If everyone has a color, then my color is black. When I was born, I emerged out of the womb with spirals of ebony hair, surrounding a dark, angry face. My coal black eyes accused my mother of tricking me into birth. My parents were shocked as my three older sisters had been born Guinevere fair, with blonde peach-fuzz hair and ivory skin. Their ruby red rosebud lips were equal to Renaissance cherubs. I was referred to as the changeling. Thirty years later, I cannot find even one picture of me as a baby in their home.
I think that is why I have been plagued by the color black all my life. My black hair, cobweb fine, drapes around my thin shoulders in coils. Black shadows encircle my eyes, from too many nights of restless sleep. My skin is ashy, and no amount of lotion or self-tanning serums can cover the dullness. As a self-imposed jest, I wear black workout clothes 24/7, but I never work out. Instead, I walk for miles by the lakefront, trying to smile at people on the beach. My therapist tells me to smile at strangers. Smiling hurts my face.
My eyes, my only shot of color, are amber-colored like a lemur. Like the primate from Madagascar, I am always staring with wide, open eyes. I disarm people. They think I’m dreaming, but I am quite aware of what’s going on.
I don’t have long nails or pouty lips that sparkle. I don’t sparkle period. I can be an extra in the Hobbit, said my only boyfriend, before we broke up on a Ferris wheel at a carnival. He had grabbed my knitting to get my attention, and I threatened to jump out, but the doors were locked from the outside.
People make me nervous. My social skills are non-existent. I have always worked at home, web graphics and web consulting. I like to spin ideas with my clients. As long as we don’t have to meet face to face, I’m good.
I never learned the knack of getting along with people. Saying kind things about their messy dogs and noisy children, paying little compliments about their awful haircuts, smiling with sincerity as I wish them a happy holiday—I never got it. I see people and I take an immediate step back. I sort of smile but I feel my eyes can’t meet theirs. I wrap my arms around myself as we speak. I have been compared to a turtle in a shell and a depressing fortune cookie. If you get too close to me or threaten me, I may spray you with my venom.
What can I say in my defense? I learned these anti-social behaviors when I grew up. I’m the youngest of four, with over-anxious parents who insisted we get advanced degrees and become super-professionals. Yet, my sisters and I were also expected to make brilliant marriages, and have lots of babies. I drew the line at breeding on-demand, so after I finished college, I left home for good.
I left the web with high expectations. But even far away from my home, I felt the failure of my looks. I was dark, my family was light. I was ebony, they were ivory. I was tall and almost anorexic, they were petite, with soft, pink flesh like odaliques in a harem.
When I moved away, I threw myself into high-rise living, looking for new friends and a boyfriend. Both were illusive. I walked the lakefront for miles, to clear my mind. When I saw a cute guy, I smiled. I tried too hard for a social life. I should have put that effort into my work at the hospital, but I was always working behind an emotional veil.
My one true passion, unsullied by family, education, or work, was my knitting. I learned to knit as a young girl when I had pneumonia and was confined to bed. Great-Auntie Angelina taught me, the only relative I liked. After sprinkling my bed with holy water, she taught me to cast-on and slip off, and knit and purl on metal and bamboo needles. I could follow patterns with cables and shells, and after a while I could create and interpret my own creations. First for my dolls, I made dresses and capes, and then for my cat, Charlotte, blankets for her bed. As I matured, so did my craft. I made lacy sweaters for me in black wool. I excelled at baby clothes for my nieces, booties and buntings with intricate stitches. The names of these stitches, cocoons, wings, and busy bees delighted me. Other stitches, tulip, laburnum, puffs and vines, seduced me. My knitting needles become two friends, and the lovers I yearned for.
I took my knitting everywhere. On the bus to the library, at the required holiday family dinners, even on the treadmill at the gym. I made lacy shawls for Great-Auntie, who was now confined to her bed. I became very adept at walking on a 4.5 incline while knitting on circular needles.
“Hey, sweetie, aren’t you afraid you might slip and impale yourself with a needle?” asked Robbie, who thought he was a wit.
