The Fabric

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.

Courage on a Blade

This was an A- paper:

Thirteen days ago today I made an appointment to have a tattoo artist mark me for life. Twelve short days ago I spent two and a half shorter hours in the company of my tattoo artist, my fiancé and a very good friend. I am now the proud wearer of a unique tribal tiger on my right shoulder blade. She has an attitude that represents my vain, “fuck you” side, shown in a pose with her head thrown back and her tail held high in pride and independence.

Tattooing is part of a culture that is full of symbolism and emotion. Before my college career started I remember having a conversation with my father asking him what he thought about tattoos. I distinctly recall him saying that he would have gotten lots of ink, but that he would have to live with them every day, even when he gets to be old and the tattoos are stretched out and wrinkly. Nine months later I met my fiancé and saw his tattoo. He still hasn’t told me why he has it but I know it has something to do with his brother and his past.

Two and a half hours of sitting in a tattoo chair is not the most comfortable thing in the world. I kept thinking that I should have brought a book with me, anything to keep my mind off the pain in a consecutive manner. Eventually my butt began to fall asleep, and my neck and jaw were sore from resting against the awkward angle of the head rest. The first five minutes weren’t too bad; I was just getting used to the feel of three needles being dragged through my skin by a tattoo gun for the outline. When I asked the artist what getting the tattoo would feel like he said that people describe it two different ways: one is that it feels like millions of bee stings, and the other is that it feels like a lot of irritated cat scratches. Personally I thought it felt like billions of bee stings, almost as if the bees’ stingers were injected by the gun and being dragged through my skin in intricate patterns. The grossest thing was that my right arm pit was sweating so badly, moisture was literally rolling down the inside of my arm and I had to keep wiping it away with my sweatshirt. At one point the artist hit a particularly tender spot and I yelled “Ow! Fuck!” My friend immediately remarked that she had never heard me say that certain obscenity and actually mean it. The artist switched to seven needles to do the shading, and it felt like heaven for a good amount of time. By the time he was halfway done with the shading, those seven needles felt like hell. I had lived through one and a half steps of the process, I was pretty positive I could live through the last half, but I was so done with sitting in one position and having my scapula and trapezius harassed.

My last semester of sophomore year, about ten months ago, I began to look for a tattoo idea. I had always wanted a lizard for some reason. I don’t know why, but it was this gut feeling to have a lizard painted on me for life; a sweet and sexy reptile along my panty line. But my major concern was what if I get pregnant? The tattoo will stretch and be hideous. Plus, for all my time of searching I could not find a lizard I liked. Neither me, my fiancé, or a close friend could draw anything. I also had no reason to get it. I definitely wanted a reason to have an identifying mark on me forever, not to just say I got ink. Personally I felt that it would be lame to respond to someone’s question as to why I got it, and tell them just because. It’s like that would be sacrilegious to the tattooing culture.

I accidently found the picture of my tiger on a website; I searched the topic “tiger tattoos” just for kicks because tigers have been my favorite animal since I was a little girl. Next thing I know I am staring at this picture of a tribal tiger standing on my computer screen, her body language screaming I am this, accept it or leave it. I don’t know who drew it or how it originally came to be, but if you want to call it plagiarism, all I have to say is thank you to the creator. I printed and cut her out of the paper to show my fiancé. He made me keep her in a place I would see her every day as if she were already on my body. She lived on my dresser for at least seven months, during which I longed for her. My two biggest dilemmas were where do I place her on my body, and why do I want her?

This summer I had to make a huge decision. All I will say is that professionally I regret the choice, but personally I know it was the right one. It proved my commitment to my fiancé and myself, and also proved my breaking free of a part of my past that needed to be let go much sooner. The tiger on my back serves as a source of strength because I can’t always provide strength from within me when my fiancé isn’t around. I placed it on my right shoulder because it’s also a reminder that I made the right choice, and because I discovered a friend I hadn’t truly opened myself to even though it feels like I have known her forever. That same friend went back a week later and got a tattoo in the same place and I like to think that knowing we both have another thing in common for the rest of our lives brings us that much closer together.

The big question now is how do I tell my parents? We are all adults, but I don’t feel like being disowned by my mother for a week until she remembers I am not twelve anymore, so only select family members know about my ink. “When will you tell them?” They ask. My response is that they can know after I am dead. I want to believe that I can be confident enough to show it to my father and have his reaction be something along the lines of “nice ink”, but doubts linger about that future encounter.

