Entry #37

Intimacy
by Precie


“It was an accident, nothing to worry about,” said the host as he tried to staunch the spill, a fine Beaujolais seeping through the crevices and seams of the worn hardwood floor. “Just a little accident. Not to worry—we have plenty more glasses.”

The guests laughed obligingly and resumed their chatter as he collected the shards of crystal, wrapped them in a stained napkin, and went to dispose of the refuse.

No one there could have known that the sand of that wine glass--that exquisitely cut, carefully handcrafted crystal—that sand had one lain along the edge of a Babylonian garden. The grains had once wafted through a Chinese palace, been caught by a typhoon off the coast of Japan, danced among the palm trees of uncharted islands.

No one there knew the unholy heat the sand suffered as it liquefied, only to be trapped, frozen in time and space, as it cooled. Naked and imprisoned, all it could do was submit. Submit to the heating and cooling, more burning and freezing, stretching and twisting, the insinuating touch of the craftsman, the relentless grinding of the beveler.

“Nothing to worry about,” the owner said. “Eat, drink, and be merry.”

No one knew the truth, but the wine. In their brief minutes together, they had shared a lifetime of secrets.

As the young vintage raced to escape the greedy napkins, it whispered what it could remember of the crystal’s history, staining the ancient wood with its fleeting knowledge.