Glass Man

The problem was always the customers. Arnie couldn’t stand them, the way they milled in front of his stall, jostling each other to get a better look at a piece or a price.

They’d got worse, too. It was all the fault of these damned stupid TV programmes they watched nowadays, Cash in the Loft, Flog It Off, Bargain Chase or whatever they were called. Every punter thought he was a bloody expert nowadays. “What’s your best price?” they would ask, as though you were sitting here in the freezing cold hall just waiting to give your stuff away.

Arnie was getting on. His back was beginning to protest at all the bending and lifting, packing, unpacking and touting around of his precious glass beauties. He retired from his proper job years ago, and this antique malarkey was supposed to be an expansion of a hobby that had kept him sane for a long time. Working for the council year in year out pays the pension but evokes no beauty to speak of, and Arnie had a passion for beauty.

He never stopped being entranced by the light flowing through one of his pieces, transforming its colours and textures sometimes in a way that was completely new. From Testolini to Tiffany, from Murano to Maure Vieil, he recognized each piece’s character and knew its market value.

Over the years, he had become a little transparent himself; always a wiry man, he lived alone now, and often forgot to eat, making do with digestive biscuits and maybe some cheese, if he had remembered to buy any. He prided himself on staying spruce to make a good impression, although he didn’t buy new clothes. His old work suits hung off his shoulders now, and he gathered the waists of his trousers in with a cracked leather belt. But he always wore an ironed shirt even if the cuffs were a little frayed, and the Frizzy Lady who kept the second-hand (“vintage”) clothes stall passed him the odd tie she couldn’t sell.

He knew the customers thought him eccentric. They called him the Glass Man, hassled him for bargains and never seemed to realise, poor sods, that every price label on his stall had been inflated by at least 50%, so that when they thought they had beaten him down, he had still made a good profit out of them.

Why, after all, would he ever let his beauties go for less than their true value? He owed it to them. Fragile and exquisite as they all were, even flawed or cracked sometimes, they would never let you down the way that people always did.