Noon Spool

Stained Glass

by Susan Page

Black lines began and ended at the tip of her paint brush. It wasn’t very hard. All she was doing was tracing pencil lines she’d drawn on paper. In fact, the hardest part of this whole project was parting with the thirty dollars to pay for the glass paint set, but it was a must. The glass panes on her bedroom door weren’t going to cover themselves up after all.

She swirled the brush in the water and blotted it out on the paper towel. The rose was going to be a dark red, she decided with a nod making absolutely certain. A dollop of black and two dollops of red should do the job.

“Amber,” her flat mate shouted from the living room.

Sighing, Amber focused on mixing her paint to the correct shade. It was probably about something stupid like if she’d seen his black socks. Maybe he’ll think she’s out.

“Amber!” Wyatt poked his head into the room and smiled.

“What?” she asked indignantly. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“But this is important.”

Carefully, she applied the paint in even strokes to fill in the rose petals. “What?”

“Have you seen the remote?”

She whirled about and faced him directly, paintbrush in hand and gripped like a weapon waiting to strike. She wanted to yell, “That’s important? Jesus, Wyatt! Why don’t you look for it or is that idea too novel for you? God, can’t you do anything for yourself? Are you that much of an idiot?” But she kept her cool, even lowered her brush. “I don’t know where it is. Have you tried searching the couch cushions?” she asked politely with a phony smile plastered on her face.

“Yeah.”

“Well, Justin was the last one to watch TV so go ask him about it.” She returned to her painting and hoped he’d just leave her in peace. Amber loved her new roommates dearly, but sometimes she just wanted to…

“Ask Amber!” Justin bellowed as his door slammed in Wyatt’s face.

She looked down at the ruined rose and stared at the red streak that paid no heed to the tediously drawn black outline. If she were the philosophic sort she’d have begun to compare her life thus far to the ruined stained glass design. Twenty years spent perfecting bold, crisp borders and in one brief moment it all went to hell when a rogue element streaked through the limitations she had so meticulously set. That, of course, is what she would’ve thought if she’d admit to herself that she was indeed a philosophical type of person.

“Amber,” Wyatt whined as several soft thuds sounded. “I can’t find it anywhere!”

She couldn’t fix the mistake of having a red splash across the design. It would have to be scrapped and redrawn from scratch.

“I’ll be right out, Wyatt,” she called from her room. Smiling, Amber studied the flaws of the ruined design. Without a second thought, she crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the wastebasket. Her first attempt may have been a failure, but maybe the next one will be even better than the last.

posted by Tim @ 5:38 PM