Mission Control, this is Hot Mess.
We're approaching the event horizon.
Do you copy? Over.
22 August 2019
I tried not to think about glass.
Summer was almost halfway over by the time I managed to get rid of the final unwanted piece of glass from year one. It went into my office trash can. The rest had been given away or sold for charity.
Alchemy texted me out of the blue. He had ideas for next semester. I tried not to think about it.
In early August, Maine #3 self-destructed. I wasn't sad. I'd have trashed it anyway.
I rode my bike. I made jewelry. I lifted weights. I worked my day job. I ripped up carpet. I moved furniture. I put dibs on a foundling kitten.
I tried not to think about glass.
I thought about texting Sleepless but I didn't; she was probably off in her new school, far, far away from here.
I asked in advance for a Monday night studio spot.
Then it was August 21, one day before the start of the fall semester. I got the requested slot. I had to think about glass. My office mate peering over my shoulder, I found the list of students. Tall Vase, Grace, Alchemy, Low Key, Classmate's Partner, Sage, Glass Ninja, The Kid, Tiny and her daughter, and a handful of others. There were some names I recognized as last semester's beginners. Prodigy wasn't on the list. Neither was My Classmate. Tightness washed over me. I grabbed my head. "All of a sudden I'm so nervous!"
"Why?" my office mate asked.
"I don't know!" I groaned.
I could feel it pulling me in.
I arrived on campus far too early and killed some time by getting a new parking permit. There was still half an hour to go when I rounded the corner. I looked for our vase in the mulch. It was still there.
I looked up. The metal door was all the way open. Pieces of the studio were on the pavement outside. I heard Our Instructor laugh.
"I don't want to go in," I thought, over and over again. Once in, everything would come flooding back, and the rest of my life would disappear. Like drug addiction, but translucent and shiny.
Sage put me to work scrubbing a block bucket and filling it with water. Two of last semester's beginners were assiduously scrubbing slimy blocks. Our Instructor commanded us to move everything out of the studio so that we could hose the floor down. I was almost as sweaty and gross as if I'd been working at the bench.
LT1 scuttled about, the paper schedule in her hand. I thanked her for putting me on Monday, and I took a peek at the other names. I only recognized one: Glass Ninja.
In the melee I found him. "Hey!" I said. "I saw your name on Monday nights. Are we going to be partners again?" Having spent all summer not thinking about glass, I hadn't spent any time considering who I might wind up working with.
"No," he said. "It's gonna be changing. Tiny's Daughter and I talked about working together. We're kinda going in the same direction. We thought it would be good. Sorry."
"No problem," I shrugged. Tiny's Daughter is an up-and-coming hotshot. Glass Ninja is an established hotshot. By experiential standards, I'm still a noob, and also without direction. "That was a major diss though," I told myself. On the other hand, working with Glass Ninja always made me nervous. I vacillated between being miffed and being relieved.
If he were to leave Monday nights, I'd be the most senior person there. "I don't know if I'm good enough to teach them," I said to LT1.
"You're good enough," she said. I'd have to be.
I went back to hauling the studio out to the pavement. I set a table down, and, standing in front of me, dressed in scrubs, was Sleepless.
"Sleepless!" I gave her a big hug. "You got a job!"
"I got a job!"
"What are you doing here? Visiting?"
"No! I'm in this class!" With this one being wait-listed, she'd been given a slot in the beginner's class but would be with us.
"I wanna work with you," she said, "but I can only do Tuesday nights and you're on Mondays."
"Let's go change it!" I said.
LT1 was hesitant. "I can do it," she said, "but there will be five of you."
"That's okay."
"And these two," she said, pointing at the names of two of the most senior glassblowers, "are going to take up a lot of space in the annealer."
"That's okay," Sleepless said. "I work small."
"Me, too."
"Teach me how to make a cat?"
"I'll teach you how to make a cat."
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