A Sliver of Glass

by Anne Mazer

  No, it can’t be. My hand went through and, once, my head. It happened; I know it happened.

  I won’t accept that the boundaries of my world are four yellowish walls.

  I have a plan. I am going to escape. I will hurl myself through a window. Which one, I haven’t decided yet. Really it doesn’t matter. Then, instead of a plain room with a stove and a bed, I will be sitting in an empty meadow or rushing along city streets.

  Then I will be free.

  Free of my room forever.

  Only one thing worries me. When I’m outside at last, I wonder if I will find myself trapped once more, caught—and longing to get back to my room.

  8

  THIN

  The boy’s name was Thin. He was small and bony, with a narrow nose and mouth and large, luminous eyes that he kept half shut, as though he did not want anyone to see the expression behind his lids. He was good at dodging complaints, demands, and blows. He knew how to disappear, too. And then reappear when there was food around.

  It was well known that Thin would do anything for food.

  At lunchtime the children filed into the cafeteria, stood in line, piled their lunch trays with food. Then they sat down at long gray tables with their trays in front of them. What did they have to eat? A greasy slice of roast beef. Some limp peas. A puddle of applesauce and a dry cake with cinnamon and nuts.

  And there was Thin. No one ever saw him with a tray. He didn’t have money to buy lunch. Perhaps he brought his lunch from home; perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps he ate it on the way to school; perhaps someone took it from him. No matter. He was always hungry.

  He went from table to table, wheedling, pleading, begging.

  The children tossed him cakes and watched him jump for them. They rolled peas to him one by one. They slid pieces of roast beef over the edge of the table and watched him scramble to catch them as they fell to the dirty brown linoleum floor.

  He had been known to eat food off the floor.

  He dusted it off, stuffed it into his mouth, and went on to the next table.

  He was always hungry.

  One day, as a game, all the children in the cafeteria handed him their dishes of ice cream. He started near the window and worked his way through the room, gobbling down one dessert after another. The children stamped their feet and clapped their hands as he swallowed dozens of bowls of ice cream. He didn’t even bother to pick up a spoon, just dumped the entire contents of the dishes into his mouth.

  But the next day he was hungry again. Thin would beg, stand on his head, play, steal, fight, or cry for a sweet.

  He grabbed at a licorice stick that a boy held out to him. The boy raised his hand as if to strike him. Thin cringed. The boy laughed and tossed the licorice stick at him.

  Thin devoured it.

  “Come to my house tonight,” the boy said, staring at him with dull black eyes.

  Thin watched him warily.

  “I have candy; lots of candy.”

  After school Thin followed him home.

  The black-eyed boy gave him candy and more candy. Marzipan people, chocolate deer and fish and dogs, yellow marshmallow puffs, white sugar chicks, pieces of nut-filled fudge …

  Thin ate it all, grabbing it up with quick, slender fingers.

  “There’s more candy in the shed,” said the black-eyed boy.

  As soon as Thin was inside, the boy slammed the door and locked him in.

  The shed was damp and smelled like rotting boards. Thin pushed against the door, but it didn’t yield. Through a window streaked with dust, he saw the other boy’s round face watching him.

  “More candy?” the boy taunted. “Want more candy?”

  The next morning, the boy came and opened the door. Thin picked himself up and ran toward the street on his spindly legs. Behind him the boy called out. “I have candy! Candy!”

  Thin stopped. He lowered his eyes. Beneath half-closed lids, his luminous eyes gleamed.

  The boy walked over to Thin. He reached into his pocket and took out a piece of half-eaten chocolate wrapped in crumpled foil. Thin snatched it from the boy’s hand, tore off the wrapping, and stuffed the chocolate into his mouth.

  With a smile the boy pulled out a white marshmallow rabbit whose head had been torn off.

  Thin ate that, too.

