A million marbles fall from the rumbling sky. They roll down the rough cement streets of New York City like gum-balls traveling down a spiral chute. Marbles roll like candlepin balls, hitting the grooves and the ridges of the chalky ground and falling into the gutters that line the sidewalk edges like underground prisons. They fall with distant plunks! and plinks!, pitters and patters, like faint piano keys that can be heard across the soundscape of the city.
A million marbles paint the sidewalks from pearl to heather to iron, like when you color with markers and the page gets darker with each layer. Marbles roll off technicolored umbrellas patterned with stripes of tomato and tangerine and tea. The marbles drip off the sharp points of the umbrella’s roof like sun-shot icicles.
A million marbles gather in the crevices of the city landscape, like bowls of watery blue caviar. Children in yellow, red, and blue nylon jump into the marbles, scattering them as they leap away. Marbles fly into the gutters, into the bowls, into the dry spaces that are still left in the stormy city.
A million marbles fall from the rumbling sky and splinter themselves upon impact. Their soft structures cannot hold against the solid ground. These marbles are softer than pudding; the wind holds them together when they fall. They fall, splintering like shards of glass, like tossing a penny into a water fountain, a spray of droplets fanning around where the penny touched the water, like the rays of the sun that now opens its arms and hugs the stormy sky; the marbles stop falling.
Written by Celine Yung
Reflections 