No, that isn’t a flash fiction about strangulation.

Before I took up knitting, I had a fling with finger knitting. Here is an illustrated how-to on finger knitting which I particularly like, because of illustration #2, which is (as of this date: 2/14/2013) a photo of somebody’s happy dog.

So, anyway, the result of finger knitting was a bunch of, like, ropes. Unless you plan to go into business as a monk (or, following up on the strangulation theme, a hangman), there really isn’t a major niche in one’s life for a bunch of woven rope.

Then I learned how to knit, and — whaddya know? — there was all this yarn just lying around eating its head off and doing nothing but being rope. So I unwove it and knitted it up. As a piece of knitting, it ended up being much, much smaller than it was as a piece of … you know … rope, but it was long enough to go around my neck, so I have — TA DA! — another pretty collar.

I fastened it with a beautiful hand-painted wooden pin given to me by none other than my pal Jane. As my late Aunt Ora Mae would have said, “Now, ain’t that purty? Oh! That’s just so purty!”

Happy Valentine’s Day, one and all! I invite you to read my lovely story, Holiday.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character suddenly feels something around his or her neck.

MA