Fabric

Fabric
NickJones

Fabric

Fabric
Written by Nick Jones
Illustrated by David Sarallo
NJ-Nexus Publishing
2016

Copyright © 2016 by Nick Jones
Illustrations © 2016 by David Sarallo
Cover BY-NC-SA by Digital Gnosis
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any
manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use
of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.
First Printing: 2016
ISBN 978-1-365-42212-6
NJ-Nexus Publishing
Chicago, IL
www.NickJonesNexus.com
www.davidsaralloart.squarespace.com

Chapter 1
nce upon a time there was a girl. OK, so there have been many girls
through the ages, but this story concerns a unique girl. She had an inkling of how
unique she was, but it was more of an itch in her heart that she was afraid to
scratch because maybe it would start to bleed everywhere, and that would really
be a mess, and then her heart might stop beating, and it had to keep beating to
live, but of course you already knew that, didn’t you?
What you probably didn’t know is that at the beginning of our story, this
girl, Gwendolyn, is sitting in a subway car on her way to work. It was a morning
she thought was like any other and believed would lead to a day like any other
that would melt into a night like any other. Another turn around the morning
dance of wake up, snooze, wake up, snooze and pull covers tighter, wake up,
stand up, brush teeth, take a shower, dry, dress, leave, lock door, get on the train,
sit down, in nearly the same order, and now she was almost at her stop. She
didn’t even have to look. She could tell by the procession of who boarded when
and sat where and how they breathed. It was always slightly different depending
on how early she finally got out of bed, but today it was wheezing man with too
much cologne, sniffling girl who wore bright colors and frowned all the time,
and old man with the whistling nose sitting around her. The train car filled like
a ravenous metal animal. Bodies pressed together in its belly with their gazes
roving to scan advertisements for bankruptcy lawyers and psychological studies,
silver poles, smartphones, dumbphones, or books, landing on anything at all except
someone else’s eyes. It seemed to her that, on the train, everyone was made
of wax. She felt it start to form on her sometimes and begin to harden, but her
heart’s itch would turn it back to liquid and it would fall off of her.
The bell chimed and took her out of her mind or, rather, back into her mind.
The doors slid open and four more passengers pushed their way into the car. An
Indian woman reading a newspaper blew a bubble. It lingered. Gwen cringed as
she waited for it to burst, but it kept hanging there. Waiting. She hid her anxiety
by pretending to scratch her ears. No one noticed though because when they
saw her move they looked away again.
After what seemed to be an eternity she reached her stop and squeezed
through a throng of passengers, some freshly bathed and some that, unfortunately,
were not. She held her breath and made it off the train just before the
doors closed behind her. Gwen feared that one day she wouldn’t make it off the
train. It would just keep going with more and more people boarding until the car

ulged and scraped the top of the tunnel with arms and legs intertwined as it
expanded bigger and bigger with a series of crunches. But alas, this morning she
made it off with no problems worse than getting a nose full of one passenger’s
maple syrup and coffee breath mixing with another’s mint toothpaste exhalations.
She was a bit shorter than most of the passengers at this hour, so she got
the brunt of it.
Gwen looked at the flashing bank sign just outside the train station that
alternated between the weather and the hour, and noticed that she could almost
make it on time to her desk. She could make it, that is, if people weren’t moving
so slowly. She swore it was too early in the year for holiday shopping and too
late for tourists, but it seemed everyone conspired to block her way. She dodged
to her right and a flock of children scurried around her. A little girl pulled her
brother’s hair while their parents looked to street signs to get their bearings. An
old man’s cane tip slammed down on the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding her foot.
She was more upset by the old man, but then felt bad for being upset at him.
She quickened her pace and then slowed down, just in case anyone snickered or
stared at her, until finally she arrived at the tall black building she worked in.
Her office building was ultra-secure. Sometimes she thought military scientists
were performing top secret experiments on aliens, or there was a vault with
gold and diamonds in it with how she had to sign in and out every time instead
of them simply knowing who she was. On occasion she joked with the desk
guard that she should just sign an X and be done with it, or sign every box for
the week that she knew she was going to be there. The guard responded nearly
every time with, “Name, time, office location,” or he merely grunted and pushed
the clipboard at her.
This particular morning she signed in, swiped her ID card to start the elevator,
and ran full speed down the hall until she came to her office suite’s glass
door with a pyramid logo. Right behind the door stood her boss, a slender
woman in a grey-black dress that was almost a size too large with too-polished
black boots, clicking a pen in her hand.
Gwen pulled at the glass door and it wouldn’t budge. She then remembered
to swipe her ID, and with a beep and a tiny green light on a sensor, she was in.
She panted heavily when her boss, with a thin-lipped grin said, “You know you’re
four minutes late, right?”
“I’m sorry, Polly. It won’t happen again. I’ll try and get an earlier start,”
Gwen said, still struggling to catch her breath.
Her boss, actively at war with the scowl trying to form on her lips, said, “I
wish they would take my advice. Then no one would ever be late ever again.”
“I don’t know what else I could do other than leave earlier. Or maybe get a
louder alarm or—”

