"My hand would be the correct size."

At airports everyone is more beautiful. Their clothes are new and they wear sneakers, which are more comfortable for travel.

There are no dirty people at airports. Sometime the people at airports are disheveled, from their travels, but they are never dirty.

My grandmother got in the coffin with my grandfather. It took fifteen minutes to get her out. She had just had her knees fixed--the fluid drained, a synthetic ball and socket installed, ligaments made of plastic and rubber. She had been a hurdler in her youth.

I saw a man today who had a fake arm. I was at the mall, not the airport, and I was riding the escalator up. I saw him, for a moment only, as he was walking on the level below.

It was a professionally manufactured prosthetic arm, and was cast in the peach color they use. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, so only the hand was visible. The hand was very small.

The man was about 5'10," medium build, perhaps 34, 36 years old. But the hand he had, which was resting diagonally across his midriff, just below his heart, was not the size a hand should have been for a man of his size.

It was a child's hand. Then he walked into a store.

The conveyors that people walk on in airports should be used on city streets. Everyone could walk to work, dozens and dozens of blocks, and it wold take not time at all. The city could even charge people to use such the conveyor. The conveyor could be called the ConveyorWalk. The ConveyorWalk would look fantastic--all these people, walking so fast they would seem to be flying, outside, on the sidewalk, under a sky with white clouds.

The hand was so small, delicate, the fingers almost wispy. But why? If one were to go to the trouble of purchasing a prosthetic arm, one for show only--for I imagine there are no medical benefits to a prosthesis--they why buy a small one?

My thoughts:

- He has had the prosthetic arm since he was a boy, and keeps it for sentimental reasons.

-He has had the prosthetic arm since he was a boy, and cannot afford to replace it.

-He does not know it is too small."

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From Jokes Told in Heaven about Babies, by Lucy Thomas