Fine Linen, Finale

The movement stopped sometimes, and then went on. Fianlly it stopped and didn't start again. The linen rustled in anticipation. Would the hands take it out now? No. The sack was thrown into a dark corner, and there it lay.
They waited.
Strange sounds and smells surrounded them. Animals rustled and snuffled nearby. In the middle of the darkest darkness, there were frightening cries and groans. The cloth huddled, and waited.
Then -- it was happening! Hands opened the sack and drew out the cloth. But these were not the hands they knew! These were large hands, rough and hairy. Lina shivered fearfully.
That louder, deeper voice, the one they had heard before, said, "Is this it?"
And there was the voice they knew! "Yes."
Their beloved hands took them then, and unfolded them and smoothed them. Lina had never seen a look on the face like the look she saw now. It shimmered with such a love that she felt she would be happy to be even an old brown sack, if it made that face glow like that.
The hands spread the fine linen gently on a surface that rustled and poked. Then they laid something on the cloth. All the threads felt a shiver of excitement. It was a person! A tiny, red, wrinkled person who moved and kicked and made funny little sounds. The hands wrapped the cloth around and around the tiny body. Lina forgot all her worries and all her past. Suddenly nothing seemed more important, more exciting, no purpose could be greater than the one she now recognized. She and all the other fibers, working together, had been created for this one thing - to keep that soft, downy baby skin from touching the rough, scratchy hay. Lina snuggled close between the hands and the baby.
She was content.

The End

Repairing the Breach,
Debbonnaire

Fine Linen, Chapter Sixteen

Lina began to feel angry. She tried to drown the feeling and just enjoy the swayng ride, as she had learned to do. But the anger grew. It would have helped if she could see the face, but she couldn't. Or feel the hands. This was terrible. That was all. Terrible! Something the maker had proclaimed perfect and beautiful was to be packed away and forgotten! After all she - they - had been through!
Another long time passed. Days. Weeks? Maybe not, but it seemed like it. It was almost as bad as the early days after the plants had been torn from their field. Not because of physical pain, but because of emotional pain. Lina's anger seethed. Why should they have to just take it and take it and take it? The didn't even know what the purpose was yet! After all this time!
Some of the other threads felt the same way, but finally, quieter ones managed to have a say. They said everything they could think of to try to calm the others. One phrase stuck in Lina's mind. "The hands didn't do all this just to leave us now. It can't be for nothing. We just have to wait."
Wait! Again? Gradually, Lina calmed. Well, if nothing else, she knew how to wait. She knew, too, that the hands and the face, whether she could see them or not, were nearby. At last, she added her voice to the steady ones, and the length of linen settled with a sigh to wait. "We can imagine the face," she suggested. "We can see it in our minds. Surely it will smile again."
So they waited.

To be continued. . .

Repairing the Breach,
Debbonnaire

Fine Linen, Chapter Fifteen

Lina had no idea how long had passed when the hands took up the cloth and held it up in the sunshine, turning it this way and that. She watched the face. Its smile seemed more glowing than ever.
"Beautiful! Perfect!" came a voice. "Fine linen, clean and bright!"
Perfect! The threads seemed to quiver in excitement. They were perfect?
The hands they had grown to love folded the cloth into a neat square and put it unto a sack made of coarser brown cloth. Then they crowded other things in on top of it. Lina was startled. More time in the dark? What was this?
The sack was tied closed and put on something that kept moving and jostling. It was almost like the old rides on carts, but not quite. For one thing, it didn't creak. And it was warm and rather soft, as if it were alive.
The cloth heard another voice, a different, deeper one. "Here, my love, let me help you up."
There was a shuffling and a sense of great upheaval. Lina tried to shift so she could see even a tiny pinch between the coarse threads of the sack. The others asked her what was happening. She wasn't sure, but she rather thought someone had climbed up beside them on - whatever it was they were tied to. The sack seemed crowded by a leg in blue wool cloth. (She found she had a new affinity for cloth of any kind.)
There was an even greater upheaval, and a steady movement began. And never stopped. On and on it went.