  The boy gave him a slice of jellied candy with a few specks of dirt clinging to it. Thin didn’t notice. He ate a chewed licorice stick, a soggy piece of cookie, and a handful of discolored jelly beans. Then he held out his hands for more.

  “That’s it,” the boy said, rubbing the side of his face with dirty fingers. He gave Thin a push but Thin did not move. Instead, he shoved his bony fingers into the boy’s shirt pocket and brought out a lint-covered gumdrop.

  “I don’t have any more,” the boy said. “You got all my candy now.”

  Thin thrust his hands into the boy’s other pockets. A few small candies tumbled into his hand. He swallowed them instantly, then searched the boy’s pockets again. There was nothing in them. Thin poked them, slapped them, turned them inside out. The candy was all gone.

  Thin seized the boy’s shoulders.

  “Stop!” the boy cried as Thin shook him, tore off his shirt, and pummeled his back and arms. But Thin did not listen. He pounded the boy’s flesh as if it would yield up secret caches of candy, as if the boy were a tree of delights that needed only to be shaken to rain its treasures on the ground.

  The boy screamed as if he were being devoured.

  9

  THE PERFECT BED

  Once, long ago, there was a young girl who could not sleep on any bed.

  She left her home and went from house to house, searching for the perfect bed, but she could never find one.

  First she tried her friends.

  They offered her their thickest mattresses, their softest pillows, their downiest quilts.

  “The best,” they said.

  “I hope so,” she said, turning off the light and pulling the covers over herself.

  They tiptoed out of the room.

  “How was it?” they asked eagerly the next morning.

  “The sheets scratched my skin so!” She held up her arms, which were red and irritated. “And there was a lump on the side of the mattress. I couldn’t sleep a wink!”

  The friends sighed.

  Then they saw her pale, exhausted face, the dark circles under her eyes, her limping gait as she crossed the kitchen to pour herself a cup of tea.

  “We’re sorry,” they said.

  “I don’t know how I am going to make it through the day,” she moaned. “And I have to find a resting place tonight.”

  “Have you tried the neighbors?” they asked. “The people across the street? They travel all the time, have the best taste. Everyone knows they have the smoothest sheets and the most expensive mattresses, imported from the other side of the world.”

  That night she knocked on the neighbors’ door, and they led her to a beautiful room decorated with tapestries on the wall and glowing carpets on the floor. The bed was luxurious, covered with the finest sheets and the thickest blankets. Still she couldn’t sleep. The silk sheets had tiny creases on the edges. There was a speck of dust on the pillow that made her sneeze all night.

  She lay in the bed and thought.

  Once, long ago, she had slept soundly every night in the same bed. Her mattress was lumpy, her sheets were coarsely woven, and her pillow was flat in places. But she was happy. When the window was open, a breeze woke her in the morning. Sunlight fell across her face. She used to leap out of bed and run down the stairs.

  No one worried about her. And she was never tired.

  Then her best friend came to stay.

  “I’ll sleep on the floor,” she said to her friend. “It won’t matter to me.”

  The friend took the bed. In the morning the girl asked her friend how she had slept.

  “Oh, terribly!” said the friend. “Your sheets were so rough, they made my skin itch all nig
ht. And how do you sleep on that flat pillow? It was just like putting my head on a board!”

  The girl was astonished. “I thought you would be comfortable there,” she said. “I am.”

  Her best friend laughed, not kindly. “You don’t know any better, do you? Insensitivity is bliss!”

  The girl reached over and touched the sheets. For the first time she felt the bumps of the threads, the knotted seams, the uneven grain of the cloth. The coarse material abraded her fingertips and sent a strange sensation into her hands and arms. It was as though she were being awakened.

  When she had exhausted the list of friends—and friends of friends—she began to knock on strangers’ doors.

  “Do you have a comfortable bed for the night?” she asked. She was bone tired, drenched, her hair dripping icy water down her face and back.

  The strangers took her in. They gave her warm, dry clothing to put on. They fed her supper, then led her to the room with their softest bed.

