A Tribute

written, narrated, and directed by Kiera Russo (ft. Anthony Russo)

A Memorable Hand

His fingers were wrinkled and gentle as they glided over my skin. His fingertips transferred an energy unmatched; splitting me in two and hastening me back together again. They were spirited and omniscient, his eyes unneeded in this rapid action. I could trust these hands, they were steady despite the frail skin that betrayed my owner’s age. They were kind: I knew that the moment they touched me and the moment they left me. 

The surface shook repeatedly, foreign invaders causing an abrupt jolt. I was stationary though, nearly weightless, as I took in the comfort of gravity. 

Another jolt, this time followed by a cacophony of laughter. Its sincerity abounded, coming to sit in all the empty space between me and the others.

These fingers were smoother and softer, unwrinkled and dry. They did not hold the same warmth as my owner, but held a youthful kind of energy. An energy untouched by the suffering of life. She caressed my worn edges without doubt, grateful for their memories. 

I would never again feel the warm and wrinkled skin of my owner and much time passed before I felt any hands at all. It was a dreadful time for my friends and I: inflexible, airtight, and shadowed in darkness. We first saw light again many years later. The hands that brought us light felt familiar, youthful yet now slightly wrinkled as a testament to time. They had come to exude their own kind of warmth, a warmth not unlike our former owner’s. The fingertips were curious, and as she had once traced my edges (now more tattered than ever before), she did again. What memorable hands we have encountered. 

A deck of cards counts 52, just like weeks in a year. I had only 650 with my grandfather. Not nearly enough…

I wanted so many more cardboard boxes and tapping of his wrinkled fingers on the chestnut brown table and his deep, abounding laughter delightfully filling my ears. This deck of cards was the origin of hope for me when my grandfather was fighting against cancer. The Bicycle playing cards that I pick up today are worn and tattered, but the red and blue colors are still vivid as my grandfather’s spirit remains. Although he won’t sit across the table from me and distribute a new set of cards again, he will be there when I’m dealt my next hand. My grandfather’s creased knuckles embrace the new deck, tearing open the plastic wrapping, ready to shuffle them. He and I are eager to begin anew.