No Strings Attached

(image: twine, a kind of string--in case you were wondering)

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No Strings Attached

He told her he preferred a relationship
with no strings attached. She said she preferred
strings attached. For instance, she wore an anklet
woven of string. Sometimes she kept her hair back
with a simple elastic circle of string. Her clothes
were made of threads, a kind of string, and,
she added, she preferred to keep her clothes
on at least for the immediate future. She
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said that if he and she were to take a long
walk into a relationship, she would want
to tie bits of string to branches so she'd know
the way out for sure in case they got lost.
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He said, "It's just an expression." "You mean
like 'string of words'?" she asked. "It means,"
he said, "I'm not your puppet and you're not
mine. It means 'no commitment'." She said,
"Your shoe's untied." He looked down. It
was untied! She wasn't kidding. He knelt
to tie the string of the shoe. When he arose,
he saw that she'd vanished, no strings attached.

Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom