thread and string

 
Un
He wove the string into a star, and pulled. Behind the glass in a café across the street from the bench he sat in, a man and a woman lock eyes. He watches them say hi, hello, how are you. And he knows that the pair would never separate from then on. The morning sunlight is tinged with heat, not yet hot, he picks at a piece of bread and throws the crumbs to a reluctant pigeon that stares him down, but does not approach. The string is meshed in his hands, red and white and yellow. It is like a caterpillar, always spinning its cocoon, always molting. He pulls it into a vague shape of a bird, and holds the figure out in front of him. Then, a rush of pigeons, a multicolored avian waterfall, cascade down out of the air and fall over themselves over the bread crumbs, and then they scatter and disappear.
He gets up from the bench. The street is busy, a bike courier passes him and he starts to walk. He looks down at his string, consumed, it guiding him as he walks and dodges other people walking, cars as he cross the street, the whole world so far away. It had been like this ever since he was very small. Ever since he started playing with string, like many of us do when we are younger. But when he pulled on string, the string would pull back. He twists it into a figure, human in shape, and pulls. He stops walking. There’s something weird about this one. He had done figures of people before, but this one was more detailed and intricate. It was angular and slender and sharp. He looks around him, and cannot see who the figure might be. There are many people around: there is the florist, tending to a couple, there is a woman with her small dog across the street, there is a van driver handling a delivery to a building. He undoes the figure and attempts it again. It comes out the exact same. He furrows his brow. He puts the string into his pocket. He continues his walk. Taking a turn off the main artery, onto his street, and reaches his building. Brick, 8 stories, 1940s elevator building. The sun is warmer now. He pulls the string back out. Going up the steps, and in the building, into the small lobby, up the elevator to the 6th floor. Down the hall to the last room in the corner.
His apartment is one bedroom. One main room, kitchen and bathroom. Wood floors and a pleasant city view out of the corner windows. He tries the string again, and sits in the yellow couch against the window. He holds the string up in the sunlight as it takes a new shape: into a sort of compass shape, a triangle pointed cross. The eastern arm is crossed up by the string. He undoes it, and redoes it. The slender figure reappears.
Later that night, in bed, he lies awake for a while. The walls hum as a late night train passes nearby. Then he dreams.
He is in a white room, with walls that get farther from him the closer he walks. And there is a red string on the ground, stretching out into the distance. He picks up the end of it, and collects it as he follows the trail. The wall behind him moves with him, and the wall in front moves away…Walking…Walking….Walking…
The room shifts to pink, then a fleshy, organ-like red. The walls pulse slightly, like a beating heart, the air becomes humid, a doorway appears, the string tied to the knob. He hesitates. The room feels like a suffocating hug given by a relative, the air is sucked out, and he panics, frantically moving toward the door and yanking it open, and the slender figure is there, in red string, 6 feet tall, and they look at each other, and the figure opens his mouth, and reaches out with his string arm and then he wakes up.