There Are Two Girls Next To Me Knitting

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There are two girls next to me knitting. We are at a coffee shop/restaurant/bar. One has a dark blue ball of yarn in front of her. The other has a ball of burgundy yarn from which she’s working. One — the one with the burgundy yarn and dyed red hair — she’s drinking a glass of Pinot Grigio. Her day was bad. She told her friend this when she arrived. Lower back pain, though why she has it, I can’t tell. She looks normal. She went to see her doctor, she explains. He scared her, saying it could be kidney failure. Not likely, but he really scared the heck out of her. He did some tests and gave her some muscle relaxers. The other girl had a bad day too. Her job is ending soon. Neither are very pretty. Well, the one with the red hair is a little bit.

A third girl arrives. Red winter coat. She asks how everyone is. The red-head (lots of red) says her back hurts. Pay no attention to winces of pain, she says. These are the type of girls who lived in the all-girls dorm at college. This third girl works in academia. At work, her boss wanted her to take a Myers/Briggs personality test. So she did. Her boss didn’t like the results. They really needed someone more assertive. They’re pretty in an Indiana way.

God, they are quiet. What kind of group is this? They are like deer eating grass in a dale.
Something is changing in me. I cannot think of sleeping with any of them. I try, but I can’t seem to imagine the coordinates of their bodies, can’t seem to envision them naked. Is it them or is it me? Or might it be that they are knitting? They are too young for that and this city too big, cosmopolitan. Their conversation is banal — it must seem so even to them. In terms of all the things women might talk about, they talk about nothing of interest. Maybe it’s interesting to them. It might be, but the looks on their faces: impassive, sleepy — I doubt it.

Then I am jealous. Yes, jealous. They are serene. Knitting, my God! That’s something you don’t see every day. Or maybe you do, but not among young women. Except those women in cults. They knit a lot because they have a lot of people to clothe. It’s not easy to run a cult. It requires a lot of charisma and it requires an ideology. Management skills. The assertion of power. Maybe I should start a cult with these women here. They could be my love slaves. I could lord over them. It would be the best kind of cult, because it would be void of passion and jealousy and drama. Plus, we would be warm. What else is power, except the adornment of garments hand-made by others?