A Careful Course

I glided softly across the polished mahogany of the table this morning, seeking a sunlit patch near the edge. There was a drinking glass left behind, filled with water and towering jagged cubes of clear ice. My hull shuddered with quiet dread; one careless collision with those frozen monoliths, and I might list to twenty degrees, fracture in two, and sink beneath the carpet. But I steered gently around its cool shadow, keeping a polite, respectful distance to safety.