The hand that feeds me is grotesquely thin, a stark contrast to the nutritious bounty it provides. I have no cause for complaint with the way I am kept, but I am greatly concerned for the health of the hand. He is gentle, old, wrinkled, perhaps wise; he caresses, he pampers, he nourishes.

The hand that slaps me is firm and just. It stands as an example to me, a physical ideal. I can adopt certain of its properties -- decisiveness, utter self-confidence, conviction in absolutes; but I can never be that hand, as water cannot be stone.

The hand that throws sticks plays tricks. He considers himself clever, more clever than I, and perhaps he is. I am never sure of his loyalty to me, and thus feel no particular loyalty to him, though I have never yet failed to retrieve and return. Perhaps someday I shall turn traitor.

I cannot read the hand that tells time, except to understand that it always moves forward while going nowhere. This hand keeps its distance, refuses to be touched, preens itself in its glass. It fancies itself both observer and commentator, but in fact it is mere mechanism.

My own hands are paws; they do not nourish, neither do they administer punishment, nor maneuver and manipulate, nor indicate the inevitable, and the tracks they leave soon fade--their greatest flaw.