The Shimmer Between Bubbles (after the painting “Sparkling Water”)
When you crack open a can and hear that soft tss, something hidden wakes up. Most of us miss it. We sip, we swallow, we move on. But inside the fizz lives a secret world—bright, weightless, and holy.
I discovered it on an ordinary Tuesday. The studio buzzed with tired lights. I popped a can of grapefruit sparkling water, and the air bent sideways. The carbon met the oxygen, sang a high, lonely note, and every bubble froze in place. Each tiny sphere became a crystal window: unknown skies, silver deserts, insect forests blooming with dreams. I blinked, and the room melted into their glow.
This universe is not made of water; it’s woven from stalled instants—little pockets where “maybe” still breathes. Every bubble holds a full‑grown world. Some last a heartbeat, some last centuries. All are born, bloom, and burst before they ever reach the rim.
I drifted among them.
One bubble showed a planet where people grow younger instead of older—shedding years like old coats until they flicker into starlight. Another held a forest riding on the back of a sleeping beetle, its petals opening only when the beetle dreams. Here, physics hums like music, and logic dances like light on a lake.
The first beings I met shimmered like desert heat. They spoke in pulses, caretakers of the fizz. Their job: gather the final sigh each bubble releases and keep it safe—because the instant before things become real is where the universe keeps its soul.
“How do I go home?” I asked, half afraid I was only lonely and half afraid I wasn’t.
“You never left,” one answered, brushing my forehead with a glowing wing. “Your kind just forgets.”
With a soft pop, I was back. Same can, still cold, half‑full. The world looked normal, but normal now felt thin. I watched the bubbles rise and vanish, wondering which one cradled a city, which one carried a prayer. Too quick to tell.
Since then I work less on liquid math and more on liquid wonder. I open every can like a small temple door. I listen to the hiss the way some people listen for angels. Now and then I catch a glimpse—a gleam of glass towers, a hush in hydrogen tones. The sparkling universe is still there, breathing at the edge of sight, reminding me that infinity often hides in plain fizz.
The secret is simple: notice, remember. The extraordinary never left us; it just slipped between the bubbles, waiting for our ears to open.
