*****
Hallo people!
So... first story, huh? This was something I was supposed to enter in a contest, but on the due date, my internet went out and I couldn't turn it in. :/
Oh well, it'll find it's home here. I hope you like!
P.S. The song is there mostly for the glass references. It's the only song I can think of with a glass reference in it. Besides Chemicals React by Aly and Aj. But I felt that this was more appropriate.
If you can find another song that fits better, or is more musically tasteful, please comment so.
Toodles, and Happy Reading!
*****
There're only ever two types of children in families: those whom the parents are proud of, and the ones that become artists.
This was what Cassidy mused upon while Ada made a wide right turn with the BMW that, unlike her sister, she could afford, "Listen, Cass, you're a twenty-something year old woman now, and you don't have a proper job, you live in a small flat downtown, you dress like a hobo, you don't hang out with any of your friends-,"
"What friends?" Cassidy snapped before she could stop herself.
"-And frankly, soon you'll be broke. I mean, if you were a normal artist, you might actually get money," Ada continued, and turned from the road to face her, "But all you ever do is that glass stuff."
"My art medium is none of your business," Ada's younger sister's voice was barely above a whisper.
"Well, people used to buy it, right? Whatever happened to that?"
As a good District Attorney should, Ada hit it where it hurt Cassidy the most. Cassidy rubbed the soft fabric of her old, faded jeans between her fingers.
She counted the holes where the denim had been burned from the furnace.
10.
"I... I haven't been able to make anything good anymore," she admitted.
"Why not? It's not that hard. All you do is melt a bunch of marbles or wineglasses together."
Cassidy stared at her toes and murmured, "You wouldn't understand, Ada. It's not that. I'm just too... unmotivated to make anything anymore."
"It's because you're so depressed, Olivia Cassidy Dressler!" The light turned red, allowing Ada to turn fully toward her little sister, "If you'd just hung out with your friends a little more-,"
"I don't like them," Cassidy replied with steel in her voice, "Name any of my friends and I'll tell you why I don't like them."
"We're not doing this again, Cass," Ada peered into the bright sunlight in order to see the road, "You wanna get some lunch? It'll be on me."
Cassidy knew this was Ada's form of charity, and she wasn't taking it, "No, I'm full."
"Then let me drop you off, at least," Ada insisted.
Windforest Road was lined with red-brick apartments and small stores that seemed tired and grey. They passed by the pet shop, the minimart, and the liquor store before reaching Cassidy's apartment complex.
"Thanks for the ride back from Mom's," Cassidy picked up her second-hand leather duffel and opened the door, "See you at Thanksgiving!"
She watched the shiny grey car turn at the end of the street before she climbed up the stairs to her apartment. She counted the stairs, and the cracks she passed by.
52. 11.
Cassidy strode to the only other inhabitant of her house, her paradise fish named Gypsy, and shook its food container over the glass until Gypsy was happily flitting about and eating his meal. She counted the flakes.
16. Well, now 12.
Gypsy was given to Cassidy by the pet shop owner down the street, because Gypsy didn't like the other fish. The owner didn't want to keep a separate tank just for him.
Cassidy didn't mind. She had even crafted him a custom glass bowl.
She went to the "studio" part of her house, which is the living room lined with concrete and all her glass-making materials: her three furnaces, her enamels used for coloring glass, her punty rods (the rods used in glass-blowing), the smaller tools used for shaping, broken pieces of her work, and her half-hearted attempts to make some art. Cassidy heated up her furnace, but knew that no inspiration would hit her.
Just like last month.
And the month before that.
She counted the glass pieces on the ground, then her punty rods, then food items in her refrigerator.
263. 16. 2.
She counted the days since she last had a sale.
71.
She counted her failed attempts at art lying around.
38.
She counted the letters demanding that her bills be paid.
6.
There was too much pressure from financial needs for her to make anything worthwhile, she decided. Cassidy needed to get out. Possibly find a small part-time job until she could make it.
It wasn't that she was unrealistic by expecting to survive solely on her art. Cassidy was doing fine before. She had managed to buy so much expensive equipment with her savings, pay her bills on time, and even get into many art galleries.
