Iris

May 28th 2023

I walk behind a woman in a grey wool sweater; colored like the sky when it feels pressured to rain. She walks methodically and calculated, as if she has already walked this road alone. A small strand of yarn waves with the movement of her steps; the only proof of a snag in her past, perhaps on the corner of a table, or a door frame that she brushed against in the dark.

I match her steps and reach toward the flyaway, grasping gently at it, as it sways back and forth. She doesn’t seem to notice as I pull slightly, and her gate remains unchanged, as does mine. We walk this way for a short time, my feet landing on the sidewalk in the shadows of her own.

In a matter of minutes, my pace slows slightly in an attempt to catch my breath. I hold tight to the strand, refusing to let go. The sweater unravels with ease at first, and then begins to tug as the distance between us grows. At times, it catches and pulls the circulation from my fingertips. We pass storefronts, worn from age, and a park where young children gallop in circles around their mother. I find myself winded and breathless and I slow to a stop on the corner of an unnamed street, crouching to my knees. After a moment, I lose sight of her, and the tension breaks.

Frantically, hand over hand, I pull the entire length of her unraveled sweater toward the place where I sit, and watch as it catches on stones in the street and runs along the curb lines. Quiet tears streaming down my face, I hold the remnants of what once was in the palms of my hands; draping over and between my fingers, and twirling into a pile on the pavement, unrecognizable.