Here is a story I wrote in 2018. It was based on a different image than what I use, but I don't know where the original came from and thus can't source permission.
Pricks and Patches
Aurora watched as a tiny bead of bright red blood bloomed on her finger for a moment before she delicately put her finger to her lips, kissing the metallic drop away. She knew she should be paying more attention to her task, but her thoughts kept fading. This is not how she had pictured spending the day before her sixteenth birthday, even though it had been at her own behest.
When she’d said she’d mend the shirt, her father had stared at her with tired, red eyes, and told her it didn’t matter. “Things fall apart,” he said and a long silence fell between them.
The shirt she was mending had begun to fray long ago. Its cuffs were uneven and little holes and tears appeared here and there. But it had been beloved by her grandfather, all of its failings showed that. Even though the shirt would hardly be used again, it felt neglectful and almost cruel to shrug and say, “Good enough,” when just a little toil, and a drop of blood it seemed, would fix it.
The stuttering whir of the aged sewing machine tugged Aurora’s thoughts to her grandparents. When her grandmother had been alive, she had taught Aurora how to use the machine with gently wrinkled hands and a kindly damning of “new contraptions.” Her grandfather had tirelessly tinkered with it whenever it threatened to break, using his knobbly hands and rusting tools to make it purr. The only time Aurora had used a new machine at school, she had nearly sewed her finger into a hem, a frightful moment she’d recounted to her grandparents. After her grandmother had reassured herself that Aurora had done no permanent harm, her grandpa whispered, “Sometimes, old and patched is better than new.” Aurora remembered seeing a crack of a prideful smile splaying against his rumpled cheeks.
Aurora said a silent plea that this machine wouldn’t fail her now, even though it had snapped at her for not giving more forethought to her task. She knew her grandmother would have been the one mending the shirt had she still been alive. Now, or rather, soon, her grandfather was going to join her. Her grandmother would know if he arrived looking less than perfectly put together, thought Aurora.
When she finished her work, she took the freshly mended shirt to show her mother. Her mother smiled weakly and told her it looked wonderful. She then asked Aurora to put the shirt in the clothing bag so that she could take it to the hospital that afternoon, before they turned off life support.
Aurora’s father watched her wordlessly, but she paid him no mind. Her grandfather would be spic and span before he passed, as her grandmother would’ve wanted. And, after the cremation, the little stitches she had done would turn to ash along with her grandfather, forever mingling her care and his earthly remains.
A small prick of blood seemed a small price to pay for a loving, eternal sleep.
(Prompt by a writing teacher I think or perhaps for a contest but encouraged by Emily Kleeman)
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