Glass Hands
You’re angry. You’re angry at your daddy, at the world, at every injustice there is. You just want to fight and scream and break something!
You hear daddy behind you, crouching to pick you up or stroke your fur, and you get even angrier. He’s the reason you’re upset! He’s not allowed to touch you right now! And as you feel him coming ever closer you lash out and buck, kicking his wrinkly old hands with all your strength and hearing a shattering noise.
“Gu 'way!” you shout, glaring back at your daddy, but as you do your anger disappears. He’s just… sitting there, all wrinkles and sadness, and his hands are broken. They’re falling apart into dozens and dozens of little pieces, shiny little shards scattered across the floor.
“Oh, Primrose…” daddy says in the sorrowfully disappointed voice he always has when you act up, looking defeated with his now-empty long sleeves. You just… You just broke him. You broke daddy. You-
Primrose woke up with a start and instantly felt like crying. She had to find daddy! She had to see if he was okay!
“Daddeeeh!!” she shouted and scrambled out of her soft plush bed, near tumbling. She had no saferoom and no big colorful walls, just her bed and chewed-up old toys in daddy’s big bedroom, but it meant she had free reign of the house and knew where everything was. Daddy wasn’t in the TV room, and he wasn’t in the kitchen, and the bathroom wasn’t closed so he wasn’t in there either!
Finally she squeezed through the big fluffy flap on the back door and popped out into daddy’s big flowery garden, and that was where she found him. Daddy was sitting crouched by the flowers, with long sleeves and thick gloves hiding his missing hands, looking at her. “Primrose?”
“NUUU!!” wailed Primrose, falling to a sit and crying her heart out. Daddy gently reached out and petted her, but the warmth of his old wrinkly hands was missing - it was all cold dirt and leather and she started to cry harder. She was never going to feel him rub her ears or stroke her fur again! He’d lost his whole arms and had to replace them with these terrible fake gloves! “Nuuhuuhuuu!! Pwimwose am su sowwy!! Nu mean tu huwt daddeh!!”
“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” daddy soothed, pulling her close. “You’re not in trouble. I’m happy you apologized, Primrose, you don’t have to cry anymore. Thank you.”
Primrose sobbed inconsolably as daddy petted her with that awful cold glove. Some stupid argument about not getting Fluff-TV wasn’t worth this! Not ever! But then the glove went away, and after a few seconds she felt those familiar, thin, warm fingers run through her fluff. She looked up in shock, tears blurring her eyes. That was… That was his hand? His real actual hand? “D-Daddeh nu am huwt? Am otay?”
“I’m okay,” daddy smiled gently. “Don’t worry, my dear. Just don’t do it again, alright?”
“Pw-Pwimwose… Pwimwose won’t! Won’t du anyfing bad evew again!!”
Fluffies were noisy, high-maintenance little monsters, people said. They were high-energy and while they made for interesting pets, when Bernard had chosen to get a fluffy to enrich his life rather than a new dog, people were worried. He was so old, after all. Wouldn’t an old dog have been better, people said, or a cat, or maybe a hamster? Anything that didn’t have a reputation for being so rowdy and fussy and capable of throwing childish tantrums.
But Bernard knew better. Dogs were just as capable of tantrums and rowdiness as fluffies, and he had heard as much good as he had bad. And the beautiful little fluffy he had chosen to be his own, his lovely Primrose, she was proving herself to be such a darling he truly didn’t understand the stigma against her kind.
Of course Primrose threw tantrums sometimes. About food, or toys, or things she’d inherited from old Rover. And at first, Bernard hadn’t known what to do about it all. She’d run off to bed angry and not let him touch her for days.
But one day after she had a tantrum, Bernard had fallen and broken his wrist while gardening. He was rushed to the hospital and came back with his hand in a splint, leaving Primrose alone in the house for almost a day, and she simply stared in horror when he explained what had happened.
After that day, anytime she got upset and went to bed, Bernard only had to go out and garden. Maybe an hour would pass and then Primrose would rush to his side, blubbering and in tears, to apologize for the tantrum.
He really didn’t know what had changed, but Bernard supposed the little fluffy had finally realized humans could feel pain too. And Primrose, as huffy and angry as she could get over the most minor of little things, really was too sweet. The mere thought of making her owner hurt seemed to throw her into a tizzy.
He didn’t mind comforting her those days. It was natural to regret those little outbursts once you’d calmed down, and even if it hurt him to see her shout and stomp her hooves, he understood.
But really, he thought with a small smile as Primrose nuzzled into his hands, sometimes she acted like his heart was made of glass.