A Glass Winter 1

A room can hold a thousand memories. Every heartbreak, argument, bubble of joy, seeping into the furniture. If these walls could talk. A family grows; a couple grows apart; a child is born. Love. Some rooms are positively dripping in the stuff, the unloved feeling it rather keenly. All the thoughts and ideas shared in that room, all the gorgeous, terrible, secrets. A puffy sensitive rectangle of modernity. Springtime was afoot, undesirable greenery feebly forcing its way between the paving stones, a golden sun rising sooner, setting later. Its syrup light hits the eighty third floor at around seven.

Really they had wanted the apartment above, succumbing to defeat only out of politeness, that terrible British affliction. They were an older couple you see, it just wouldn’t be proper to engage in nasty financial battles. Some people are too old to negotiate with. Criminals, Vanessa thought. The wife, uncommonly beautiful, which tended to rub people the wrong way, so she drank rather a lot. Indeed, if anyone knew what a large proportion of the day she spent silently hating the pensioners upstairs they might, quite rightly, suggest professional help. Theo, the husband, he was the social one at any rate. She somehow always seemed to let honesty get the better of her, completely untempered opinions came tumbling out at the most inappropriate moments.

7.31am

Too early for a glass of wine? She cast around the room, white, soft grey furnishings, pillows, puffs and potpourri. Feeling disgusted in her own predictable taste, she sat in the kitchen. A roughly cut granite monolithic island. Perfect for slamming one’s head against. She slipped off her engagement ring and set it down next to the sink, perhaps she would flush it down the toilet. Suddenly self-conscious, she put it back on. Two walls of glass, it was hardly a private penthouse.

Splinters of sunlight made their steady progress outside. She occupied herself flipping her long black hair from side to side, so that it whipped her in the face. All the while, an arrogant bottle of red wine was staring her down from the cabinet. Its bloody liquid formulating a sinister plan that would surely see her drain it before lunch. A particularly sharp hair caught her in the eye, so she stopped. Blurry vision seemed to somehow diminish the scandal and she was already reaching for a glass.

Three sumptuous gulps later, the resolute sunlight hit the red glass, imposing something of a psychedelic nightmare on the bare white wall. Everything was bathed in its fluttering red glow. She felt powerfully uneasy, bad omens usually came with a little more subtlety than this. Today was a day she needed luck on her side. Months of planning, and now everything was full of morbid excitement.

The city below was beginning to emerge in a sea of sharp shadows. It would be up and running soon, but for now, the world held its breath.

*

Crystal droplets lash the windows, the glass shuddering from the force of it. Thick bulbs run down the glass in fits and spurts, forming little rivers where they collide. The only light is that of the city, glittering points of brilliance, like the candles of a birthday cake seen through teary eyes. Vanessa stands at the window, a barely noticeable silhouette cutting up the darkness. Those wide eyes staring blankly, unfocused, lost in some terrible thought. In this moment her radiance is somewhat diminished, tangled hair thrown unceremoniously over a shoulder. She seems to have shrunk, clothes hanging limply off her, as if a scarecrow was standing watch over the scene. Such apprehension, almost tangible in the air, making it thick; a room full of soup. Floating in a sea of nameless emotions.

It is that moment, what generations of neurotics have failed to expound, the weights of all earthly pains balanced on a knife edge, precarious.  Water building behind a damn that will inevitably breach.

Rooted to the spot, her feet ache with the knowledge of what she has set in motion. Unable to move, generations could pass her by, seasons, years, millennia, it is all meaningless. A gorgeous, horrific act places her above it all. Perhaps she is already in hell, cursed to gaze upwards, eternally aware of the pain she has caused. Any second now, he will walk through the door, the dam will burst, the knife will fall.

Somewhere out there in the pressing blackness, the sun still rages; the endlessly furious furnace. She feels it in her chest, its glow just about ready to burst and obliterate any semblance of the life she once fought for. Any second now. She hears what will be the creak of a door, playing endlessly in her cracked mind. The room remains dark. The buzzing in her chest becomes a cry, a wail, a child’s scream. Everything is screaming. A flock of terrified birds attack her from all sides, but she remains perfectly still, statuesque.

When the moment finally snaps, it does so almost lazily. There is the predictable creak, the rattle of horrified breath, the furtive steps, the little moan she has only heard once before, when his mother died. The breeze hits before the glass. A bottle collides sickeningly with her head. Bottle and head alike shatter, shards cast into the darkness. She is falling, the world stops to take notice, as if everyone has turned in horror, time stands still. A child in the path of a speeding car. The horror of it drops hearts. And still the shards fall, glass, skull, blood. Falling at some otherworldly tempo. Every piece shimmers, jagged mirrors gilded in ice. The scene is paradisiacal. A thousand drops of crystal, windows, through each a moment. Spinning, sparkling in the weak light to send a masterpiece fluttering into her eye.  A hundred moments, every one leading to this. She sees them all and understands. All are happening simultaneously and not at all. Some catch their rays only to be flung out of reach, some spark the richest images. She sees them all and understands. 

It is all happening now, as it all always will be.