The woman hated it here. The long days and even longer nights scared her, and made her wonder of what was to come. She hated the work that the days held, raising the little boy and girl, doing chores around the small farm by herself. The woman wished the man was with her more often to raise his guns at the coyotes that haunted the trees in the middle of the night. Their cries often sounded like the little boy and girl who would often wake up from feverish nightmares.
The woman longed to make the house pretty for her and the children. She missed her home in the south with its lace curtains, painted walls and fluffy bed spreads. In the north it was cold and sparse, there seemed to be hardly any sunshine, and the house and the items in it were crudely raw and makeshift. The thing she longed for most she did not have. Curtains would make the house prettier and would block the scary eyes of the woods from seeing inside.
The fabric knew none of this as it sat in a small store miles away. Like a seed being separated from its parent plant, the length of fabric was cut from its bolt. The fabric was red, a calico print made of pure cotton from the fields of the south where slaves worked bent double to harvest the earthly clouds. As the shears cut a neat edge along the length of fabric, it moaned in excitement, more than ready to be free of the long yards attached to it, and the confining shelf where it had been stored.
The fabric was purchased by a middle aged man wearing dirty boots and a red beard. It was brought to the man’s home in a stained wagon drawn by horses and loaded with other goods such as lumber, barrels of salted pork and beef, canvas bags of flour and sugar and a bag of nails. As the wagon bumped along the rutted road, the fabric wondered what the stains streaking the wagon bottom were from. Were they from animals skins used to barter for food? Or did this man haul dead men for a living, working the long summer days in a graveyard?
After a while the fabric felt the wagon stop. It listened to the excited whinny of the horses as they sensed the smell of fresh hay and the red barn that would keep them warm through the night. As the man unloaded the wagon the fabric heard the delighted squeals of a little girl and boy as they were given the candy the man had gotten for them at the store. This special treat would be sure to spoil their dinners and the fabric knew that if there was a woman around she would be unhappy. Finally the fabric felt strong hands lift it up and off the wagon. It was handed to the little girl who was told to bring it into the house to her mother. The fabric wanted to dance in revelation as it had been right; there was a woman inside and judging by the candy smeared on the child’s face it would be an interesting first meeting.
Hands that were sure and deft, strong but with a different strength than the man’s hands took the fabric from the sticky fingers of the little girl. A kind face wearing a frown of disapproval was softened by the gift of fabric from the man. He knew she had wanted it for curtains and had finally had enough money to surprise her with some. The fabric hadn’t known it was going to be a gift. If it had known it would have used the breeze in the back of the wagon to blow the dust from its fibers so that the woman didn’t sneeze when she shook it out to admire the color. Murmuring quiet thanks she pressed the fabric to her bosom as she kissed the man.
The fabric felt a gentle heart beat reverberate through its fibers and it held onto the warmth of the woman’s body as she folded the fabric and set it on a shelf. Not another shelf the fabric thought in sorrow and anger. It had been bought as a gift, to be used, not to gather dust as a rag or table cloth would. It wanted to blow in the breeze of an open window, or be used to keep a body warm. An apron might even be a nice form to possess. All the enticing smells of baking goodies and cooked meals would cling to the fabric when the woman or the little girl wiped their hands on it.
Several days passed and the fabric grew more and more irritated with the end of each. It longed to be used, to be shaped into something beautiful. It couldn’t stand one more day on the dusty shelf with the jars of dried herbs and spices. Had the woman forgotten about her beautiful gift of red calico? Was it because the fabric had not rid itself of dust and made her sneeze that the woman ignored it? The fabric resigned itself to sitting on the shelf; the anguish it felt made the fabric feel ugly and faded.
A few weeks later the woman lifted the fabric from the shelf of spices and herbs. The fabric felt her shake the dust from its fibers. Its red color seemed to get brighter with each wave of wind that beat against it, ridding it of all emotion except joy. Joy of being free of the shelf once again if only for a little while, for the fabric did not know what was to come. The woman stopped shaking the fabric and carried it outside. It noticed that the air had gotten crisper; the sky was grayer than when the fabric had ridden in the wagon, and the trees wore flaming oranges, reds and yellows.
A washtub of warm water was sitting next to a clothesline that held already cleaned linens and clothing. The fabric was plunged into the water and not knowing what was happening, felt it’s fibers shrink and become slick with soap. It felt strangled and claustrophobic, cut off from the free air that allowed it to move as it wished when not folded and stored on a shelf. The woman rubbed the fabric against a rough board with slats that allowed water and soapy bubbles to fall through. But the fabric could not escape. Red dye began to leak from the fabric like thin blood. It began to panic, longing for the wringing and scrubbing to stop. It had held only dust, why did a good shaking not suffice?
