Little x...

'You know little x, the world is a book, and those who do not travel see only one page'.

How beautifully, simply true.

This strange and wonderful object was bid for and won on e-bay by a new customer of mine. It's a perfect and beautifully made crystal glass globe, about 4.5 inches in diameter and heavy, so heavy. Just right to hold in the palm of your hand. A world in the palm of your hand.

It stands on a square faceted crystal base with a hollow on the top so that the world can gently spin in its smooth glass axis. It's really beautifully made; all the continents of the world etched onto its surface, longitude and latitude engraved around its pure glass surface as it gently spins, and spins, and spins.

He won it for a tenner.
I covet it.

He came to me with a request I was loath to comply with. He wanted the words at the top of this page painted on this magnificent globe's surface and blue shoots springing from the words.

I asked why.

'A special gift.' He simply said.

Reluctantly I did as he asked, carefully spiralling the letters around the globe, painting shooting leaves with iridescent blues, doing my best, and pulling it off almost to my satisfaction. The baking was a nervous time. I didn't want it to crack in my kiln, and when it came out it remained warm for hours.

A warm world in the palm of my hand.

It didn't crack and I don't want to part with it.
He's coming for it Thursday.

'The world is a book, and those who do not travel see only one page'... perhaps I'll run off with little x and go missing, looking for all those pages I've never seen and taking the glass globe with me.

Should we run?
What do you say little x?