The Glass Pane

She sat on a rock at the edge of the running stream, her legs in the water. She was thinking serious thoughts, making up her mind about life and other very serious things. A giant square glass pane materialized in front of her. Across the stream. She sat looking at it. It was entirely transparent and she could see the trees on the other side of the glass.

Yet she knew the glass was there, a huge square pane of freshly cut glass in the middle of nowhere. A window to nothing. It was strange in the midst of the woods but strange never bothered her. She was used to strange things that her mind made for her. Strange and beautiful things.

She stared fascinated as the moonlight and the running water made a very faint rainbow with the glass. The rainbow was the point at which reality and madness met. Her still functional logic told her the glass window was clearly madness, and the brook and the moonbeams were clearly real.

As she took in the almost rainbow, a faint thrill ran through her. It was exciting to be a part of something fantastic, that was also a little real. To be touched by the insane and know it. To feel it.

Pure insanity is such a waste. People don’t know they are mad, they just accept madness as sanity. But the rainbow phase, it made her want to sing a little. An involuntary smile was upon her lips and her eyes stopped blinking for fear the rainbow would disappear and turf her back into the dull monochrome world.

She transferred her gaze back to the glass pane after a while. Everything that is fixed becomes a little dull. Her eyes bored at the glass as she tried to reach her serious decision. It shattered without warning. Into many hundred pieces as if someone had thrown a rock at it. Not a bullet, a bullet would produce only a neat hole, her logic reminded her.

She stared at the glistening fragments of dying glass that lay on the grass. It was her, lying there, shattered into multicolor shards of glass and painted that way. As a bright jagged collage of pain. It was breathtaking. Her heart caught in the beauty of it all.

She reached into the pocket of her sweatshirt and pulled out a tiny red shellphone. She dialed a number and listened for him

"Hello"

"I think we should break up"

His voice did a double take "What? What? Why?"

"Because it will be beautiful"

There was dead silence at the other end for a long long time. She didn’t interrupt it. Then he spoke

"Okay" The phone went dead in her ear

She put the phone back inside her pocket and looked across the stream. The glass pane was intact again. She stared and stared at it but it wouldn’t shatter. Silently she started crying.