Unfillable Glass

This is the story of how I drowned.

It began in the summer I purchased my first house. Finally, my independence was wetting its lips with freedom. I’ll never forget how proud I was when--with key in hand, I stood on the doorsteps of my new home. With thirsty eyes I gazed long and deep at each window pane, each grey brick, each shingle in view. A smile creeps across my face, even now, at the memory—the smile is full of sadness.

The house had a quaintness about it. Each of its rooms held the lingering scent of the previous occupants, and layers upon layers of wallpaper clung like ivy to the walls. Wooden floors had been scuffed up by years of use, and there were places where the lacquer no longer existed, giving evidence to the loving presence of animals’ claws. The kitchen sink creaked; the oven smoked; the fireplace moaned; the windows shuddered. But it was home. And I found great comfort in knowing it was mine.

There was only one mystery of the house—all timeworn houses must have a mystery, or they are no better than old men at the end of their lives who simply sit and stare and remember. The house had obviously been built in the early 1920’s—faded yellows, somber navys, battered pastels—but there was one room that could only have been built in the recent decade. It was modern in look: each wall was a stark, estranged white with an arrogant black trim around its base. It was modern in build: the entire room was a perfect square (I measured it multiple times) with a strangely remarkable ability to hang low over your head when you stood in it for too long. It was modern in style: a flat, unforgiving couch in one corner, a lamp with a spine so twisted it could not have possibly been used for illumination, and absolutely no windows.

But its most distinct feature was the pedestal planted in the exact middle of the room. And I do mean planted—the pedestal was truly the only living thing in the room. It grew up from the floor as if a part of nature. Mimicking its surroundings, the pedestal reflected the modern backdrop in look and build and style, but was distinctly alive. From the top of this pedestal sat an ordinary, empty water glass.

The water glass seemed, at first, hardly significant. Looking back, it was the only truly significant thing about the entire room. It was so ordinary I almost missed it at first. All else in the room existed to draw attention away from the water glass. Even the pedestal. In the beginning, I often made this mistake of forgetting the vital importance of the water glass and the total insignificance of everything else in the room.

Unwittingly, I stumbled upon the room’s strange secret after about a year of living in the house. I had been making a name for myself in the world, sitting comfortably in success, professionally and relationally. I refused to move to a larger living situation, though I had the means; I had become attached to my quaint, little house. That didn’t stop me from filling it with the benefits of my prosperity. Christmas frequented my house; every month I indulged myself and increased my number of comfortable and pleasurable possessions. Soon, my quaint, little house could hold no more, and I was officially forced to buy a place in the city as a second house. But I never put anything into the room with the pedestal. I preserved it completely. For no particular reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to disturb it with anything save my occasional, speechless presence.

One day I was randomly overcome with a desperate thirst. Strangely, though I believed I had never been so parched in all my life, I was oddly unsatisfied to drink water from any cup in my cupboard. Beyond understanding, my need for water pulled in the direction of the room with the pedestal. Or perhaps the need found its source in the room. By that point, I couldn’t be sure of anything save my absolute requirement of libation. I rushed upstairs to retrieve the water glass. I burst into the room like a maelstrom. My haste ebbed upon entering, acknowledging the room’s quiet disposition, and not wanting to stir the pool of murmuring meditation. Approaching the pedestal, I reached carefully for the water glass.

It wouldn’t move.

Thus began a dark moment in my life. No matter how hard I pulled or how much I tried, the water glass wouldn’t budge. Close to half an hour I worked on obtaining the object. I tugged, I wiggled, I twisted and screwed and chipped, but the water glass wouldn’t be moved. By the time I remembered why I had come to the room, I was gasping for water like a fish on land. Fine, I resolved, if I could not remove the water glass from the room, I would bring the water to the glass.

Satisfied with new purpose, I thundered downstairs in search of a pitcher. Returning, posthaste, I approached the pedestal once more, my tongue scraping against the arid roof of my mouth. But as I tipped the pitcher of water over the top of the glass, the impossible happened. As if there was an invisible field, the water splashed off the top of the glass and trickled from the pedestal to the floor. At first amazed, soon confused, and bubbling fast into an impatient rage, I tried again. Once more the water ended up in a pool at my feet instead of in the water glass.

I do not know how long I toiled. Hours. Days. Weeks, perhaps. Not one drop of water passed my lips. My mad rage boiled into obsession. No matter how or what I tried, the water glass would simply not fill. Method after method I attempted. All ended in failure. As my passions increased, my mind forgot to recognize what was happening around me. The water that refused to enter the glass began as a pool, and soon collected into a pond, a lake, then finally an ocean. I imagine my madness contributed to this forgotten detail, but perhaps it was easily ignored because the water never left the room. As I stormed in and out and back into the room, I passed through a building wall of water at the door. Into the room I would enter with a never ending supply of water, and with each addition, the ocean grew greater. Soon I was wading to the pedestal with a new idea on how to fill it. Soon I was diving into the room through the doorway. Soon I was swimming up to the surface of the water for air and plunging back down with revitalized purpose.

I was blind. I was crazed. I was senseless. Everything that made sense to me was without reason.

Finally I submerged myself for the last time. The water had completely filled the room; there was no pocket of air at the ceiling. I was caught in my own, watery madness. For the first time since my obsession began, I choked in a lung-full of water, but it burned my throat and strangled me from within.

The moment before I floated, face down, into the clutches of death, a figure entered the room. Walking straight towards the pedestal, the figure plucked the water glass from its stay, filled the glass with water, and drank.