Castles Made of Glass

40/100

I remember the marbles — hundreds of them, in a heart-shaped cardboard box my mother made for me. I remember how I would stick my eye right up to their translucent surface and look for other worlds within those tiny spheres of coloured glass.

Next to me, as I type, is a giant marble of sorts: a paper weight — a clear dome filled with swirling orange, yellow, white and blue — colours that twist and morph when I gaze at them from different angles.

If young Alex could see me now, if she could gaze through the prism of all the years that separate us, what would she think, I wonder?

I press my eye up to the glass. The paperweight is like a bulbous lens. The light dances differently here. Tiny cracks in the surface become star trails. Swirling colours become glass towers, tall enough to house entire cities. Time and space shift and stretch.

I fall once more into that other world, where anything is possible, and imagination expands with the bending of the light.