Yarn

by Jon Armstrong

  Soon other men in the house asked me about it and they wanted me to do the same for them. After I had done half the house, our rep noticed and called me aside.

  "It's done with corn silk," I told him. "It's not against M-Bunny."

  He told me to stop, but then two days later came back and had me fix his shirt. When he slipped it over his head, he felt the same instant relief.

  Soon I was fixing the B-shirts of other reps. And even as I was noticed and being praised for helping M-Bunny, for adding to her splendor, assisting her men, down deep, I was the worst kind of disbeliever.

  I woke from my daydream seconds before the Nug Yar exit. If I missed it, I wouldn't be able to turn around until the Greenland exchange, another fifteen minutes away. "Cut me!" I whacked down the emergency lever, slapped the off button that electrified the fast fibers, grasped the steering rods, and nosed the Chang-P down the ramp to the speed reduction Loop-the dreaded thing for which the highway had been named.

  Only ten of these Loops still functioned. Improvements in road control and car navigation had made them nearly obsolete. It was only foolish drivers like myself, who actually controlled their cars, who ever needed to decelerate in the Ferris-wheel-shaped things. Basically, it was an enormous loop-the-loop of specialized elastometric and polarized road, which could slow a car to ramp speeds in less than a half-mile of space-that is, if the tremendous centrifugal forces didn't crush the vehicle or kill the driver.

  As soon as I entered the Loop and pressed the brake, the road rose straight up into the sky. At first the momentum pulled me toward the windshield, but as the car began to climb, I was slammed back. Weights seemed stacked on me ten deep. I couldn't keep my eyes open. Blood pooled in my feet and ankles.

  The dash was awash in warning lights, and every muscle in my body tensed as if to keep my skeleton from flying apart. I couldn't take in air. My lungs were flattened. I couldn't open my mouth.

  The Earth spread out below like a celestial dish.

  I'm not sure at what point I blacked out. Somewhere near the top, when the Chang was upside down, I imagined I was in a glass gazebo. Blaring light filled the place. Someone else was there, but in the glare I couldn't see. I reached out as if to shake hands, but the figure attacked. I saw my body hit, fall, and lay on the ground.

  Next, I was sitting in a plush seat. A distant mechanical tone sounded. Before me was a blurry checkerboard of orange lights. Slowly the dash came into focus. The reset button for the emergency system was flashing desperately. Reaching a hand- with exactly the sense of detachment one might have operating a robotic arm-I weakly pressed it. The car went silent.

  I had come to a stop at the end of an emergency ramp. The car was still on the road, but at a thirty-degree angle. I wasn't sure who I was. My sleeves were dark charcoal. I brought the right one closer to my face, and I could see that the weave was a low-twist, dual-satin that formed a satisfying pebbly texture on the surface. Something about it seemed familiar, but the idea was slippery.

  Then it came to me: I was Tane Cedar. I was a tailor and fabric designer. I was driving my Chang-P to Nug Yar, to talk to a jobber about getting Xi yarn for Vada. I was on a dangerous expedition and needed to be extremely careful. I knew I had just been warned.

  SEATTLEHAMA: WITH EXTREME LOVEEFFORT

  I couldn't go back to Withor. I hadn't ripped the drap-de-Berry yarn, and no matter what I told him, I knew he wouldn't believe me. Worse, I worried that he had known the woman was going to be killed. Maybe some designer had wanted a yarn from a murdered woman in drap-de-Berry. Whatever Withor was up to, I wasn't going to play his slubber. But he still had my papers. Once I completed the rip, he'd said he would give them to me so that I could be free.

  What was I supposed to do now? I couldn't report what happened to the satins. As a former slubber who didn't have his papers, I knew I wasn't supposed to be stealing yarns. I didn't think I was even supposed to be this high up in the city.

  I didn't know where I was heading, only that I needed to get away. At the entervator port, my MasterCut was rejected.

  "You'll have to see one of our credit and debit dungeon masters at the window," intoned the woman at the gate. I headed straight out of the port and threw the purple card into the first entertrash can I saw.

