While eating a sandwich at the kitchen bench I knock a glass, and the fingers of both hands cupping bread, watch it smash on the tiles. That’s the usual state of my dirty dishes; twenty or so used mugs and glasses, the bread board, and a couple of knives from making sandwiches. There’s a pathetic lack of plates.
That particular glass had only been sitting beside the sink since somewhere between four and five am. I’d woken myself crying, head pounding from drink and a tearstorm, and downed two Berocca and two Panadine before crawling into bed. Prior to that, I’d fallen asleep on the lounge room floor with Metamorphasis One on repeat. I’d drunk till I’d stopped crying. I’d drunk till I started crying again.
This glass must be safety glass. It shatters in tubby blocky little chunks, spread across the room. I have this habit, when standing and barefoot, of lifting my toes off the ground. There’s glass now under my toes, and I can’t put them down. I can’t move.
I won’t move. Or I might smash all the others, and while that would offer some fleeting satisfaction, then I’d have nothing to put my juice in.
I don’t move. I stand, with toes in the air, and finish my sandwich. The glass is broken. The mess isn’t going anywhere. The larger pieces, run through with cracks, separate and fall apart with little ‘tch-tch’ noises for minutes afterwards. The glass is broken, the glass keeps on breaking.