Whoa, is this even an idiom? It should be “at the snap of a finger”, shouldn’t it? Because this immediately comes to my mind when reading these three words. So, at the snap of my fingers, please, switch off your screens and start contemplating this week’s writing prompt. Snap!
You wouldn’t believe that as a kid I was able to whistle in three different ways, one of them making a sound like blowing on the neck of a bottle, the other ones through the lips and through the teeth. As a teenager I even learned how to trill in using my togue while whistling. (My parents were not thrilled; ladies were not supposed to whistle, and I was being raised to be a lady.) So, whistle I could and did, but my fingers simply would never snap in a snap.
Try and try as I would, there never was the clicking sound that made other kids seem so much cooler in school when raising their hands, eager to be heard and seen by our teachers. I was one of those kids who were making a throat noise. Uh-uh-uh! Today, I’m not sure whether either of these sounds made teachers look into one’s direction with more interest than into somebody else’s. And, yes, eventually I learned the magic finger snap.
But wait – doesn’t the term snap also describe the change or turn of a situation? I think, I have heard the description “at the snap of dawn” somewhere – of course, I might be wrong. But I picture pretty much the moment when the sun appears on the horizon. Or if somebody is at their snap, it means they are so overwhelmed that they have reached their breaking point in a snap.
Of course, if one likes Marvel movies, the Snap means something entirely different – the elimination of a life at the snap of one’s fingers. Yes, there are movies that celebrate such a thing – as if there were not enough death in the world; the Wikipedia site lists around 50 characters who have thus been removed from a movie series!
Let’s just imagine this – if we were able to eliminate somebody at the snap of our fingers. Not like a manic dictator who would be pictured as beckoning his henchmen closer, whisper them something in their ear, and then snap his fingers to have them do the task. No, if it really terminated a person’s physical existence. From one moment to the other: gone, invisible, zilch. What a great power to exercise! We could get rid of anybody we don’t like without more than that. Would it even count as violence?! Snap!
But wait! You know me better than this by now, don’t you? Have you imagined that somebody might be faster than you? I feel mighty uncomfortable at the thought that somebody’s mere snap of their fingers could disembody me. Or that I could have erred in doing this to somebody else and now wouldn’t be able to reverse the process if I found I had been wrong, after all. Wouldn’t this be horrible?
Snaps of fingers are never good, I find, to use as a way of commanding somebody to do something or to achieve anything. Neither is it good to be at one’s snap. One often goes along with the other. When a person snaps, they might use the snap of their fingers in a violent way.
Let’s get back to the beginning of my article, therefore. Did I ask you to switch off your screens at the snap of my fingers? Please, ignore that! Ponder if you will without me snapping at you. Would you? Snap!
