Tricoteuse At The Knitting Boutique

by Jon M. Gluckman

About the Author: Veteran English teacher, Jon Gluckman, can be found online in the publications Micro-Fiction Monday and 101 Words Weekly.

Excerpt

At Knit One, Purl Two, Madame Lafarge stepped back to admire the oil painting of the tricoteuse that stretched the width of her small shop. Satisfied, she sighed. It said everything she wanted it to say. She had replaced the painting purchased on impulse, Penelope Knitting—she’d wait for no man—with this. Her shop of yarn, whole now, aligned with a destiny, a fate, no longer misaligned or marred by a dropped stitch in the afghan of women’s domination. She’d not dismantle all that women had accomplished amidst the sea of eternal and unrelenting suiters. She’d had to defend herself from the breakers of men who besieged her small strip mall Bastille. The developer, the loan officer, the town safety inspector, the list of males went on ad nauseam, had plagued her. In response, she spent the past three loan payments on the painting, and now the bank threatened her assets and her title. Everything would work out. She said, “You right the world when you right the mind.” Agency felt electric, like a jolt from a Luigi Galvani experiment.

Story Comments