In the aftermath of getting ink, I survived the healing process which seemed to be worse than finding the courage to sit in the executioner’s chair. That area of skin was sore for about five days, and then it flaked and peeled as if my body was leaking black blood. Then it got itchy. The temptation to itch the scab off was worse than the temptation to eat chocolate all day. But she is finally all healed and ready to admired and utilized for her strength. Whenever I am a distressed damsel or a stressed college student I look for something to give me strength, and then remember that I have it on my back in a bold statement screaming I have a secret I will never tell, don’t you wish you knew?

Flamingo Painted Feelings

How often do you watch your loved one climb into the family car as he drives off to work and think “I hope he comes home alive”? Flamingos, the graceful but yet embarrassingly colored bird that stands on one leg and dips its beak into clear water to sustain itself as seen in tropical landscapes. Flamingos don’t think about what they should or should not do. For them, life is based on an instinct for survival. I was never a fan of flamingos, they’re too… pink. But growing up in the suburbs allows for the sighting of many flamingos.

Growing up with a father who was rarely home weekends, I remember the times he was. There are so few they stand out in one’s mind. On Sundays my mother left me at home to roller blade in the driveway while she went to church, and dad worked on my sister’s corvette, smoky. He always tinkered with that car, sometimes I wonder if he did something so that it would smoke intentionally when started

Ever ridden a motorcycle?

The day my father was given one of his father’s old bikes, I remember loading it onto a trailer and towing it the ten miles home. To a little girl, the bike was tall and formidable. Now a days, it looks like a lonely outcast from some Neolithic monster age with its travel pack and second seat. It had to be large I guess, my grandfather, “Papa Blackbeard” isn’t so tiny. But my grandparents still live in that house, and the motorcycle still sits in that same trailer like a flamingo, perfectly balanced on a kickstand.

A relationship doesn’t simply fall off of Mount Kilimanjaro. Love or “upendo” in Swahili, can’t be plucked out of thin air. Maybe if we were magicians we could begin to fathom the thought of plucking a particle out of the air and making it into an object, a tangible affair. Instead relationships need to be slowly coerced into existence. Building a friendship beforehand can be crucial or detrimental. A lot of people believe in love at first sight. Is this true? Maybe people simply fall into naïve physical obsession with the symmetrical faces they prefer over people with non-symmetrical features. Then the obsession grows. Sounds cool to me. So who could possibly explain this “love at first sight” phrase to producers of romance movies outside of its literal meaning?

Random thought, how is your sense of balance? I bet it’s not as good as a flamingos’. And I bet you were knocked off the railroad tie you were walking on when you saw your high school sweet heart for the first time at the country fair.

But yes, as you were wondering, my relationship with someone involves a bike. He had it before he met me, and I’m not going to be the girlfriend who charges into his life and changes everything on him. I wouldn’t desire to be the girlfriend his “guy-friends” hate and try to persuade to dump. Nope, I will never demand he get rid of his bike. If it’s an object he enjoys then he might as well keep it; I’m not his mother, demanding he get rid of his favorite toy. This toy, the very crotch rocket that could, if I chose to take the opportunity, give me the most exciting head rush I have ever experienced.

However there is a problem. I have no phobia of death; only the small panic attacks I have learned to control are contradictory to that statement. Who fears death on a daily basis, the basis that you know if you get into your car, you might not survive? I am scared of such machines. A small, insignificant fear that is not noticeable until he climbs onto his bike; an accelerated pulse rate that could make me explode with anxiety as he slips the helmet over his crew cut. But I have spent a spring, summer and fall asking God that he keep my man safe as he drives away from me on his bike. And I know I will continue to do so as long as he has the demonic thing.

And here is the scary part: there is an article that shows the percentages of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel from 1995 to 2004. Each year shows an increased percent. From 1997 to 2004, the percent is doubled. In 2006 about 4,935 people were killed. Vehicle failures were found to be 3% of the problem, while another 3% involved animals and roadway defects. Road safety is a major concern in New England; nasty winters occur here, bringing with them frost heaves. These frost heaves don’t get better as the weather does come spring time. Plus, the added damages the plows make are no help. Living in rural Maine, there are many dirt roads and the tarred roads also have potholes.

An added danger factor is that motorcycles are very hard to see. In the daytime, they have more visibility and yet the chance of not seeing them is twenty in one hundred. At night time, the likelihood of seeing a motorcyclist is even smaller. The headlight is an added measure, but there is only one of them as opposed to the two headlights a car has. The chances of hitting a motorcycle at night are close to 50%. So if you buy a bike, get a bright color!

I guess I should have suggested that if my dad were to repaint his Honda, that it be bright yellow. It would make a humorous picture at least. But alas, the maroon 1985 Honda Goldwing that sits on the trailer like a lonely flamingo, has been out of place in every location it has been moved to. Having relocated three times since the bike was given to my father, it has come with us every time, never leaving the trailer. Now it sits in the mid coast region of Maine. My father has always wanted to put a new battery in, just to see if it runs anymore. My mother has never let him. She’s always found a way to keep him busy with different tasks these past thirteen years. She has also encouraged him several times to get rid of it; he’s had good offers from potential buyers.

