She carries with her, everywhere she goes, a long silvery thread, and at the end of each day she sits, and upon her leg, upon her knee to be exact, she places the thread, coiled, carefully, and watches it to make sure it doesn’t fall or blow away in the breezes that move through her room. And of course she falls asleep like this; and when she wakes each morning, at first she jolts a little at the thought, cold and sharp, that the thread might be gone, might no longer be on the knee, on the leg where she placed it the night before.
Barry Lee Thompson
writing short fiction
Oh my God. Seriously. This. I. Love. I take it as a great metaphor for fixating on something in life that is so fragile and precarious. All in vain. Please explain the motivation and meaning of your piece? Thanks.
Hello, and thank you for your generous comment. I liked hearing your interpretation of the story.
A very meditative piece. I enjoyed it.
Thanks for dropping by, Eric.
This says so much Barry. It’s a great piece of flash fiction that stays with the reader – wondering…?
Thanks for reading and wondering, Helen.
Well chosen, Barry. Threads – how evocative. No surprise when writing about women. As I sit with my colourful mixture of variegated thread wound round a ball, then deftly unfurl the thread into knots and then recompose into curled jewellery to be worn round the feminine neck. No surprise when Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney in A Secret Sisterhood write of thread, too. Using the power of this metaphor in their summary. Go to Google Books, find their book, search for thread & read from pages 253, 254, 255. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=4WM6DwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=secret+sisterhood+emily&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcxqfJ1uXlAhXTe30KHV7fD6oQ6AEIKDAA#v=snippet&q=thread&f=false
Lovely to hear from you, Deb. Thanks for reading the story. And for the link, which I look forward to reading.
We never want to lose something so carefully nurtured and attended to. Thanks, Barry.
No, we don’t. Yet the loss is perhaps inevitable. Thanks for reading, Margaret.
Enjoyed it thanks
Thanks for reading.