Patchwork
Compendium 2020 - Story 24
Each square of the quilt held a memory. Grandma's stitching was neat and orderly, just she'd been herself. The squares that made up the quilt were anything but. I ran my fingers over it and tried to pick out which squares had been added when.
The purple square with blue stars carried with it the memory of a winter evening, choosing fabrics with grandma while my late grandad did crossword puzzles and grumbled answers at the game shows he loved. The pink swirly square brought back the memory of spilling squash when I was little. One corner still had the ancient stain visible.
The house was cold, but it was a relief after the humidity in the Chapel as we said goodbye to the best grandma a boy could have.
A grandma who knew about the patchwork dead.
She told me about them after grandad died. It was a secret between us. I was heartbroken and needed the comfort. She told me how she liked to remember those that she had lost throughout life with the quilt.
She showed me the scissors. The thread. How to ease the skin from a body. Best when fresh. Best when still warm. Easier to prise away.
We would drink tea and she would show me how she had taken the police officer's face, how she had stolen the cheek of a former lover. How she had peeled the scalp of an old man just prior to his cremation. Dozens of the squares in the quilt had been sourced this way.
I patted the wall where the secret panel hid the space she hung and dried and stretched the skins. The hooks were good quality. They'd lasted a long time.
I saw dad's car arriving outside. He would want his pick of memory-laden treasures too.
I rolled the scissors, thread and needles up in the quilt, its brightly coloured squares soft with the feel of perfect human leather. I bagged them up.
Dad greeted me and we embraced. We missed her.
But she would live on in her work.
I began to plan crafting days to come.
(C) Andrew Hawnt 2020
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About Compendium 2020:
Compendium 2020 is a project which sees author, comic book writer and screenwriter Andrew Hawnt release 52 new pieces of fiction throughout 2020. With a mix of science fiction, fantasy and horror short stories, flash fiction and vignettes, it is an epic journey through the strangest, darkest recesses of his mind.
The stories can also be found on YouTube, narrated by Andrew, and in quarterly Ebook collections on Amazon. A collected omnibus edition will be released in paperback at the end of the year.
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