Bad Glass

I watched until she disappeared around a corner two blocks away. She was moving fast, running away from me as if I were a horrible threat, as if I were the Devil himself. And what could do that to a person? I wondered. What could scare someone into such complete and total retreat? Then I bent down and picked up the battered old Sony.

I’m sure it was just a coincidence, but as soon as my hand closed around the camera, the clouds started to move back in over the city, tumbling toward the center of the sky like dirty water flowing toward a drain. And once all the red was gone, the clouds opened up and it started to piss down rain.

I cast a final look down the empty street, then trotted back to the front door.

Sabine had had the video camera. That was the last thing I could recall. She’d used it to record the soldier falling out of the hospital window. Then she’d had it in the tunnel, chasing Mac into the dark. And then … I guess she’d never given it back.

Did she give it to the Poet? I wondered. Why? Why would she do that?

I ran upstairs as soon as I got back in the house. I retreated to my room and locked the door behind me. Then I sat down on my futon and turned on the camera’s video screen.

The battery was almost dead, but there was enough juice to view the most recent recording, and even though the screen was only three inches wide, I could see exactly what was going on.

It was Sabine’s project, her “absolutely brilliant” piece of art.

The camera didn’t have a speaker, so I had to watch without sound as she took her place in front of the camera, standing there with a sly grin on her face as her lips flapped in silence. Then she started to deface the Poet’s wall. I had to squint to make out the words in Sabine’s “response,” but the emotion of the piece still hit me pretty hard. There was so much anger there, in her words, so much venom—for the Poet, for her work. And to put it there, on the wall of her building, just outside her window—it was an act of violence, and viewing it made me feel a little sick.

Did the Poet really deserve this? Just for keeping quiet, for shutting Sabine out? Obviously, the woman had problems of her own, and her greatest sin—her huge transgression—had been merely not living up to Sabine’s expectations.

I felt a jolt of fear as Sabine dragged the sledgehammer into view. It was like watching a crime in progress, an assault. Sabine was going to attack the city—I knew that, I could see it coming—and I couldn’t imagine anything good happening as a result.

But when she pounded on the wall, nothing happened. The hole just got bigger. And she got tired.

I was relieved when she finally stopped. I was hoping she’d burned through all that anger. She’d let it flame brightly for that brief period, and now, I hoped, she’d be able to just walk away. Point made. Anger expressed. Bad blood gone.

But then she leaned forward and stuck her head into the gap. It was terrifying, watching that, watching her motionless body perched there at the edge of that hole, just waiting for something to happen.

What’s down there? I wondered. What’d she find? Spiders? A damaged face, a shattered body? A cache of gold, the perfect piece of art? Or, hell, maybe there were glowing words down there, etched into the building’s supports—answers to all of our questions, spelled out in bright, glowing colors (this is what’s happening, this is what’s going on).

Or maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just a dark, cramped space down there beneath the street. And what Sabine was seeing, what had stopped her cold, was something that in normal circumstances would have stayed a faint whisper in the back of her head. A fear, a personal epiphany, projected into an empty, brick-ringed hole.

Whatever it was, it was a way forward. And it was a path Sabine must have felt compelled to take.

Without looking back, she moved inside and disappeared.

And that was it. That was the end of Sabine’s protest, the end of her little piece of performance art.

I stared at the static scene for a long time. At first, I was waiting for her to come back out. Then, after a while, I was sure that she wouldn’t. After about five minutes, I hit the fast-forward button and spun through nearly a half hour of empty street. Then there was a hint of movement screen right. I hit the “play” button once again and watched as the Poet tentatively made her way on-screen, first standing back to study Sabine’s poem, then moving up to the wall to stare into the hole. She didn’t look for long—she just gave the hole a cursory, uninterested glance—before she backed up and headed toward the camera.