Day 270,
It’s shaping up to be a slow day today. Good a time as any to get back around to that recounting of our trip to the glassmaker like I said I was going to do.
It took Vernon and I all morning to follow the road up the west side of the island to the turnoff to the glassmaker’s home. Vernon had made the trip before, so I was relying on him to make sure we were on the right path. Said path turned off the main road not far from where the crystal collectors make their exit into the jungle and ran all the way to the coast. The house/workshop was on the bank of a river in sight of its mouth.
We were initially greeted by a dark-haired boy around Cass’s age who spotted us as he happened to be stepping out the door of the workshop when we approached. Endymion, I learned his name to be. As much as I’ve been referring to a singular glassmaker, in truth it’s a family affair. The boy had been expecting his mother, Kamea, to be on her way back with the kelp for the flux and was just heading out to help her carry that when we arrived. After a brief explanation of what we were here for he showed us inside where his father, Diomedes, was working. Further introductions were made (although they’d all met Vernon before), and Endymion was sent back on his way, leaving us with the glassmaker. Well, the one who melts down and shapes the glass. It appears that Kamea does most of the gathering of raw materials as well as working with her husband to turn said raw materials into glass. Meanwhile, their son is an apprentice of sorts to both of them.
Diomedes himself is a surprisingly friendly sort for someone who rarely interacts with anyone outside his family. Or perhaps our visit was enough of a novelty in and of itself to be exciting. Friendly because of his hermitage rather than in spite of it, so to speak. At any rate, he was happy to assist with our various requests and his hospitality extended to an unprompted invitation for a tour of his workshop. Of course I accepted.
The equipment inside the workshop would have been more surprising had I not already seen similar in Melaina’s woodshop. What I hadn’t been expecting was the contraption out behind the building, hidden from view from the road. Half on the bank, half in the river, It was of the same metal as the other machines, but two or three times the size and the first time I’d ever really seen signs of wear and tear on that material (or maybe it just looked worn down from the coating of moss and algae). While all these machines so far seem to have their origins in Cloud Tower, I don’t see how this one could have been transported here. Indeed, while Diomedes explained that the rest of the machinery in his workshop was brought out from the tower by an outsider some generations back (probably the same one that outfitted the Village carpenter), this one has been in this spot as far back as anyone can remember.
Apparently this machine is a filter of sorts, straining out minerals from the spring-fed river that Diomedes, like all the Village glassmakers before him, uses as an additive in the glass. He claims that the filter is half the reason the glassmakers have always lived all the way out here. It makes me wonder why, out of all the tools and infrastructure that whoever constructed this place could have left behind for the Village, did they choose this one in particular? And yes, I am jumping to a conclusion here, spurred by the fact that we seemingly have plants naturally synthesizing ibuprofen just growing in the wild. Not to mention a single disease floating around that if you catch it as a child you just get some mild symptoms then hardly ever get sick for the rest of your life. And a few other convenient things that I’m thinking more and more must have been engineered to make life easier here. Presumably by whomever built Cloud Tower.
Alas, I didn’t get the chance to ask much more about it (not that I really expect I would have been much elucidated) before Diomedes changed the topic back to our reason for coming. As I said, he had some tools (not tower-made) for getting measurements on Vernon and his old lenses. From what I can tell, it’s not a true prescription so much as a one-size-fits-most sort of situation with a couple of variations. Regarding the microscope, he’d actually heard his grandmother mentioning her mother making something that sounded like that - also for an outsider - but he didn’t know where that device ever ended up. That said, much like Melaina with the blackboard and umbrella, the prospect/challenge of trying to make something new appealed to him. That said, the similarity also extends to it probably going to be a backburner side project rather than a priority.
And, again as I said in my original entry, Diomedes was already in possession of a pair of goggles like I’d described for swimming just hanging on a hook for years gathering dust while the leather goes old. Both the refurbished version of those and Vernon’s new glasses we were told to expect one of his neighbors to bring into town sometime in the next few weeks. Or maybe he’d just bring the whole family down with him on the equinox along with anything that happens to be ready by then.
Not much more to say about that. We left not long after, just as Endymion returned with Kamea. We said hello and made some passing introductions, but we took their arrival as a cue to get out of the way of work about to commence rather than an invitation to socialize. It’s tempting to try to go back sometime to watch their process, maybe make some archival notes on it, but I’m not sure how well they’d take to that. I worry it’d be seen as an intrusion on the family business and a disruption of the tradition of passing these things on via apprenticeship.
The sun was already going down by the time the two of us got back to the Village, which may have contributed to the decision to get dinner at the inn rather than our respective homes. Not being a market day, it was a small crowd, but enough that we were recognized. Vernon got a couple jokes thrown his way about almost not recognizing him out of uniform and I got asked a couple of times if I was there to do a telling. I demured from the implicit invitation for an impromptu performance, but I don’t think I disappointed anyone too badly. Maybe another time. I’ve had the prospect rolling around in the back of my mind since then of making a regular thing out of just that, but I don’t know I’ve got the courage or endurance for socializing for it.
As for how we did spend the evening, it was mostly just Vernon and I sitting at a table in one of those hours long meandering conversations about nothing and anything that I love so much but so rarely get. There were a couple interruptions early on as other patrons invited us to join them for drinks. I froze up each time, but Vernon politely turned them down upon seeing that. How he manages to casually decline social invitations without fear of slighting anyone is a skill I find myself envying. But, then people stopped asking and it was just the two of us losing track of time up until we were asked to get a room or leave seeing as we were the last ones there. I was more than a little embarrassed about that, but Vernon just chuckled a combination of apology and thanks for the hospitality as we left. No one seems particularly able to stay mad at him.
And then he walked me back to the library for the night, went his own way back home and then so on and so forth two days passed and now it’s today. Still no one’s come in yet. Maybe I’ll dust off the census project. Or perhaps try doing the word length pattern assessment on Iole’s book.
