Pricking the Flesh, not Quite to the Bone

        Yesterday I did it, a seemingly innocent, innocuous, even virtuous act of cleaning out my pocket. In it, my right shoulder pocket, was a future gift to myself: a rank that I would achieve soon enough and then be able to use it for those times down the road. It had two little sharp pins covered by two accompanying demits, to cover up these sharp, small, needles as part of the way to attach it to the uniform.

    I was rummaging, searching, while standing, and oh! I pushed and smushed the demit-less pricking pin into my thumb. One of the metal protectors had fallen off within my pocket. Unbeknownst to me, it became a sharp and painful reminder of what can happen when things are left unguarded, unkept. Like the metal rank hiding within. From months, going on years ago.

    This rank has perplexed me, vexed, for more than a few years. It is a thing of promise and tantalizing power, like a ring that can be placed on your hand and make a new and formidable creature. But it has never come. And this, and that, is a longer story.

    Me, it, always, never. That rank, that authority, that pin, that day.

    It pricked me in my finger, my left thumb, my appendage to help me move and act. Vexed and injured, not disabled, but a sore reminder, literally and figuratively.

    And perhaps this is all that I will say now; but not all that I have thought and felt.

    The pin prick reminded me today of yesterday's foolish or otherwise foolhardy mistake, and a few hours later I gave it to my friend in a similar professional state. He was happy to receive it. He put it in a better, safer place. It was a wallet of sorts. He will use it to his advantage, I hope.

    I hope it pricks no one else, again, as it has done me.

    Emotionally and physically, the sharp metal can make its mark. The soreness is sharp at first, and then grows duller with time.

    That was yesterday, Sunday. Now it is Monday; we will move on through the week, and gratefully through and across the months to come.

    Years from now, maybe all a small, minor thing.

    Pricks from the past, farther and farther away. In life, and moving into the next levels. Like our ranks here on earth.