The Ugliest Sweater in the World

Sensitive content: Physical violence and Suicidal Ideation

The door loomed like a gateway to hell in Arthur's peripheral vision. He tried to focus on the News channel that had been playing on his TV for the last week straight, his limbs cemented to his recliner, muscles already atrophying, and his white t-shirt and boxers discolored and crusting into his unwashed skin. The vines of purple flowers painted on the pale wood seemed to writhe and creep, begging for his attention, the petals pulsing like blood-sucking tumors. He refused to look directly at it.

The TV was playing in slow motion and hyper-speed all at once. Arthur's attention faded in and out as it spouted meaningless headlines.

"The mature adult's guide to emojis."

"Concerning rise in gang related youth crimes."

"How to cook a duck your mother-in-law won't hate."

"Senator Willington responds to accusations of tax money misallocation."

Arthur's stomach growled weakly, requesting sustenance it knew it wouldn't get. The refrigerator had been empty for days, the trash was growing new species of bacteria, and the mail that kept pouring in through the slot would now definitely be considered a fire hazard.

Arthur felt nothing, except a bone-deep fear of that flowery door. He figured if he could stay in his recliner for just one more day, it wouldn't be a problem anymore. Three days was the limit for survival without water, right? He thought he remembered her saying that once upon a time. He had stopped drinking two days ago. Only twenty four hours, and he could see her again. He just had to ignore that door.

A few hours later, he had managed to enter a dissociative trance. He imagined seeing her across a sunny meadow, running to her, feeling her in his arms again, hearing her melodic voice and her infectious laugh, seeing the smile he fell in love with spread wide just for him.

His memory was hazy though, frustrating in its vagueness. He thought he should be able to picture the most important person in his life more clearly than that. Maybe it was the starvation, or maybe dementia was coming to claim him at the most inopportune time.

Arthur was shocked out of his fantasizing by three sharp knocks on his door and a female yelling through his window.

"Arthur, I see you in that recliner! I see you breathing! You'd better have a hell of a good reason for not RSVPing to your own wife's memorial service! I'll expect to see you there two days from now. You know Winnie would have your ass if she knew you skipped it. And for Christ's sake, take a shower! Sympathy only goes so far, and I can smell you through the window!"

He heard Cheryl trip over the wall of casserole dishes lining his front walk and curse as she stomped back to her car.

Arthur felt like he had been punched in the face and thrown in a lake. He hadn't thought about what Winnie would think of his behavior after her death, which seemed silly now. He had never been religious, had never really settled on a belief in an afterlife. When Winnie was gone, she was gone, and she had ripped Arthur's heart right out of his chest and taken it with her. He wasn't mad about that, it belonged to her anyway. But without a heart, he had nothing left.

Cheryl's ire burned across his face and made him suddenly feel so very disrespectful towards the woman who had given him at least one reason, every day, to love being alive. Winnie had put effort into him, had watered him with praise and attention, had fed him with understanding and joy, had diligently plucked the weeds of self-doubt and pessimism that threatened to grow, and she shined her relentless light on him like he was the only thing in the world that deserved it.

Here he was, letting Winnie's most treasured possession wither in the dark. He didn't know how to find a reason to be alive without her, but he felt like Winnie would smack him if she knew he hadn't even tried. The thought brought a very uncomfortable shift to his fantasy of reuniting with her.

Arthur's gaze finally slid to the ominous door; Winnie's craft room. She spent most of her days there after she got too sick to work full time. And when she got too sick to make her hands function the way she wanted, she would have the hospice nurse wheel her in so she could look at her garden through the big bay windows.

She told Arthur after she was diagnosed that she would find a way to plant sunflowers under her skin, like they did at Chernobyl and Fukushima, to cleanse her of poison. Arthur told her that she looked beautiful in yellow.

It took Arthur an embarrassingly long time to peel himself out of his chair, his joints grinding together, muscles threatening to give up at any moment, pulse misfiring erratically beneath his skin, vision threatening to go dark from dehydration.

He leaned heavily on the cane that she had carved for him, with the vines swirling up its length, shiny purple violets dotting the dark wood to coalesce in a vibrant bouquet at the handle. She always worried that it wasn't manly enough for him, but it made her smile so much to see him use it that he didn't care for a moment whether it was manly or not.

He made his way across the room at a snail's pace, cringing at the audible creaking of his knees and hips, eyeing the bronze door handle like it was made of liquid nitrogen. He imagined Winne smacking him upside the head again and pushed the door open before he could scare himself out of it.