Polly interrupted. “An inch. That’s what I’d take for every minute.”
“An inch?”
“An inch of, well, of, of….” She hesitated, looked Gwen in the eye with a
gaze that could puncture solid steel, and then finished her sentence with the word
Gwen feared she would.
“Flesh.”
Gwen knew on the surface that her boss really didn’t want to take pieces of
her per minute, but the prospect of it unsettled her greatly nonetheless. She
laughed and shrugged. “Well, I’m glad they don’t take your suggestion, but if
they did, maybe I could squeeze into some of my old pants.”
Polly stopped smiling. “If you keep it up you will be folding clothes for a
living.” Gwen knew that Polly saw laundry and retail as two of the worst tasks
in the world, as she always seemed to threaten her with it. She didn’t know that
Gwen loved to fold clothes. She liked it so much that sometimes she would make
extra wrinkles just to feel them smooth out.
“I’ll make sure to stay four minutes later, or even eight minutes if you want,
or a half hour or whatever.”
Polly smiled again. “Stay however long your conscience needs. In the meantime,
don’t forget to answer the phone on the third ring. We don’t want people
to think that we’re desperate for business.”
Gwen tried to bite her tongue, but her teeth missed because she found herself
saying, “Even though we are?”
Polly stopped clicking her pen. “Three rings, and try a bit harder not to
sprinkle smarty-pants powder on your cereal.”
It was easier for her to hold her tongue this time because she was trying to
imagine smarty-pants powder. Who would make it? Who would buy it? Is it made
of actual pants? So instead of getting in more trouble, she just nodded as Polly
turned and walked away.
Surprisingly enough, Polly wasn’t the worst of Gwen’s coworkers. In the
small office of four women and three men, they all meant well, but had a rotten
spot.
Helen, a slight woman with round red glasses, would stride up to Gwen’s
desk with a stately air and drop folders for her to file without saying a word. If
anything was filed incorrectly she would “accidentally” leave the files on the floor
and then blame Gwen. The worst was Rachel, though. Rachel would pretend to
be a great friend, and then slice apart absolutely everyone she knew after they
confided in her.
So while Gwen was frantically trying to time rings of the phone and keep
from misfiling papers in the right manila folders, Rachel would stand near her
and chatter away. It was an unending barrage of sniping bullets aimed at others’

