The Black Bundle

A materials laboratory in Hampshire on an autumn afternoon, low golden sun through tall windows, on a bench of grey glazed tiles a slender glass tube with a round closed bottom in a small wooden rack, closed by a glass stopper with a matt grey ground joint, inside it a loose bundle of short glossy black fibres, around the tube a band of blank yellowed paper, beside it on white paper a loose skein of matt black-grey very fine fibres frayed at both ends, a hand in a white lab coat sleeve holding steel tweezers with one black fibre up into the window light, a tube furnace soft in focus behind.