I hear the sound of breaking glass, yet this time it is a music that vanishes deep scars; for I am the one escaping a prison invisible to others. Wounds heal as if my blood were liquid magic. Then I watch the shards shrink in moments as if the waters of the ages had weathered them to friendly gem-like pebbles, soft to my soles.
Before my brain can register the sound as breaking glass, my eyes are shut tight and a million new knives fall softly over my exposed skin. I freeze, all but my heart remaining statue-like on the wet tile. When finally I allow my eyelids to flutter open I see that the ground is stained red, the colour creeping outward among the shards...
A crack runs across the glass, finding the weaknesses that were once invisible. From perfect window to something belonging in the downtown core happens faster than the naked eye can appreciate. Then like a coil suddenly relieved of tension the new fragments fly outward until they lie still yet vicious in the failing summer grass. Breaking glass has become my art, my calling card. Watching them shatter releases just a fragment of the rage that keeps me upright, a sort of modern blood letting that allows me to sleep the next night.
At first the crack in the glass is small, barely the length of hair pin. It shines almost bluish in the subdued light that filters through the ocean to our filming capsule. It's Celia that spies it first, running her bare finger over the top to see if it is all the way through. Before the distress button can even be depressed it accelerates, branching like a drunk spider's web before imploding. The breaking glass has no resistance to offer the thousands of pounds of briny water and is gone at once. From above the signal is instantly lost and from the film crew there is only static for an answer.
The steel girders buried in the concrete scream. Then as if a pressure bomb was let off inside thousands of windows shatter in unison - horror with a mesmerizing beauty. The breaking glass appears to fall with the grace of snow, yet in truth it is more of a wild avalanche and just as deadly...
The crowbar swings in slow motion, even the bird swooping behind the man seems to slow his arc to the next branch. Then, like a poorly edited movie, there is no impact or sound of breaking glass, only a raining down of fragments sharp enough to cut on contact.
We scatter faster than the shards of the window in their explosive arc. The breaking glass will be heard right down the street, perhaps as far as the church. Being caught amongst these icy fragments will mean more than a whopping; its trouble we don't need but a rebellion we can't resist.
The air is suddenly rent by the sound of breaking glass. Other than a gunshot there is nothing that gets my attention sooner or heart accelerating faster. As always I'm first on my feet, first to be armed, back against the cool plaster of the wall. In days gone by we would have assumed the an innocent origin to the sound - not anymore. Breaking glass almost never heralds anything good.
Breaking glass was the anthem of my childhood. A day never went by without the sound of a beer bottle smashed into a thousand glittering fragments or a window falling foul to an errant stone. I don't think I ever saw the school without a cracked pane or the church free of a boarded up opening. Even now the sight or sound of it transports me back to unwanted places, troubled times. It takes me back to when breaking glass showered my dreams in sharp slivers, pierced the smooth souls of my childish feet and lay without remorse on stone either baked hot by the sun or frozen by the winter chill.
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