A Goblet Falls by Barbara Diehl art by Robinson Accola The Waterford goblet, too precious for the dishwasher, leaps from the damp terrycloth towel in Martha’s hands. One moment, she is wiping the crystal ball of the stem more brusquely than she should, thinking how ridiculous it is for her sister-in-law to treasure something so simple. The next moment, the goblet is gone. Like a scantily clad assistant disappearing through a trapdoor with the wave of a magic wand. Poof. This couldn’t be. She is trying so hard to make amends, to be civil, even gracious. The crystal makes an ugly little squeak when it leaves her hands. A rabbit scream. In an instant, the thing has gone from trick to tragic, determined to go out in a crystal clean and sparkling glory, spinning in the kitchen light, displaying each of its diamond facets, the prisms refracting light. And in each of those spinning crystal facets is her sister-in-law’s face, her mouth in a perfect O. Surely, this can be rectified. Martha’s hands flutter from the towel like doves from a hat, her white fingers feathering the air above the dish rack. The glass squeaks by the flesh of her thumb, one last scream, before bouncing from the rubber edge of the dish rack, through spotlighted air, to the stone tile floor next to Martha’s foot. Where it bursts, of course, showering slivers of fine Waterford crystal into every crevice of the kitchen. Where they will inevitably lodge in her sister-in-law’s pedicured feet. The tiny knives hidden up a sleeve. All content in SmokeLong Quarterly copyright 2003-2012 by its authors. Barbara Westwood Diehl is founding editor of the Baltimore Review and a Master of Arts in Writing student at Johns Hopkins University. She works for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her short stories and poetry have been published in a variety of publications, including Eureka Literary Magazine, MacGuffin, Confrontation, Rosebud, Thema, JMWW, Potomac Review, American Poetry Journal, Measure, Little Patuxent Review, and Gargoyle. Three poems can currently be viewed at the online poetry journal Avatar Review. Robinson Accola creates artwork for SmokeLong Quarterly as needed. Interested in subscribing to SmokeLong's weekly newsletter? Click here. An email should be created. Send it as is, and you'll be subscribed. If the link does not work for you, send an email to imailsrv@smokelong.com with Subscribe slq-info in the body of the email (no subject is necessary). You'll receive updates detailing the release of new issues, new reading periods, contests, etc. We do not make our mail list available to anyone else.