The Switch

I was woken up by a light bulb popping in my room. I hadn't kept it on, and I sure didn't put a light bulb with an incompatible voltage into where it screws in, but it popped, waking me up at the magical time of 3:35 in the morning when I had to be up at 5:45 for work. Sighing, I got out of bed and walked into the basement, grumbling about my luck and how everything was stupid, something I wouldn't do usually, but it was 3:30 and I was extremely annoyed. Before long, I had a new light bulb in the socket, and I tested it by flipping the switch on and off, click, click, click.Everything seemed to be in working order so I sighed and tried to get back to sleep to get the most out of the remaining two hours my demon of an alarm clock would allow me to stay in bed for.

Of course, that light bulb popped too at the ripe young hour of 4:50, and once again, it woke me up. At this point, I just swore under my breath and decided to just forget about it. 55 minutes of sleep were not something to waste, and a stupid light bulb socket that couldn't do its damn job wasn't going to stop me from not performing at mine in a couple hours. So naturally, I tried to get to sleep.

Click, click, click.

Before I faded from the world of the waking, I was shot back into it like a human cannon by a distinctive clicking sound. It sounded like someone was turning the light that was popped on and off. Part of me didn't want to see what was happening, but well, the other part of me did, and that was the part that took over and caused me to sit up and look across the room at the light switch. I don't know what I was expecting, but nothing was there.

Except for a disembodied hand of course.

Yeah. There was a hand just chilling at the light switch: no body parts, no eyes, face, legs, nothing. Just a hand, going click, click, click on a broken light switch. Obviously, I thought I was maybe just going insane for a bit, but when I blinked, laid back down, and looked back up again, it was still there, doing whatever a hand does when there's not a body attached to, which is flick light switches I guess. I can't confirm it, but the only disembodied hand that I've ever seen did that, and since I can't perform the freakin' scientific method on something like that any time soon, I'm just going to assume all spooky disembodied hands do that.

I just sat there for a while watching this hand click the switch, and no lights came on, so I have to admit, I'm not sure what it was trying to accomplish. I guess because it's just a hand it can't see, and it probably assumed that it was turning a light on, but then again, hands don't have brains, so how would it assume anything? After a while it didn't stop so I decided to do something that looking back, was probably stupid.

"Hello?" I said to the hand. It stopped flicking, and the sound of the clicking in the room stopped leaving an uncomfortable silence between the 1.05 people in the room. It just sat hovered there like that, as if knowing that I said something, and probably said something in hand language. Then it went back to clicking. I groaned, and I got out of bed. I didn't really wanna touch the hand, so I just went into my kitchen and grabbed a kitchen knife. Hand killing isn't murder I think. I'm not sure congress has had enough cases to really talk about it though.

I snuck up on the hand and it kept clicking away. I aimed my knife to stab it directly through the palm, and with a forceful jab I brought the knife down, and stabbed nothing. The hand dodged me and wrapped its fingers around my neck as if to strangle me. Something about the hand seemed familiar, but I couldn't figure it out. I was too busy being strangled to really care about that. I grabbed at the hand with my two very own hands, but it was surprisingly strong for not having a body attached to it. However, eventually, it let me go, and I gasped to catch my breath.

"I don't know what you're trying to do, or what the heck is going on, but it's 5 in the morning and I have to get up at 5:45 for work, so could you maybe just... float away?" I told the hand, "I don't have to work tomorrow, would you mind like... bothering me with your hand problems tomorrow? I think you have the wrong guy anyway." The hand floated for a bit, then flew over to my desk lamp and crushed the light with its fingers. It gave off a few electric sparks and I jumped. Well I guess that that solved the problem of why the hell the light bulbs kept popping. This hand thing was trying to wake me up. Now I think it was just trying to freak me out. But it was 5 in the morning and Satan himself could come from the ground demanding for my soul and it wouldn't freak me out.

The hand let go of the glass shards and floated towards me. I didn't really wanna be strangled again, so I started to back away from it, but it just kept approaching me, and soon enough I was about to scream for help, but it put its hands on my lips in a strangely comforting way and then motioned for it to follow me. At this point I was confused. Not only was there a disembodied hand ruining my chances of sleep, but this hand was also a hand that wanted me to follow it after it obviously tried killing me. Maybe it had gone through the 5 stages of hand grief and wanted to reconcile the sins of the past. I decided to humor the hand and followed it as it floated throughout the house into the dining room.

A jar of pickles was sitting on the table, and it pointed at it. Apparently it couldn't get it open. I stood there for a second and opened it up, handing it to the disembodied hand. It gave me a thumbs up and then snapped its fingers before taking the jar. About 5 seconds later, 5 other hands floated in from the basement and took pickles out of the now opened pickle jar. They floated away, but the original hand remained. It motioned for a pen and piece of paper, and I gave them to him. My chance of sleep was screwed, so I just decided to humor it. Before long, the hand handed me the paper:

"Hi. I'll make this quick. Ghosts exist, and the thing is, if you're cremated, you can't be a ghost. Now see, when the cremator is a lazy dude and doesn't cremate the entire thing, you end up with ghosts like us. We thought you were the guy, but turns out you aren't. Sorry about that. Now if you'll excuse me and the guys, we're about to make a certain cremator with a severe pickle allergy have a bad morning. Thanks again!"

With that, the hand floated away into the night, leaving me feeling slightly annoyed, slightly accomplished, and very goddamn confused. But I guess if you see a hand without a body, give that hand a hand, and you'll not run into any trouble, hands down.