The Mudra

Two streets intersect near my apartment. One is a narrow side street. The other is wider and busier. People drive dangerously fast down the side street because it’s often empty. They drive just as fast down the wider street, because there’s a lot of space. The point where these two roads meet is renowned citywide for its hazardousness. The city seems to think that four stop signs will do the same job as a traffic light. They place safety in the hands of the drivers, who any pedestrian knows can’t be trusted.

To call the intersection dangerous would be an understatement. No matter the time of day, cars are barreling through without slowing down. A rolling stop is the best-case scenario. That happens maybe one time out of a hundred. The junction of these two streets is rife with disaster. Hit-and-runs, near misses, broadside collisions, it never ends. The people in the cars are cushioned by airbags and crumple zones, but pedestrians like me bear the brunt. Almost every time I cross the street, it’s a brush with death. A family sedan comes within a hair of mowing me down. There’s nothing I can do. I make eye contact with the guy behind the wheel of a utility van. He nods and waves that it’s okay for me to cross. I step into the crosswalk and he floors the pedal. I’m diving out of the way of vehicles dozens of times a day.

I’ve never seen somebody get killed crossing the street but I’ve seen the aftermath. Strawberry jelly skidmarks imperfectly powerwashed off the pavement. Cubed safety glass swept into the gutter. The unmaskable acridity of scorched rubber and plastic, the brimstone remnant of an infernal vehicle gone poof into the night.

I spend a lot of time sitting on a chair by the window, watching cars dominate the crosswalks. Mothers pull their carriages across the street backward, leading with their own bodies, preferring not to outlive their children. Some dunces put their faith in the stop signs and cross righteously. Soon after they scramble for safety. People like me, who don’t drive, live in terror. The residents of my neighborhood wear slings and casts. They toddle around on crutches, bemoaning bruises from careless fenders. There is no recourse and no avoidance. You will always need to leave your house. Streets must be crossed.

Sometimes I try to avoid the intersection. I walk a block in one direction or another and cross there. It’s a bit safer. Not by much. The city is filled with intersections like the one by my apartment. Some are even worse. No crosswalk is safe. Wherever cars roam the world, the ignominious life of the pedestrian is put in jeopardy.

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Like many things in my life, my rebellion began as an act of cowardice. I was skittering from curb to curb when a pickup truck rounded the corner at high speed. I took a quick step out of the way as the truck revved its engine through a wide turn. If I had been standing a millimeter to the right its side mirror would have snapped my neck. The wind off the chassis hung hot and rusty in my face. My heart thudded.

I saw the driver’s disinterested eyes framed in the rearview mirror as the pickup rolled away. I got mad. I lifted my right hand, preparing to extend my middle finger. That’s how angry I was.

At that moment I was struck with a horrible vision: the pickup truck screeching to a halt, the driver’s door creaking open, and a hulking demon approaching me, brandishing an assault rifle. A hail of bullets hammering my flesh, shredding my fragile body into meaty pieces. The indignant driver pissing in the mouth of my denatured corpse. The truck careening away from a heap of wet red mulch on the asphalt that was wearing my sneakers. No, I could not risk the consequences of flipping the bird.

So, on the spot, I ad-libbed something new. Middle finger already half-raised, I extended my pointer to couch the gesture’s obscenity. Hell, thumb too– why not? I held this novel hand sign up in the air and exhaled scornfully through my nose. I saw curiosity flit across the driver’s reflected eyes before he took another corner and was gone.

I felt vindicated. This new hand gesture I had created carried all the vulgar vitriol of a middle finger, but was known only to me. The driver didn’t even know the grave insult I had inflicted upon him. I was safe from retribution.

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That night, I lay in bed sweating. A supernatural heaviness crushed my body. I saw pictures in my head. A coffin being lowered into the loamy depths. Flashes of steel machines tangled into each other, leaking oil and gray matter. Throngs of children weeping. An insidious certainty came upon me that the driver of the pickup truck had died just hours after our encounter. This certainty was followed by a second one: that the driver’s death had been the result of my improvised hand sign. I knew then that I had stumbled upon a symbol of great power. This was not just a simple gesture. I had created a mudra.

For a spell I felt crippled by guilt. My actions had led to the death of a fellow human being. How could I have known the power of the mudra? A tear sprang to the corner of my eye. I rolled over and wiped my face. Well, it wasn’t like I had set out to kill an innocent person that day. Even if I had, who would assume that a simple gesture could carry such potency? And plus– he wasn’t truly innocent, was he? His blasé reaction to nearly running me over definitely implied it was business as usual for him. As I mused in the dark I realized there was an argument to be made that behind the wheel of a truck like that, he had unified with the machine in some metaphysical way, and wasn’t even fully ‘human’.

