By ALEX WOMACK
I hold it in my hands. My finger finds a thread and traces it, from white to gray to black, and marvels as it darkens. Is this color enough? What about the length – how many yards is enough?
I look around the aisle. I grab a second, then a third spool in my hands, probing them with my fingerpads. I’m interrogating them with my senses.
No, I’ve decided. He would want to use this first one. I want this first one. I stare down at it, smiling, like a father watching an ultrasound.
Needles in my hands, I feel the softness of the thread. My wrists turn one way, then the other. I’m beginning a slow, careful dance, turning and pushing my fingers until I form something worthy. He would want nothing less. I would accept nothing less for him.
Line by line, I continue to move the same way, entranced in a looping pattern. Even though I’m the one creating it, it feels almost as if it’s making itself. The movements I am doing are a mere incantation, instructions to watch it grow to life before me.When it is at last finished, I gaze at the newly born creature, drinking in its essence with my eyes.
It starts in a midnight ebony on one end, blending in with the darkness. But as I follow along it, tracing the soft yarn along the way, I see it slowly lightening, becoming more distinct against the dim background, its vibrancy more palpable. It settles into an inoffensive gray before growing lighter still, brightening until at last, as my finger traces from yarn to floor on its other end, it becomes a spotless white. Like a pattern of clouds in the sky. I run my finger back and forth, stormy to clear and clear to stormy, and realize that I want more.
I grab it by both ends and wrap it around me, rubbing it into my neck until even the soft wool feels scratchy, listening to the sound of the wool rubbing back and forth, tighter and tighter, and just as it threatens to tear my skin I let go, letting it hang around my neck. Is it comfortable enough? Is it good enough? I decide that it is.
Packaging it feels the hardest. My dead cells have already intermingled with the fleece, the oil on my skin becoming a part of the finished creation. Is it wrong to feel like I’m giving away a part of myself?
It comes in a simple yet elegant box, and I know immediately from the design who sent it. I open it with anticipation, and even though I know what I’m expecting, the gleeful surprise manifests in me regardless. Folded neatly, there it is. The result of what I picked out.
I touch it – carefully at first, afraid somehow that using force might hurt or break it – but miraculously, it remains intact, and I pluck it out of the box with further courage. He really did it. And it’s beautiful.
I press it against my face, closing my eyes, and inhale, drinking in the old yet comfortable scent of yarn. It feels as if I’ve entered a different world, one that he’s created especially for me, and I can do nothing but to accept it as it envelops me.
Realizing how foolish and irresponsible it would be of me to let the ends of the gift touch the ground, I take hold of both ends and cradle it all in my arms. It’s beautiful, I keep telling myself. It’s beautiful how he’s beautiful. It’s beautiful how he thinks I’m beautiful, to be deserving of something like this.
Then I decide to wear it properly, and wrap it gently around my neck. It is perfectly soft and perfectly snug. For a moment, when I close my eyes and lose myself, it feels as if the thread is his flesh, and his arms are the things hugging me.
How silly. And how wonderful. I cannot help myself, and laugh.
Across the room, I see him. For the most part, his form is the same as usual – but it is the exception I am drawn to. There it is, my fragile progeny around his neck. I feel a giddy warmth, a conspiratorial smile tugging at the corners of my lips. He doesn’t even have to look at me. Just knowing what he’s wearing is enough to make me feel content.
His. Mine. Ours.
Writer | Alex Womack ’27 | awomack27@amherst.edu
Editor | Leydn McEvoy ’25 | lmcevoy25@amherst.edu
Artist | Xenel Islam ’26 | xislam26@amherst.edu