Introduction / Week 0
In the morning, I stumble into the room, guided by the dim outline of light around the edges of the pocket shutters. Perhaps once they were able to completely darken the room, but two hundred years later the wood is warped and covered with too many layers of paint. Still, they keep the room dark enough and provide insulation against the winter chill. As I slide them them open a voice booms in the darkness to the accompaniment of the skittering scrape, “MAMA!”
Knit two into three, slip, slip, slip, knit, knit three, knit three together...
1st April 1940 and they're not where they should be. Streets are combed block by block. Family and neighbors located. Yet, Dorothy and her twin sons are nowhere to be found. Questions are asked. All potential leads are followed. Finally, one afternoon, after months of searching, she turns up. Dorothy B---, age 20, inmate. But the infant twins, it's like they never existed at all.
Knit three, yarn over, knit three, yarn over, knit three...
They came in early autumn. First it was just one, inspecting an echinacea blossom in the garden. Next day we saw half dozen in front of a picturesque two story federal in Dock Square. Soon, they were everywhere. You couldn't walk to the beach without counting dozens. I'd never seen so many. Was it an omen? An invasion? A sign from God? Then one Sunday afternoon, while out pushing the carriage, it happened. Just as I was rounding the corner by the stone church on the ocean cliffs they soundlessly rose as one. There must have been hundreds of them, maybe a thousand or more. It was unfathomable. And then, as mysteriously as they had arrived, they were gone. Weeks later, I still felt a longing in my heart.
Knit one, slip one, knit two together, pass slipped stitch over...
In the middle of the woods there is a cemetery. No path leads there. Usually it is lost, until some adventurous soul wanders from the trail to push through scraggly branches and trip over gnarled roots. Then, maybe, if the course of trajectory is just right, it appears. First the granite posts and rusting bars that encircle the residents in their eternal rest. Then the twisted underbrush that threatens to consume everything. Some empty beer cans and soda bottles give testament to the fact that others have come this way. Just as the fine craftsmanship of cut and chiseled stone comes into view there's a loud snap.
Knit five, slip two, knit one, pass slipped stitches over, knit four...
A friend of mine once mused that we're all characters in a book. If that's the case, then call me Ishmael, for my stories often as not are about other people more than me. You know when you meet a main character. They're the compelling captains with an obsession. And I'm not one of them. I'm the person who goes through life seeking out main characters; surrounding myself with them; collecting them, if you will. I'm the one who remembers them and transmits that memory into the world.
Knit two into three, slip, slip, slip, knit, knit three, knit three together...
1st April 1940 and they're not where they should be. Streets are combed block by block. Family and neighbors located. Yet, Dorothy and her twin sons are nowhere to be found. Questions are asked. All potential leads are followed. Finally, one afternoon, after months of searching, she turns up. Dorothy B---, age 20, inmate. But the infant twins, it's like they never existed at all.
Knit three, yarn over, knit three, yarn over, knit three...
They came in early autumn. First it was just one, inspecting an echinacea blossom in the garden. Next day we saw half dozen in front of a picturesque two story federal in Dock Square. Soon, they were everywhere. You couldn't walk to the beach without counting dozens. I'd never seen so many. Was it an omen? An invasion? A sign from God? Then one Sunday afternoon, while out pushing the carriage, it happened. Just as I was rounding the corner by the stone church on the ocean cliffs they soundlessly rose as one. There must have been hundreds of them, maybe a thousand or more. It was unfathomable. And then, as mysteriously as they had arrived, they were gone. Weeks later, I still felt a longing in my heart.
Knit one, slip one, knit two together, pass slipped stitch over...
In the middle of the woods there is a cemetery. No path leads there. Usually it is lost, until some adventurous soul wanders from the trail to push through scraggly branches and trip over gnarled roots. Then, maybe, if the course of trajectory is just right, it appears. First the granite posts and rusting bars that encircle the residents in their eternal rest. Then the twisted underbrush that threatens to consume everything. Some empty beer cans and soda bottles give testament to the fact that others have come this way. Just as the fine craftsmanship of cut and chiseled stone comes into view there's a loud snap.
Knit five, slip two, knit one, pass slipped stitches over, knit four...
A friend of mine once mused that we're all characters in a book. If that's the case, then call me Ishmael, for my stories often as not are about other people more than me. You know when you meet a main character. They're the compelling captains with an obsession. And I'm not one of them. I'm the person who goes through life seeking out main characters; surrounding myself with them; collecting them, if you will. I'm the one who remembers them and transmits that memory into the world.