  When I found showstairs, I started down. Ten flights later, in a large glassy atrium, I stopped dead. Straight ahead was Casper Union. Kira Shibui, the t'up with the beautiful eyes and impassioned speech, had mentioned it. Grateful for something even remotely familiar, I headed inside.

  The space was large. Masked customers stood around tall plinths decorated with female mannequins in nothing but yellow skivvé. At the back, a band playing water-pipes and odd machines filled the air with an endless train of percussive thuds and raspy squelches. Saleswarriors in short white plasticott dresses were everywhere. Long, yellow, empty root-tubes hung from their crotches.

  One sashayed toward me, all blue eyes and corn silk hair. Her mouth was tiny and as red as a wound. Her skin was as smooth as organza. Her tube swayed with each step.

  "The properties of unison and union," she said, her expression firm and serious. "Your skin became her skin."

  "Listen," I whispered, "I met Kira Shibui a couple of weeks ago…"

  The woman's eyes-large before-grew huge as her mouth tightened to a knot. "How dare you come to our motherfloor and speak the identity of our enemy!" Turning, she spoke to two other warriors. "A traitor customer just uttered the wrinkled sound of Python Duck Weapon and that sad and starchless traitor, Kira Shibui." She then spat on the floor. "Even the shape of her name acidifies my tongue."

  I didn't know what I'd done wrong. "I just wanted to ask a question. She told me her address. It was 609 something… I don't remember the building."

  "Kira Shibui will soon be stuck upon the cold metal of my needles. And that will be her final residence!" The saleswarrior pulled out a pair of long, golden, connected knitting needles from a container at her waist.

  "I didn't mean anything. Do you know where she is?"

  Other saleswarriors gathered around us. One crossed her arms. "Leave now, sorry shopper, or Josephone will knit your intestines."

  Josephone jabbed her needles toward my gut with an angry grunt. I had to jump back or she would have stabbed me. Her face was red, her eyes, furious. She was completely rot! Turning, I fled.

  I wandered the hallways feeling suffocated by the city and its endless stores, shoppers, and crazy saleswarriors. I passed some shoe boutique and a woman in fluttering red stepped before me. "The destiny of your journey rests in the crotch of my desire."

  Reversing my direction, I began to run. My head felt filled with rot. I passed a large group of shoppers all dressed like crying bears. Another group wore black clothes covered with worms.

  Frantic to get away, I jogged down a seemingly endless series of staircases and came to a kiosk. The blonde smiled at me. "Hi. I'm your friendly, sultry infofighter, Sheila Top, with tourist, shopping, and fashion fornication information. May I help you in your reality, sir?"

  "I'm looking for a woman," I said between breaths. "She's a knitter… Kira Shibui… She said something about 609… I don't remember the building."

  "The fashion company you're looking for is Python Duck Weapon Men's Fantasy Skivvé," said the infofighter with a glaring smile. "It's in the lovely and practical Velour Building." She handed me a stack of cards. "Here's a complimentary Enterpass. Here's a complimentary city map… plus a coupon for a free Sweet and Unpleasant Throat Gusher from Melancholy Mouse Burger." She tilted her head to the side. "Seattlehama is the finest reality fantasy destination on the Rim. Have you gotten off in our city yet, sir?"

  I said yes, thanked her, and turned.

  From a nearby port, I headed back up a hundred floors in The Flying Drop, exited in the Velour, and soon found Python Duck Weapon. The store wasn't a tenth of the size of Casper Union and sat empty except for a single t'up woman who occasionally jangled the strings of
a water-guitar. In the center sat a black table with three headless and armless mannequins in blue skivvé with long, narrow root tubes. Since no one was around and the musician didn't seem to be paying attention, I touched one. The fabric felt incredibly smooth and light.

  I felt a presence and stood straight. Kira Shibui was three feet away, dressed in the same orange sailor suit. Around her waist, hanging from a belt with a bow, was a long, open pouch. In her right hand she held a pair of knitting needles at me.

  I put up my hands. "We met before."

  She peered at me for a long beat. "Ah, yes! I smell it now… the smoke of recollection." She tucked her needles into the pouch and then closed it. "You are the lost consumer from the shopping evening I acquired the Stanton-Bell." Her mouth quirked into a small smile. A scatter of freckles across her nose made me think of the beautiful dotted surface of a fried TakoDrop.

