Light on Broken Glass

Challenge #8: Tell the Story of an Empty Glass

This is the tale of an empty glass that affected many lives before its ultimate demise. To the right is a beautiful Duke Blue Devils glass, not the glass featured in this story, but a glass worth viewing nonetheless. Moving right along to the tale:

Once upon a time (don't judge it's a classic line and I like it) there was a boy born to a poor family of cobblers. As was tradition during this time, he was expected to apprentice for his father and learn the family business. However, Michael was meant for grander things, this he was certain of and he often dreamed of becoming a glass blower. 

Michael's day began at dawn where he completed his set chores on the farm before joining his father in their shoe workshop. After milking the cow and fetching water from the well a quarter mile away, he and his father walked 3 miles into the village where their shop was located. It was a modest shop with hand crafted shelves to display the shoes awaiting to be retrieved. A small partition separated the front of the shop from the work area. Here is where Michael spent the majority of his day, hunched beside his father watching him work tediously and cautiously on every project. Occasionally, Michael's father, Bernard, would have him practice a particular skill. It wasn't that the work was strenuous or monotonous, it was the final product that bored Michael. There was no room for putting oneself into the shoe and no room for creativity. 

He couldn't remember exactly when it was that he first fell in love with the idea of glass making, but it had been years since. He did, however, remember in vivid detail the first day that he met Norman. Norman was the local glass blower and his shop was on the other side of the town square. One day after work, Bernard sent him to buy some nails from the blacksmith, located right beside Norman's shop. Michael was mesmerized at the process of blowing glass and enthralled with the idea that his hands could potentially create a thing of beauty to be admired. 

Staring as Norman worked, Michael dreamed of a time when he could forgo the life of making functional products and create functional masterpieces. He loved the intricacy of the work and the give and take between blower, kiln and glass. It wasn't until Norman called hello to him that he snapped out of his trance. He had been standing there for nearly twenty minutes. Norman and Michael began to talk about glass and apprenticeships and one thing led to another and Norman was talking about how he didn't have a son to train and would Michael want to be an apprentice in his shop. Michael was elated and asked if he could train in the afternoons until supper and Norman and he set up an agreement. He skipped all the way home completely forgetting the nails he was supposed to have brought with him.

Michael knew his father would not approve so he simply lied and said he was going to hang out with his friends each afternoon. Time passed so quickly at Norman's shop that Michael was always sad to see the sun setting as he dashed the 3 miles home. Norman started him off with odds and ends around the shop before he allowed Michael to start learning the process of blowing glass. 

Routine set in and Michael had found his niche. He was unbelievably happy. The only cloud on his horizon was the fact that soon he would have to tell his father about his desire to leave cobbling because he was fourteen and at fifteen he would be too old to apprentice. How he was going to break the news he couldn't decide until one day it just came to him. He would create a glass for his father to drink mead from and after his whole family admired his work, they would ask him how he was able to afford something so beautiful and then he would tell them of his true passion. 

Dawn was breaking as Michael strolled into town. He arrived at Norman's with the goal of creating his first piece of intricate glass work. Norman wouldn't be in for at least a few hours because it was Saturday. He began working the glass and got into a rhythm. The glass was nearly finished when he inhaled with his mouth still on the pipe and the embers and flame he sucked in scarred his throat and he passed out from the searing pain on intact. As he fell toward the ground his arm hit the pipe causing it to fly in the air and land on his left hand. The glowing vase destroyed his left hand and set fire to the shop around him. 

Norman was greeted with a shop in flames and a charred figure crawling from the flames and billowing smoke. Michael was alive but barley. He was dragging a glass with him as he emerged. Michael woke up in a strange place with bandages covering a large portion of this face, left arm and legs. The doctor told him what had happened and that he would never blow glass again. The accident had made it to where Michael could not speak and his left arm was now a nub. With only one hand, glass blowing was no longer feasible. Tears streamed down his cheeks and he lost all hope. The only thing that survived the fire was the mead glass. It was distorted from hitting the ground and being drug through the dirt, but it was intact. The way it had cooled with Michael's hand clutching it created a handle on one side of the glass. 

Bernard would not speak to his son and wouldn't allow anyone else to either. He assumed correctly, Michael was abandoning cobbling and was hurt that his own flesh and blood had deceived and betrayed him with such ease. Bernard said that Michael had chosen this life and would live with his consequences alone. Luckily Norman took pity on the handless and homeless lad and welcomed him with open arms. He cared for Michael and helped him heal, even letting him have his own room. Slowly Michael's mobility increased and he could carry building materials to Norman and help clear debris with his good hand. Norman taking him in taught Michael powerful lessons of humility and forgiveness. He yearned to be able to express his gratitude to Norman and to explain his intentions to his father. 

As time passed and Bernard still refused to see Michael the bitterness began to grow in his heart. His only possession, the mangled glass, sat on his bedside table as a constant reminder of his mangled hand and his mangled relationship with his father. Bitterness began to replace the pain in his heart and he poured more focus into his work, often working well past nightfall. Soon the glass blowing shop was complete and Michael and Norman settled back into their old routine. Michael would write his father a note each night and place it in the mead glass. Norman could sense that Michael wasn't happy and devised a plan. He created a metal brace that the glass blowing pipe would insert into allowing someone to blow glass using only one hand. He couldn't wait to show Michael. Michael was ecstatic and showed his appreciation by picking Norman up in a one-armed, bear hug and spinning him round.

Over the next 3 years Michael and Norman worked together to improve his ability with the metal brace and eventually Michael was crafting beautiful pieces again. He felt happy again and people from surrounding villages would stop by the shop to watch the one-armed man blow glass. They also were amazed at his designs. He was a local legend and admired for his determination and talent. Still, Michael wanted desperately for his father to forgive him. He went to the cobbler's shop every Sunday and every Sunday Bernard would turn away and treat Michael as if he did not exist. Michael decided it was time to give Bernard the mead glass. Since Bernard wouldn't look at him, Michael left the glass on one of the display cases on the wall and walked away. He couldn't bear to return after his father made no attempt to see him and that was the last day he went to his father's shop. 

Bernard had kept the mead glass but did not look inside it until one morning, reaching for a pair of shoes, he knocked it off the shelf. The glass split into tiny pieces and it was then that he saw the tiny slips of paper filled with apologies and explanations and pleadings of reuniting. In that moment he saw what a fool he had been and was filled with remorse. 

Michael was 33 years old when his father came to see him work. At first Michael didn't recognize the stooped old man and went about his glass blowing. Bernard looked on in awe as he saw his son put his heart and soul into the unfinished piece of glass and admired the concentration and focus Michael showed. Michael looked up from his work as he heard the choking sobs coming from the direction of the old man. As he glanced in the direction of the noise he saw the stooped figure coming towards him mumbling, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Michael finally recognized Bernard and without hesitation embraced him. There they stood father and son with tears streaming, arms locked around one another. 

Words were not needed in that moment. 

At first Michael's glass was filled with love as he began making it for Bernard. Then the glass was filled with pain as he clung to it when all hope appeared lost. Next the glass was filled with hope in the form of paper slips and apologies. Finally, the glass was broken and it was then that Bernard saw the glass was always filled with love. Sometimes all we need is a flicker of light, that glimmer of hope to realize the glass was never empty. 

-THE END

"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."

- Anton Chekhov