But then her muse went missing, and soon her art became meaningless. She imagined working at a fast-food restaurant, or as a baby-sitter, and shuddered at the horror.
Cassidy forced her frizzy hair into a tight ponytail, causing her scalp to tingle in pain, and admitted to herself that yes, she needed a job. Because she couldn't afford a computer, she headed toward the library in order to search online for a job.
56, 57, 58... she counted her steps as she walked up her street. She knew that her whole street was approximately 238 steps -or 241, if you walked with shorter strides.
The library was four blocks down, but she walked briskly and quickly in order to have enough time to get finished before dinner.
*****
Cassidy suddenly remembered the very first day.
She was 15. Yes, it was when she was 15, because it was past Christmas already and she was happy to get half of freshman year done. She was sitting in the living room, waiting for Ada to take her to get new pencils and other supplies that had worn out or gotten lost during the year.
Cassidy had irritably reached for the home phone to call her sister, which was laying face-down on the table, when her elbow hit a glass vase. She watched it topple, almost in slow motion, as it descended towards the ground. She watched the impact; cracks feathering through the smooth surface, until they all separated from the base and scattered their own way. A hand, first in a tight fist, but slowly relaxing and spreading the fingers open.
She remembered rushing over to pick up the pieces, but what pieces. Smooth, sharp, jagged, clean-cut, all sorts of glass shards.
"Cassidy! What'd you do?" Ada snapped as she spun her car keys around her finger.
Cassidy dazedly held the glittering gems, "Nothing. It fell."
"Well, you better clean that up," she put her purse and keys down, "Here, lemme help you."
"No, I can do it," Cassidy held a particularly beautiful piece up; it caught the sun and appeared to be glowing on its own, "Look, Ada. Look at this piece. Isn't it beautiful?"
Ada shrugged, "I guess. But we have to clean this up before mom gets home. Oh, great, do you know how we can fix it?"
"I don't know. Maybe take it to a glassmaker?"
"Do we know any glassmakers?"
"I... I guess not..." Cassidy shrugged, "Maybe I'll try to fix it?"
"Whatever. Let's go get you your school stuff."
She never did manage to fix it, now that she thought about it. But she remembered pouring over the internet and library for anything to do with glass. First, she studied glass mosaics, but then she realized she didn't like the uniform, square shapes; Cassidy wanted the non-conformist ways of broken glass, the freedom to melt it until it became anything she wanted. Just the thought of it made her heart pound, her face flush, and her eyes to shine like the glass shards she held in her hand.
The same feeling a person gets when they find their one talent, their niche, their purpose. Their reason to breathe.
*****
When she made a turn onto Pinwood Road, Cassidy was surprised to see a commotion.
There was a large crowd standing in line outside of the library, all of them holding books, chattering amongst themselves. She noticed most of them were ten-year olds to thirteen-year olds and their parents.
"Excuse me?" Cassidy tapped on the shoulder of a probably middle-school boy, "What's going on?"
"Brian Stormsteele is here, and he's gonna sign my book!" the kid announced excitedly, holding up a book with "Desdrom's Quest" emblazoned on it.
"Oh, lovely," Cassidy grumbled.
Cassidy then counted the children, then the parents, and then everyone in total.
46. 52. 106.
She counted the trees planted on the side of the road.
12.
She counted the parked cars on the side of the road.
35.
The line in front of was slowly moving forward and into the library, and she counted the steps it took her to eventually reach the computers.
16.
She sat down and searched "part-time job openings" on Google, half-heartedly reading the results. The more she read job openings like "Busser and Dishwasher" and "Residential House Cleaner," the more she imagined herself slaving away at a job that made her mouth dry just thinking about it.
"What's a waitstaff?" A child-like voice next to Cassidy's ear asked.
She jumped. Cassidy turned around and saw a beaming face of not a little kid, but a full-grown man.
"Maybe it's a walking stick, like a staff, but you have to wait for it," his grey eyes looked up at her curiously, "But then, why would anyone wait for a staff? And especially why would anyone pay you to? What would you wait for a staff to do, anyway?"
"A waitstaff is both waiters and waitresses combined," Cassidy explained, scrolling down her results list idly.
