  Reading cut the hyperplanes in a real central arrangement $\mathcal H$ into
pieces called \emph{shards}, which reflect order-theoretic properties of the
arrangement. We show that shards have a natural interpretation as certain
generators of the fundamental group of the complement of the complexification
of $\mathcal H$. Taking only positive expressions in these generators yields a
new poset that we call the \emph{pure shard monoid}.
  When $\mathcal H$ is simplicial, its poset of regions is a lattice, so it
comes equipped with a pop-stack sorting operator $\mathsf{Pop}$. In this case,
we use $\mathsf{Pop}$ to define an embedding $\mathsf{Crackle}$ of Reading's
shard intersection order into the pure shard monoid. When $\mathcal H$ is the
reflection arrangement of a finite Coxeter group, we also define a poset
embedding $\mathsf{Snap}$ of the shard intersection order into the positive
braid monoid; in this case, our three maps are related by
$\mathsf{Snap}=\mathsf{Crackle} \cdot \mathsf{Pop}$.
