The Strange Quilter

by Quiltman, Carl

  “Fine. Just fine. Sorry about my call yesterday. I was a bit confused, but I'm okay now. Yesterday was an off-day. It happens.”

  “Yes it does. It happens to the best of us. I wanted to check if there was anything you'd like me to bring to the group? Any snacks or drinks?”

  There was a long pause on Nell's end. For a second, I thought we'd lost our connection. “Good thing you called. Bring a big bag of corn chips.”

  “Anything else?” Again, a long pause. Long enough for me to worry.

  “Yes. Yes there is. The most important thing of all. If you've recently discovered an interesting quilt block, bring it. It doesn't matter if it's one you've made or not. I've asked all the members to do this. It will make for an interesting project.”

  Now I was the one to pause the conversation and create an uncomfortable silence. Serendipity.

  Chapter 5: Quilting Revelation

  I was excited, anxious, and oddly nervous, as I pulled up and parked in front of Nell's Threads. The shop was still open and a few customers were browsing through the fabric isles. I could see the shoppers through the storefront window, and, way in the back, the friendship group sat around the folding tables. I wasn't yet ready to enter the store. I unbuckled my seat belt and got out of the car. Instead of walking into Nell's, I walked into the convenience market as few stores down.

  I was looking for their biggest bag of corn chips. I found them near the front of the second isle. I bought two bags to make sure there was plenty to go around. I brought them to the counter and a young man rung up my purchase. I paid him cash. He gave me a quizzical look. I didn't know what to make of that look. No one has ever looked at me exactly like that before.

  “You're marked,” the young clerk said. I didn't respond, not understanding what he meant. “I've seen it once before in my life, as a young boy in New Delhi. It was my friend's father. You have the same mark. You are very fortunate, or very unfortunate. That is up to you.” He placed the corn chips in a plastic bag, smiled and said, “Thank you. Come again.”

  I walked out of the convenience store bewildered. My life has always been very ordinary. My sensibilities have never been threatened by a thorn prick to my reality bubble. Sure, Ken looked for that sort of thing. He wanted his reality challenged. He would, I imagine, like nothing better than to be abducted by aliens and whisked away in a flying saucer. I like my reality solid and unchanging. I like my days predictable. One of my life's most solid foundations was the friendship group. We met every week, worked on projects, discussed friends and relatives, and, if we had time, solved all the world's political problems.

  I stood now before Nell's Threads, looking through the storefront window. Why was this shop so intimidating to me now? A place that once was so warm and friendly, a little island of sanity in a world that seemed so crazy. This was silly thinking on my part. I opened the front door, the tinkle of the bell above the door announced my entry, and entered what I had long thought of as my second home. No one paid much attention. I walked over to the friendship group. Nell was standing near the table with a plastic bowl in her hand. She placed the bowl on the table. Nell smiled a 'thank you' at me and took the corn chips I'd brought and filled the bowl with them.

  I sat down with the other ladies at the table. I greeted them all, happy to see everyone looking energetic and healthy. Maxine looked at me with her contagious smile and asked, “Did you bring your quilt block?” I finally noticed that everyone had their quilt blocks laid out before them on the table. These were newly rediscovered or newly discovered quilt blocks, either made by the bringer or not. I took the Rolling Star quilt block from my shoulder bag and set it on the table in front of me.

  The dizzy spell grabbed hold of me once again. I placed both my hands on the table in an attempt to stop the world from spinning. The dizziness eased, and I saw that everyone had brought the same design, the same Rolling Star pattern. The only variation was the color; each block was based on multiple shades of a single color. Mine was blue. Maxine's was red, Anne's was yellow, Sharon's was gray. We four were the only ones in attendance today, besides Nell, and we had all brought the same block pattern, each one with a monotone color theme. The world spun about me faster and faster.

  Nell broke the spell of my whirling world when she announced, “I'm closing shop. Excuse me...” She flipped the 'Open/Closed' sign on the storefront window to the 'Closed' side and locked the front entrance after the final customer had left. She walked behind the counter and worked on entering information into a small laptop next to the register. She worked at that job for nearly ten minutes.

  The friendship group had already begun discussing the unlikely coincidence of all our blocks having the same design. And on further discussion, we found out that each of us had accidentally stumbled across our blocks in the most unlikely of ways.