The gust of preserved air that infiltrated his nostrils was violent with the scent of her, citrus and nutmeg and blankets fresh out of the dryer. Arthur felt his chest cave in and he was sure this would kill him, but he kept moving forward.

Her paintings lined every open space of wall she could find, mainly depictions of human anatomy with floral growths. Kidneys and chrysanthemums, livers and lilies, brains and bluebells. It was a cruel joke of the universe that cancer took the Oncologist.

Technically this was Winnie's office too. She had her desk with her textbooks and notes, and filing cabinets of research pushed unceremoniously in the corner of the room. Work was her priority at work, and although her job did not permit her to leave it there when she clocked out, her priority at home was always joy.

She had taken a foray into the world of knitting after her medical leave from the hospital. Arthur would have never told her, but he thought she may have finally found the one thing she wasn't good at, not that it mattered when she had so much fun. The first thing she made was a bright green beanie that was about 3 times too long for any human head, and had a little string sticking out of the top that made Arthur look like a deflated pickle. He had made her laugh for hours, parading around the house in that beanie and a waistcoat, pretending to be an incompetent French waiter.

He crossed the room to the soft arm chair facing the bay windows, and felt time stop as he saw the card addressed to him and bundle wrapped in purple tissue paper laid on the seat.

Arthur opened the card with stiff arthritis-ridden fingers that shook as he read it. The heart he thought was lost to him made itself loudly known inside his chest. He could hear Winnie's voice reading her note, so clearly, like she was whispering in his ear. He could almost feel hot breath ghosting over his earlobe.

He wiped the sudden wetness from his eyes, sniffled loudly, and turned his attention to the bundle. He unwrapped it with delicate care, recognizing Winnie's gift wrapping technique, and marveling at the fact that his hands were following the path that hers had laid out. He imagined her surgeon's fingers resting over his blue-collar calluses, guiding his hands over the tape and tissue paper like a waltz.

When the bundle was unwrapped and Arthur saw the sweater inside, he was hit with an irreverent mess of emotions. First was the grief that he couldn't tell Winnie how proud he was of her. Second was the pride that she had managed to learn how to knit a sweater. He always told her she could do anything she put her mind to.

Then came the feeling of his heart swelling with love because she had spent her final days making this for him instead of worrying about herself. But that feeling was short lived, steam-rolled over by confusion and a bit of disgust.

If Arthur was being honest, this was the ugliest sweater he had ever seen in his life. Not like ugly-Christmas-sweater ugly, but a whole new level of ugly that deserved a role in a body horror film.

It seemed like she hadn't quite figured out how to stay on track with the shape of the sweater, so the sleeves ballooned at the elbows, the right arm shorter than the left. The neck was approaching turtle status and had concerning little elasticity. The torso seemed somewhat form fitting, but with bulbous pockets of fabric hanging in odd places. The looseness of the pattern towards the bottom left side made Arthur think that must have been what she finished last, when her fine motor skills were failing.

The yarn Winnie chose had Arthur questioning if she developed color blindness towards the end as well. Nauseating irregular stripes of puce and chartreuse with little salmon tassels scattered about like flaccid skin tags. It was deranged.

As conflicted as Arthur was, he picked up that nightmarish sweater and brought the fabric to his face. It felt like he was resting his cheek on top of Winnie's head, sniffing the orange blossom shampoo in her shiny gray hair, arms pulling her into his own body, swaying to the song of the windchimes in the garden. He gasped at the physicality, the clarity of the memory.

Arthur hobbled out of the craft room, clutching the sweater, and looked at the disarray of the home he had built with his wife.

She would definitely smack him for this.

Arthur switched off the TV, peeled off his bio-hazardous undergarments, and took a scorching hot shower with his wife's shampoo. When he was dry, he slipped on fresh undergarments, and some pressed khakis from his closet. Next came the sunflower socks that matched the ones he had gotten for Winnie when she started chemo. Then came the purple suspenders she had gotten him for his last birthday, claiming he was an old man now and he was obligated to protect the public from the power of the ancient plumber's crack.

He snapped the suspenders against his chest, feeling a little thrill at the sting. Next he pulled the pickle beanie from his sock drawer and arranged it as securely as he could manage over his thinning silver strands. He donned his wife's reading glasses with their beaded chain, and finally, he tugged the sweater over his head. This was not an easy task thanks to the unyielding neckline, but he managed with limited stretching of the fabric.

When Arthur looked in the mirror, despite looking truly insane, he smiled for the first time in a long time. He could see her. She was tucked up against him, arms squeezing him the way they always did when he put on a sweater "because teddy bears are meant to be hugged." He could see the mischievous sparkle in her eyes, and he laughed at his own reflection just to see if she would laugh too. The sound that came from her lips shimmered through his mind and sent shivers down his spine.