  I pointed at the display skivvé. "You knit these?"

  "On the legendary Stanton-Bell Tex-knitter 222," she intoned, turning toward the displayed skivvé. "The Stanton is an arrogant and glorious sister in the long war of our lives. A sweet sister, but one later tainted by the echo of spilled love." Whipping around, she glanced toward the front door. A second later, she turned toward the musician. "No percussion! In this crisis, I must hear every loathsome footfall!" She looked me up and down. "Come. We will talk in the safety of the design room."

  She led me through a hidden door into a room piled with boxes, cloth, notions, and half a dozen complicated machines. It was silent, and the smell was of cloth and concentration.

  She folded her arms. "Fill the air with your reasons."

  "I remembered you," I said with a shrug. "I liked your kitting."

  Her mouth was twisted to one side sourly. "You are not a scout, nor customer… I say you're not a tourist either."

  I was much worse. I was a yarn ripping, paperless slubber who had run after some ghost-killed drap-de-Berry. "You told me to come by to learn about knitting." Her expression didn't change. She had laughed so easily at the knitting machine store.

  "I do not recognize the slippery edge of your tongue." She narrowed her eyes. "Where are you from?"

  While I tried to think of anything but the truth, I just came out with it. "The slubs."

  Her eyes widened in horror. "Cut me," she muttered. "I thought I tasted the slur of a flat man… of a prisoner from the thirsty wormholes of the impoverished."

  "I'm not a prisoner!" I told her. "I'm from the slubs."

  "Slubs," she said, with a laugh. "A prosthetic word. Prisoner carries the moral and repentant weight of the dead lives lived. And yet, I understand your indignation as you surely can't be blamed for the devastation of that wide and sad monoculture." Pursing her mouth, she folded her arms. "And your presence… Why are you before me?"

  "I'll do anything for food and a place to stay."

  She scowled. "Python Duck Weapon requires no warriors of design, credit, or transaction."

  My heart sank. She showed me to the front door. I muttered awkward thanks as I stepped out into the shopway. For a while I just stood thinking. I couldn't return to the slubber ghetto. I couldn't go to Withor. Casper Union was out. Could I live on cuisine court samples and sleep in some hallway? Pressing my thumb gently against the sharp of the yarn pull glued to my middle finger, I wondered if I could rip yarn and sell them to the t'ups in the hallways. A woman in a see-through gown and furry black mask strolled by. Would you like me to steal a yarn for you? I imagined myself saying. I knew that was foolish.

  I started down the hallway looking for a cuisine court where I might get some samples. The only other thing that came to mind was to try to find my way back to the infofighter to get more coupons. I figured I could last for several days like this, but after that, I didn't know. Nearby, I found another information booth, but just stood near and watched the screens for anything about drap-de-Berry. All I saw were commercials for clothes, cosmetics, and costumes.

  "Man of dirt!" Kira Shibui stopped and looked me over.

  Had she heard about drap-de-Berry? Was she about to turn me in? I thought about running, but she didn't seem like she was about to accuse me of anything. She pushed my shoulder as if testing my weight and then poked at my bicep with an index finger.

  "Python Duck Corporate requires a Friday Officer. It's not a prestigious title, but one of muscle and bone."

  I was so happy, I laughed. "Thank you! I had a good feeling about you. And I was really impressed how you knit." Her expression was serious. I nodded like I might have to an M-Bunny rep and said, "I'm happy to help."

  Now her expression turned dark. "Help?" She shook her head slowly. "We are in fashion battles for our lives and we will only survive with true and extreme LoveEffort! Nothing will be required but everything." She glanced up and down the hallway anxiously. Then she glared at my TearDrop suit with disgust. "We must shop immediately."

  AN UNEATEN TWO-POUND FLUFFY BURGER AND AN UN-DRUNK KITTY PINK KOLA

  How close had I just come to dying on the Loop? Once I blacked out near the top, the Chang-P's safety intervention logic had kept the car on the road. But if I had lost consciousness a few moments before and maybe twisted the wheel to one side as the g-forces began to pull, I might have flown off the up ramp, launched myself a mile up, and gotten my baked remains on all the major one hundred thousand feeds.

