Red, red whine
My recollection begins at the moment the wine glass left my hand. I wish I could remember actually dropping it. I don’t know how it happened. I had not drunk even a sip of wine up to this point in the evening. That might have explained it, but, no, I was perfectly sober at the time. I approached the top of the stairs with a substantial pour of some really nice red wine in a fat, curvaceous glass with a long stem and prepared to make my descent to the basement for a couple of hours of television or music or surfing the web – I hadn’t decided yet. But before I could make the first step, the glass was gone from my grip. I watched it go and felt the sudden lightness of my hand. It all happened in slow motion, of course. Terrible events unfold at one-quarter their real time. No one knows why, they just do. This is where my recollection comes into play. I remember every detail of my wine glass's journey. First there was free fall, the goblet falling away from me peacefully, without discordant motion tipping it this way or that, just a graceful descent, the ruby red wine still hugging the inside of the glass, seemingly intent on meeting me on the other end of this unexpected diversion for a continuation of our evening together as planned. But, alas, this was not to be. The bottom of the glass caught step number three, tilting it forward and releasing the bulk of the luscious liquid with its delicate notes of cherry and plum and cinnamon onto the white carpet of steps four and five. Gravity, being a bit of a stickler for a show, saw to it that the glass now spun end-over-end with terrific force, spraying wine far and wide as it flew along, touching down every other step – seven, nine, eleven. Then with the power of an Olympic gymnast who has over-rotated her dismount from the pommel horse, the wine glass hit the bottom landing and careened into the far wall, smashing into a thousand pieces. Just as there is no chance of recovery for a gymnast after a fall like that, there went any hope of a normal evening for me.
12:16:41 AM  Stories
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