“Ara, darling, how are you ever going to meet a guy if you keep your eyes plastered to your knitting?” Lois, on her way to Pilates, dazzling in neon pink spandex, pointing magenta gel nails in my face, made me look up and blink.
I smiled. I was amused by their ignorance. They could never understand the connection I felt when I was knitting. I was attaching my inner and outer selves. What I created was more than an extension of my persona; the strands of wool were infused with me.
I became very proud of my creations. I couldn’t stop knitting. I read while knitting, I knitted while I ate, I knitted while I endured endless texts with my family, who wanted to know how I was doing, who I was dating, and how my new job was going. I lied but in reality–
Answers to questions.
No. 1. So-so
No. 2. Nobody
No.3 What job?
I was not looking very hard. Corporate America was not doing anything for me. I thought of traveling overseas to explore new wools and yarns, but like Great-Auntie, I was also confined in a sticky emotional web. I was afraid travelling would interfere with my work. I was living off my severance package and selling my knitting creations for high prices on-line. It sustained me.
I was becoming a bit of a recluse, so every day I would go sit in the residents’ lounge, in one of the big cozy lounging chairs and knit. I smiled at people working on laptops and talking on headsets and helped myself to the free coffee at the bar. One afternoon, as I returned with my mocha latte, I discovered a woman inspecting my knitting.
I was startled and a bit annoyed.
“Can I help you?”
“This is quite amazing work,” she said. “Isn’t this a chandelier lace stitch?” She pushed scarlet rhinestone glasses up a short, pink nose, twitching like a bunny. Copper red curly tendrils dangled around a full face with rosy cheeks. Her little lips, two ellipses of scarlet, were pursed in study of my knitting. She wore a loose caftan, that swished like taffeta, in shades of crimson and magenta embroidered with silver stars and moons.
Under her flowing gown, I surmised she was round and soft like mohair. I was as skinny as my needles. Flat chest, flat abs, but the cosmic joke was that unlike my grey face, my torso was ivory and unblemished, except for an odd hourglass shaped birthmark on my stomach.
“Yes, it is a chandelier stitch,” I said. “How did you know? It’s very rare and very difficult to do.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that it is,” she said, studying the front of the sweater and actually touching my needles. “I do a stitch like that myself.”
“Really? I included a variation that has never been seen.” I snatched my knitting and stood.
“That’s fascinating,” she said. Her pale blue eyes did not blink. “Perhaps we could get together and discuss our knitting and compare stitches?” I did not like the expression on her rosy face. Was that condescending arrogance? How could this woman, who could fit in with my family easily, with her vanilla skin, even suggest that we were on the same level with our knitting? My stitches were works of art.
“I don’t think I will have time,” I said. “I am very busy at work.”
“I see.” She stood up with a swoosh. “That’s too bad. But you never know, our paths might cross again.” She held out a small hand, with cherry red nails, filed into points. “What’s your name?”
I touched her fingers with two of my own. “Arachne.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she smiled. “I’m Athena.” As she drifted away, I caught a whiff of sage and the smell of wet wool.
I avoided the residents’ lounge from that moment. For socializing, I started riding the bus, from one end of town to the other, always with my knitting. Not that I spoke to the other passengers, but I was out there, out in the world. Sometimes a person would smile at me and make a comment about my latest creation, but I would just nod and pretend I didn’t speak their language.
Returning from another urban odyssey I found a note taped to my door. It was attached to a silk scarf, knitted from silk, so soft I could push it through Great-Auntie’s onyx ring that I wore around my neck on a silver chain. I didn’t recognize the stitch and that disturbed me.
Arachne, when can we get together and knit? Perhaps we can meet for coffee and have a little knitting competition. Text me.
Competition? Did she really think she could out-knit me? I laughed aloud as I trudged through my apartment, kicking yarn out of my path. I booted a ball of alpaca out of the way, and a bag of knitting needles that shone in rainbow colors. I swatted dozens of acrylic skeins off the sofa and plopped down. My coffee table was buried under balls of silk, linen, and cashmere. I ran my hands through my hair, which coiled around me defensively. It felt stringy, like melting taffy.