  Maxine said, “I found mine on my front porch. I figured one of you did it.”

  Sharon said, “This one was buried under a pile of old fabric that I was thinking of donating to the thrift store.”

  Anne said, “I couldn't find anything to bring. I found this block in the parking lot as I walked over here. Odd, isn't it?

  I said, “I nearly tripped over this block while walking with Ken this morning. It was rolled into a ball on the sidewalk.” I looked at my friends for a long minute, studying their expressions. They seemed as puzzled as I. We were all experiencing this strange reality shift together. I have now gained a new respect for my husband's oddball interest in flying saucers and the supernatural. He must know something I don't. The one comforting thought, in entering this unfamiliar world, was that the friendship group was going through this weirdness together. We weren't all going nuts at the same time.

  I hoped.

  Nell was finishing up at the laptop. She shut it down and closed the lid. She then placed it on a shelf beneath the sales counter. No sense leaving it out as a temptation for someone to steal. It could be seen through the storefront window at night, if left on the counter. Nell walked from behind the counter over to the friendship group table. She grabbed a corn chip, poked it into the bean dip, and crunched down on it. “I'm glad you all participated in the block sharing. It's interesting that they're all Rolling Star block patterns, and that they all have a single color theme.”

  “What's this all about?” Sharon asked.

  “Yeah,” I added.

  Nell took another chip from the bowl and dipped it into the bean dip once again. Corn chips were addictive once you started eating them. “Actually, we have a surprise speaker coming tonight,” Nell said, after finishing her chip.

  Maxine looked happy, smiled widely, and said, “Really? Someone famous?”

  Nell looked as if she was ready to speak right away, but instead, quietly contemplated an answer that was truthful, yet not too revealing – at least, that was my take on her attitude. She finally said, “Our guest has appeared at various times on the cover of those newsprint gossip magazines, the ones with the outlandish headlines at the checkout counter of the grocery store.”

  I was hooked by Nell's introduction, but felt I shouldn't be. Nell may have suffered an early onset of dementia and needs to see a professional. Every member of the friendship group sat bewildered, wondering about what Nell had just said. Was she losing her mind? Was she pulling a prank? Or, was she as sane as could be – in which case, we'd better prepare ourselves for what was coming next. The ghost of Elizabeth Taylor?

  Nell gestured for us to look at the back door that led to the shop's storage room. She said, in all seriousness, “Please give a warm welcome to Vanod, who will be visiting our friendship group this afternoon.” The back door opened, and a tall slim figure, wearing a black leather trench coat, walked into the room. This person was wearing a mask, a very convincing mask, of a stereotypical alien: gray skin, completely hairless, huge eyes, big brain, tiny chin and mouth, and a mere slit of a nose. The realism was further enhanced by its long thin neck, which had me stumped. It was a very convi
ncing makeup job. The alien impersonator casually strolled towards our table, its hands hidden in the trench coat's pockets. Our special alien guest sat at the end of the table, near where Nell stood.

  Nell walked over to the other end of the table and sat down. Maxine suddenly let out a laugh, then another, until it turned into an avalanche of laughter. The others followed suit, as did I. I could not stop laughing. For whatever reason Nell was pulling this stunt, it was hilarious. The amount of facial detail on the alien mask made it even funnier. Even its eyelids blinked open and shut, just like real living flesh.

  Nell wasn't laughing. She looked somewhat surprised at us for doing so. I thought she would have been pleased that her joke was such an uproarious success! After I thought about it for a minute, I realized her deadpan face was part of the act. She was going to milk this for all it was worth. Maybe she was having this filmed for some television show, like Funniest Home Videos.

  Sharon got right into the spirit of it and asked, “So Vanod, where's your spaceship?” This brought another round of laughter. Nell sat quietly, her hands folded together on the table in a nearly prayerful manner, observing our reactions to her invited guest.

  Vanod said, “I don't have a spaceship. That's not how we get around.” Its voice was a pleasant baritone, well modulated. It was an extremely soothing voice, at least to my ears. My nervousness melted away.

  “Tell the group how you travel,” Nell said.

