random etchings

Story 5: time ticking away

Once upon a time, not so long ago when phones were attached to walls instead of hips and computers were bigger than a room, a woman lived alone at the edge of a quiet village. Naomi lived alone, so alone that there were days and weeks at a time when she did not use her voice at all.

Her parents were long dead, and her sister lived far away and busy with her own family, so she was only an afterthought in their lives. “Naomi?” she would say. “She's so talented—an artist, you know. Glass.” And she would look a mixture of proud and confused and dust off a gifted piece and then return to her life and think of Naomi only in passing until another time she welled up in the edges of her thought.

Naomi loved glass. Turning sand and fire and breath into beauty took most of her energy and all of her attention. Sometimes the creation would catch her so fast and long that she'd finish something and realize that her eyes were dry from lack of sleep and her fridge was bare. But generally, she spent three afternoons a week in the shop in front of her studio, where she could sell her art and talk to strangers will commissions but mostly plan out on paper what she would eventually turn into glass. And mostly, that was her world.

She ate when she had to. She slept in the home she owned next to the studio and store, which was filled with things she never noticed because her mind was so taken up with glass.

And maybe she would have lived like that forever, her mind and heart so full of glass that there were no soft things, no warm hands, no kisses, no stolen moments that make life magic. Maybe she could have even been content—not happy because happiness was never something she even thought about because glass was an obligation and a calling, and happiness was something she never considered. It wasn't a part of her life.

It was a Saturday night when things changed. Naomi had just finished a bowl in blues and greens with a vein of copper running through it in a spiral that made her think of galaxies. That afternoon she had spent in the shop, sketching out ideas for the next project.

A woman opened the door, ringing the bell.

“Hello. Feel free to look around.” Naomi coughed. “Let me know if you have any questions.”

The customer wandered through the shop, patting the baby slung across her chest. She stopped by a tree, reaching out her hand and almost touching the glass. “This is beautiful. Is it your work?”

“Yes. I have a studio out back.”

“I love it.” She reached out to turn over the price tag. “Ouch.”

Naomi chuckled. “Yes, but I have some work in a gallery for twice that. I try to keep things reasonable here for people who make the effort to come visit.”

They were silent for a while as the customer wandered around the store, never standing still long enough for the baby to wake up.

Finally, she came back to the tree. “It's going to haunt me.” She sighed and turned away. “But I have this one and his older sisters. No chance for breakables around my house.”

“I understand. My sister keep telling me not to send her more glass at Christmas. Too many children in her house.” Naomi stood, trying to get a better look at the tiny human. “How old is he?”

“Three months.” She laughed. “We shouldn't be out, but I was getting a bit stir crazy. We just moved in and I've been curious about this place ever since. You know, I can hear the furnace going sometimes, at night.”

“I'm sorry. Do I wake you?”

She smiled and Naomi felt her happiness like an infection wash over the store. “No. That's all his fault,” she said, patting her baby and laughing. “We aren't sleeping through the night quite yet. Curiosity about you keeps us up through those three am feedings. You know how it is. Sometimes when he hears you working, he lifts his head and it's like he wants to see through walls.”

Naomi smiled, but didn't correct the young mother. She didn't know how it was.

“Ah well. They're difficult but worth it.”

They talked a bit longer before she left, leaving Naomi alone with her thoughts. She didn't know how it was and suddenly, that mattered like an unbalanced piece waiting for a finishing touch.

For the rest of the afternoon, Naomi's sketch book filled with infants.

And that night, for the first time in her life, her dreams weren't full of glass.

word count: 800