A Flash of Glass

A heavy glass soda bottle sat wedged beneath the rusted leg of an abandoned metal utility table. I knelt slowly, gears whining in my knees as the floor groaned under my weight. My blunt fingers wrapped around the cold, slick neck, pulling until it scraped free from the grit. Lifting it up into the dim shaft of afternoon light leaking through a wall vent, I turned the thick green cylinder over and over, watching small amber specks of dried syrup catch the glare. With a firm, deliberate push, I set it upright atop an empty grease drum, where its pale shadow stretched long and still across the scuffed floor.