characters. Most bullets concerned the color coordination of outfits, who was
seen with who in the office, the bad chicken she had at such and such, the bad
noodles with so and so, the bad service at where and which, the bad bicycle her
parents had bought her, and on and on and on. Rachel seemed nice at first, but
then a gurgle would form in the back of her brain and a thick green cloud of
gossip would seep from her mouth.
That day, Rachel stood by Gwen’s desk spouting about how the art in the
office clashed due to Polly's wretched taste, when an unexpected delivery man
appeared. Gwen signed for the package, but then took a second glance when she
saw that it was addressed to her. She knew it wasn’t the supplies because it was
a dark purple ten-by-eleven-inch envelope with what seemed like gel padding on
the inside. Gwen was doubly confused when she saw that the return address
seemed to be written in a language she couldn’t read at first. She squinted, and
the letters seemed to shimmer and reform. They read:
Uxlian Larlothop, 1.618 East Place Way Street, Phyllian Realm 50524 10
Rachel smiled with twisted glee as she smelled that she possibly could have
blackmail information on Gwen (or, in this case, purplemail).
“What’s that?” she asked in a sweet, lilting voice.
Gwen looked down at her desk. “It’s probably a mistake or a joke or something.”
Rachel sneered. “Or you’re ordering personal items on company time. You
wouldn’t do that, would you, Gwen?”
“Of course not.”
Rachel pushed down on the envelope and felt it squish a bit. “I’ve never
seen anything like that. Is it a love letter? Open it.”
“This is obviously a mistake.”
Rachel leaned in conspiratorially. “Aren’t you in the least bit curious?”
Gwen shook her head and quietly started paper-clipping files together. Rachel
let out a sigh and walked away. After Gwen was sure she was gone, she slid
the envelope into her book bag.
The rest of the workday was uneventful except for one other small, strange
occurrence. On three occasions she walked away from her desk to return and
find the purple envelope on her computer keyboard. Once from the bathroom,
once from the water cooler, and once from the file room. She thought it was just
Rachel trying to tempt her.
Five o’clock finally rolled around and Gwen began packing her things to
leave. Part of her wanted to toss the envelope in the garbage and get on with her
life, but that part was quickly overwhelmed by her curiosity. Even if the package
was a joke, who would have done it? She really didn’t have any enemies or anything.

Gwen began to stand up to leave, but then saw Polly out of the corner of
her eye shaking her head and staring at her. Gwen took her book bag and coat
off, and sat back down.
The phone rang and her hand darted toward it, but she stopped herself and
let it ring a second time, and then a third, and then answered it.
Before she could even say hello, a voice that sounded like it was speaking in
a major chord said, “Aren’t you closed?”
Gwen responded, “Who would you like to speak to? I think a few people
are still around.”
The voice chimed (literally), “The time for speaking has passed. Now action
is needed.”
Gwen’s curiosity raged inside her, but she felt Polly’s eyes were drilling
shame into the back of her head. “I’m sorry—if this is some kind of joke, it’s
not funny, and whatever cheap voice disguise you got from the dollar store, it’s
not working very well.”
The voice on the other end said, “The purpose of my call is not humor, but
do not discount the laughter born of joy.”
Gwen said, “Look, I don’t make enough to donate to whatever cult you got
going, so—”
The voice added more voices to the chord for emphasis: “So open it.” Gwen
instinctively hung up the phone. Polly walked up to her desk and said, “You’ve
stayed long enough.”
Flustered, Gwen replied, “I thought I handled a strange call well. In fact, it
was by the book on the third ring. There’s no reason to let me go because of
that, I don’t think.”
Polly said, “No. I mean for tonight. You’ve done a great job. You can go
home now and have a lovely night.”
Gwen felt that something was off in Polly all of a sudden, but then thought
that maybe she was reading too much into it. She took her advice, packed her
book bag, grabbed her coat, and left the office.

