The Glass Blower

The Glass Blower

She wears a layered, floor-length gown and shades herself with a parasol. She is the last of my collection. When I hold her up to the window the light lances through her and flickers against the east wall of my apartment, like sunlight shivering on water.

There are no more. They are gone. All of them. The ballerinas and geishas, the women in Victorian attire and the aproned housewives that looked as if they might have stepped straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Each piece had been individually blown, then handcrafted by Manuel.

I close my eyes. Remembering the first figurine I purchased from Manuel is not difficult. She was frosted glass, six inches in height and perfectly formed. Although she had a smooth, nondescript face, that first figurine's hands and hair and hoop dress were so carefully cut and skillfully etched that when she simultaneously reflected and refracted light, you almost believed she was alive.

I named her Maribel. And though no longer part of my collection, Maribel, like all the others, still exists.

I draw the curtain and close my hand around the figurine, feel the sharp points of her parasol against my palm. I squeeze tighter until she crumbles in my grip.

In those days, you could still find Manuel peddling his blown glass masterpieces under a canvas canopy on the tourist-thronged sidewalks of Fisherman's wharf.

But that was such a long time ago.

How simple it had been back then to climb aboard a chugging streetcar, disembark near the wharf, where the smell of the ocean always hung in the air. Holding my hat against the wind, I made my way down the pebbled road, past vendors hawking silver trinkets and live ocean creatures. When finally catching sight of Manuel and his display of glassware, I would breathe a sigh of relief.

I feel the organs inside me regaining their youthful rhythms. Staring down at my gnarled hands, I watch the skin smoothen, take on the texture and clarity of ice. I push aside the curtain. My reflection, trapped in the window, transforms rapidly. Like a walnut reversing its troughed shell, reverting back to its smooth beginnings. The sunlight glints against me.

I am young again.

But there are no more of Manuel's figurines, and the effect is only temporary.

Later, when once again I feel the onset of age, I will step onto the balcony, close my eyes, and hurl myself to the pavement below, where I'll shatter into a million pieces.