The thread
She couldn’t remember when she had first spotted the thread or how it got there. It was red and very thin. Wound tightly around the stone she still wore on her finger. It hadn’t been there early in the morning. She had taken off her ring so she could wash him. Even though everyone had advised against it, she had insisted on doing it herself. Somehow, her hands had managed to soap themselves and carefully she had let them glide over his body. It had been cold and still and strangely dense. When she reached his face she had heard a sound escape her throat. Strangled. Muffled, as if belonging to someone else, far away. His hands had been the most difficult. They had reminded her of the moments he had placed them on the small of her back, making her feel like a three-year-old and a desirable woman at the same time. And then, the undertakers had come to take him away. All that was left was the kitchen table and the chair on which she sat. The light on the kitchen table had shifted, inch by inch. A fruit fly hovered over the apricot in the blue bowl. Slowly, she started unwinding the thread from her ring. With it, something inside her loosened. She tried to push against it. Put it back in its trembling, fleshy cover and stitch it shut. She got up from her chair and walked towards her sewing kit.
by
E. A.
4.11.2011
image by Belgian artist Ronal Ceuppens
found via
guest post by e/lady oracle
3:53 AM
Unknown