Chapter 2
Autumnal air whispered through the buildings. She almost opened her bag
and tore open the envelope right then and there on the sidewalk, but she resisted.
On the way to the subway she saw an orange glowing construction sign on the
street that read, “Gwen, open it.” When she looked again it read, “When open,
it…will be a great driving experience.”
She was dizzy with a cocktail of worry and excitement for the rest of her
commute, and kept bumping into fellow riders. Every third thought landed on
opening it, but she didn’t want to risk the contents getting jostled or trampled
or, worse, stuck to gum on a seat.
After making it back into her studio apartment, she flung her coat onto her
wicker chair, immediately sat down on the edge of her bed, and, trembling, carefully
pulled out the envelope. She almost tore into it, but gasped and stopped
herself. Did it breathe? She shivered with the distinct feeling not that there was
anything alive in it, but that the envelope itself was alive. In shock, she shoved it
under her bed and turned on the TV to the news to keep her in some kind of
solid reality.
Immediately after it was turned on, the faces on the screen began to warp
and the sound warbled. She picked up the envelope again and noticed that the
warble increased the closer the package was to the screen. She felt exhilarated by
this at first, but then was suddenly unnerved. She slid the package under her bed
and reheated some leftover stir-fry in a plastic bowl.
As she ate her dinner, she let every bite push down her urge to uncover
any mysteries or anything. While doing the dishes, however, it was no use as the
urge sprang up inside her. She raced across the apartment and, with her thumb,
tore the top of the envelope off. A strong scent of rosemary and baking bread
wafted out of the lip of the package. She peeked inside and saw a piece of paper
that appeared to be made of running water. Even stranger, the inside of the envelope
was bone-dry. She reached in and pulled the sheet out. It read:
Squint and see. Clearly there can only be a twist between you and me.
And right after she read that, the words washed away to be replaced with:
And yes, Gwen, this is strange, but we need you.
With that, the waterpaper turned into a puddle and splashed her pants.
She was too shocked and fascinated to scream. Yet, at the same time, she
didn’t want to look silly by squinting alone in her apartment. On the other hand,
no one had ever mailed her smells before, much less paper that was made out of
water.

It is said that too much curiosity kills cats. What isn’t said as much, though
is perhaps truer, is that too little curiosity kills souls. The itch inside her cried to
be scratched. And scratch she did, thinking, Who’s looking anyway?
She squinted.
At first everything was what she thought it would be—that is to say, a bit
blurry. Right at the moment she started to feel the silliest squinting at the wall in
her apartment, she remembered her hands were wet, and when she remembered
that, she saw a shadow move across the apartment in front of her. She wiggled
her fingers and saw that it definitely wasn’t her hand or any part of her.
Emerging almost from the wall itself was what seemed at first to be a person,
but was made entirely of water congealed into a large, amoeba-like form.
Gwen was transfixed, but then nearly fell off the edge of her futon when she
heard it speak. Its voice ebbed and flowed, and underneath was a low and steady
whooshing sound. It said into her mind: “Don’t fall. Eventually you must, but
now is not the time.”
Gwen replied aloud. “What are you?”
The water-being nodded. “That’s not important. Just know that I am from
not-here. There isn’t much time. It is important that you follow me, Gwen. Or,
better yet, follow yourself and the path that reaches out of yourself. Beyond
yourself.”
Gwen stopped squinting and the figure was gone, but somehow she felt it
watching her. She thought for a moment about how schizophrenia was supposed
to be genetic or something, and she was at about the age when it was supposed
to hit, but there wasn’t anyone with it in her family that she knew of or anything.
Firmly assured of her sanity, she squinted again. And again, water ran and
played around the figure. It said, “You must enter the great lake backward at
exactly midnight tonight. You must stop everything from being unmade.”
“Unmade?” Gwen asked.
“Yes. There isn’t time to explain. Go to the lake or all is lost.”
“How do I know I can trust you? And how do I know I’ve not completely
lost it?”
“Trust bubbles when it must. Do not hesitate. Midnight tonight. Go. Go
and recite the words ‘Deeply, deeply, I spill through, even deeper I depart. With
this breath, I fill you, the longing of my heart.’”
And with that the water-being turned to mist and vanished. Gwen squinted
and squinted and couldn't find it anywhere.
“Wait!” she cried. “I have more questions! I can’t swim! What are you made
of?”
But it was no use. It was gone.

