By Samantha Knight
Published in Foliate Oak Magazine, 2018.
Walter sits in his sturdy chair, gently rocking himself back and forth with his gray slipper on the hard-wood floor. Rain patters against the window on this dark afternoon, almost drowning out the ticking of the grandfather clock.
“Oh, sweetie, handling an iPhone for you would be about as easy as threading a needle.”
Her words are resonating in his head as he finishes his cross-word puzzle; his fingers drum on the arm of his chair.
“Don’t worry, dear, we will get you the fanciest flip phone they have. You will be the talk of the street; even Eugene doesn't have a cell-phone!” She had winked at him before securing her feathered fat on her neatly combed salt and pepper hair. “I will be back from bingo before dinner.”
Walter suddenly stops rocking his chair. Eugene, that crusty loon? He grimaces in the thought of his arch-nemesis, the only other man on their street to own a restored vintage car—but a year older, to boot. Whether it’s competing for the high score in the community's weekly game of horseshoes, or playing over his accordion at Christmas parties with his—irritatingly charming—acoustic music, Eugene always seems to one-up Walter.
But just as she was getting into her car to drive to bingo, he darted out onto their front porch.
“But Stel, that old goat has a...a,” He was unable to remember what the device was called, so Walter waved his hands in front of him like it was a game of charades, to which Stella only nodded while rolling her eyes.
“An iPad?”
“Yes! And he can't help but show off the damn thing every chance he gets! He does cross-word puzzles on it, Stel, and here I am stuck in the seventeen-hundreds with a measly puzzle-book and pencil...”
Stella scoffed humorously at Walter's petty jealously, but his frown only grew.
Leaving the car door open, she walked back up the steps to him. “It's not even his, dear, it belongs to his wife,” she paused to cup her husband's red face in her delicate hands; her kind smile calmed his tense facial expression. “And the only thing he knows how to do on it is play his puzzles. So, don't worry so much, ya old grump.”
They both smiled, but Walters' followed with a long sigh of defeat.
“Well, it would still put Colonel Blimp into his place if I had an iPad phone.”
“'iPhone', you mean? And you'd end up breaking it before showing it off,” Stella giggled. “Best keep it simple,” she turned around to head back to her car. “Remember the resort we stayed at when we took that trip to the vineyards? We don’t want any repeats of that, do we?” Her faint eyebrows raised as her eyes fixed on his. “And that was just a computer…”
She had backed out of the driveway, but paused to roll down her window. “Like threading—”
“A needle,” they both finished simultaneously, Walter now rolling his eyes and Stella smiling contently before disappearing down the street.
Oddly enough, he remembers all too well their stay at that resort—the wine, the fifty, the cigarette, and the doors.
They had arrived at the Okanagan Vineyards on their fortieth anniversary, and Walter wanted to plan their whole weekend, as opposed to Stella making all their arrangements—as she usually did for their trips over the years; this was mostly because she was comfortable using a computer, whereas her husband had the patience of a four-year-old.
“Modern technology is so futuristic,” she'd often remind him. However, “futuristic” was a very broad term to Walter, since even their own box-style television hadn’t been updated since the eighties.
It was late when he stumbled out of the resort pub, though he had only two glasses of the feature wine; it was the cobblestone floor that caused him fumble as he walked, he told himself.
“Oh bother, might as well be walking home from the bar on train tracks,” he mumbled incoherently as he regained his balance.
The young gentleman that worked the front desk had been on a coffee break, but Walter had recalled him explaining that they could also book their spots for the tours on the guest computers, which were conveniently situated in the lobby outside the pub entrance.
Needless to say, after another glass of the chardonnay—which he was forced to chug after unsuccessfully arguing with the pub bouncer over taking his glass back to his computer—several failed attempts to log in and burning a hole in the computer-chair upholstery while wrestling his cigarette back from the receptionist, Walter was escorted from the building while Stella paid for the room—and the various damages.
