Jason Gordy Walker lives in Birmingham, Alabama where he writes poetry and fiction. Recently, his work appeared in The Molotov Cocktail and Sleet Magazine. He will soon be interning for Birmingham Poetry Review. 

The Sign (January 20, 2012. Issue 34.)

In boldface blue ink on a red and white background: "Have you washed your hands today?" Beneath this question the sign says, "Clean your hands every day with plenty of soap and water or use hand sanitizer. Do this often. If you are sick, especially with a cold or flu, stay home to prevent the spread of germs." Below this, more precautions are listed.

I have washed my hands twenty-nine times today; twice for each meal, twice for each bathroom visit, and thirteen for the sign. I always obey the sign. If I consider disobeying, the sign eradicates the thought before there is a threat to my democracy. I pledge allegiance to the sign, my protector, omniscient because it has to be. Germs are everywhere.

But I have never seen a germ in person. Maybe germs were fabricated to one-up Communism, like the moon landing. I have seen pictures of them – some look like commas with hairs used for limbs, some are shaped like rat feces, most are ugly dots – but I distrust pictures. There is technology that adjusts, perfects, creates – pictures. And there is technology that destroys.

(Clean hands.)

Computer keyboards devastate fingertips, and sometimes entire palms. After typing letters, it is my duty to help my allies rebuild. The warm water pours over their reddened, cracked skin until it is shriveled and restored. Thanks to Dial, 99.9 % of bacteria are dead. I always keep a lookout for the bathroom doorknob on my way out.

But are doorknobs as dangerous as the sign leads me to believe? (Yes.) Public doorknobs appear to be clean, most of the time, and I wash my doorknobs every day. If germs live on doorknobs, it would be reasonable to say they attack the paper towel used to turn the doorknob and proceed to attack my hand. (Unreasonable.) So why don't I turn doorknobs with my bare hands?

(Eradicate.)

When dealing with doorknobs, paper towels protect hands from the threat of germs. Imagine if nobody used paper towels to turn doorknobs. Colds, strep throat, influenza, pneumonia, salmonella; viruses would spread like propaganda. It would be treason to risk that.

**

The constant flow breaks into little streams, sliding across the back of my hands, the soap easing along the crevices of my finger joints and dropping into the sink, puff by puff, and I look at the blue letters posted above the toilet, reassuring that I have made the moral choice, and scrub my hands together, making sure soap gets under my fingernails, and then I realize there are no paper towels. I feel like I have reached a turning point in the war against germs, but something is telling me to resort to toilet paper. I tear off a piece of toilet paper and step toward the door. I throw the toilet paper into the trashcan, but then I tear off another piece. It is always best to use five sheets above the available sheet.