The Glass Pipe

https://moritic.org/blog/I am a glass pipe, my entire body translucent and clear, my slender form like a small fish carved from crystal. Held in the hand, I am cool and smooth, like grasping frozen moonlight. Whose hand has once clenched me so tightly? Fingerprints etched upon me, leaving warmth; tobacco tar seeped in, staining my inner core. Each time my owner pressed me to his lips, the deep crimson flame of burning tobacco would flicker within my transparent belly, like tiny, fiery hearts pulsing, exhaling tendrils of smoke that coiled around the ash-forming shreds. Smoke drifted and rose, each wisp a silent breath of my soul, dispersing slowly into the air until finally dissolving into nothingness.

How many floating memories have filled this glass belly? That old master of mine, his fingers thin as twigs, would recline in his wicker chair, eyes closed, holding me to his lips, leisurely exhaling smoke rings. Amid the haze, his brow furrowed, as if sinking into the deep well of the past. The curling smoke seemed to take shape from the sorrows buried in his soul, silently scattering in the stillness. Another time, my master sat with me beneath a lamp, silently gazing out the window. Smoke spiraled in the lamplight, shadows wavered within the smoke—the two entwined like the secrets woven deep in his heart. The lingering smoke, like those hidden thoughts, coiled without release, only to vanish without a trace. Then there was the time he coughed violently, his chest heaving like bellows, while I trembled fiercely in his grip, a helpless leaf in a storm. He coughed with such force that I could clearly hear the rattling deep in his lungs, like an old bellows struggling to draw air—a sound that still echoes within my transparent body, a heavy, stubborn reverberation of life’s burden.

Later, my master fell ill, and I was tucked away in a corner drawer, forgotten. Inside the drawer, pitch-black darkness engulfed me, thick dust settling layer by layer, gradually blurring my transparent form until not even light could pierce through. The world finally went completely dark. Lying still in the blackness, I vividly remembered my once crystal-clear body, the flames that had burned within me, the twisting smoke, and my master’s last earth-shattering cough… the final sound I ever heard from the human world.

Much later, the drawer was pulled open, and I returned to the light. Someone picked me up, scrubbed me clean, and placed me back on a shelf. Now, dusted off, I gleam as transparent as ever under the moonlight, as if nothing had changed. Only, no burning tobacco warms my coldness anymore.

I am but a glass pipe, entirely transparent, seeing all yet silent. The stories of the past, whether vivid or faint, linger like ash settled at my core; the warmth of my master’s fingers has long faded, but the stains of tobacco tar have etched themselves into my being like seals of memory.

I still lie here quietly, utterly transparent, watching time flow ceaselessly before my eyes. Though the world remains vivid in my sight, it’s always separated by a layer of cold glass—I am but a delicate prisoner of time, a vessel of memory ash, waiting for the next person to lift me up and rekindle a journey destined to vanish in smoke.

Is life not the same? We are all held in the palm of time, transparent vessels filled with the ashes of our past, awaiting the next spark. The scorch marks and tar residue within this pipe are both imprints of life’s burning and proof of fate’s turning—we cannot escape the palm that holds us. All we can do is strive to burn brighter with each flame, to let our transparent forms shine clearer, to let light pass through us before the smoke dissipates, illuminating the warmth that once lived deep within the ash.https://moritic.org/blog/

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