“If you had just accepted the young man’s help with the computer, you wouldn’t have frozen it and none of this would have happened!” She huffed as she toted her suitcase down the front steps.
Walter was still making a fuss, cussing and waving his hands through the air while standing just outside the lobby doors, which were indecisively opening and closing as he set off the sensors.
“Didn't feel frozen to me, in fact, it was blowing hot air! Stupid thing just didn't work properly. And I don’t need no help from any smart-ass kid! It wouldn’t accept my fifty; I inserted it in the slot, but there were so many damn buttons!”
“It only takes credit, dear.” His wife sighed, staring up at him from the parking lot.
“Well, why in carnation do you have to pay to use the thing anyway? And—” His flailing had knocked his suitcase between the automatic doors, which were now firmly closed around it. “What in the hell is wrong with these doors!”
The scene was attracting quite the audience as Walter muttered curse words as he bent down to pull his luggage from the grip of the doors, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Sir,” the receptionist called tiredly from behind the front desk, “you’ve been setting off the sensors. Try stepping away and then stepping back onto the mat, they will open.”
“What now?” Walter replied through a sharp exhale, straightening up stiffly. But as he did so, the doors suddenly opened again, releasing their grip on the suitcase. Walter quickly—or as “quick” as his back would allow—bent down to pull it free, just as the doors closed shut on it once again.
Those that watched helplessly shook their heads; some tried to hide a smile by covering their mouth, while others simply stood with them drooping open, stunned.
“Sir—” but the employee’s monotone words trailed off as he realized his advice would once again go unheeded, and the cycle continued. He buried his face in his hands as he watched Walter work relentlessly to pry the doors open and free his bag, his eyes flaming with purpose. The doors shuddered, but were ultimately unyielding.
After another long minute of hokey-pokey, the doors finally remained open. All went silent as Walter stood still, eying up the doors that seemed very much alive at this point, taunting him.
He took a few measured breaths with his hands on his hips, surveying the doors to ensure they had made up their mind and he would no longer be humiliated. Finally, he picked up his suitcase. He scoffed as he took one last glance at the motionless faces in the lobby, with his chin up high and his lips pursed like a toddler. As he turned to head down the steps into the parking lot, he nearly walked into his wife, who was standing right behind him, glaring.
But that was a few years back, and since then, he had learned to set the timer on their Keurig machine—a feat he was proud to brag about to their friends. It was this, and their technologically-advanced grand-kids, that inspired Walter to prove to his wife that he could manage the latest cellphone. But whether it was his wife’s constant comparisons to needle-threading, or his stubbornly independent nature, he made the decision that day to mend his own shirt for the first time. He was, after all, a quick learner.
An old table fan rotates weakly and is rather unnecessary, as the temperature of the room is already chilly—it’s the comfort of thinking his cigarette smoke won’t be noticed that gives it its household purpose.
In the center of the living room there is a Persian-style area rug, which is also old and visibly tattered; it is frayed at all the corners.
Beside the brick fire place, in which a small fire burns a single piece of wood and crackles consistently, is his wife’s china cabinet. She is a collector, valuing small porcelain figurines on musical spools and a variety of antique crystal glasses. Walter, on the other hand, cherishes his expensive liquors, including the nineteen-seventy-six bourbon that he enjoys on special occasions— “special” occasions such as birthdays, holidays, and re-runs of I Dream of Genie. And on such occasions, he also enjoys a cigarette with his drink, but he never smokes inside—or at all— unless Stella isn’t home.
Walter removes the wool blanket from his knees, re-tightens his bath-robe, and shuffles over to the liquor cabinet, which is hand-carved and an heirloom from his grandfather. The whiskey he pours into one of his wife’s crystal glasses—which is never aloud, unless she isn’t there—is also old, perhaps not an heirloom, but it has aged nicely. It is smooth, and the bite non-existent as he takes the first glass down right away, before pouring another and heading back to his chair.
