The Next End

What untangling four sets of fairy lights revealed about the way my mind now moves through the world

They were going to throw them away.

Four sets of curtain fairy lights, impossibly tangled, each with 10, maybe 12 feet of fine wire.

They handed me what looked like a three-foot cocoon.

“Have at it.”

I put them in the back seat of my car.

I couldn’t wait to get home and untangle them.

At home, I made my favorite ginger tea, grabbed a cookie from the jar, turned on the fire, and sat on a big Moroccan pillow so I could be level with the cocoon, formerly known as fairy lights.

Of the forty ends, only one was visible.

It called to me.

Here I am.

I followed its path through the cocoon, through knots, through crossings, through small tightening pulls that tried to split it away from itself.

After about an hour, I freed my first strand.

I wrapped it around my wrist in a perfect spiral, secured it with a hair tie, and set it beside me.

It wasn’t going anywhere.

Not until the others were free.

That was hours two through six.

Of day one.

While at work the following day, I realized my fingers were sore playing piano.

Funny. I hadn’t practiced.

Then I smiled.

My fairy lights.

Suddenly I couldn’t wait to go home.

To untangle the mess.

To discover the order in the disorder.

To return the lights to themselves.

At home, I sat on my pillow.

My husband made my tea, my biscotti, and turned on the fire.

He didn’t ask if I wanted help.

He knew the answer.

I tried to listen to music, but it was too distracting.

I had one goal.

Find the ends.

I had untangled seven individual strands the night before, but the cocoon had barely decreased in size.

How could that be, I thought.

Maybe untangling was like cleaning.

Before the cocoon could shrink, everything inside it had to loosen first.

I pictured the cocoon shrinking.

My hands hurt.

By midnight, with only a small dinner break and a single glass of wine, I had uncovered the first complete section of the nest.

One strand.

Made of ten smaller strands of the finest wire.

Threads, almost.

Tiny glowing hives along the wire.

So delicate.

And now, carefully wrapped, no longer at risk of tangling again.

I looked to my left.

Somewhere in that cocoon, there were thirty more ends.

Thirty.

I should have been exhausted.

But instead, I was invigorated.

The rest of the week repeated the first day.

Work. Tea. Cookie. Fire. Untangling.

I was finally on what looked to be the last set of strands.

Ten, maybe twenty ends left.

I held a needle used for embroidery.

Thick, but sharp.

It would help me separate the remaining ends with ease.

I looked behind me at my work.

Two completed sets of fairy lights, each strand wrapped and tied, hanging neatly.

Symmetrical.

Ordered.

I had even arranged the hair ties in rainbow order.

They made me so happy.

Now to find another end.

As I worked my way through the finally shrinking cocoon, I felt an unexpected sadness.

It was getting easier.

Before the fevers and the coma, I solved things quickly.

I used to finish Sudoku puzzles during intermissions at concerts.

Word games. Patterns. Puzzles.

My brain preferred shortcuts.

Now it takes the long way around.

It follows every crossing.

Every knot.

Ideas arrive slower now, but more completely.

The fairy lights only asked one thing:

Find the next end.

Then I picked the needle back up.

I separated the wires carefully, as if performing surgery on conjoined twins.

The last set took almost no time at all.

It was only midnight.

My hands didn’t hurt.

Or maybe I didn’t notice any pain.

I slowed down without meaning to.

I set the needle aside.

I would finish the last few the old-fashioned way.

Old-fashioned, as of last Sunday.

I remembered finding the first end.

How exciting it was.

How complete it felt.

I remembered that day’s cookie.

Warm.

The fire.

The tea.

I unraveled the last strand.

Somewhere along the way, the work had stopped being about finishing.

It had become finding the next end.

Kari Burroughs Kraakevik is a composer, writer, and arts educator based in Colorado. She owns two arts education companies serving more than 200 students weekly and writes about embodiment, neurodivergence, performance, and modern womanhood. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Genre Society, Infocalypse Arts & Literary Magazine, Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, Larina’s Lit Lounge, and Divergents Magazine.