Arthur spent the rest of the day cleaning their home, humming her favorite tunes and watching her ghost twirl and sashay alongside him as he swept and tidied and dusted. He forced himself to eat something and drink water, struggling to keep from shooting it all out his nose as Winnie retold her favorite jokes, elbowing him in the side every time she got to the punchline.

After Arthur had disposed of the last of the casserole dishes parading as lawn gnomes, Winne turned to him and whispered, "take me to our bench? The sunset will be beautiful tonight." Arthur could never refuse her.

Arthur walked down the street like a man re-born, barely leaning on his violet cane, back straight and strong, his other hand swinging in his wife's grasp. They found the bench where they'd had their first date; the day Arthur knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he would marry this woman.

They watched the sun dip low into the ocean, screaming in golds and pinks and oranges and purples with its dying breath. It was the kind of ending that felt like a beginning. The salt spray of the surf masked the salt dripping down Arthur's cheek as he smiled with such hopeful melancholy, he thought he would burst. Winnie reached up and pressed a kiss to Arthur's cheek.

Night fell heavy as they walked back to their home. Arthur was so enraptured with the vision of his wife, that he never saw the teenage boys that locked onto him as he passed the alley. He never saw the baseball bat coming to shatter his wife's reading glasses from his head.

Arthur crumpled to the ground, Winnie reaching for him desperately. Arthur felt blades and blows and taunts hitting him from all angles. His purple suspenders snapped, his cane was thrown into the street, he lost a Velcro shoe and his sunflower sock dipped into an oily puddle. His pickle hat was pulled down over his face as he was beaten, getting harder and harder to breathe through as his blood saturated the green.

His wonderful ugly sweater was torn down the middle, right through the loose part that he knew Winnie had finished last. The cold air hitting his chest whisked the vision of her right out of his mind and Arthur was alone once again.

Arthur felt the boys take his wallet from his pocket when they were through with him. He had no money in it, only the card with Winnie's last words.

Arthur had nothing left. He had tried, for Winnie he had tried, but he had nothing. He scrambled to remember the feeling of Winnie's lips pressing into his cheek as he faded from the world, but his cheek stayed cold, and he couldn't quite recall the sensation of the kiss that had been so vivid only moments before.

Twenty four hours later, Arthur woke and discovered Purgatory. The hospital room smelled like emptiness, the fluorescent lights buzzed through him like static. His body wasn't his any longer, broken and bruised and unrecognizable. In a clear bag on a chair across the room, Arthur recognized the bloody scraps of his wife, a little salmon tassel poking out the top.

His chest felt cavernous and still. He could hear the beeping on the monitor but was sure it could not measure a heart that wasn't there.

A nurse came into his room and became painfully excited when she realized he was awake, less so when he wouldn't make eye contact or speak a single word.

Cheryl came into the room next, her Doctor's coat folded over her arm. She didn't try to get him to talk, but she sat next to his bed and held his hand.

"At least you'll be here," she said. "The memorial service is downstairs tomorrow night, I can set up a video link so you can watch from here." She rubbed at her eyes and stood up. "I'm so sorry, Arthur."

Arthur drifted in and out of consciousness, cursing every time he found it again. At some point in the night, the bag of bloody scraps vanished from his room. Eventually, the static in the air was joined by rays of morning sun that felt radioactive against Arthur's eyelids.

The nurse from the night before came into the room carrying a garment bag. Arthur hoped that it might have been a body bag.

"Good morning, Arthur," She started, sounding nervous. "We met yesterday, I'm Rose."

Rose pulled a chair up next to the bed.

"Cheryl filled me in on your wife and the service today and I wanted to say how sorry I was. Anyways, I thought you should have something to wear in case you felt up to going, and I felt so bad that we had to cut your clothes off when you came in, and I had a hunch so I just ran with it, but it's okay if you don't like it," She shook herself. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling."

Rose unzipped the garment bag and Arthur's chest gave a lurch. She held a black suit. The jacket had a sunflower sewn into the right sleeve from one of his socks, a strip of purple suspender lining the chest pocket, and poking out was a pocket square of puce and chartreuse stripes lined in pickle green.

"I could only save scraps, but I thought... maybe..."

Arthur brushed the pocket square with his fingers and choked on a gasp as he felt Winnie's lips pressing against his bruised cheek. Then her voice came, reading the note she had left him.

"My sweet husband, you are the light of my life. Keep shining and I will always find you."

Arthur felt his heart spark inside his chest.