"Well that's boring," the light brown stranger declared, "But then maybe waiting for a stick is just as boring."
She didn't answer, but instead continued her search in silence. She saw something that she might do well in, and clicked the result.
He arched his neck to have a good look at the screen, "Pipe wielder? Oooh, that sounds pretty awesome. But then again, companies want to pay people to use pipes as weapons? And against what?"
Cassidy turned to him, "Listen, you seem like a nice enough person, but there's really no reason for you to be here."
"And there's no reason that you should be looking for jobs that pay you to use pipes as weapons."
"First of all, it says 'pipe welder', meaning they want people to heat up the pipes and melt them," Cassidy clarified for him, "And second, I need this job."
His scruffy brown curls bounced when he tilted his head, "But why would you be good at pipe welding?"
Cassidy hesitated before deciding that there was no harm in telling a stranger, "Well, I'm actually an artist. I melt glass and make it into abstract art, I suppose, and sell it. But since I haven't been able make anything good, I'm losing money. And since I have a lot of experience around furnaces and melting, I probably could melt pipes together."
He got off his knees and pulled a chair over for himself, "But would you have fun?"
"Nobody likes their job," she tried to rationalize to him.
"Don't be ridiculous," he crossed his light brown arms, "If you don't enjoy your job, then you shouldn't be doing it. That's how you get successful!"
Cassidy scoffed, "What would you know about success?"
The stranger thought to himself a bit, "Yeah, well, not too much, judging that I'm a twenty-four year graduate still living with my friends in an apartment. I don't even have a 'real job', according to Mom. But I'm happy!"
"So you're basically telling me I should go back to making my art, because that's what makes me happy?" Cassidy took a deep breath, "Even though I've had no inspiration for the last few months?"
"Oh, that's it? All you need is inspiration?" he asked, surprised, "And you want to enslave yourself to an evil corporation asking you to do weird things because you have Writer's Block? Or, well, in your case, Artist's Block..."
"You're making me sound stupid," she pointed out. Despite everything, she couldn't help smiling.
"Cause it is stupid," he declared, "Listen, if you want inspiration, you don't go wandering about, hoping it'll find you. You grab it. Sometimes, you have to chase it and tackle it to the ground, but you don't seem to be much of a tackler."
"Thanks," she rolled her eyes.
His large eyes lit up, "You-," he pointed to her dramatically, "-you don't need to find it, I think. You already have your inspiration, just scattered everywhere in your brain. I think you need to just pick up all the pieces of it and make everything whole again."
Before she could reply, he looked at the time on the computer and gasped, "Uh oh, it's 4:27. I have to go."
As he got up to leave, Cassidy blurted, "I'm...My name's Cassidy."
"Oh, well, my name's Theo," he grinned.
"Theo..." she repeated, "I like it."
He shrugged, "So did my mother, apparently."
Microphone feedback screeched across the library before Ms. Klussman, one of the librarians, announced over the chattering crowd, "Now as all of you know, a very special author is here today. Let's hand the mike to Mr. Stormsteele!"
"Bye Cassidy!" Theo waved as he dashed toward Ms. Klussman through the clapping audience. He took the mike from her and flashed a smile.
"I'm so glad all of you are here, and that you like Desdrom's Quest so much," he announced, "As you know, my name isn't really Brian, but Theo."
He continued and finished his speech, leaving Cassidy blown away. So these hundreds of kids and adults came to see Theo, of all people?
Pick up the pieces... just pick up the pieces...
It hit her. Hard.
Cassidy hardly remembered what was around her as she sprinted home. When she arrived to her apartment, she threw off her jacket and dashed into her studio.
You already have your inspiration.
The pieces made tiny clinks as Cassidy scooped up all the broken fragments of glass, all 263, and placed then on the table as she heated up her furnace.
Make everything whole again.
The heat of the furnace against her face made her feel like she herself was glowing. She inhaled the aroma of burning as she arranged the shards into a jagged-looking ball. Hands shaking, she began melting the appropriate pieces in the first furnace.
She may not be the child of her parent's pride, but the satisfaction she had now was enough for her. She had rediscovered her one talent, her niche, her purpose.
Her reason to breathe.