Notes From the Bridge #3A

I got a call from my parents' phone at 8:31 PM,

It was a nurse.

Can you come right away?

I called my sisters first.

Driving, one light ahead of me on the road,

It was 1:30 in the morning by the time I got there.

On the way,

I thought about the three sisters,

I'm the oldest, so I guess that makes me Atropos, the Inflexible.

People tell me to be more flexible.

I was cutting some yarns just before.

Then, it would follow,

The middle sister would be Lachesis, the Allotter of Life.

What kind of thread did she dispense in this case?

Was it brightly colored, dull and scratchy, woolen, smooth, shiny and slippery as it came off the wheel? She doesn't have much

choice in the matter, she just guides it.

And the youngest would be Clotho, the Spinner.

The decision maker until the very end. Did the thickness run true? How smooth was the thread, how satisfied was she with the quality of her labor?

The next day, they said the thread was cut at 8:36 PM,

but my mother thought 8:32 maybe.

Since I cut thread a lot, I'm sure she was reacting to something: a weak spot, the wrong color, a strand with something amiss.

All the thread there in a pile, some knotted, some salvageable, some handed down to be reused.