"I will crush you like a fine china cup."
This was the threat made to me
outside a bar
at 1:30 in the morning
by a man twice my size,
burly, muscled, not particularly well-groomed.

My mind works fairly quickly–
I wasn't seeing my life flashing before me
so much as analyzing his bizarre metaphor:
"…like a fine china cup"?
What would he know about fine china?
He wasn't threatening to crush me
like an empty Budweiser can or an egg,
either of which would have frightened me,
but "a fine china cup"?
This left me more curious than afraid.

"Really?" I asked. "Like a fine china cup?"

This caught him off guard,
and he lowered his fist.
"You mean bone china?" I asked,
"Like your grandmother probably had?
The really delicate stuff,
that you can nearly see through,
when even holding it feels risky?"

He blinked a few times–
"Yes, like that, I guess.
Yes, I broke one of those cups once…
and got beaten for it.
I felt bad enough that I had broken the cup,
but to get hit too…
that didn't seem fair.
I didn't mean to hurt that cup…it was beautiful."

"I'm sorry," I said.
"So much beauty gets destroyed without intending it…
including ours."

He stepped back.
I asked,
"And are you still planning to hit me?
Because the truth is,
I'm already broken."

"No, I guess not," he answered.
There was a moment's pause.
He turned and walked away.

Text and image © 2011 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.