Things in Jars

by Jess Kidd

you never can tell if a good act will turn bad, no more than if a bad one will turn good.

As with all terrible, wondrous sights, there is a jolt of shock, then a hypnotic fascination, then the uneasy queasiness, then the whole thing starts again; the desire to look and the desire never to have looked in the first place.

They disturb the natural order of things: life—death—dust. Here is time held in suspension. Yesterday pickled. Eternity in a jar.

And all at once Bridie is filled with the hot rage that comes over any sane woman who rails against her market price, or the damnable fact that there is a market price in the first place. She glares into the mirror.

there are some who must live in filth while others just visit it.

For this is their parting: as sudden and slow, surprising and foreseen as any parting. Between together and apart: an eyeblink and all of eternity.