Darn
On a hot day, she can walk out into the coulee and pick the spines of the prickly pear without the flesh oozing for too long. The heat seals up the wound into a clear, bubbling froth, stilled before it has the chance to crawl down to the dust. Opuntia polyacantha. Open, prick, poly, ploy.
She makes the eye of the needle with her eye teeth.
Wild rye is good for mending. The rough tooth of the leaves holds well. Like an arrow, once it goes in, it doesn’t come out. Not without causing more damage. Same with the spurs of the seeds. Everything is pointed backwards so that forward is the only choice. Further, deeper. In. Foxtail barley will do in a pinch, too.
She has fists full of grass. Her tongue toys the sewing needles, careful, the way she might tongue someone else if she had the chance, but not a lot of people live out here. You’re not supposed to put needles in your mouth.
The ironstone cuts her feet but the colour is pretty, red-brown and more red, both oxidizing in the high sun. Breathing.
She lays down on a bed of creeping juniper, recumbent. It’s in the name. Juniperus horizontalis. From there the horizon looms, lifted by the reaching rills. A rock wren clips across her peripheral vision. Turkey vultures wheel slowly through the molasses of a dense thermal.
The blades of grass peel into strips between her fingernails. The strips pile on her bare belly. Bury her.
Afterward, she bites the chlorophyll out from under her claws.
The first strip enters the eye of the cactus spine. Now she can work.
It’s like darning socks. Same concept. Once you know where the holes are, you take a deep breath, imagining the skin stretching over the heel of a wooden egg. Sometimes the holes are hard to see, but she can always feel them. They burn like acid reflux. Like cutting chilis and touching your nose. Like waking up crying. All the little places where men have kissed her, where she wishes another woman would. Every threadbare, ill-fitting ache, begging to be remade in her size.
First, she starts with the warp. Pokes the needle through at regular, vertical intervals, close-knit stripes of rye tugged taut. The closer she puts them together, the denser the fabric will be in the end. She doesn’t want too many gaps. It depends on the fabric, though—whether she wants an invisible repair or a strident statement. She prefers the latter. Thick, ropy cords of rye holding her together, barbs flared, wreathed in the warm-sweet smell of decay. It is an art.
Next, the weft. Back and forth, under the first warp thread and over the second. On the next row, alternate. Basketweaving so small she has to squint, all the colour bleached out of her eyes. Her first mending wasn’t very clean—stems sticking out like a scarecrow—but she’s gotten better. Practiced.
Now, her work is green and good. Tight-knit. Impenetrable.
When one hole is gone, she patches the next. Her new coat grows, shimmering with silken spurs and the down of silver sagebrush. The juniper berries dye her gold.
The vultures admire her handiwork, and she prowls out from the hills through a fanfare of grasshoppers.
© 2023 Mary Sanche
About the Author
Mary Sanche is a queer writer, illustrator, and museum designer living in Canada. Their writing explores the union between science, art, and genre, drawing on their experience working for clients such as Canadian Geographic, Parks Canada, and BC Parks. Their first flash story was published by Ripe Fiction.