Things in Jars

by Jess Kidd

You add lots of Prudhoe’s Blend for colorful thoughts and triple that amount for no thoughts at all.

Dr. Harbin reddens, a deep flush inclusive of ears and nose-tip.

Bridie finds her tobacco, fills the bowl, tamps it down, lights it, and raises a cloud. Then she remembers her resolve not to smoke, and instantly disremembers it.

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.

For every Londoner in bed there are ten awake and up to no good—on the fly, on the loose, on the tiles!

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.

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.