how to stitch the emperor’s new clothes
A Flash Fiction by Nadia Born
don’t be fooled by the empty eye of your needle (the fashioning of illusion is a difficult feat). to start, choose a common spool. unravel it over the graves of the girls that the emperor strangled (say their names). rub the thread in the soil where the earthworms are as thick as knots (check that it turns a color between glass and salt). if this doesn’t do the trick, if it doesn’t yet become invisible, seek the widows of soldiers who fought in his gem-grubbing wars, the priestesses and she-scientists and witch-blooded that he outlawed, all the scorned apothecaries, chamber pot scrubbers, concubines, flute makers and cooks that you can find. have them spit on the spool until they have bone-pickled mouths. next, prick your thumb. let the blood leech into the weave (watch it flag-shimmer as you suck your fingertip). wet the thread through your iron-spiced teeth, then your needle. spell-stitch his robe all night long (make neat xs of an unseen alphabet (don’t let it slither from your grasp)). once ready, tell the emperor it’s only visible to the most intelligent of men. after all, his ego is a castle with ambitions to float (he will feel the robe thistle his skin, but never see it). at the crownday festival, watch him parade before his people. bow if you must (not to him but to his new clothes (to his restitched fate (to the ruin you’ve spun him with ghost-dyed thread))).
Author: Nadia Born writes about girls who are birds, mothers who are ghosts, and other mysteries. She won LitMag’s Anton Chekhov Award and New Letters’ Editor’s Choice Award. She also has fairy tales appearing in Small Wonders, The Orange & Bee and Flash Fiction Online. Find her online at www.nadiaborn.com.