The Joy Of Knitting

     She met Thomas at her grandfather's funeral. He made her laugh by leaning over the coffin and nibbling on her grandfather's ear. It was the only thing that lifted her spirits that horrible day, and since then she couldn't get him out of her mind. He'd told her his name, but hadn't asked for her phone number, nor offered his, and she wasn't sure if she'd ever see him again. She briefly entertained thoughts of staging her grandmother's death, to bring them into contact again, but that became unnecessary when she ran into him outside an abortion clinic at the outskirts of town. She was just browsing, and he was there dropping off a friend.
     "Lilly," he said.
     "Thomas," she replied.
     And thus began their strange and delightful courtship in earnest. A few months later Thomas and Lilly would return to the abortion clinic, where he would drop her off before leaving town with an anesthesiologist. But until then, things were heavenly, and Thomas made Lilly laugh every day, sometimes by returning to his ear-nibbling routine with her grandfather's corpse.
     And then later, when his seed was being removed from her body, she thought about taking up crochet and wondered if there was a free class at the local library.
     There wasn't.


(Copyright 2015 by Michael Doherty)