Margaret busied herself with her knitting. When the dark green sweater was finished, she would send it, along with some other homemade treats, to Paul Jr. He could wear the sweater under his army uniform and be just a little warmer while he strove to make everyone safer.
At the rap of the door knocker, Coral, the family’s cat, leaped off the couch and trotted into another room. Margaret set her knitting aside.
She picked it up again hours later, long after the army men and then the Rev. Hauser had gone. She had done her work so well, but it had been fated to be wasted.
She took up her scissors and snipped the yarn close to the sweater. The ball dropped to the floor, and as she went toward her bedroom she kicked the yarn out of her way. She folded tissue paper around the unfinished sweater and packed it away in a shirt box.
The young man had been gone for months; he was out of Coral’s thoughts unless she walked past his bedroom and caught his scent. All she knew was that she had a new toy, and she played with it all night.
Holy cow. Those are strong ironic images. They just keep opening up for me. Terrific title.
Powerful concept that I’d like to see fleshed out with more setting of the scene and hints of character development. Could be done with just a little time for quick details: pictures on the end table, lamp, bring the cat into the scene almost immediately. Does she paw at the yarn while Margaret is knitting or is she aloof? Put Paul, Jr., in a specific place, “the sweater would help on those miserable Afghan mountain nights” or whatever.
“She had done her work so well, but it had been fated to be wasted.” Too cheap a line for such a fine notion. You don’t have to tell us this; we know why the reverend followed the Army men. Let the simple act of cutting the yarn tell us what we already know.
Weirdly, maybe, I think there needs to be something of the relationship betwen PJr and the cat, something like “with the same indifference Coral had always shown Paul, Jr” or something quite the opposite.
As Greg said, great images!!
I see merit in Doc’s second paragraph. I too had already figured out what the Army men and the pastor meant.
However, I don’t agree about the cat’s relationship with PJr. Here, I understood the cat to be a force of nature, the impartial universe that simply unravels everything that is abandoned or no longer maintained, possibly even having fun doing so. To give the cat a family-type personality and family relationships would make it impossible to look a the cat in that symbolic way.