Yarn by Jon Armstrong Page B

the arm and paraded me around for more questions and what seemed like ten thousand photos.
    "Are you really a slubber, Remon?"
    "How did you learn to knit?"
    "Did you really eat nothing but corn?"
    "How many flats did you kill?"
    "Do they kill the prisoners to feed the crop?"
    "What's your inspiration?"
    I tried to answer the questions as best I could. Kira usually took over with her warTalk. "He represents the crown of hardship… the transformation of potential into love… the hate of the criminal blossomed into the elemental cruelty of the finest men's fantasy skivvé ever knit!"
    For me the party soon became a whirlpool of sounds, faces, and a knot of feelings. One moment I would feel proud and powerful, but a moment later I would overhear some t'up say, "He's a filthy corn needle! She's just using him to save her beleaguered company. Meanwhile she's ruining men's fantasy skivvé!"
    And just when I didn't think any more customers could fit into the space, and Ginn and her drummer had cranked up the volume of their hammering melodies, and people were sloshing back milky glasses of something they called corn wine, eating roasted cougar vagina, laughing and gossiping and a few were even fashioning each other, four more entered our flagship-four Casper Union saleswarriors. I recognized Josephone from before.
    Once our customers saw who they were, they began to push back. The music came to a ragged end. The crowd hushed.
    "This," cried Josephone, pointing her knitting needles at the skivvé on the dressed mannequin, "is infamy. No man shall knit our crotches and certainly not a prisoner! It will not stand. You have finished your fantasy, Kira Shibui. We are simply here to cut the plaited cord and purl you and your knitter." With that she snapped her needles together.
    Kira stepped into the clearing before me. Her two new saleswarriors flanked her on each side. She seemed calm and cool. And when she spoke her voice was like curling vapor from pure ice. "The uninvited learn from the heart and the skill of our needles, and now that you have seen majesty, you will retreat and live in the lint below your automated knitting contraptions."
    Josephone's nostrils flared. Her mouth shrunk to a dot. Swinging her needles she whacked the mannequin in the face. The thing teetered back and forth several times and then clunked over backward and smashed on the floor. Josephone laughed like she had never seen anything so hilarious. When she turned to her minions, they imitated her exactly.
    I was near the back of the flagship, squashed in the crowd of frightened fans, customers, and shoppers. Behind me I heard someone mutter, "Kira's dead and so is that prisoner knitter of hers."

ARK TEXTILE TRADING
    In the foyer of the office of Ark Textile Jobber was a twenty-footwide model of a sunken ship complete with twisting vines of seaweed, a giant squid with glowing red eyes, several cavorting mermaids, their tails covered with radiant teal scales, and a giant crab with pinching claws. Above this papier-mâché menagerie hung a large lit sign: The offices and consult of Dr. Galvon T. Horse, Textile Prospector and Deep-Sea Fabricator.
    I paused for a moment, considered the garish colors, the grating typography and texture of the signage, and felt confident that this man and his company-one I had never dealt with before and would make sure not to deal with again-was the right choice for the illicit yarn I now needed.
    A mermaid came toward me. Her skin had been dyed blue and the cobalt glitter on her eyelids was so thick and apparently heavy she had to lean her head back to peer at me. "Babe," she began with a perfunctory smile as fresh as the Paleozoic, "do you have an appointment to see the beloved Doctor of Fibers?"
    I tried not to roll my eyes. "I'm Tane Cedar."
    "Oh." Frowning, she looked me up and down, she said, "You look thinner than I thought, babe."
    "It's the suit."
    Her frown, which was maybe the natural inclination of her mouth, tightened