The woman wrung out the fabric one last time and released it to the free air. Dancing in relief as the woman hung it on the clothesline; the fabric wriggled and began to expand its fibers like a human lung filling with air. It hung on the clothesline with the rest of the laundry for several days, slowly drying, dreading when it would be folded and put back on the shelf. The woman checked the laundry daily, checking the level of dryness each clean item had. One day when she came out to check she found the laundry to be dry. The fabric watched as the woman unpinned the laundry from the line and carefully folded each piece before setting it in a wicker basket.
She came to one piece of laundry, the little boy’s shirt, and she paused. She examined a rip on the sleeve and resignedly laid the shirt across her shoulder to mend in the evening. A couple of items later and the woman unpinned the little girl’s dress from the line. She looked the dress over and then lovingly folded it, gently placing it in the basket. The fabric shivered in want. It wanted to be lovingly folded and placed in the basket also. To be brought inside and lovingly stitched by the fire in the evening. Would its wish ever come true?
Finally after the drawn out suspense of what the fabric knew was to come, the woman unpinned it from the line, folded it, and placed it in the basket just like the lowly bed sheet had been treated. If it were possible, the fabric would have cried loud tears, making it wet as the day the woman had washed it. The fabric felt the wicker basket being picked up and carried inside the house. As the woman walked through the house, the fabric watched from its place on top of the basket as the shelf passed by. What cruel trick was the woman playing? The fabric was removed from the basket and placed on a table. The woman disappeared with the rest of the laundry and came back some minutes later with a metal tin that clattered and clinked.
In fascination the fabric watched the woman stoke the fire making the embers hotter. She placed a large chunk of metal in the coals, and unfolded the fabric. Feeling the woman spreading it out on the table the fabric couldn’t believe what was happening. The woman had not been playing a mean trick. She was actually going to use the fabric, to make it into something she might look at lovingly. Several seconds later the woman removed the chunk of metal from the coals and laid it against the fabric. The fabric screamed in pain! The heat it felt was worse than the drowning it had experienced. The fabric’s fibers became hot and flat. Maybe the woman would never love it. Maybe she only meant to torture and taunt it.
When the woman pulled the heated metal away, the fabric was exhausted. It decided it was done trying to earn the woman’s love. It wanted nothing more to do with the woman, the man nor the little boy and girl. The jubilant red calico changed so that it seemed more like the color of blood. A rich, deep hatred burned inside the fibers of the fabric as it lay flattened on the table. It had had enough. The fabric lay lifeless, feeling raped as it let the woman do as she wished. Pins and needles pricked the edges of the fabric as it was folded and made into something useful.
It was hung in the window of the front door to the house. The door that swung open and shut as people pushed their way through it. The fabric, now a curtain, learned of the door’s misery. How it had once been part of a beautiful oak tree that shaded the cows in the pasture behind the house. Soon the curtain and the door were crying together in the realization that what they had been before was unique and grand. Now they had been transformed into simple items that were not looked at lovingly; just used as a means to an end.
Looking out the window it covered, the curtain wondered why the woman didn’t want to see what stood outside the house. It thought the trees now covered by snow and icicles sparkled and glittered as they held the reflection of the sky. When spring came the sun shone, melting the ice; the dripping branches sounding like a piano as the fallen water made puddles in the snow. At night the air turned cold again freezing the puddles and branches so everything was again covered in slick ice. Did the woman find the scenery too beautiful?
As summer warmed the land, flowers bloomed and life returned to the frozen wonderland. Daffodils and dandelions in the fields quivered in anticipation of the sun’s warmth. The corn began to grow in long rows that the man and woman had sown together. Soon the little boy and girl would chase the crows away as the Native American children once had. Animals seemed to come back to life and the curtain discovered it liked to watch squirrels bounce from tree limb to tree limb and listen to the baaing of the new lamb. During the time that the curtain hung over the window on the door, the two came to know each other. The fabric spoke of its longing to be loved, while the door spoke of its want to return to the forest.
One day the door told the curtain a story. It came to be that the door was placed in the entryway of the house to keep out animals such as the bouncing squirrels and baaing lambs. The door also withstood the elements; wind, rain and snow beat it mercilessly, not caring for its feelings at all. But the door persevered. It felt the touch of the woman, little boy and the little girl daily. When the man was home, the door was comforted by the strong hands that repaired it; replacing nails in the hinges, and sanding the roughness away.
Then the fabric came to understand. It understood that while it and the door had been refined and sophisticated, they were still great. Not as great as when the curtain had been a simple puff of cotton, and not as great as when the door had been a sapling. But still great. While the door had housed birds and squirrels in its branches, now it kept the woman, man and children safe. The fabric understood how the sap had run from the door’s true form as the red dye had run from the curtain like blood when being washed.
It also understood that while the door and itself found the forest a beautiful place, the wilderness their true home, the woman found it terrible; an ugly world that foretold danger and fear. The curtain now understood that same fear and premonition of danger, for it had experienced it when the woman washed, and ironed it. The curtain was now empathetic with the woman because she had given it a useful task.