  "You should pull over and rest," advised one of the Loop officials. "Get your neck and spine checked."

  While it was probably a good idea to have a full work-up, I had a deadline and had no intention of stopping before I got to Ryder's office. But as I drove away my hands were vibrating slightly and my throat was dry. Worse, the movies of what might have happened were so bright and loud I found it impossible to concentrate. Just a few junctions later, I pulled into a rest stop. Beyond the station were two family restaurants. I had my choice of the saccharine pink and yellow Melancholy Mouse Burger or the saccharine yellow and pink Fluffy Fun Bunny. I chose the latter because it was closer. Before I went in, I stuffed my ears with grey cotton yarn to cut down on the clatter of bomb-blast happy melodies and shrill sing-alongs.

  The place was enormous. A moving walkway whisked me half a mile away to the tables, where a jittery teen girl dressed in what looked like the offspring of a dandelion and a chimp stepped beside me and rattled off the specials.

  "Just a regular burger," I told her, "and a normal drink."

  She pouted at me. "Well, golly poo! Our superevil desert warlord, Mister Krunchy Smack Tart, will be so glad you're not treating yourself to one of his yummy chocolate and karabola face pies!"

  "Good."

  I found an empty table and chair and sat. Seconds later the girl returned.

  "One mouth-tingling two-pound, Fluffy Bunny meat burger," said the same dandelion chimp girl. "And a frosty, frigid super-bladder Kitty Pink Kola." She plopped a pink plasticott box before me. Blindingly bright cartoon critters, slogans, and logos covered every inch. She leaned in and whispered. "I added six hand-carved Europa1 golden-toasted beef-flavored snap-fries for you to try for free! If you like them, let me know-I can get you half off a Fat Daddy Porker order." She giggled ferociously and was gone.

  I used to feel it was critical that I get out of the studio more often, see and smell the world, taste its food, listen to its voice, music, and dreams, but in the last several years, whenever I ventured out, I usually ended up despairing the sheer ugliness of it all-the ever more intensive glare of the colors and the painful jangling of life's soundtrack. Most often I would retreat to my studio and head to my magazine humidifier for a copy of Pure H to cool my retina on the silky black-and-white photos and text.

  It was times like that I was most reminded of my client, Michael Rivers. Of course he had been born in the epicenter of the world's noise and chromatic violence, and I had come from the opposite direction. For him the rejection of color was rebellion; for me it was more complicated. It was rejection of the brutality of city color, but it
was also, in a way, an embrace of an abstracted version of the corn, of those days at the height of the pollen drop at the end of the summer, when the sun baked away color and left only light and shadow.

  For years, I had been pure grey. I assiduously removed all colors from my work, even at the microscopic level. My yarns were finished in such a way never to refract a tiny rainbow. My weaves and knits were created so that moiré patterns would not create interference colors. To white fabrics I added oxygenated films to instantly ameliorate possible stains. To blacks, I endlessly checked that there were not hidden tints introduced in the twists of the yarns and the mathematical dance of twills.

  After a decade of religious colorlessness, it was time for a change. Not just for myself but my clients. Fashion must change and even our anti-fashion had worn its jacket too long. After a week of sleepless nights, I chose another color: green-dark green-hunter and phthalocyanine green. And the achromatic dance I had been dancing came to an end. I was afraid of what my customers would think of that first dark green suit I crafted, and, indeed, when the fashion automaton came out into the studio wearing it that nervous day, my biggest buyer sat up, made a face and seemed about to protest. But a moment later, something changed in him, or more likely-I guessed-he understood that he too had evolved, and that his outside would now imitate, mirror, and amplify that.

  My client had at last found the vector of his life and stepped into the role he had been raised for. While it might be argued that green was the wrong shade-it wasn't the color of his family company, it held no special history-maybe because it came to him without meaning, he was able to give it his own.

  For me, of course, green had significance. But I hadn't chosen the greens of the fields and leaves I remembered-this green was dim, overcast. And as much as I liked the nebulous emeralds in my latest clothes, I wasn't quite sure if this new shade meant future or past, forward or withdrawal.