Settling the Light

A tube workshop in an east Berlin electrical works on a dark November afternoon, white light from enamel pendant lamps, on a long table two rows of bulbous glass picture tube bulbs standing on their round faces with their necks pointing upward, each holding a layer of milky white liquid, only two hands in pale overall sleeves entering from the lower frame edge, the rest of the person outside the picture, pouring milky greenish liquid from a large round glass flask into a glass funnel on top of a long thin glass tube reaching down into one bulb, the workshop otherwise empty, wooden racks of round glass screens soft behind.