First Draft Sneak Peek No. 1
Navigating through my early childhood already foreshadowed the man I would become. I persevered and solved problems with determination. When my parents went to the opera one evening, I played ball inside our vast penthouse apartment. Konrad was fond of enormous decorative vases that wobbled precariously many times as I ran past them. Konrad and Hildegard often cautioned me and mentioned how expensive the in my mind useless pieces of furniture had been. In the absence of my parents the impossible happened and my soccer ball collided with the biggest, most expensive vase in our living room. For a moment it seemed to simply wobble and settle back to rest in the same space, but then it fell in what seemed like slow motion, hit the stone fireplace and shattered into hundreds of pieces. I had battled with my mother over abstract trifles all through the week. Now I wondered what a true disaster would bring out in her if trifles had aggravated her so much already. To my young mind, the expensive, broken vase was a disaster of grand proportions. I sprung into action and raided our house for solutions. Several minutes later I returned to our living room armed with several packages of super glue. I checked the kitchen clock and calculated that I had roughly four hours before I had to face the wrath of my parents. The vase had been half a meter in diameter and approximately one meter tall. I tackled the pile of shards in front of me like any other puzzle game I had solved over the years. For hours I stared at pottery shards and carefully put the infamous vase back together piece by piece. As the hours passed I felt greater urgency and doubled my efforts. Towards midnight I was exhausted and exhilarated at the same time as I contemplated the result of four hours of intense concentration and dedication standing in front of me. I could see what looked like hairline cracks all over the finely sculpted work of pottery yet to the unaware eye my father’s most priced pottery possession looked as proud as ever. Noticing the late hour I ran and hid all evidence of my crime under my bed to discard safely the next day. Then I turned off all the lights, raced to my room and jumped under my blanket.