Competition Twenty-Eight Shortlisted: My Flatweave Flatmate by Chris Cottom
When she finally opens the bathroom door, the floor’s a savanna of sandy hair. Gráinne’s shorn off her chignon, given herself a buzz cut, dyed it coir-mat brown.
‘Go on,’ she says. ‘I know you’re dying to cop a feel.’
It’s as harsh as sandpaper.
‘But why–’
‘Guys wipe their feet on me, don’t they? Might as well look the part.’
I sit her down, make her a cuppa, tell her we’re not all weapons-grade wankers. I tell her one day her prince will come.
Identifying as a doormat is only the start. Before long, she’s talking about transitioning to carpet, about thread lengths and tensile strengths. Soon, the flat’s a tsunami of samples from sisals to Saxonies.
‘I’m being done tomorrow,’ she announces. ‘Berber flatweave, head to toe. Then they can walk all over me.’
I insist she deserves better than Berber, that I’ll commission a dozen needlewomen to embroider her glistery in silver and gold. ‘Let me do this with you,’ I beg. ‘I’ll go shag-pile. I’ll even go full flokati.’
That night, Gráinne lies in my arms while we weave the warp and weft of our dreams: a shepherd’s hut on a Cretan beach with a brood of hand-tufteds in saffron and vermilion, Egyptian blue and Naples yellow. But by midnight it’s clear that, for all our talk of knotting and interlocking, we’re floors apart. ‘You’re clean-line linoleum, while I’m twisty-wistful,’ she says sadly. ‘Go and swipe right on a nice piece of laminate.’
I wake before dawn to a grumble of lorries and men unloading. Leaving Gráinne sleeping, I stumble outside, watch while they cut me a swatch of blood-red Berber flatweave. As I hurry away in the half-light, I slip it into my pocket, next to my heart.
Chris Cottom lives near Macclesfield, UK. He’s packed Christmas hampers in a Harrods basement, sold airtime for Radio Luxembourg, and served a twelve-year stretch as an insurance copywriter. He liked the writing job best.
Image – Engin Akyurt – Unsplash
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