  Vanod's large black eyes made it unclear exactly where or who it was looking at. Vanod said, “Where I come from, when we want to travel to another world, we enter into a travel request queue. Then we are processed in a buffer, turned into abstract data, transmitted to our chosen destination and re-assembled a molecule at a time. The assembly process - the congealing - can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour – however long it takes to clear the buffer. This procedure leaves a strong odor in the air, for which I apologize. The smell of ozone and burnt wiring is not pleasant.”

  “I don't understand,” Maxine said. “Is what you just said a joke? I'm probably too old to get it.”

  Nell felt compelled to elaborate, “It took awhile for Vanod's hands to appear. I was concerned. That's why I called you, Barb. I wasn't thinking right. You couldn't have done anything to help.”

  I listened to all this with waning interest. The joke was starting to turn a bit stale, unless this was going somewhere that related to quilting, so I asked, “Okay. How does this relate to quilting? There must be a quilting connection to this little skit.”

  Nell said, “It isn't a skit. It isn't a joke. Vanod is my friend. I'm trying to help it out.” The group laughed a little, but not for very long. Most of us were all starting to feel a bit uncomfortable with this act. “You all received your invitations. The Rolling Star block was Vanod's cute way of inviting you to hear his proposition. If you didn't find a block to bring, then you weren't invited.”

  Sharon was turning pale. I thought she might faint. Maxine looked fine. She appeared to be enjoying the presentation. Anne kept a slight frown on her face, a look that I thought represented indecision, as if she were trying to decide if this was funny or not. I thought it was amusing. Certainly Nell put a lot of effort into this joke, and I could appreciate that. But where does quilting come into the picture?

  Nell said to Vanod, “Tell the ladies about your proposition.”

  Vanod took his hands from his trench coat pocket and rested them on the table. They, too, were convincing pieces of costuming. It had three fingers and one thumb on each hand. The fingers were long, an extra joint in each finger and thumb, looking very alien compared to our own digits. “Where I come from, we love quilts. We love the beauty and comfort they bring. We display them on our walls and use them to keep warm in our beds. We love them, but we are not very good at making them. Even though I try very hard, I'm still a lousy quilter. Our physiology makes for bad quilting skills. Even our neural wiring is not optimized for that skill. We need your help. We need your quilts.

  We travel across all the standard universe trade routes, looking for those planets inhabited by beings that make quality quilts. We look for planets that appreciate the artistry and craftsmanship that go into their creation. Earth is one of those rare worlds that harbor inhabitants with the ability to make quality quilts. This very group is a fine example of our universe's gold standard of quilt making. My company would like to do business with you.”

  “How exciting!” Maxine said and clapped her hands together enthusiastically.

  “What? Are you serious?” I asked Vanod, then turned to Nell and asked her, “Is this real? This isn't some joke?”

  “Of course not,” Nell said, “this is a serious proposition. Vanod has come a very long way to make this business offer.”

  When the reality of the situation finally took hold, when I fully understood this was for real, the urge to flee swept over me. I can't speak for the others, but I wanted to run screaming out the door to my car, head home, and hide under the covers. But I didn't. Instead, I thought seriously about what was going on here. In an effort to quickly develop a more universal, cosmic sensibility, I accepted the situation, and took Vanod's proposal to heart. “How much? How much money are we talking about?”

  Vanod smiled, as best his small mouth would allow. “My company pays the equivalent of $10,000 for an original, bed size quilt. Any style of your choosing, but right now, the fad on my planet is for wacky crazy quilts. The crazier, the better.”

  “Wow. I'm in,” said Sharon.

  “Me too,” said Anne.

  Maxine stood up and walked over to Vanod and shook its hand. 'You've got a deal. But I do have one more question. What sort of currency do you pay us in?”

  Vanod warmly grasped Maxine's hand in both of its hands, and said, “Gold. Gold is the standard trade currency all the worlds use. It is accepted by every planet in the known universe.”

  This is exciting on every level. Right now, I'm dying to call Ken. My husband would give his right arm to meet an extraterrestrial biological entity. And here I am, closing a deal with one at this very moment!

  If we think we understand the nature of the universe, if we think we understand all there is to know of reality, then we have just slammed the door shut on the infinite possibilities God provides for all those willing to remain teachable. 'Blessed are the poor in spirit' has taken on a new layer of meaning for me.

  Nell stood up from her chair and said, “Our friendship group is now officially recruited to make quality Earth quilts for the greater universe above. Let's get busy.”

  The End