Agnes Richter

583. 583. 583…

I’ve stitched identity, woven rivers into coarse, unforgiving fabric. Cotton is hard to come by but I’ve saved strands over years, pulling colourful tendrils from fraying escapees. I started with my asylum number, forgetting I was baptised Agnes. Semblances of humanity have worn dry, flaked off in darkened cells.

I’m an inventive seamstress. My lifetime’s work: ebb and wane of a spindle needle, following the bent of thoughts, weaving its lifetime path, reclaiming deadened parts of my soul. Sepia memories, askance and thwarted, are righted: now upwards, proudly tall. My most prized line: ‘I plunge headlong into disaster’ - my motif, replacing corporeal years of perceived madness.

I’m famous. A once lowly seamstress, teemed with so-called “paranoia”, has her own place in history like a bookmark holding a gripping page.

Money, hard-earned in America, troubled me. I couldn’t find enough cubby holes to hide it. My father and brothers lusted: drunken Elysium dripped from seduced lips as ravenous, fable wolves. They failed me, exposing my pallid, hunchback frame to institutional clutches.

Twenty-six years locked and keyed in Hubertusburg Asylum. I curse them, haunt greedy shadows, chanting “583” sitting atop gilded coins, tapping restless needles. They writhe, sweat like The Three Little Pigs, trapped in perpetual, boiling-pot hell.

For me, justice is served. My jacket is a museum artefact. Visit! You’ll see glints of silvery needles where spirit lingers amidst prized stitching. It’s part of the Prinzhorn Collection, No 743.

Numbers ghost but with this one, I’m freed.

***

Emma Wells is a mother and English teacher. She has poetry published with various literary journals and magazines. She enjoys writing flash fiction and short stories also. Her debut novel, Shelley’s Sisterhood, is due to be published in 2022.