I closed my eyes and relaxed. Though I had done something unpleasant, it wasn’t truly immoral. I couldn’t be blamed for the result of my mudra. Not from any angle. All that said, it probably was a good idea to put the whole thing behind me. Though I had no real responsibility this time, the mudra was a dangerous tool that should be used in moderation– no, it shouldn’t be used at all. I resolved to forget the gesture.

The next day, I used it again. And the day after that. That weekend, I used it four times.

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That was three weeks ago. The intervening time has been filled with dead bodies. I make use of my power countless times a day, and in my head I see their gruesome ends. I am no longer a victim of vehicles. Once upon a time, when a driver menaced me with their car, I would have suffered in silence. Trapped in a frail harness of skin and muscle, I had no recourse. Discovering the mudra gave me the power to fight back. I can punish those who threaten the lives of pedestrians. For everyone I do this.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve created many new mudras. I cycle through them over the course of the day. Much of my time I spend crossing the street. Back and forth I shuffle, waiting for a car to target me. An SUV swerves around a pothole and bears down on me. I step smartly to the side and flash two symbols, one with each hand. I watch the SUV dwindle into the distance. In my mind’s eye, I see the middle-aged woman behind the wheel convulse as her bones splinter and split. I hear the screams and the crackling. I feel it in the back of my neck.

I know I am going down a dark path. I don’t think there is a way for me to turn back. The justifications that let me chart this course have melted away. I realize now that they were empty all along. It’s too late to stop using my mudras. To stop would be to admit I am culpable. It would burden me with greater contrition than I could bear. The only way out is through. I must carry out my terrible purpose. Some may regard me as a monster. I’m not inclined to disagree. I may not be able to prevent reckless driving, but I can correct it. Permanently.

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When I can’t sleep, which is always, I practice my final mudra. In the amber glow of my neighbor’s floodlight, just barely dulled by my voile curtains, I contort and waggle my fingers in front of my face. Ashen shadow puppets dance on the ceiling. I squint my eyes to mitigate their power. I’ve moved all the mirrors out of my bedroom, just in case.

Dead and desiccated insects are piling up by the baseboards. An odor has settled into my apartment, something sweet and putrid seeping through the walls and up the sink drains. The air is becoming black and thick. I am dreaming about hands and catapulting back into consciousness with searing migraines. When I hold a fork between my thumb and forefinger, an itch manifests in my throat. There is no way to position my fingers that does not convey energies of grave import. I have to wear a blindfold. A stray glance at my hands could spell my end.

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Last night, while I crouched on my bed, bending my fingers, the final mudra revealed itself to me. For a mere instant, my hands became just-so, and the room went white. I felt a pulsing wave course through my body, constricting my heart and mind in coils of nausea and agony. The hairs across my entire body stood on end. My hands had only described the mudra for a millisecond, but the resulting force was like an atomic bomb. I stumbled to the bathroom and vomited into the toilet.

I stared into the bathroom mirror in the dark, drawing aside my stained blindfold. The face looking back at me was drawn and gargoyled. Something rotten hung behind the eyes. I shuddered. This was the face of an unrepentant murderer. I glanced down at my hands. Could they be called hands any longer? The nails were jagged and cracked, the knuckles swollen with overuse. Ten afflicted fingers that, in dreadful configurations, could wreak true devastation upon the world.

The final mudra was nigh. I knew that using this gesture would be irreversible. Untold physical destruction and horrible suffering. Instant and unmistakable. I pleaded with myself to forget the symbol– I wouldn’t have to use it if I didn’t know how– but it was futile. I had a purpose that had moved past simple revenge. By day I would strike. Not at the insectile drivers, who could hardly be blamed for the crimes of their vehicles, but at those who maintained the terrarium. I would create a spectacle that couldn’t be ignored. A mountain of bodies, blistered and scorched by the midnight flame of the final mudra.

I spent the rest of the night by the window, waiting for the sun to rise. Now it is morning. It is almost time to make my stand. My body is still, but my hands are trembling.

***

Disturbance at City Council meeting prompts police response

Police responded to a disturbance at a City Council meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

During discussion of an infrastructure contract, a man wearing a blindfold took the podium and began making threatening gestures toward people in the room.

When requested to return to his seat, the man complied. He then continued to disrupt the meeting by making hand gestures from the audience. After repeated warnings, police were called to remove the man.

Nobody was injured. Police detained the man, whose identity was not given.

“We see wackos like this all the time,” said arresting officer Pauline Reynolds. “It didn’t seem like he meant any harm, but you never know. It’s lucky that no one was hurt.”

Members of the City Council declined to comment. They will reconvene in two weeks to discuss a zoning ordinance change that would allow a new candy shop to be built in the historic downtown district.