Running Repairs - Audrey NIven

The lie starts here: your grandmother darns a sock or picks up a hem on a party dress and

you believe that everything can be mended. She shows you how to thread a needle,

moistening the end between tight lips. You practise. You hold the needle up to your eye and

jab at it with the thread until it passes through.

When it happens, the first thing you do is take up a needle and thread it. You tie a knot and

poke the needle through. You sew up the cuffs of your shirt. You fasten all the buttons from

midriff to neck and sew a firm backstitch up the button band. You turn up the collar and

stitch it closed. You sew up the hems, front to back, sealing the whole thing flat. You sew up

your knickers. You sew your jeans. You lie in the bed and sew yourself into it, sheet to

blanket. You pass your own hair through the needle and sew your head to the pillow. You

sew your tears to your face. You sew your lips together. You lace your hands and place

them over your eyes, your ears, your nose.

When they find you, you are still weeping, still bleeding, still dying inside. They cut you

loose, stitch by stitch, unthreading the wool and silk and cotton. They wash you gently

where you lie. They cut your hair from the pillow and take all the bedsheets away.

In time, you learn the principles of repair and renewal: applique, embroidery, felting, the

ways to make things whole again. But at night your tired fingers run over your mouth,

tracing the stitches that hold in the scream. Some things can never be mended.

***

Audrey Niven is a Scottish writer, teacher and coach based in London. She’s won prizes, commendations, Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations for her flash fiction and is published in the Bath, Oxford, Reflex and NFFD Flash Fiction Anthologies, Lunate and Ellipsis Zine amongst others. @NivenAudrey