Glass and Water: A Love Story

Glass and Water

Glass and Water worked great together, they were always such a pair. They had a routine they had worked out over the years from the good old days on the primal stage to the etheral silver screen, like Fred and Ginger. They always started touring in the spring, but they were eternal in the eyes of lovers everywhere-timeless and always impossibly romantic like the lines and gestures of actors in black and white movies. People were enchanted by the choreography of cascading water on windows, the soft reflection of the serious moon on lakes lapping the shores of foreign lands and the melting car windshields that hid warm whispered conversations, as complete strangers sloshed by. They were lovers and that was that. People fell in love to their eternal dance of sound and vision.

By mid-summer, the sun was sparkling while Glasses clinked and Water flowed so free. Glass was forever enchanted by Water, wild as the wind and dancing with the lights through the picture window. And for Water, there was a tangible charm to glass that couldn’t be resisted. Water always curled up snug in the sculptured grasp of glass. They were always such a pair. The paparazzi teased them about starting a family. People whispered and people stared but Water always seemed to make it onto the front page, into the gossip columns and short clips, with Glass not always being there.

Glass was became jealous like a clock, counting the hours of the day. Dark and brooding and reflecting distorted shadows from within, glass grew demanding and began to accuse water of flowing everywhere. Water responded with a quick splash of innocent laughter but Glass remained rigid  and immutable. Then terrible things were said and done by the summer’s end with the sordid details following.

Glass had an affair with Gasoline and things got volatile. Revolution and big ideas were in the air. Glass wanted to change their image, reach a new audience and change things, with a capital T.

Water, in turn, had an affair with Gravity, however hesitantly. Then the confrontation came to a head backstage. Water said, “I’m tired of your grand ideas, your poising, and your Molotov cocktails of hate-shattering and leaving splinters in flesh everywhere. It’s always me that has to wash the wounds of everyone!”

“Yes", said Glass with a jagged sneer, "you wash everyone, what do you care!”

“There is a balance everywhere”, said Water, knowing.

“Yes, you are very versatile”, Glass said deliberately and slow, “the papers are not even sure if you’re a boy or a girl!”

      
      This time, Glass had gone too far. The silence that followed was long and dark. Then the tsunami hit. Glass, always so fixed and poised, forgot how unforgiving the softness of water could be. But by now a winter chill had set in and the tour wrapped up and the hoarfrost on the windows started to look like tiny glass wings , in-utero, waiting for the spring or was it a spider web full of pretty things?

For David Bowie