I fumed and mused. I could do this, I could show this woman that I was the master of yarn, the virtuoso of the impossible stitch. I picked up my phone and sent a text.
Yes, let’s meet up. When and where? And what should we make?”
No reply. I waited and waited. I ate flax and chia seeds; about the only things I could digest lately. Tepid tap water, was my drink of choice. Then it came.
Tomorrow? 10 a.m. in the lounge? Shall we make it interesting? You bring the needles and I’ll bring the yarn. Then we can improvise.
Improvise? Was she kidding? Okay, I can improvise. I’ll knit her right out of her smugness. I didn’t sleep very well. I dreamt of knitting stitches that morphed into creatures. I imagined balls of yarn, with the faces of my sisters, telling me to change my looks and my attitude. As if it were that easy. As if I wanted to change.
I was up with the dawn, drinking strong black tea and popping seeds like a madwoman. Vibrating with anticipation, I ripped through bags of needles, long, short, circular, double pointed—what should I choose? My fingers were long and could handle giant needles, but what if she chose slim, single ply yarn? Narrow needles needed finesse but could be tricky with heavier yarn. Was this a well-laid trap?
I decided on number five needles, mid-range size, and able to handle a myriad of yarns. I dressed in my black sweats, tried to comb my hair, but it seemed so fly-away and unyielding. In the elevator I looked at my reflection. Black, angular, emaciated, like a difficult yarn that had unraveled and was past its prime.
Athena was seated in a rocking chair, waiting. She held a tiny bag, a red bag that matched her caftan. It was so small that I almost missed it. I sat down in the chair next to her and waited.
“Good morning,” she said. “Nice to see you, again.”
I could only nod. Why lie? And my throat was so dry, I couldn’t speak.
“What did you bring for us?” I stared. She smiled. “The needles?”
I opened my bag and pulled out the number fives. One set red and one set black, my attempt at humor.
She reached out for the black set, but I forced the red needles into her hand. My competitor chuckled and opened her bag. She pulled out two tiny balls of yarn, one red and one black. How had she known?
“What color would you like?” There was a sly look on her face that made me want to do her harm.
If I chose the black, it would be hard to distinguish the stitches on the black needles. If I chose the red, I felt I would be giving into her mischief. I was not a fan of the color red. It reminded me of the lips of my sisters, who had never kissed me. Not even once.
I decided to be reckless. I chose black.
Her tiny crescent eyebrows, plucked to a thread’s width and penciled auburn, raised a fraction. “Good choice.”
“What are we making?”
“Anything you wish. We have one hour to create.” She looked at the clock above the fireplace. I felt a chill.
“One hour? Anything we want? And who is going to judge?”
She pointed with a little red talon to a row of men and women working at computer carrels along the windows.
“Now wait, that’s not fair,” I protested. “How do I know you haven’t prepped them first?”
“Oh ye, of little faith,” she murmured. “I haven’t said a word. At the end of the hour, we will approach them together and ask them to judge.”
I was suspicious, but I nodded in approval.
She pointed to the clock, uttered, “begin,” and we began.
I looked at the little ball of black in my hands. It was the oddest yarn I had ever handled. Sticky and yet slippery it emitted a little crackle as I cast on stitches. I was sure the needles were too large yet the stitches grew without much effort. I had decided to make a dress, with my own lace stitches that had never appeared in any book. Then I would don the gown and be able to dazzle the jury who I am sure would be speechless with my knitting expertise. My nemesis kept knitting. She never looked at me, the clock, or the jury. I wasn’t sure what she was knitting and I didn’t want to take the time to speculate. I wanted to finish my dress with a few minutes to spare so I could sit back, rock, and look bored.
I lost myself in my knitting. I was transported into a land where yarn reigned, where everyone wore hand-knitted garments, and knitting needles were used for discipline and in rare cases, public executions. This was my domain, here I ruled. Here I had no pretty sisters and parents who were ashamed of my looks.