“You’re not supposed to drink any hard liquor,” Stella had instructed him the last time he poured a glass in front of her, “the doctor says eight glasses of water a day.”
“Bah! I was cracking beers with my Pa when he was born,” Walter had rebutted, “and the man has a hair-do like a damn cockatoo, we can’t trust his judgment.”
Pausing after he takes his seat again, he is distracted by the scene on the TV; a creatively-dressed woman with bright blue hair struts around a stage singing something he can’t understand. His cheeks wrinkle in confusion, or disgust, he’s not quite sure.
After staring in bewilderment for a few moments, he shakes his head and, using the fire iron, pokes at the television set until he finally hits the silver ‘off’ button.
Walter gently turns the single nob on the antique record player and the scratchy sounds of Peggy Lee fill the room; it skips every so often, but the musicality is still there.
As he fidgets around to find a comfortable position in his rocking chair once again, Walter turns on the lamp that sits on his side table, illuminating a needle and a spool of thread.
He quickly locates the rip in his shirt armpit when his whole hand suddenly pokes through, and then cuts a fair length of the brown thread. But as the fan rotates back in his direction, it blows the thread onto the floor, camouflaging it from sight.
After examining the hardwood until his eyes hurt from squinting, he finally spots the bugger and, with the hand that’s still caught through the hole of his shirt, leans over to grab the thread. When he hears the ripping sound it is too late to notice that he was sitting on the rest of his shirt when he had leaned over, beyond what the fabric would allow.
He scoffs at the garment, snarling at the, now gaping, hole in the armpit. Shaking his head, Walter turns his attention to the next step. His breathing slows as he attempts to grasp the fine needle off the table, but his fingers are too fat.
“Damn sausage fingers,” he grunts under his breath.
In his deep focus, his tongue sticks out the corner of his mouth, tickled by his gray mustache as he presses one end of the needle into the table with his long thumb nail. The other end of the needle—the sharp end—rises and is now graspable. But as Walter quickly goes to grab it, he instead pricks his thumb and winces in pain, shaking his hand about.
The needle is again flat on the wooden table. Taking in a few deep breaths, he attempts again, but this time, he smiles as he pushes the sharp end into the table instead. This works, and he holds up his success.
He brings the needle increasingly closer to his souring face. “Where’s the dang hole?” he mumbles, though only his mustache moves when he does.
When he finally finds it, he is dismayed to discover how small it really is. He sighs and attempts his first threading, which fails. As he tries a second time, the string loosens from his grip and plummets into the heap of blankets on his lap.
“Fiddlesticks!”
Though his eyes hurt from squinting, he finally recovers the string—again— and sets it on the table underneath the weight of the spool. He then gets up and begins rummaging through the drawers of the bureau.
Nestling back in his chair, Walter struggles with his flimsy glasses before finally getting them on the bridge of his crooked nose.
On the side table, the string is there, but now the needle is nowhere to be seen. Though he’s thankful for no prickly pain in his bottom side, Walter grinds his dentures in frustration and begins examining his lap and the floor around the chair. Nothing.
“Jeez Louise!”
Despite his attempt to stand carefully—so to catch the location of the needle if it falls—Walter fumbles, losing his balance and nearly tipping over sideways. Regaining his stance, he adjusts his glasses and shakes out the blanket. Nothing. He closely examines the chair. Nothing.
“Where is that darn thing?” his deep voice cracks from a dry throat, which he moistens with a sip of whiskey.
Pausing to scratch his head, which leaves his gray hair sticking up, he sighs bitterly before getting on his hands and knees to check under the chair and table. Still no sign of the needle, but a few unknown joints crack as he wrestles with himself to get back up.
After thinking for a moment, he rushes over to his wife’s china cabinet and rustles in a drawer, causing various papers and photos to fall onto the ground in his haste. He opens the other drawers, and makes a further mess. When Walter comes to the final drawer, he opens it and reluctantly continues searching for another needle, tossing objects out of it and about the room.