  “We hope you sleep well,” they said.

  She could barely nod, she was so tired.

  But in the morning it was always the same story. The pillow had a loose thread that tickled her all night. The mattress label had bruised her skin. A clump of feathers in the comforter had bumped her leg.

  She tried all the beds. And found them all wanting.

  All those days in the rain and the sun, searching for the perfect night’s rest!

  And all the time getting less and less sleep.

  Her friends worried about her. Her health couldn’t hold up much longer. And what kind of a life was it, wandering from door to door, asking strangers for a bed for the night?

  They tried to reason with her. She was too sensitive, too demanding, they said. This world wasn’t perfect. She had to recognize that and accept it. Make her adjustments. Change her attitude. Sleep with a loose thread or little lump here or there.

  She wouldn’t listen. She couldn’t. She was aching, bruised, weary. All she could think about was a good night’s sleep.

  And then it happened. She found the perfect bed.

  In a small house at the edge of the woods, a woman answered her knock.

  “We heard you were coming.” She showed her into the house.

  The woman helped the girl off with her coat and boots. She rubbed her hair dry with a towel, brought her a hot drink and a clean nightgown of the finest cloth.

  And while the girl sat and sipped her drink, the woman spoke to her in low soothing tones. “We have prepared the very best bed for you. It took us three months to make it. No one in the world can equal this bed. You will have a long, profound, and restful sleep.”

  The girl stared at her in disbelief.

  The woman took the girl by the hand and led her into a room where thick mattresses were piled high, almost to the ceiling, and each one was covered with a silk sheet.

  “One hundred mattresses,” the woman announced proudly. “Filled with goose down, especially ordered from every corner of the world. Handwoven covers and hand-stitched seams. And it is for you. All you have to do is lie down and sleep.”

  The words alone were almost enough to put the girl to sleep. She could feel herself sinking down as she listened—down into a dark, warm place where she didn’t have to think or understand, where nothing was asked of her except to breathe.

  The woman brought a ladder and steadied it as the girl sleepily climbed to the top and lay down on the bed. The pillow was soft as a breath of air and the blanket was like a wing. The air was scented as if from masses of invisible flowers. There were no bumps anywhere, only an enveloping warmth. The bed seemed to curl itself and nestle around her, as though it were a living being that existed only for her comfort.

  “Come sleep, come sleep,” the bed seemed to say. “The perfect bed for the perfect person.”

  She sighed once, closed her eyes, and almost against her will, fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  She awoke late at night. What or who had awoken her? Her throat was dry, she could scarcely breathe. The room was dark; she could see nothing. The scent of flowers was gone. The air was dry, suffocating, and flat. But the bed still curled around her like a living thing.

  She tried to get up. The bed pulled her down. Its comfort was devastating.

  Her tongue was like a stone in her mouth. Her arms and legs lay uselessly at her side. Time was infinite. Nothing happened and nothing ever would. How long had she been asleep? Minutes, hours, days, weeks? Or perhaps years, centuries, ages?

  As she lay in the darkness, all of her previous wanderings seemed like a haven, a paradise of movement and freedom. She thought back to the people she had met, the beds she had tried to sleep in, the places she had traveled. Had she now lost it all?

  Some time later, with infinite patience and will, she slowly moved a finger. Then she sank back, exhausted, onto the nest of pillows.

  As she lay there catching her breath, she noticed that the pillow was not quite as comfortable as it had been a moment before.

  Slowly, tentatively, she turned her head an inch to the left. The sheets suddenly felt clammy.

  Her hands trembled. A small feather worked its way loose from the comforter, and its quill scratched her skin.

  A shout of joy tore from her throat. She sat up, threw off the bedding, scrambled down the ladder, and ran from the house.

  Many years, many beds later, she sat in a garden with a friend. She never stayed in one place for long. People were always ready to welcome her, invite her in. She slept well now—at least some of the time.

