Jared Garland

               Maria picked up a floral skirt. She folded it. Taking no time to react to the neon felt flowers eating up the fabric, she just smoothed out the wrinkles with her palm, and placed it behind her in a bag marked “MAGNUSON”. She then reached for a sweater, but instead grabbed the hand of Ines, who pulled the garment towards her lap. The two were rushing to finish a final load of laundry, which stood between them and Sunday afternoon. 

               Ines and Maria worked from opposite sides of the heap. Besides the drone of dryers, the laundromat was silent (mostly because Maria had no desire but to finish her work, and did so mechanically). Maria gave herself no liberties to speak of. She glanced at the clock without moving her head.

                But before she could check the time, her focus was stolen by Ines, who was repeatedly folding and unfolding a pair of fishnets, draping them over her arms. The stockings were to be admired from all angles.  “She’s slowing down business”, Maria thought, too exasperated to pay any notice to the “ay’s” and “si’s” coming from across the mound. Or to watch as Ines’s face changed…

                “MARIA! I HAVE FOUND IT!” Ines screamed, excited over something.

“Ines, I’m glad you’ve found your fish-whatevers, but stop yelling, dios mio!”

                “No, do you not get it? I have found the key to unlocking the universe!” exclaimed Ines, who would have been frustrated with Maria, but was too adrenaline-filled to care. “You see the fishnet? It is time-space net.” “This is time,” she explained while tracing a horizontal thread with her finger, and then a vertical one, “and here is space. See when I stretch time-space like this, and it makes sixth dimension. And when I do this, it is seventh dimension. Do you want to see eighth?”

“MARIA!”

Maria stared at her blankly.

“Do you not understand? This is what Stephen Hawking was saying this whole time! And I uncovered it! It is all so simple now…”

At this point, Ines seemed invincible. She jumped on top of the laundry mountain, and began to swing the fishnets over her head like a trophy. From her elevated position in the Laundromat, she looked and felt as though she had conquered the universe.

And she had.