YARN

Somehow the strings became tangled. The yellow yarn hidden inside the green yarn. The green yarn wrapped within the yellow yarn. Bits of each knotted in each other.

Long threads of green ensnared in closet junk. Snatches of yellow trapped in shoelaces. I lift the mess out and try to make sense of it. First I toss the yarn from hand to hand. Pulling. Separating. Unwinding. No rhyme or reason to what I am doing. I do not know if I am making progress or tangling them further. One glance gives me no clue.

I realize that I must find the beginning of one or the other. It does not matter, so I pull apart and look for dangling ends. The sad end of the yellow string droops out of the center knot. I take hold of it and pull. A knot quickly reasserts itself, and I refrain from yanking again, thinking I could damage it and lose both lengths of yarn.

I unwind it carefully with nimble fingers. The yellow hides in the green but I coax it out. I see it seeming to make a knot only to unwind obediently when asked by a gentle tug.

Soon enough the yellow is separated from the green. There is far less of the yellow so I cast it aside, deciding to use the green for my project. But now the green is tangled in itself, and I cannot find its beginning.

I search. All I find is endless yarn, clumping around its elusive beginning. I reach back into the cords, feeling for the start of it. I think for a moment that I've found it, but it cannot be pulled out. I must unwind it bit by bit.

I begin the task. I run each cord through my fingers, checking for knots and unwinding the ones I find, until finally the tangle is gone.

I hold the end in my hand. And now I am dead.

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