We both knew. We’d been avoiding it for years. There were little cracks in the mug, hard to see from a few feet out, but we knew they were there. It had taken a few knocks in normal, everyday use, and had started to splinter. One would think that the hot contents inside would make their way out, either through osmotic pressure, capillary action, or in a sudden, dramatic rupture. And yet the vessel held as we drank from it time and again.
It was as if there were some sort of force field keeping that thing pressed together—inexplicable to those who sipped it and invisible to those who admired how it looked in our hands and on our shelf. We’d thought about gluing it, but there was something unnatural and unsettling about the chemical nature of the bond. Just not something you wanted to press to your lips, really. The glue would be plenty visible, that’s for sure.
When amply distracted, we too would forget about the latent seams. The mug’s contents were often plenty good, and they made the days go better.
But sometimes when we would forget it had that splintering, we would use it less cautiously, set it down too hard, and merit scolding by one another. After apologies and ginger handling, we would test it again, watching that line to see if it held firm. And so it did. We’d been making that same mistake over and over, as though mad.
I think we both started wondering if we would have that mug forever. In spite of its known issue, it had still been the best mug either of us had, and we knew some of our close friends whose favorite mugs were also cracked a bit. They seemed to be just fine with it, most days. Only one or two had actually fallen apart in hand, and all those burns had healed by now anyhow. Plus, people love wabi-sabi.
But one morning neither of us had anything warm to put in it, and the cup was left cold again. And that was it. The thought of trying to fill it once more, only to then find it not empty but cold as it reached our lips was worse than the now-normal worry that it would just shatter in our hands or on the kitchen table or bedside stand, loosing on us its steam and stain.
The mug had to go. It never truly broke, but it would never not be broken.