{"id":1023,"date":"2023-01-24T09:07:38","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T14:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/?p=1023"},"modified":"2023-01-24T09:07:39","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T14:07:39","slug":"yarnidermis-by-ruby-rorty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/?p=1023","title":{"rendered":"Yarnidermis by Ruby Rorty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There is a woman made of yarn and all day she sits and knits. She has already knitted herself and her home and her daughter so now she knits sweaters. It is a good thing the yarn woman runs cold because she is, right now as I write this, wearing ten sweaters and knitting an eleventh. The overall impression is that of a furry, multicolored person with extremely thick skin around their arms and torso: yarnidermis<\/em> is what I would call it if I were a scientist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The yarn woman is my grandmother but I am not made of yarn. Being made of yarn is a recessive trait. Inside my grandmother, yarn twists in double helices and spools in nuclei. Scientists are always trying to untangle my grandmother. We keep spray bottles in every room to keep them away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHand me that pair of needles,\u201d says my grandmother. The ones in her hands have charred black smudges from where they\u2019ve sparked because she knits so very fast. I do hand her the needles, but I know what she really meant was \u201cDon\u2019t become a scientist.\u201d I find myself staring guiltily up through the ceiling and to the chemistry set in the corner of my bedroom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to say \u201cI would be a nice scientist.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to say \u201cI would never unspool you, grandmother made of yarn.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to say \u201cSome scientists make things, and never destroy them.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to say \u201cI can be a scientist who wears ten sweaters and hands you needles.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I don\u2019t. Instead, I say, \u201cWould you knit me something? Maybe a purple turtleneck?\u201d and my grandmother smiles a stringy rainbow. She wants me to be yarny like her. Or she feels lonely being the only one. Or she loves knowing that I am warm in a cold world full of scientists. Or possibly she just wants me to have a purple turtleneck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The yarn fire crackles. Two needles click faster and faster. Somewhere outside, a yarn hound bays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

________<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruby Rorty is a writer and researcher in Chicago, IL, where she works as an analyst at the Center for RISC. Her work has appeared in<\/em> HAD,<\/em> the Bear Creek Gazette, and <\/em>Variant Lit, among others, and has been nominated for the Best Microfiction and Best of the Net anthologies, as well as a Pushcart Prize. Ruby tweets <\/em>@RortyRuby<\/em><\/a> and Instagrams<\/em> @ruby.rorty<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a woman made of yarn and all day she sits and knits. She has already knitted herself and her home and her daughter […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1035,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions\/1035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}