“I was playing bridge one evening with a musician, a chemistry teacher, and a painter when, during a particularly tense hand, a large porcelain bowl that we kept on the piano suddenly shattered. After we had all calmed ourselves down, we found four completely individual reactions.
Looking at all the tiny scattered pieces, I thought that I had never realized before how final a metaphor a broken bowl could be.
The chemistry teacher pointed out that someone had emptied an ashtray into the bowl with a cigarette still burning, and of course the heat had shattered the bowl.
The painter said that the green of the bowl was deepened when the light caught the small pieces.
The musician said that the sound it made when it broke was a G sharp.
Then we went back and finished our bridge hand.”
Shirley Jackson
