liked the feel of the ring on my finger. I liked to nonchalantly place my hand on any flat surface just to see it, just to watch it shine. I liked the feel of it. I would spin it around, first to see the angles it could take on and later out of mindless habit. When I was a kid I would put my hand on the sidewalk and rotate my shoulder until I couldn't anymore, just to see my arms from those angles. The ring was an appendage at that point, I wanted to see what it could do.

I kept pushing. When spinning became old hat, I started taking the ring off, moving it from finger to finger. It felt like a secret, like my ring did something special. I would roll it across my knuckles, carry it around the house in my palm, put it on upside down. I concentrated hard on not making it a habit, but a special ritual I did only in private. Who knows what could happen if I took that ring off out in the world. I could drop it in a sewer grate. A criminal could catch me off guard and snatch it from my hand. It'd be much easier than snatching it from my finger. My phone could ring and, startled, I could drop it on the concrete while reaching to answer and not even realize it. The ring could slip right though my hands. I did it anyway. I started taking off my ring randomly, in and outside of our home.

Sometimes I took it off and set it next to me. It'd been years since I'd seen my finger without the ring. It looked naked, slender, clean, maybe a little aged. I'd never really looked at that finger before the ring. My finger had angles, too. And was lighter without the ring. No one could take that finger, and I couldn't drop it.

I was having lunch in the park one afternoon, watching the pond and thinking about how the ring could slip off while I was feeding the ducks and sink to the bottom of the murky water. I didn't want to think about the ring anymore. It was dull, didn't shine like it used to. Didn't look right on my finger anymore, wasn't worth the worry anymore. So, in the end, it didn't slip through my hands. I threw it.