The Mourning Glass

“There’s a certain poetry in a shattered wine glass—until you realise you’re the one who has to clean it.”

The moment was heart-stopping, a calamity in my quiet evening. “No!" The word tore from my throat, a screech reverberating in the now silent room as I watched, utterly horrified. The wine glass, my beloved companion for these solitary nights, plummeted towards the floor. It happened in slow motion—or at least it felt that way. A clumsy elbow, perhaps, or the traitorous slip of a cushion beneath my arm. Either way, gravity claimed it.

It met its demise with a thunderous crash, a sound so loud and violent that it seemed to shake the very foundations of my cosy living room. The kind of noise that made the walls hold their breath. The kind of noise that sent the cats flying under the furniture—at least until curiosity got the better of them.

Such tragedy! Such loss! The rich, deep red of the wine, a colour reminiscent of velvet under moonlight, spilled across the floor. It spread like a blossoming flower—no, a murder scene—bold and unapologetic, seeping into the grain of the floorboards with the determination of something that knew it was unwelcome. A beautiful yet tragic spectacle.

It was more than just a drink. It was ceremony. It was ritual. It was the hush of the evening and the weight off my shoulders. A symbol of my little pleasures, my evening solace, now shattered and lost—one jagged shard at a time.

As the reality of what had happened sank in, a thin leak of tears broke through the barriers of my composure, burgeoning into a gushing river. They carved wide, sorrowful trails through the foundation and blush that I had artfully dabbed onto my cheeks that morning—though "artfully" might have been a bit generous in retrospect. Still, I'd tried. I always tried. Each tear felt like a quiet betrayal, a testament to the small, yet significant, heartache of the moment. It would take me weeks to recover from such an ordeal—psychologically, emotionally, and perhaps spiritually. To fill the void left by my fallen companion would require at least two trips to Dan Murphy’s.

"Chloe!" I cried out, my voice tinged with a mix of sadness and need for comfort. In that moment, pushing grey fur away from my face, I felt a dampness on my cheek—a rough, rasping kiss of feline concern. A testament to the oddly consoling tongue of my cat. Chloe, ever the silent observer, always seemed to know when I needed her most. Her presence grounded me. I let my fingers rest against her warm flank, the rise and fall of her breath a slow reassurance in a world suddenly far too chaotic.

Blinking away the remnants of my tears, I struggled to open my eyes fully, finally lucid after what must have been an unplanned nap. My head was heavy, cotton-woolled with that particular kind of sleep that sneaks up behind you while you're mid-thought. I sat up slowly, the room spinning ever so slightly—a gentle carousel of bad decisions and forgotten intentions. A reminder of my inadvertent slumber… and perhaps the generous pour that had preceded it.

Brushing stray strands of hair away from my face—a gesture both habitual and comforting—I tried to gather my scattered thoughts. I was still in my lounge clothes, of course—leggings stretched at the knees, the cardigan with one sleeve longer than the other, the familiar weight of it wrapping round me like a robe of resignation.

Realising the position I found myself in, I instinctively reached for my glass of red wine, an action born of habit and a need for something, anything, to console me. The glass should have been sitting on the small coffee table beside the couch, a steadfast companion through many such evenings. But, to my dismay, it was gone.

The absence of it felt like a final twist of the knife in an already painful evening. Gone was my liquid comfort, leaving me with nothing but the echoes of its shattering demise and the cold, sobering reality of its absence.

"Snowflake!" The word burst from me in a screech, a mix of frustration and disbelief colouring my tone. There she was, my usually demure and graceful cat, now transformed into a mischievous creature. Snowflake, with her pristine white fur that seemed to glow in the dim light of the room, was lapping up the wine pooling on the floor. The very wine that had tumbled from its perch only moments earlier, the victim of an unfortunate accident. Her pink tongue flicked delicately at the puddle, as though she were sampling a vintage she didn’t entirely trust.

I let out a heavy sigh, one filled with the weary acceptance of a pet owner all too familiar with such antics. It wasn't the first time Snowflake had found herself in the middle of a spillage while I slept—her curiosity often leading her to places and things she shouldn't meddle with. She looked up at me then, unbothered, her expression unreadable. Cats never apologise. They simply stare until you start to wonder if it was your fault all along.

With a sense of resignation, I shooed the cat away, watching as she sauntered off with a nonchalant air, as if the chaos she had contributed to was none of her concern. Her tail flicked once—an elegant little punctuation mark on her mischief—before she disappeared around the corner, entirely unbothered by the crimson mess or my mounting despair.

I pushed myself up with a quiet grunt, the ache in my knees a familiar protest. Making my way into the kitchen to grab a cloth, I was enveloped by the familiar, comforting scents of my home—a blend of vanilla-scented candles and the faint aroma of herbs from my small kitchen garden. Basil, thyme, and a stubborn little rosemary bush that had somehow survived both frost and neglect. The warmth of it wrapped around me like a shawl I hadn’t realised I needed.

As I passed the narrow bench that divided the kitchen from the rest of the open-plan space, my eyes fell upon the large plastic container sitting conspicuously empty at the edge of the counter.
"I must return that to Jamie tomorrow," I noted aloud to myself, a mental reminder in the midst of the current disarray. It was like a sudden lighthouse beam cutting through the fog of the evening—a small, domestic obligation tethering me to the world of the living.

The container had once housed a delicious blueberry and raspberry cheesecake, its contents now a fond, delectable memory. I’d scraped the last corner clean the night before with a teaspoon, standing barefoot in the fridge light at midnight like a cliché. I had eaten almost all of it by myself, a feat that brought a small, prideful smile to my lips. "An impressive effort," I congratulated myself, a touch of humour in my self-praise. The kind of comment Beatrix would have rolled her eyes at—perhaps rightly so—but tonight, I allowed myself the moment.

With the cloth in hand, I made my way back into the living room, my steps measured and purposeful. There was something sacred about the ritual of cleaning up after a minor domestic crisis. It gave the illusion of control, and tonight, illusion would do.

The room, with its cosy furniture and warm, inviting colours—ochres, worn blues, the faded floral pattern of a sofa that had seen better decades—seemed to watch in silent sympathy as I knelt to address the mess. Chloe had reappeared and was observing from the arm of the chair, eyes half-closed, tail curled round her paws like a question mark waiting for punctuation.

Each dab and wipe of the cloth was methodical, a quiet moment of contemplation amidst the aftermath of Snowflake's latest adventure. The wine stained the rag deeply, almost stubbornly, as though it too wished to linger a little longer. I didn’t rush. There was something oddly meditative about the way the liquid bled into the fibres—something reassuring about doing something useful, no matter how small.

Outside, I could hear the low rustle of the wind through the lemon gum by the back porch, its branches clicking softly against the eaves. Inside, the tick of the wall clock and the faint hum of the fridge provided the background score. My life, in surround sound.