I know he won’t get rid of it. There is an emotional attachment my mother will never understand. Where it sits now, with a tarp covering that usually ends up on the ground because of the wind, this out of place flamingo practicing its balancing act in a beat up trailer, serves as some kind of reminder every time my father goes in and out of the driveway.

Having been on bike only once in my life, I know I have not yet felt “the wind in my hair”. After all, 30 miles per hour on a crotch rocket intended to race does nothing to fuel ones need for speed. My fiancé’s Yamaha YZF600R that sits in a garage in Benton, Maine has many names. It was introduced to Europe in 1997 and was called a Thundercat. In other places it is called a café racer. Production of this bike lasted from 1994 to 2007. Colors this bike could be bought in varied throughout the years, mostly a theme of blue and white with modification colors. These racers have a compression ratio of 12:1, meaning how much power can be put forth by the pistons in the piston chamber. They can have either 5 or 6 speeds, weigh 430 to 450 pounds depending on added modifications and are about 6 feet in length.

To me the café racer is jet black, a color distinction I never understood; jet black…. Like the grey color of a fighter jet? I don’t understand. But to my fiancé it is a rainbow of variety. Maybe to him it falls somewhere along the lines of romantic, action packed escapes. Trying to describe this bike as charismatic is hard to do with the mixed feelings it provokes. Viewing this machine in person gives a powerful image, one of incredibly fast speeds, badass bikers in leather and sexy women in bikinis draped over the plush seat and slick gas tank. The tires give the on looker an excited-nervous feeling; the curiosity as to what the road might feel like underneath at high speeds.

However, it is as such fast speeds that my brain creates the worst case scenarios involving the badass biker. What if he doesn’t come home? How do I react when the call comes from the white sterile prison, holding him with tubes and intravenous fluids? As he goes out the door and revs the machine, I try not to watch him pull out of the drive. I try not to watch till he is out of view; listen to the gears change as he goes down the road and out of hearing range. I try not to cry in fear when there is no sign of him left, and I send a prayer up to the sky with shaky hopes that my mother’s faith was not in vein, that there is a God to watch over him. Keeping the phone nearby I do whatever I can to keep my mind off of the machine and it’s handler.

But it’s hard to do. I want to be with him and at the same time know I am not brave enough. I wish I was a sexy devil may care woman who could ride with him. Get my own machine even. And as I think that I wonder what I would buy, what color it would be. But alas, I can’t see it.

My badass biker wants to sell or trade my summer nightmare. He’s been trying to for the past six months. He’s had good offers, less than what he wants for it, but still good offers. I want him to sell it, get something useful like a car or truck, he mostly agrees. But he is not advertising his sale as hard as I would like him to (if this weren’t an essay I would put an advertisement in here for him). I believe there is the same emotional attachment my father has with his bike. Just like my mother does not understand the attachment my father has to his bike, I do not even begin to fathom an understanding as to my biker’s attachment to his machine.

These feelings of concern and fear, hate and wild abandon to jump on and ride away are confusing. My views and opinions are shaky. The image of a pink lawn decoration being blown off it’s one leg in the wind comes to mind. I wonder if my mother ever had these flamingo painted feelings.

What Entertainment

This is a flash fiction piece that I had to do this semester for a creative writing class. I received a B as a final grade with some comments for improvement.

“I just wanted to thank you for coming out to dinner with me Hannah.”

“No problem, I’m glad I dialed the wrong number; you have a very nice voice.”

Jay shrugged, “Well, ya know. I get that a lot.”

“Oh?”Hannah cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, I um…” Jay’s phone went off. “Hold that thought please” he mumbled as he got up to answer his phone. As Jay walked outside, Hannah could hear the tone in his voice change from polite to charming and downright sexy. The gravel underneath the heavy bass of his words was so engaging Hannah tiptoed behind him outside the restaurant.

“How do you like it baby girl?” Jay whispered seductively, “Cuz I like it hot and slow…” Hannah gasped and slapped a hand over mouth. Jay heard and spun to stare at her as he kept murmuring into the phone. Hannah continued to stare at him with wide eyes until the point that her knees were weak and she heard a loud satisfied moan come over the speaker.

Jay hung up the phone and smiled at her with liquid violet eyes. “I have to make some extra money for some old hospital bills” he stated matter-of-factly.

Hannah gazed at him. “Do you do live performances too?”

Jay’s jaw dropped “Y-yes.”

“Lets go.” Hannah began to sashay down the street, “oh, and I want your phone number.”