  A friend asked her what she had learned from her years of wandering from house to house.

  “When you find the perfect bed, run from it,” she said. “If you lie down in that bed, you will never get up.”

  10

  THROUGH THE MIRROR

  What would you do if your world disappeared? If it hung shining like a bit of water suspended from a leaf, and then the wind blew and shattered it on the ground? If the walls of your room suddenly dissolved and you were standing in a forest, a dark forest with waving ferns. What would you do then?

  Actually, it didn’t happen just like that. It happened like this. Sandra was sitting in her bedroom, staring into the mirror. She was a pretty girl with flushed cheeks and curly, fine hair, with a green ribbon pinned on the side. A girl with the satisfied look of one pampered by her family, petted by her teachers, and doted on by her friends. A girl accustomed to winning, to getting what she wanted. To always having the best of everything.

  But now Sandra’s face had an expression of shock and disbelief. Because the face that stared back from the mirror was different from hers. The hair was thick and tangled. The face was dirty.

  “And I just washed,” Sandra muttered to herself. She wondered if the mirror was dirty. She rubbed it a bit, and the girl on the other side put up an arm as if to protect herself.

  Sandra stopped and stared. The dirty girl dropped her arm and grinned. Sandra recoiled a little but then leaned forward. “Who are you?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” the dirty girl mimicked.

  Sandra held up her hand as if to push the other girl deeper into the mirror.

  The dirty girl pushed back.

  “Go away!” Sandra said. “Leave me alone!”

  The other girl reached forward and yanked her into the mirror.

  Sandra saw a flash of pink that could have been her bedspread. She saw the girl with the tangled, dirty hair leap through a door that seemed to melt into the air. And then her room was gone. She was in a forest. A dark forest with curling ferns tipped with light.

  She found herself on a path full of pine needles and pinecones, thorny branches, shriveled apples, and tiny blackened stones. The sky was very high above, bits of blue falling through the overhanging trees like scraps of ragged cloth. In the shadowy forest a harsh voice called her name. Sandra sat down, put her face in her hands, and cried.

  Meanwhile, in a
small white house, a girl with tangled hair was washing her face. She picked up a brush and pulled it through her hair. She fastened a ribbon—a red ribbon—in her curls.

  When she looked in the mirror, she smiled. The mirror image smiled back. The red ribbon bobbed in her curly, fine hair. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled. She leaned over, tied her sneakers, and skipped down the stairs.

  11

  SWAN SISTER

  Each night my seven brothers change into swans and fly out the doors, the windows, the chimney. The air is thick with feathers and dust. After my brothers have flown over the yard and out of sight, I, their younger sister, creep out of the house to pick up the feathers that lie on the dark grass like glowing swords.

  The house is silent after they have left, and I go up to my room, where I pull the covers tightly around me. I lie awake, straining to hear the long, high calls that come through the window more and more faintly. When at last they cease, I fall asleep, though my nights are restless and troubled by dreams.

  As a small child I stood on a dark lawn as seven white swans alighted in a circle around me. I held out pieces of crumbled bread, which they plucked delicately from my infant hand. It was just before dawn, and I had come out of bed early to see them. Then the swans rose in the air and disappeared into a small woods nearby. “Swans, come back!” I cried. “Swans, come back!”

  Soon my seven brothers came out of the woods. They picked me up on their shoulders and threw me into the air, pretending to make me fly.

  “Swans!” I sobbed.

  My brothers bounced balls, gave me candy, showed me books. But I refused to be consoled, and cried straight through to the night—when seven swans appeared in our living room and beat at the doors and windows until I let them out.

  When I was a little older and understood that my brothers were the swans and the swans my brothers, I wanted to join them.

  One evening when they came home from work, I ladled out the soup and heated the coffee. My brothers sat slumped at the table, not saying much, only glancing anxiously at the sky. Sometimes they dozed between spoonfuls of soup, and then I tapped them on the shoulders until they jerked awake.