the seamstress

She stared at her fingers.

Shiny orange metal stared back at her.

The copper bits mocked her, taunted her, shouted her fears.

The silence of her workroom was suddenly thick and oppressive. For the first time she wished she had bought that old radio when she saw it in the shops last month, wished she had something to take her mind off of her 'healed' hands.

She turned off the lamp and left the room, hoping to forget all about the life she just lost.




Her fingers smelled sharp and tangy, a burning reminder of her disability.

Most days she managed to suppress her dreams, her desire to sit at her worktable and carefully stitch fine beads to a bodice, the drawn out shing of her shears through rich muslin and smooth silk, the quiet ache of her neck after being bent over the pattern papers for hours. She had closed that door and locked it, choosing instead to nurse her still-recovering joints with slow weaving.

She paid the neighbor-girl to wind the warp and thread the heddles for her and sat about with the window open, slowly working the treadles and moving from a loose cotton gauze carefully up to a plain linen, a fine silk, a thick brocade. And though the work was familiar, she found herself longing for the new metal bits in her fingers to wear down enough that she could at least begin a simple tapestry.

But the joints were still stiff, the metal too foreign for the flesh left between to properly grasp a needle of any size.




The day she sold her finest brocade for only a little under her old prices was the day her index finger had finally bent enough to properly grip a thick tapestry needle.

She used the money to pay for her shears to be sharpened, and bought a small cake at the local bakery in celebration.

The next day she managed to embroider a simple tree silhouette on a bit of linen.

She cut apart a few strings of beads and restrung them, just to prove she could.

That night she polished the metal bits to a high shine.

And as she laid down to sleep, she finally allowed the dreams she had kept at bay to creep in, trickle in, flood in.

She fell asleep smiling.


--
parts of a floor loom