The Alphabet Conspiracy

A History of Glass

76 A History of Glass When God closes a door, we break a window. Sorry I say to the landlord who replaces it. Sorry I say the next morning to the neighbor who complains about the noise. An accident. She waits for more of an explanation. So I start at the beginning. The history of glass is a history of accidents. Long ago and far away: a woman, a pot, a fire. Her lover surprises her from behind, kisses her until the pot glows, smoke rising like a choir. She snatches it from the hearth & drops it on the floor covered in sand & ash. (She is a good cook but not tidy.) Her lover throws water on the whole mess: the sand hisses, her hand burns. She can hardly see the hard new miracle forming for the tears in her eyes, at her feet a new obsidian spreads, clear & eddied. It will be 2000 years until a tradesman molds by hand the small green & blue glass animals (housed today on the second floor of a local museum), & nearly 4000 before sheet glass in 1902. (Many accidents happen during this period.) One hundred years later the glass animals in the museum are visited by two 77 women: one marvels at their wholeness, except for an ear or a nose or a paw; one does not marvel. She says, “They survived because they’re small.” They stop for dinner, mostly wine. They stumble home. Were there eyewitnesses at that late hour when they embraced & fell? Once inside there is a window of sheet glass & a bare bulb burning out. In the darkness of the stairwell they sink, dark coats spreading around them. The wind rushes in. Remember the glass animals? They tell a history of accidents too—accidents waiting to happen. ...