To be continued. . .
Repairing the Breach,
Debbonnaire

Fine Linen, Chapter Fourteen

A sharp needle with a length of thread through its eye pierced the cloth over and over, all along its two ends where it had been tied to the rods. More suffering? The hands held the cloth close, so the threads endured in silence. But Lina began to feel the chill of fear once again. She had not felt this way for a long time now. What else was to come? Well, whatever it was, it would be worth it. The gentle face seemed to believe it, so Lina believed it.
The cloth was plunged into water, hot this time. It was beaten and rubbed with some kind of powder, then put into new water and beaten some more. Finally it was twisted and wrung, stretched out, and hung over some bushes in the sun. Lina and the other threads, which had shivered and huddled even more tightly to each other, relaxed in the warm, familiar light. It was better than a dark shelf, anyway!
They were left for a long time. Lina had learned to simply enjoy what there was to enjoy. The sun was woarming and whitening the cloth. The pale gold was fading away, and the linen grew whiter and whiter. Then hands turned them from time to time so they would all whiten evenly.

To be continued. . .

Repairing the Breach,
Debbonnaire

Fine Linen, Chapter Thirteen

[My daughter is now all registered and oriented for college, and I'm pretty sure I have several more gray hairs! Back to work. . .]

But this time the wait didn't seem so long. The hands unwound the ball and began stretching thread back and forth, back and forth, between two long rods. They seemed to stretch for a very long distance. Lina liked the fact that for once she could see. She watched the others, but mostly the face, which moved intently back and forth. It took a lot of balls of thread.
Finally, the end was tied off, and the hands took still more balls of thread and began a new action. The thread was wound lengthwise on long sticks and threaded under and over and under and over the individual threads stretched between the rods. When the hands reached one side of the group, they would turn and go over and under, over and under. Then turn, and under and over again. Between each row, a long comblike object beat the rows tightly together.
It wasn't comfortable, but when compared with all Lina had been through, it was bearable. Besides, by now she was consumed by curiosity to see what on earth would be the final result of all these unbelievable happenings. And this time, she could keep her eyes on the face all the time. Now and then, it smiled, and ran a hand the length of the . . .
"Cloth! We're becoming cloth!" came the whisper.
"Fine linen cloth, for something beautiful!"
Lina felt a thrill of excitement. Who would ever have believed, when they all stood together in the field, waving blue blossoms, that they could become cloth? What would they be made into? A fine robe for a rich person? A wedding garment, perhaps?
As always, it took time. Days passed. Progress seemed slow. Every night when the hands stopped and the sun went down, Lina tried to stretch to see how many more inches of cloth had been created. Not many, she thought.
But at last the day came when the hands cut the long swath of linen from the rods. They were finished! And beautiful! And valuable!

To be continued. . .
Repairing the Breach,
Debbonnaire

Fine Linen, Chapter Twelve

[I've been gone, then unwell, then overwhelmed by busyness. . . D'ja miss me? :-)]

At last, they felt the rod turning again, but this time something was different. They were being unrolled from the rod. Lina stretched and breathed deeply. Better!
But no. They were rolled up again, as tightly as before, and laid on yet another shelf.
Lina sighed. On second thought, she tried to decide if she would rather have things happening to her than to lie around waiting all the time.
She had not yet decided which she preferred when the hands came for them again. Two rolls of thread were taken from the shelf. Their ends were tied together, and once again they were set swinging and twirling, this time in the opposite direction from the last time. The two threads twisted together to make one stronger thread. Lina had long since made friends with the fibers which were now one with her, and she found she rather enjoyed the feeling of the hands running the length of the thread, smoothing, guiding, controlling the twist.
Then they were rolled up into balls again. "Oh, well," they murmured to each other. "Waiting time again."

To be continued. . .
Repairing the Breach,
Debbonnaire