Batteries roll around before stopping at the edge of the rug, papers blow from the fan before settling, and photos scatter into the next room; something hits the record player and the song skips over and over. He finally realizes that he’s just going to have to find that needle, and so he takes a gulp of his whiskey straight from the bottle and grunts loudly as it goes down.
Slamming the last cabinet drawer shut in frustration, a small porcelain figurine falls from the shelf and smashes into three large pieces on the floor at his feet.
Walter stares at it in disbelief, mouth wide open. He finally gasps as he bends down to examine the damage.
“Stella will notice this…” the terrifying thought is visible on his face.
The maiden’s torso and arms are intact, but her head and the musical spool are dismembered, with a couple tiny shards among them. He pokes at the head, which roles in a circle and, once settled, seems to stare up at him.
“Don’t look at me like that, you pesky little-” he grunts under his breath at it as he picks it up, followed by the other pieces, and sets them atop the cabinet. Walter glances around the living room. So much for threading a needle, he thinks. Now what am I supposed to do?
The grandfather clock dongs its nineteenth hour, she will be home soon! Walter begins to panic—both his hands rest atop his head as he begins pacing back and forth.
He always told himself he wasn’t afraid of his wife, after all, he’d known her for sixty years, but when it came to her things and what she had specifically told him, he was at least nervous—if not truly afraid.
In unrealistic optimism, he attempts to repair the poor figurine by holding the pieces together as they once were—would it be enough to will it together? But to his dismay, even at the expected result, the pieces return to their separated state once he lets them go. How to hold them together?
Walter glances up at the spot on the top shelf of the china cabinet where she stood for many years, untouched. Walter blows away the small circle of dust that formed around the base of the musical spool. No, that won’t do, she will still notice.
Walter re-arranges the other five figurines on the shelf, sighing tiredly as he does. He observes their new formation, then shakes his head in disapproval and tries again. After re-arranging them once more, he is again dissatisfied. No, she will notice that too. The damn perfectionist!
So he arranges the figurines back into their original positions—this takes him a few tries to get right.
Perplexed, Walter walks briskly back over to his side table, swigs his whiskey, pushes up his sleeves and kicks off his slippers.
He lines the base of the porcelain head with some old super glue he came across in the cabinet, and then holds it on the torso.
With a little luck, and a man’s handiness…he begins to feel confident. But when he carefully releases the torso after a few seconds, he notices that the head is glued on backwards.
“Maybe if…” his words are muffled under his moustache as he places the disfiguration in the middle of the other figurines. He steps back, squints at the unsightly repair, then snorts as he wipes the sweat from his brow. “Bah! That won’t do either!”
Walter exhales sharply, grasps the figurine again and yanks the head off, getting the tacky glue on his fingers.
Now sweating profusely, he again glances at the clock; Stella will be home any minute, and not only is the needle lost and the house a mess, but her priceless antique figurine is broken.
He attempts to re-seal the head to the torso, in the right direction, but when he pulls his fingers away the head is now glued to his thumb instead.
“Son of a—!”
Walter frowns as he tries to detach the porcelain head from his thumb, gently enough not to break it, but hard enough that it pulls his hair and skin.
“Blasted!” He lets go, but the head is still firmly glued to his thumb.
His frustration builds. Another swig—or three—right from the bottle is no solution, but it takes the edge off as he is now feeling the warmth of the liquor.
The looming sound of a car door slamming and his wife’s heals clicking up the drive-way cripples his wit. In his impulsive and desperate state, Walter forgets about the finger-head and instead places a small bowling trophy among the other figurines. A temporary solution, at best.
The needle! he recalls again, now feeling more overwhelmed than ever and nearly slipping on the loose batteries on the floor.
