One day, he picked up a shard of glass.
In the street. It wasn’t anything special
but it had a nice sheen in the sun.
It was flat, for the most part
glittered like the lake in summer.
It brightened his day.
He wasn’t doing too well at school.
Hank and his clique had stolen his lunch.
Again. Stepped on his shoes. Again.
Miss Atterby said he was slow,
he overheard her at parents’ evening.
Said he would struggle his whole life.
Later that night he heard his dad say
“What we going to do with him?”
His mom didn’t say a word.
Life was like that.
His dad drank and shouted and punched.
His mom didn’t speak, cried and made dinner.
He liked to watch the grass grow
and the sun make shadows
and sometimes glimmer on raindrops.
He wasn’t too bothered with others,
except when they stole his lunch.
He liked playing with his shard of glass.
Sunrays made it gleam real pretty
especially near the edges.
He liked it so much that he kept it in his bedroom.
Never brought it to school.
He didn’t want Hank to lay his filthy paws on it.
But he missed it every minute.
He rushed home as soon as the bell rang.
Sighed with relief unhiding the shard.
As even on rainy days it would sparkle.
One day he found another shard.
This time near the grocer’s.
When he picked it up the fat man
who always winked at his mom
with saliva at the corner of his mouth
said “You going to cut yourself”.
He knew adults were always right,
like the time he was told not to climb the tree
in the supermarket parking lot.
He fell and broke his collarbone.
That day he thought this was death.
And then his dad beat him more,
and he knew death was worse
than breaking his collarbone.
This was just pain. A lot of it.
So he pocketed the shard of glass
making sure he didn’t cut himself.
At home he cleaned it in the bathroom sink
with some soap. Delicately. Delicately.
The light coming through the oval window
made it shine so bright he closed his eyes.
He could still see the shard shimmer.
Then he put it in the box, with the other.
He played with one at a time only
because he didn’t want to cut himself
like the fat greengrocer has said he would.
It was like playing with the surface of the lake
every glint weaving around his fingers.
But one day he tried playing with both
and he saw they kind of fitted together.
They fitted so well he couldn’t pull them apart.
He couldn’t even see the line between them.
It was easier this way to play with them,
he thought, so he left it at that.
The glisters like liquid light
bright, bright
the only flicker in his life.
Life had no flicker for him, though:
school, no school, lunch, no lunch
dad drunk, mom crying
him crying because people were mean
torn jeans, getting beat, getting more beat,
and the fat one smiling always.
Until he found another shard of glass.
And another. And another. And another.
Over the month he pieced enough
to make something
he didn’t know what it looked like
but it was like a big hollow box
with one large hole and three smaller ones
and it spangled and glimmered
like a puddle of rain with petrol in it
in the sun so unbearably beautiful.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off it.
The box was getting bigger and bigger
with things like branches popping out
and it grew bigger and bigger and prettier
so he hid it in his cupboard instead.
One day, Hank got him good though.
His clique had cornered him near the bins,
he couldn’t run any longer.
They beat him and beat him and beat him
and a rage in his heart began to grow
his mouth tasted like metal and he smelt it too.
He thought he could engulf the world in fire.
When he spat his blood on the ground
he saw swirls of colours streaking across
like mad butterflies, purple and blue and green.
His dad made fun of him when he came home
black and blue and his heart beating in his face
the rage gripped his stomach and twisted
he got so mad that he took a map of the city
in the chest of drawers in the corridor
marked all the spots where he had found a shard
so he knew where to look for new ones.
It took him a week to find as many pieces as he could.
It took another week to assemble them all together
connecting holes with holes
making a structure which eventually
looked like a costume made of glistening water
When he was done the glass
all shimmery and smooth
was flexible like his clothes
with no seam or holes but somehow
he knew he could put it on
his face still contused hurt him when he smiled
as the glass costume fitted him like a glove
he became so sheeny that people winced
and looked away, hand spread before their eyes
the sun turned him into crystal
clouds in a grey haze
on rainy days he would be imperceptible
and Hank wouldn’t come near him
and Miss Atterby stopped saying he was slow
his dad shrugged and watched the match on the telly
his mom sort of looked and didn’t look
her eyes in the distance and smiled
One day he decided to go to the lake
and if the people picnicking there had looked
they would only have seen the surface
go crazily on fire, spangling like a night sky
like a shower of meteors glitzing the blue air
like a thousand suns firing up at once
like a million dragonflies’ wings flapping
as if all light and no light in a blend
Everything within a fraction of a second.
The surface of the lake, after the explosion, was undisturbed.
