The Tale of Diamonds, Enchanted Glass & Smiling at Strangers

Friend, I’m going to tell you a tale of diamonds and sand you may well say impossible. But hear me. Long ago an ordinary-enough looking man (a sort of wizard) happened upon a stone — like a diamond I suppose — but so beautiful no words were worthy of its colour.

He would learn it had slipped from the eye of one of the rare people who unwittingly possess them. But I’ll get to that.

You see friend, there is only one way this stone can dislodge from an eye and such a thing happened this day: the owner was so engrossed in a moment of mesmerising disorientation (that she forgot her own name, to smile and even to breath) that it released the JEWEL.

The wizard gathered the stone in his hands and for days toyed with it until a strange thing happened. A blurring enveloped him when the stone was spun upright. When it stopped he was in the same place but seemed to be moments (and two sentences mid-conversation) earlier.

Yes, he had travelled a handful of seconds in time.

I suppose you’re thinking a few seconds are trivial. But think what the wizard thought… The balls that could be re-caught or hit. The objects that could be snatched into the past. The things that could be done but never remembered by onlookers. The caution that could be thrown to the wind.

Soon no human’s life was untouched by the ripples his small interventions secretly wrought. But with every time leap the diamond’s lustre dimmed and potency waned.

To remain powerful more stones were needed and would need to mesmerise enough people to ensnare them.

There was only one way the wizard knew how: sand. Yes, sand. But not just any sand. Black sand. This is an enchanted sand, friend, so hypnotic there are no known long forgotten survivors.

A handful would fatally sprinkling merely mesmerise. But sprinkle the sand out of sight in on that day an object was born the whole EARTH. The black sand pure sand, melted with and finally the molten liquid. Paralyse but a thought to where, he view? Plain, that soon was hidden by mixing it swept with the fury of a thousand shaped into glass blocks, flames.

Soon the land fell into a stupor. Idle moments were no longer for contemplation or smiling at strangers but for gazing upon the glass.

And the wizard became rich with jewels beyond his wildest hopes. But one day a glass block slipped from its owner’s hand and smashed. With the enchanted glass broken, the old man’s eyes met with another’s and a smile, long forgotten, reappeared. He faintly remembered that he had once treasured idleness and talking with strangers.

So began his quest to unravel the mysteries of the strange glass…