The flaw in the glass

Text: an original contemporary personal-account-style practice extract.

“Keep it turning,” Imani said. Because she spoke calmly, I treated calmness as another instruction I might fail to follow. At the end of the pipe, the glass shone orange and seemed too alert to be called a material. It noticed every hesitation in my hands.

I had arrived with a picture of the paperweight I would make: round, clear, finished. For several minutes, that future object felt close. Then my wrist slowed. The glowing drop lengthened towards the floor. “Still turning,” Imani said. Not louder. That was worse. By the time the glass was placed in the cooling cabinet, one side was thicker than the other and a small bubble hovered inside it. The cabinet door closed before I could decide which defect to apologise for first.

We returned the following morning. Cold, the glass had lost its warning colour. On the table, it looked less like the neat sphere I had planned and more like a tiny weather system: a pale twist, a clouded edge, the bubble suspended above them. I rotated it so that each uneven part passed into the light and disappeared again.

Imani asked which part showed that I had been there. I pointed to the smoothest surface. She waited. When I turned the paperweight once more, the bubble caught the window and threw a bright spot onto my sleeve. I had wanted the glass to conceal the afternoon’s uncertainty. Instead, it had preserved it without deciding whether it was beautiful.

Analyse how the writer uses language and structure to interest and engage the reader.

In your answer, consider:

• language features and techniques
• structural techniques
• the effect on the reader.

Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.