Gwen fought the urge to pinch herself and make sure it wasn’t a dream, but
she actually had pinched herself in dreams and felt it, so she didn’t think that
would work if it was a dream.
She debated with herself for nearly an hour and a half, trying to decide if
she was crazy or simply letting her imagination get the best of her. But there was
a delivery man. She knew it. And the phone call. It was too vivid. All of it. And
unmade? Could she really run that risk?
All the same she didn’t want to get wet or drown or arrested for trespassing
in the lake after it was closed. Though, she wondered, who has a right to close a
lake? It was everyone’s lake and park, and at midnight it looked its most beautiful.
How dare they close it! So with that, she paced back and forth in a contained
indignant rage. She’d show them.
She glanced at the clock. It was only 9:27. She didn’t want to get there too
early, so to pass the time, she picked up her needles and worked on a sweater
she was nearly done with. She lost herself in it. Every time the thread crossed,
she felt pieces of herself come together. In fact, she almost forgot to leave. She
thought about taking a lunch or snack or something, but realized it’d get wet
because all she had was paper bags or a basket to carry anything in. So she simply
put a light blue coat on, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and left.

Chapter 3
It wasn’t too far to the lake from her apartment building. She almost hailed
a cab to take her, but she wanted to feel the night air.
After a short hike, she made it to the beach. When she got right to rim of
the lake, she realized that she forgot a watch. How was she going to know when
it was midnight? She felt panic scramble up her spine, but she bit her lip to regain
her composure and decided that she would enter the lake repeatedly, and eventually
it would be the right time.
Just then, she heard a clock chime in the distance. She knew that now was
when she had to start. This was it. She felt suddenly timid, and that timidity
crawled through her muscles, nerves, and veins. But then curiosity and fire
coursed through the other side of her and she shouted, “Deeply, deeply, I spill
through, even deeper I depart. With this breath, I fill you, the longing of my
heart!” and walked backward into the lake.
It was colder than she thought it would be, but her determination warmed
her. She heard the nearly final chime of midnight as she went underwater and
waited.
She nearly lost all of her breath, and when she emerged everything seemed
to look the same. The same skyline. The same moon. The same power lines.
She felt foolish, wet, and frightened.
But then she saw something more than a little unique.
After she pulled herself back to shore, in the distance, the entire skyline rose
on the back of a giant lizard and crawled away.

Chapter 4
Variations on the thought ‘This can’t be’ thundered in her head, but she knew
she wasn’t dreaming. She knew because she was so scared that if it was a nightmare
she’d be awake by now and probably sweating, but instead, she shivered in
the crisp air.
She looked at the beach and was afraid to take a step onto it. She thought
she’d fall through to the center of the world or something, but she mustered up
all the courage she could and took a step onto the sand.
When the sole of her shoe touched the sand, she was no longer cold. She
felt an electric current flow from the ground through her legs. A fog began to
circle around her with lights dancing in it. It seemed like twenty or so fireflies
flying in tandem, but then she realized that what she took to be insects were
really eyes.
She looked over her shoulder and saw a bluish, ghostlike figure directly behind
her. It was nearly eight feet tall. She didn’t jump though, because she knew
that this figure meant no harm. It had calm radiating from it. Eleven more figures
swirled out of the beach and floated around her. One of them spoke in the same
chord-like way as on the telephone, back so far away in her world: “Hello, Gwendolyn.”
Gwen felt comforted by the voice, which continued with, “Call me Uxlian,
or Ux if you like.”
Gwen didn’t know what to say, but then trembled as she remembered what
she saw moments ago. “What about the lizard?”
Ux said, “Don’t worry about him. He’s only around as the worlds shift. He’s
harmless and rather sweet, actually.”
All she could say was, “OK.”
Ux’s eyes squinted a bit as it looked her over.
“What’s wrong? Are you checking for flaws?”
“Nothing of the sort. It’s simply wonderful to see someone from your domain
here. We Ancients rarely get the pleasure of analyzing someone of your ilk,
visage, and presence.”
A reddish-blue shadow figure chimed in. “What Ux means is that the only
occasions we receive visitors are during very rare dreams. Usually when someone
breaks through to our homeland, they become very frightened and quickly turn
the other way.”
Gwen nodded. She was surprised that she was still here and didn’t turn back
even if she knew how.