I heard a cough. I looked up. My opponent was rocking, hands folded. She nodded at the clock. I had four minutes to go. I was almost done. Whatever she had knitted on red needles and red yarn was nowhere to be seen. I felt panic. My dress was done but I was knitting stars into the hem. I fiddled with a few more stars but I was rattled now and couldn’t concentrate. I tried to finish a star and dropped a stitch, something I hadn’t done since I was a child. I felt faint.
The hands of the clock slowly moved to the hour. I finished the last star and tied off my work. Thirty seconds remained. I felt a trickle of sweat rolling down my back.
“Shall we?” She stood and shook out her gown. I noticed ruby red slippers on her tiny feet. I was having an Oz moment and it wasn’t good.
We walked over to the row of workers. I couldn’t speak.
“Hello, can we bother you for a moment? My friend and I have just been knitting, and we’d like you to tell us which item you prefer and which should go on our blog for item of the day? We each had an hour to make something wonderful. On yarn this big,” she made a circle with thumb and index finger, “and on needles about the size of a pencil.” She winked at the jury.
She made it sound so plausible, so believable. The jury looked at us first in skepticism and then saw that we were dead serious so they agreed, but I saw amusement on their faces. We would me the entertainment du jour.
“You first?” She asked me. I was shellshocked and nodded yes. Fool, I should have gone last, it would have more impact.
“One moment, please,” I went into the coffee bar, pulled the dress over my black t-shirt and leggings, rearranged my hair, and walked out. I was certain they would find my dress amazing.
I heard gasps. The dress floated, the yarn shimmered, I glowed. Even Athena looked impressed and gave me a fond look, like a mother robin to the chick, before being pushed out of the nest.
“Your turn,” I said.
Out of her little red bag, she pulled out a blanket, but it wasn’t. It was a knitted map of the area where we lived. Our building was in the center and around it, was the river to the north, the lake to the east, and the hotels to the west. More gasps, mine included.
“So?” she asked the jury. “What do you think? Who is the winner?”
Perhaps it was the need in my eyes or the incredulity of some who couldn’t believe her map was made in an hour, but I won. The jury was polled and each hand was raised in my favor. I felt vindicated. I looked at my competitor and found her face as red as her dress. Fury and betrayal blazed in her eyes. I knew her work was amazing, but I felt my work was personal, and demonstrated my needs. I wanted to be lovely, for one brief second in my otherwise dark as squid-ink, miserable life.
I thanked the men and women for their votes. I was about to offer a coffee to the loser but when I looked at her, her face was a block of ice, her eyes little slits of aquamarine that chilled my bones. She did not speak, but raised her hand in rebuke? Tribute? Judgement? She waved a hand at me and I was dismissed.
Without another word, I stumbled up the stairs to my apartment. Each flight seemed more laborious; each stair sucked more life out of my lungs. I could barely move my fingers around the key to my door. They seemed to be shrinking, shriveling, yet transforming into the needles I used to trounce my opponent.
I crawled into the living room; I could not raise myself onto my sofa. I felt my arms and legs growing, spreading into an octagonal of limbs, with desperate fangs, eager for blood.
I crawled on top of a pile of yarn, and closed all my eyes.
About the Author
Felicia Carparelli is a queer teacher and musician, writing in Chicago. She has been published in Tiny Love in the New York Times, FlexxMag, The Rhubris, Coping with Cancer and Cure Today. Gotham Writer’s workshops have helped shape her writing.
Her mystery, Tile M for Murder, Bella Books, February 2024. Her thriller, Killing Mr. Darcy, darkstroke Books, 2022.
She is working on a series of short stories about people morphing into creatures, inspired by Greek myths, banned books, and Japanese ceramics.
About the Artist
Sammy is an artist and writer in Chicago, IL. Born and raised in Troy, MI, she does freelance work as a creative and is reachable via email sammloree@gmail.com. Updates on her work and commission openings can be found on her Instagram @samloreeart.
