A vase of flowers explodes. Glass shards and shredded petals fly in slow motion. Then, enchantedly, all the pieces come together, reverting to their original shape, only to be struck by the same invisible force before it explodes once more.
The opening credits to SBS TV's Danish series The Legacy leave no doubt. This is a story of destruction, of lives and relationships ravaged and left to mend for themselves.
For around 30 years, I have been caring for a box of Chinese Ming porcelain shards also rooted in violence. Since I've started taking measure of my mortality, they have, in contrast, gained potency, each piece a time capsule bigger than me, and more precious than anything I could lay claim to.
On 6 March 1615, when Mauritius was still uninhabited, a cyclone thrust three of a fleet of four tall ships of the Dutch East India company (VOC) against the coral reef that surrounds the island.
As the ships were ripped apart and thousands of Ming porcelain pieces on board smashed, the crew fought for their lives. A total of 75 men, including Admiral Pieter Both (pictured), the first governor-general of the VOC and leader of the fleet, drowned.
He was returning home after his tenure in the Indonesian port of Bantam. In tribute to Both and his crew, one of Mauritius' most iconic mountains was named after him. At its peak, a giant boulder shaped like a head continues to balance ominously.
In 1979, a search succeeded in locating Both's shipwreck off Flic en Flac beach, bringing to the surface a number of intact artefacts. Then, some time in the 1980s, word spread that Ming shards from another ship from the fleet were washing up north of Flic en Flac at Albion beach.
I picture that Sunday afternoon when, barefoot in almost tepid water and with our heads down, my mother and I were scanning a secluded rocky end of Albion. I can't remember who found the first shard — distinctly antique and Chinese — but we shared tremendous joy. That shard was followed by more, and we gathered them in a plastic bag, dripping, with some attached to seaweed.
Many locals have since picked up such shards at Albion. Some have been set in glass as paper-weights or in precious metals as jewellery, or assembled artistically.
The Japanese offer a unique view on broken porcelain. Kintsugi, literally 'joining in gold', refers to the meticulous art of