Ficlets

Jars of Nothing

There were three jars that lived on the mantle in the old house, above the over-sized fireplace. They were all exactly identical. The glass had about it an odd, almost eerie luminescent quality, which I have never seen in any other glass before or since. It seemed almost to glow with some inner energy.

But it was not the jars themselves which were the most curious aspect of those three vessels. No, it was rather, what was inside them.

Or, what some said, wasn’t.

If you looked inside them, the light seemed to bend itself around a presence which could not be seen, only implied. Looking into those jars on the mantle reminded me of closing my eyes and looking in the direction of the bright afternoon sun. All of the colors in the spectrum separated when they hit the invisible contents, splaying odd, ethereal rainbows on the inside of the glass.

There was an odd feeling in that room. It made the hairs on your arms stand up.

It was on a particularly dreary day that Jazz broke one of the jars.

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