The crash

I awoke to the sound of a horrific crashing in the front part of my house, shortly followed by wailing, coming apparently from me. And by wailing, I don’t mean a loud, determined, strong, high-pitched scream of terror such as you’d see in the movies shortly before something awful happens. No, it was a dismal wail; a long, low wail of dismay, distress, or despair. It was an “I-can’t-take-anymore” cry of anguish.

John, who sleeps completely naked and nearly blind, slapped on his glasses and struggled into his shorts as he stumbled out our bedroom and down the hall. I heard the front door open and close. Then a low sad noise in the foyer.

It was my turn to leap out of bed, armed with my phone, in case I needed to, you know, call 911 for the obviously injured burglar in the house.

John shouted at me to stop; don’t come any closer. I looked down at him squatting by something on the floor. We currently have no pets in the house. What was it? “You’ll cut your feet,” he said, and I looked down and saw glass everywhere. We were both standing in a pool of glass shards.

It was my beautiful watercolor by Sage, my old friend from Olympia, my artist friend whom I carelessly lost contact with two decades ago.

The nail I had used to hang the picture was embarrassingly small, now that I saw it glinting down there, a tiny gold bit, lost amongst the chunks of shattered glass.

John kindly cleaned up the glass for me (because that’s the kind of guy he is) and we went back to bed. Luckily the painting was not cut by the shattered glass. Someday I’ll buy another piece of glass and hang Sage’s painting back up again – on a bigger nail!

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