The grandfather clock seems to tick louder now, and the smell of burning is in the air. Noticing this, Walter stops his train of thought and looks around the room for the culprit; one of the papers that had fallen out of a drawer earlier had blown into the hearth and now smokes in the embers.
He hurriedly slips back into his slippers and steps on the paper, which crumbles into smoking ash. Walter then splashes the remaining sip of whiskey from his glass onto the still-glowing ashes, which hits some of the coals and causes the mess to hiss and bellow out a bigger puff of smoke.
He jumps when the sudden high-pitched sound of the smoke alarm goes off. Walter gasps and darts in the direction of the kitchen to turn it off. But when his slipper escapes his gait, he tumbles down into a home-run slide on the hard-wood floor, his hands stretched out before him. The harmless slide is quickly forgotten as his attention is diverted; the dooming arrival that he was expecting had come without his preparation, his inevitable fate: She’s home!
Scrambling to his feet, Walter grips the edge of his bureau for support, and comes face to face with his nemesis.
“You!” his voice is deep and raspy, and his blue eyes widen.
There it is, the needle, sitting so innocently atop the bureau where he had absently left it when searching for his glasses earlier—he often forgot little things daily, but usually it was just his glasses on top his head.
He glares with a furrowed brow, briefly forgetting the inevitable confrontation that awaits him. “This is all your fault!” he scowls at the inanimate object while still leaning on the bureau.
“Who’s fault?”
He spins around to face his wife, completely bewildered and disheveled from his chaos; his hair is swept in every direction, robe wide open—leaving nothing to the imagination—with beads of sweat dripping into his beard, and of course, he’s missing a slipper.
Stella is speechless and frozen in the door way. She drops her purse onto the floor. The smoke alarm finally turns off on its own, as if it, too, were afraid of the situation.
The ceiling is engulfed in a smoky haze, while glass, papers, and photos litter the floor, and the record hiccups the same three words.
“What in God’s name…” her mouth is gaping as she glances around the destroyed room until her eyes fix on her beloved figurine’s head, which is still glued to his fat thumb.
“Oh, hi Dear... I wasn’t expecting you back so soon, I was just-” Walter stutters, but quickly realizes that this charade won’t fly, and he sighs heavily. “Oh for goodness sake, it’s not what it looks like, Stel!” he admits, hastily re-tying his robe. “I was just trying to thread a needle when—”
“Just 'threading a needle...'” Stella repeats bleakly, taking a step further into the disaster. Her frustration begins to show as her face hardens and her eyes blink a few times as she tries to comprehend the situation.
Walter is horrified, breathing heavily. He finally shrugs his shoulders and forces a meek smile.
“Well, on the bright side, you were right,” he reassures humbly before reaching behind him to pick up the needle with his good hand. “Here’s your needle back.” He takes a careful step towards her, holding it out. “I will just let you take care of the mending from now on. Okay?”
But Stella doesn’t move, nor does she look at her husband.
“Hunny?” His breath reeks of liquor.
She still doesn’t say a word, but her cherry-red lips quiver as she finally notices the rest of her broken figurine that he forgot about on the cabinet. Walter also glances at it with his frozen half-smile, and his ribcage sinks into his spine.
“Is that my limited-edition milk-maiden figurine in pieces?” her flaring eyes pan back towards his hand. “You glued her head to your thumb?!”
Despite everything, he’s still caught off guard, with no possible excuse within the realm of believability. Impulsively, Walter quickly swings his hand—and the porcelain head—behind his back in a fruitless attempt to hide his mistake. But his thumb collides with the bureau behind him and the maiden’s head shatters into several shards.
After a brief, and tense, silence, he replies coyly, “not anymore…” Walter’s grin slowly fades into a truly petrified expression.
But, it was this unyielding ambition and adorable stubbornness that made her fall in love with this oaf in the first place, Stella reminds herself.
“Perhaps I don’t need an iPhone after all…”
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