Draped in Time

In a pitiful attempt to smooth them, each wrinkle became a deeper crease.  The woman sighed. She held her iron more tightly. Held tightly, wrapped up in someone….She shook her head. She would get out of the house one of these days.

The fabric she ironed was unruly. Sometimes stiff, sometimes silky and delicate. Filled with holes and for every wrinkle that she smoothed out, a thousand more appeared. The material covered every surface in the room; hung from hooks in the ceiling, laid out across the table, twisted on the floor. It was blue and starry, lightening, darkening, and swirling with clouds.

Everyone wondered why her father had kept old things, why she continued to keep them. She knew why; they were beautiful.

Her father hadn’t been careful enough with the things he kept. He’d let the cloth fill with holes and wrinkles. He had smoothed things out here and there, but he was old fashioned to a fault. He said ironing was for women to do, so he wouldn’t iron his prized possession and he wouldn’t let anyone near the room where he kept it.

Everyone said she was too careful, where her father hadn’t been careful enough. Leave the room alone for a while. Go get your nails done, watch a movie, or fall in love with a guy, before you even know him well enough. Whenever she was away from her work, she was anxious. It was really better this way.

There was no ‘everyone’ anymore though. They had all gone away. Her mother couldn’t stand the house where she’d lived when her husband was alive. Her sisters were all so pretty. They were probably curled up in bed somewhere with the love of their lives. That’s where she wanted to be, but no. She was father’s favorite. She was shown all the old things and had to have them. She inherited the mess of millennia.

When she’d held the fabric in her arms for the first time, she’d thought she’d always be happy. The truth was she hadn’t been happy for a long time. Worst of all, she thought her work had no purpose anymore, but she couldn’t leave. It would be too painful.

Look now, a tear in the cloth. There were no seams, of course, but she picked up her needle and thread and tried to sew it up as best she could.

     “Dad, I hate you,” she said aloud, “you made me the fixer and now I am nothing else but that.”

She had been something else once. She had been able to leave the material alone for a while, when her father had only recently passed.

There had been a boy too. His face was too far away to remember, but his smile was brighter than the sun and when he was sad a cloud covered everything.

He was always holding her. Whenever he saw her, he would wrap his arms around her. He’d had a name, but she had lost it. How had she forgotten that?

He’d kissed her too, all the time. When they were alone and when they weren’t. It made everyone embarrassed, but he was never embarrassed. He’d said that he’d be there forever.

He was going to take her away from it all; her mother’s anger and her father’s shadow that loomed over everything. They had made up a lie, a clever lie about where they were going. She’d forgotten it. He’d be sure to remind her soon, she thought.

He was waiting downstairs for her when she’d seen a loose thread in the fabric. She knew what her father would have said: never leave loose threads. The boy had said forever, so he could wait a little longer.

     “I’ll be down soon!” she called to the house she didn’t know was empty. I’m sure he’s still waiting down there. If he was really in such a hurry to go, he would have come up here to get me. I hope mother isn’t giving him too much of a hard time. When I go downstairs I’ll have to ask him what our clever lie was. I’ll have to ask him his name. He won’t mind, he never minded.

How can I be sad? She thought. I’ve almost smoothed out every last crease and the love of my life is waiting downstairs for me.

Her fingers faltered. It must be time for me to sleep, she thought. She, with great pains, got down onto the floor. When had sitting down become so difficult? No matter.

     “Father,” she said, “I’m not mad about this task you gave me.” Time had been a brilliant man, she decided.

She wrapped herself up in the fabric of time and was with everyone and no one all at once. She lay down on the floor. If I don’t move around while I sleep, I can smooth out the wrinkles in the morning, she thought sleepily.

The daughter of time had grown old. Her past, present, and future had become too confused for her to know it. The daughter of time expired on a day she didn’t know, in a month she didn’t know, in a year that was far beyond what she would ever have guessed.

Somewhere, an old man sat on his porch. He was painfully aware of the passage of time. Every day could be his last and he knew it. On that sleepy afternoon, he was graced with a distant memory, a good memory of a beach long ago. The old man smiled as brightly as the sun.