Even Glass

The glass was hot and glowing, goopy. It hung from the end of the long metal pole like honey, dripping slowly as it cooled, taking shape and becoming translucent, then transparent. The heat from the open furnace was fierce; someone told me it could give you a sunburn if you stood too close for too long. Inside it looked like a volcano full of bright molten glass. Men in underwear spun and blew the glass, flattening it with wooden blocks, perforating it with blowtorches, tempering it. The crowd gasped as the glass popped and burst, jittering in their seats excitedly, anxiously awaiting the next trick.

We were inside an old factory, the room, sparsely decorated, smelled of cinders and something chemical. A band presided over the affair, accordions and dreamy Latin guitar scales hung lazily in the air. There seemed to be a gruff fragility to the art, a kind of joust with time. The men in underwear, their javelins raised, gobs of glass glowing at the tips, rolled and pressed them forcibly against hard surfaces, manipulating them before they cooled; before they lost their malleability; before they became hard, and still.

Sometimes, the glass would become too stressed from the pressure, from the rolling and pulling, and it would shatter to pieces while it lay idle on the table.

Even glass, I thought.