lignite · fossil wood, a forest pressed into stone
a black so black it has its own light in it. the colour of a mourning
bead. the colour of midnight at the bottom of a stairwell. the colour
of the gloss on a wet stone, after.
jet is fossil wood — a forest compressed for a hundred million years
until it became black that you could carve. you find it in the small
objects of vigil and ritual, in the eye of a doll in the basement, in
the inkwell on the desk that nobody uses.
heavier than char. blacker than black can manage on a good day. when
you hold it, it is warm. that is the strange thing about jet.