A greenish-blue figure said, “The unprepared attempt to emulate or merely
pattern, but you, you do so much more than that.”
“I do?”
Ux spoke again. “Yes. You do. Surely you are aware of the gift bestowed
upon you.”
“What gift?” Gwen was sure now, quite sure, that they had the wrong person.
The reddish figure said, “Your sense of humor is another gift, yes, and surely
you are jesting with us now. Rarely do we observe the rites of humor and reap
rewards of laughter.”
Gwen responded, “I’m serious.”
Ux looked closer. “What you possess far surpasses anything we can dream
of perfecting to even one iota of a hair’s breadth.”
Gwen was alarmed. “What are you going to take from me?”
Ux laughed. “I assure you we don’t plan to take anything from you. We
simply need you to do what you do best. We need you to knit.”
“Knit? You pull me from my home, um, dimension, or whatever, and you
want me to make you mittens? You don’t even have solid hands.”
Ux spoke in lower, more minor chords. “Gwendolyn. Please be calm. You
must understand that our situation is far more dire than a need for hand wear
for our nonexistent mandibles. You see…there is a bit of a snag. Actually, it’s
more of a tear.”
“A tear in what?"
Ux spoke even softer. “The fabric of reality.”
Gwen’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Wait, but if you can send mail between
dimensions, surely you can mend a snag!”
The reddish figure leaned in. “I’m sorry, but we can’t. You see, Gwendolyn,
we are unable to knit.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“I wish we weren’t serious, but this is a dire situation. Without you, everything
will come unraveled. It’s up to you.”
“Well, I can’t say no, can I? I mean, if I do, you won’t send me back, right?”
“Do you want to go back? If so, just ask us. Obviously, we strongly discourage
you from deciding that way, but the choice is yours and we accept it.”
Gwen felt herself almost reflexively ask to be sent back. The words were
halfway up her windpipe, but she stopped it there to let a different phrase around
it. She said, “So what do I do?”
Ux floated forward. “First you must find the golden needles; then you must
receive thread from the Great Weaver and, finally, mend the snag.”
“Where can I find all those things?”

“Your heart. It will guide you, and to help it along, we have found you another
guide. He will keep you company, and he happens to be the last person to
have seen the needles.”
The bluish creature said, in low tones, “You see, he’s the one who lost
them.”
Just then, a tallish, skinny man with pale skin and mussed blond hair burst
through the floating creatures. He said, “Fshhy fjilas fidhos fosins finlk.”
“What?”
Ux looked away in what seemed to be his ancient version of embarrassment.
“Of course, he doesn’t speak in universal tones. Open your ears.”
Gwen tentatively started to move her hands toward her earlobes.
He smiled. “I didn’t mean literally.”
Then they all sang out one great chord that she felt vibrate her soul. Then
she opened her mouth and spoke words she didn’t understand. At first it
sounded a bit like gibberish, but then she realized she had said, “What’s your
name?”
He replied, “Fsfjia Flizi.”
She quickly turned to the Ancient Ones who were beginning to dissipate.
“It didn’t work!”
The young man said, “No, it worked. Fsfjia is my name.”
Gwen nodded and said, “I’ll call you Jia, if that’s ok with you.”
He smiled. “Whatever you wish to call me is fine as long as Jia isn’t a word
for dirt or something in your language.”
“No. It’s short for Fsfjia.”
Out of the air she heard Ux say, “You must hurry. The tear grows with every
moment, every breath, every word, every thought.”
Gwen replied, “I’ll take that as 'good luck'.”
“Luck is chained to despair. Instead we wish you...”
“What? You wish me what?”
The Ancient Masters appeared again for a moment and said in a great chord,
“Gooooood love!” And with that they shimmered out of her vision.

Fabric
NickJones