The world around her was that of diamonds, pearls and gems. She had everything and she owned nothing; a husband in wedlock not in her heart, a mansion she lived in but never felt at home in, and a name - a half of it she had been labeled with, and the other half tarnishing her grace. She was Grace…Grace McAdams.
Grace McAdams was the humble owner of thirty percent shares of McAdams & Co. Married to Kent Brian McAdams and deeply in love with her cat Eva, Grace hated rolling in money and being outrageously affluent. There was no novelty in her days and no thrill in her nights. She wanted something to do, to kill her time, something manual and intense, something more than hosting balls and attending balls. She was not blessed with the faculty to bear a child and wanted desperately to produce. She craved to shape and mould and create. She knew nothing and hence her ignorance made her start from scratch…Grace took up learning pottery.
Her strange thirst was quenched by clay. An inexplicable ecstasy rushed through her hands, into her arms, bosoms and groin, the moment she touched the clay dough. It was awkward but relishing. The mud fell out of her fingers and she initially felt terrible seeing her neat fingernails devouring the filth but still, she was resolved. She wanted her first creation to be a masterpiece. She pondered over the possible geometry, the prospective architecture of her first creation, but weeks passed and she just kept fumbling with the clay, secretly and listlessly.
Her inability grew into despair, despair into frustration and finally she gave up. She cursed herself for that. Grace felt useless. She deemed herself barren and decided that she was not worthy enough to live with and share bed with someone as productive and smart as Kent Brian McAdams. She hated Kent for being that competent. Her last attempt to shape clay ended in smoke; either her ‘intuition’ or frustration- a hasty force, made her shape the clay into a shapeless entity. A paradigm of disarray and chaos, she threw the muddle of mud into the miniature kiln and ran to wash herself off the filth, forever.
Mrs. Mary Rosworth was a solemn, dignified old maid at the McAdams’ Mansion. Despite her sincerity towards her work, she felt a particular displeasure in cleaning the kiln in the backyard, newly installed to meet Mrs. McAdams’ fresh fascination towards filth. That afternoon, she let it cool down and scooped out a replica of a rock. Thinking it a modern example of abstract pottery, she brushed away the ashes and carefully put in on the mantelpiece in the McAdams’ bedroom.
Weeks passed and the hatred for Kent in her heart was nurtured with even more spite from Kent’s side. He grew more aloof each day, more distant. She had hired a detective who informed her of his affair with his curvaceous secretary. Malice made her mutinous.
The annual Thanksgiving Ball at the McAdams’ Mansion was attended by every bigwig in Boston. Lethargic and dispirited, Grace scurried about the ballroom to deliver the formal niceties. It was the opening note of the orchestra when she saw Kent and his skimpily dressed secretary sneaking away. Stealthily, she followed them to their bedroom – or just her bedroom now. Soon the crushing moans of Kent and that tramp shook her violently. Trembling with anger and disgrace, Grace broke into the room.
A man gasped, a woman screamed and a cat meowed. Darting her eyes to the last voice, grace saw Eva playing with a huge rock on her mantelpiece above the fireplace. With the utmost speed she could move with, she picked the huge rock up. With the maximum fury she could express, she threw it blindly.
A man screamed, a woman and a cat meowed. Grace just stood and observed and absorbed. She looked at the huge rock, now smeared with blood and lying formless beside a naked lifeless body. She recognized it in an instant. An emotion finally started seeping into her mind. It was pride. She had something to take pride in, something she had created. It was her first creation…her masterpiece!!
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