Nail Biting Stuff
Word Count: 1500
A Nail Biting Tale
Bob stood mesmerised, peering at his hands. He was momentarily befuddled by what was before him. Something was different, but what? Then, all of a sudden, he realised the source of his confusion. It can’t be, he thought. Of intense interest to Bob were his lanky oversized fingernails. They had grown far too long for their own good. “What on earth is going on?” he mumbled under his breath. Bob found this discovery especially odd given that his entire life—at least as far back as he could remember—he had always bitten his fingernails to a bloodied mess long before they had a chance to grow out? It’s not as though he did this on purpose. No, far from it. In fact, truth be told, he despised the habit. Nonetheless, despite his ill feeling toward the ritual, it just seemed to always be this way. Whether watching a show on television, working all day long at his desk, or just sitting around waiting for life to unfurl; it didn’t seem to matter what the activity; one thing Bob could count on is that his fingernails never be given the opportunity to shine.
With this in mind, Bob questioned how he suddenly came to be sporting long fingernails. What had changed? More importantly, when had this dramatic adjustment taken place? He wondered, what moment in time, exactly, did I cross over into not chewing the tips of my fingers with the frequency a wild goat might its cud? He truthfully could not remember. Indeed, he had not even once thought about it consciously. Well, at least not recently, nor within the last few decades for that matter. There were, however, those several failed attempts many, many years ago, throughout a period spanning roughly six months, during which he made legitimate efforts time and again to kick the habit. But, they were all unsuccessful, every one of them, and so he never prevailed. Instead, he would invariably find himself waking up from a trance, fingers in pain, nails gnawed, cuticles bleeding.
Given the seemingly impossible prospect of overcoming the practice, Bob had resigned himself all those years ago to a lifetime of dealing with short bloody nails, thereafter giving it no more thought. Yet here he was, in the present day, staring at long specimens that may now well require some sort of ongoing maintenance. He had no experience with this specialised form of grooming, nor did he own the appropriate equipment for the task at ‘hand’. Ha ha, he laughed barely audibly, amused at the wordplay which had sporadically come about in his mind, a pun of sorts. Nonetheless, Bob was now on a mission. He proceeded to urgently formulate a solution to his uncanny dilemma. The alternative be his nails grow even longer thus well and truly interfere with basic dexterity. goodness, he thought, I’d better get down to the drug store pronto … and so off he stomped, the objective being to purchase a pair of clippers and a file. As he prepared to leave, Bob kept thinking to himself Surely this can’t be happening. He sat down in his car, fastened his seatbelt, started the ignition, reversed out of his garage and drove down the short driveway. He then turned right and proceeded to travel down the road towards the local shopping precinct, all the while wondering if perhaps he will soon wake from a deep sleep only to realise nothing had really changed.
Fast forward one year and many a self manicure later, Bob’s nails are strong. Their edges are dense and tough. Cuticles are full, robust and filled in. There is no scabbing or scarring to be seen, instead only silky smooth supple skin along with nice thick, strong, well maintained fingernails. He never has the urge to bite them, not even one bit. The insatiable desire somehow left him to never return. Effortlessly, or so it seemed, he had been cured of a most unpleasant habit. And still, he cannot know when exactly it was that this astonishing transition occurred, nor what prompted its onset. Bob knows only that he was once an addict, but now is free.
It would take several years and much perspective for it to dawn on Bob, for him to garner enough context as to what may have transpired. Though, even then, he could not be sure as to the validity of his anecdotally borne, haphazardly acquired correlations. Nonetheless, turns out that as best as he can figure, throughout said period of time and beyond, one during which he was immersed in inner-scrutiny and evaluation, Bob was actively working on augmenting key areas of his life, on improving his overall prospects. In doing so, he seemed to have inadvertently shed a good number of redundant tendencies from his life’s play list, most the unwarranted byproduct of nervous tension which once consumed his psyche and plagued his soul.
Accordingly, as he purged many of the more prominent, surface dwelling pejorative inclinations and impulses from his repertoire—gradually superseding them with useful new methodologies—many of his more subtle, once impossible to eradicate deeper cravings, dependancies and addictive behaviours were inadvertently affected. These are those elusive bits of pain and suffering which mankind tries to bury ever-deeper with each subsequent year, which rarely see the light of day. They are the byproducts of trauma, accompanied by a sort of emotional bleeding whose source is near impossible to clearly identify, yet alone arrest or cauterise.
Nonetheless, these were precisely the sorts of internal emotional injuries which began closing up, thereby diminishing in potency, whose scar tissue then gradually sealed over before all but vanishing. What’s more, most every inexplicable case of said healing seemed to occur without a concerted effort on Bob’s part. The most notable of these had to do with his hankering for a drink, which almost overnight seemed to hold far less sway over him than he had ever thought possible. Then, miraculously, gradually and ever so unassumingly, the urge, i.e. curse, simply lifted, left him altogether, never to return. Ironically, on the back of such good fortune Bob found himself occupying the status of former leper, therefore cured—born again, so to speak—but a social outcast just the same. Such was the transformative nature of Bob’s new reality that it required he build a brand new societal standing, from the ground up.
Consequently, where Bob was once blind to his former self, he now owned fecund perspective. An abundance of clarity, vision and purpose flooded his soul, occupied his thoughts and permeated his dealings to the point of influencing every fresh new initiative. This was bad news indeed for those who wished to continue their dominion over him, for they would soon learn he was a pushover no more. Indeed, Bob was no longer on the take, therefore could not be cheaply bought, nor could he be corrupted or deceived into carrying out another’s bidding. This included, among numerous unsavoury entanglements, being forced into concealing others’ dirty laundry. He would never again sell-out his soul to ‘so called’ fame and fortune, nor submit to fraudulent pipe dreams, the likes of which once led his sensitive soul to the brink of despair.
Such is the apparent impact, thought Bob, of nurturing and feeding one’s inner most yearnings and desires; those which live much deeper within the individual; those associated with self worth and societal calling. But perhaps most of all, these are those daily victories which have the desirable effect of leaving one fulfilled and gratified in their humble achievements.
Therefore, as days turned to weeks, months and years, through the process of slow and steady personal recalibration, Bob managed to transition his consciousness from that of a desperate, lonely and thoroughly demoralised follower to one of free thinking agency and leadership. In the process, he inadvertently pulverised a broad range of once entrenched toxicities within his psyche, as well a host of destructive addictions he once thought impossible to breach.
Turns out that defining within oneself a sense of meaning and purpose—ergo, a reason to thrive and survive—plays an all important role in mankind’s affairs, the welcome side-effects of which likely ripple into many a themeiology. Whether the profundity of this be adequately understood by the practicing individual is a question altogether for another micro-thesis. Though it’s reasonable to presume such holistic metamorphosis be the consequence of collaboration between one’s many ‘moving inner parts’, therefore be an amalgamated outcome, the kind likely to surface with increased vigour when one’s mind, body and soul be allowed to synchronise.
As for Bob’s nails, all these years later they remind him of just how far he has come. Moreover, they serve as a nifty metaphor for the unpredictable nature of growth and learning. Every time he files them back, he is reminded that one cannot necessarily predict the scale with which valuable breakthroughs might manifest as a consequence of small, seemingly discrete victories. Thus continues Bob’s ongoing quest to build a lasting legacy, the effects of which have him living each day with steadfast resolve, as well an ever-evolving definition of what constitutes meaningful destiny.
Nail biting stuff indeed.