The Rising Crystals

I climbed onto the marble console in the front hallway, drawn by the subtle shifts inside the sealed glass storm cylinder resting in its brass cradle. As faint rumbles of thunder rolled across Diddi, the clear solution inside had begun to stir. Stepping carefully on the cool stone, I leaned close to the smooth glass column. Delicate, fern-like camphor crystals were unfurling from the base, drifting upward like miniature white plumes suspended in clear syrup. I retrieved my boxwood ruler and aligned its brass edge against the glass tube. The crystallization had ascended twelve millimeters since breakfast—a remarkably tidy, living diagram of the dropping atmospheric pressure.