I was just. Trying to get used to this....

I was just. Trying to get used to this. It won’t come off. They’re lights, almost. It doesn’t hurt. Well, it hurts cause I scrub them, but it does no good. This color’s here to stay. One morning I go to work and I come home with blue hands. They changed chemicals again at the plant. All sixteen of us in my section got blue hands. Some of the women, they were upset when it wouldn’t wash off. But we had to see it as a wonder, too. During break, we turned off the lights and standing all together, some with our arms raised, others at our side, we looked like a Christmas tree in the dark, with blue lights. Then we all put our arms over our heads like this (Demonstrates) and waved our fingers and we were a flock of crazy blue birds taking off. We started laughing then, and piling on top of each other, imagine it, and most of us women my age, and our hands were like blue snow balls flying this way and that. One of the girls, Victoria, she laughed so hard she peed right where she stood. Another one, Willa, she slipped in it and that had us all roaring. Then Laura Townshend said we had all better think again cause we had the hands of dead women. Well, that put an end to the fun and we went back to work. The manager said it would wear off but it won’t. We even used bleach. We’ll have to get used to it. Kind of ugly and kind of pretty both, isn’t it? But hands aren’t meant to be blue.

Wallace, Naomi. The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek. Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. 2000. pp. 40-41.