‘Clean Hands’
— Joyce Chong
They wash their hands before going to bed—soap them, scrub them, rinse them. They don’t want the dirt and grime of life to defile their sleep.
Today I have this blistering, unexpected short story written by Claire Polders and published in Monkeybicycle. ‘Clean Hands’ is an exercise in perspective, the act of fiction as dynamic realities. Movement as something illustrative; a form of fictional forced perspective where we see the camera pivot and pan across the landscape, rendering the scene in an alternate angle.
Polders tackles notions of culpability, responsibility and the ways we can fail one another in subtle, unseen ways. A practice in revelations, in unfurling until there is nothing left but what we had to begin with. Only, things don't look quite the same anymore.
The rosebushes sometimes die on him, but they are easily replaced. His problem in life is not the army of aphids or the stack of overdue bills. It’s the kid, always causing trouble.