Under Shifting Glass Read Online Free
Author: Nicky Singer
Theyâre here to stay.â
And Si doesnât go on to mention the thirty-nine percent of conjoined twins who donât make it through the birth canal, or the thirty-four percent who die on day one.
He just takes her in his arms and lets her bury her head in his chest. I see them joined there. Head to chest.
11
Iâve only been gone from my bedroom a matter of minutes, but it feels like a lifetime. Even the room doesnât look the way it did before. Itâs bigger, brighter, there is sunlight splashing through the window.
âThe babies,â I shout. âTheyâre alive!â I jump on the bed and throw myself into a wild version of a tribal dance Zoe once taught me. Then I catch sight of myself in the mirror and stop. Immediately.
I also see, in the mirror, the flask. It has fallen over, itâs lying on its side on the desk.
No. No!
I scoot off the bed.
Please donât be cracked, please donât be broken
.
The flask has only just entered my life and yet, I realize suddenly, I feel very powerfully about it.
Connected
, even. I find myself lurching forward, grabbing for it. But it isnât my beautiful, breathing flask; it is just a bottle. Something you might dig up in any old backyard. It isnât broken, but it might as well be, because the colors are gone and so are the patterns. No, thatâs not true; there are whorls on the surface of the glass still, but they arenât moving anymore, and the bubbles, my little seed fish, they arenât swimming. And there is nothingâ
nothing
âinside.
I feel a kind of fury, as though somebody has given me something very precious and then just snatched it away again. I realize I already had plans for that flask. I was going to remove the cork and . . .
The corkâwhere is the cork?
It isnât in the bottle. I scan the desk. It isnât on the desk. But how can it be anywhere but in the bottle or on the desk? Did I imagine a cork? No, I saw it: a hard, discolored thing, lodged in the throat of the flask. I look into the empty bottle, as if the cork might just miraculously appear. But it doesnât. The smell of the bottle is of cold and dust. There canât have been anything in that bottle.
And yet there was.
There was something crouched inside that glass, waiting.
No, not crouched; that makes it sound like an animal. And the thing didnât have that sort of form, it was just something moving, stirring. Then I see it, the cork. Look! There on the floor. Itâs not close to the flask, not just fallen out and lying on the desk, but a full yard away. Maybe more. To carry the cork that far, something big, something powerful, must have come out of the flask, burst from it.
So where is that thing now?
12
Itâs on the windowsill.
What I thought was a patch of sunlight isnât sunlight at all. Itâs bright like sunlight, but it doesnât fall right, doesnât cast the right shadows. Light coming through a window-pane starts at the sun and travels for millions of miles in dead straight lines. You learn that in fifth grade. Light from the sun is not curved, or lit from inside, or suddenly iridescent as a soap bubble or milky as a pearl. It doesnât expand and pulse and move. It doesnât breathe. Whatever is on the windowsill, it isnât light from the sun.
I go toward it. It would be a lie to say Iâm not frightened. I am frightened, terrified even, but Iâm also drawn. I canât help myself. I remember my old math teacher, Mr. Brand, breaking off from equations one day and going to stand atthe window where there was a slanted sunbeam. He cupped his hands in the beam and looked at the light he heldâand didnât hold.
âYou canât have it,â he said. âYou canât ever have it.â
And all of the class laughed at him. Except me. I knew what he meant because Iâve tried to capture sunbeams, too.
And now I want the thing on
And Si doesnât go on to mention the thirty-nine percent of conjoined twins who donât make it through the birth canal, or the thirty-four percent who die on day one.
He just takes her in his arms and lets her bury her head in his chest. I see them joined there. Head to chest.
11
Iâve only been gone from my bedroom a matter of minutes, but it feels like a lifetime. Even the room doesnât look the way it did before. Itâs bigger, brighter, there is sunlight splashing through the window.
âThe babies,â I shout. âTheyâre alive!â I jump on the bed and throw myself into a wild version of a tribal dance Zoe once taught me. Then I catch sight of myself in the mirror and stop. Immediately.
I also see, in the mirror, the flask. It has fallen over, itâs lying on its side on the desk.
No. No!
I scoot off the bed.
Please donât be cracked, please donât be broken
.
The flask has only just entered my life and yet, I realize suddenly, I feel very powerfully about it.
Connected
, even. I find myself lurching forward, grabbing for it. But it isnât my beautiful, breathing flask; it is just a bottle. Something you might dig up in any old backyard. It isnât broken, but it might as well be, because the colors are gone and so are the patterns. No, thatâs not true; there are whorls on the surface of the glass still, but they arenât moving anymore, and the bubbles, my little seed fish, they arenât swimming. And there is nothingâ
nothing
âinside.
I feel a kind of fury, as though somebody has given me something very precious and then just snatched it away again. I realize I already had plans for that flask. I was going to remove the cork and . . .
The corkâwhere is the cork?
It isnât in the bottle. I scan the desk. It isnât on the desk. But how can it be anywhere but in the bottle or on the desk? Did I imagine a cork? No, I saw it: a hard, discolored thing, lodged in the throat of the flask. I look into the empty bottle, as if the cork might just miraculously appear. But it doesnât. The smell of the bottle is of cold and dust. There canât have been anything in that bottle.
And yet there was.
There was something crouched inside that glass, waiting.
No, not crouched; that makes it sound like an animal. And the thing didnât have that sort of form, it was just something moving, stirring. Then I see it, the cork. Look! There on the floor. Itâs not close to the flask, not just fallen out and lying on the desk, but a full yard away. Maybe more. To carry the cork that far, something big, something powerful, must have come out of the flask, burst from it.
So where is that thing now?
12
Itâs on the windowsill.
What I thought was a patch of sunlight isnât sunlight at all. Itâs bright like sunlight, but it doesnât fall right, doesnât cast the right shadows. Light coming through a window-pane starts at the sun and travels for millions of miles in dead straight lines. You learn that in fifth grade. Light from the sun is not curved, or lit from inside, or suddenly iridescent as a soap bubble or milky as a pearl. It doesnât expand and pulse and move. It doesnât breathe. Whatever is on the windowsill, it isnât light from the sun.
I go toward it. It would be a lie to say Iâm not frightened. I am frightened, terrified even, but Iâm also drawn. I canât help myself. I remember my old math teacher, Mr. Brand, breaking off from equations one day and going to stand atthe window where there was a slanted sunbeam. He cupped his hands in the beam and looked at the light he heldâand didnât hold.
âYou canât have it,â he said. âYou canât ever have it.â
And all of the class laughed at him. Except me. I knew what he meant because Iâve tried to capture sunbeams, too.
And now I want the thing on
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