Sunglasses and Toothpaste

Miners emerging from a deep cave, lamps twinkling within the inky glass. My sunglasses looking upwards from the table to the chandelier where the miner’s lights actually come from. I should have noticed the lack of swaying, the stillness of the smoothly contoured and unblemished glass. What is perhaps more apparent – more engrossing – is the static struggle between the sunglasses and a small and emaciated tube of toothpaste. The head of the tube clamped in the folded arms of the glasses, like the gasping maw of some fishy prey that has given up in the jaws of a quick and wary crocodile. Sad to still detect beauty in the curve of the empty tube.  These two objects locked in irrelevant association. I find myself thinking of the rich morass of life on earth, the inevitable destruction of all living things and the endless decay of the inanimate. There is no music tonight. I am avoiding all directions.