Her obsession with her nails had reached a point of no return. As a colleague had recently mentioned, she was verging on, if not already fully immersed into the world of OCD. All because of a little bit of grey scum under her left middle finger.
She didn’t know why she couldn’t get it out. Normally she wasn’t one to care about minor ‘indiscretions’ to her images but she had been sitting on the train heading home, about three weeks ago, and had just realised the appalling state of her fingernails. She had avidly picked at them until she reached home. Then she had soaked them all very carefully for a beneficial 60 minutes, in warm water scented lightly with rose oil until they had become sufficiently prune like. But still that one bit of filth would not disperse herself, she’d used nail files, nail clippers, scissors, safety pins, cocktail sticks, knives, even a corkscrew but nothing had budged it. She’s even spent ninety pounds of her hard earned cash on a very expensive manicure at a Salon apparently frequented by A-list celebrities, but it was still there. Embedded in her nail, starring at her with its unmoving gaze of disgust. Even now with patent red gloss swathed over it, she knew it was there and just couldn’t stop picking.
At first the blood didn’t bother her, she didn’t mind, she knew that it was a signal from her body that she was getting closer to the dirt. She tried to wear a plaster to stop herself from picking, and to stop people from noticing. But she kept removing the plaster to see if the dirt had magically slipped away like she had imagined, but it never did so she picked some more. She started wearing gloves. She wore gloves for three weeks. Luckily it was October so people didn’t notice, and she had invested in a pair of classic leather gloves as opposed to wandering in woollen mittens. However the finger had started to swell, the picking was taking its toll and she guessed the dirt was starting to fight her back. So she went to the doctors who took one glance at the finger and said what she had guessed ‘You’re fingers infected miss’. She looked at the floor, embarrassed. Any idea how this happened? She shrugged her shoulders. He gave her some cream, told her wash it daily, keep it covered and to not touch it, not poke it, just to leave it alone. She could feel her cheeks flush crimson as she left the room.
Months later, the dirt was still there. She continued to pick, it continued to bleed. She had tried, but it was no use. She couldn’t sleep. She was starting to worry about the health of her finger. It was numb. It had turned an odd shade of blue; the nail had practically dropped off. Her finger was a weeping wound. She went back to the doctors. He looked more closely this time. With concern. Ok. We have a problem. Your finger is seriously infected. The blood supply had basically been cut off. Essentially your finger is dying, and there is very little we can do about it. She was really worried now, her finger was dying, was it contagious, would the death spread? Would she die? We basically have two options. Number one. We leave it alone and eventually, it will cause you pain, the infection will spread, worsen cause gangrene and the finger will drop off. She felt sick. Or we can amputate. She chose the latter, was wheeled into surgery almost immediately and came out a happier woman. She was shocked by her happiness. For although she was missing her middle left finger, at least the dirt was now gone.
