Unraveling Helen

Helen hates the long walk home from work, hates the birds of Creston Park, and hates being alone.

Mostly, though, Helen hates being made of yarn.

The goldfinches and tanagers flap their wings and pick at her, taking strands of her arms, her hands, and even her face to build their nests and impress their mates and have little goldfinch and tanager chicks.

She sees couples making out as she passes a sign for the Ross Island Bridge. Helen imagines having lips made of skin, and what it would be like to get her hair stuck to them and what it would be like to ignore it as she drove her tongue – a tongue! – into someone else’s mouth.

The wind comes up and knocks her to the ground, her long coat falling open. No one helps her up. But the birds come, again, and pick at her, now exposed, blue thighs and ankles. Helen imagines having legs made of skin, and what it would be like to feel nylon stockings or have a massage or get her toenails – toenails! – painted. Choosing a color.

Again upright, Helen walks on, but the birds follow like sharks. She doesn’t look back, just tries to shoo them away, but a loose string flies up from the back of her hand and they go wild. She stands still and lets them pull, like they always do, she lets them pull and squawk and puff their chests at each other. She doesn’t like the pinching of their beaks and doesn’t like the tearing of their talons, and when she tells them to stop, they don’t.

She imagines the colors and kinds of yarn she will use to repair herself when she gets back to her apartment. She would like to add some pink, but she is out of pink. Or her favorite color, mint, but she is out of mint. She is out of every color but blue – blue lambswool, blue cotton, blue acrylic. Always blue.

Helen imagines what it would be like to have skin and not be blue and not have to repair herself at the end of each day. Mostly she imagines what it would be like to cry – cry! – and what her eyes would look like after.

And then the birds are gone, eating some seeds spilled on the ground below a nearby trashcan. She gathers herself, but her body feels like it’s wound too tight, like she might unravel before she makes it to Division Street and on to home. She hears the birds coming for her again, puts her head down, and keeps walking.