The Illustrated Encyclopedia of an Imaginary Universe

Faces openly buried in solipsist glory, each determined to convince not only themselves of their singular existence, but also everyone else… each jolt that pushes us gently to and fro, weeds under a delicate artist’s brush, no further proof of our ultimate existences, together and apart. It’s easier to invert one’s eyes and stare only inward; less frightening are the beasts within when control is thought to be had than the beasts that lie without, in that curious and colorful unknown.

Climbing a bridge now, I look out across the waters of Lake Washington, the bright yellow and blue, a sweeping spill of sunlight over the water, broken by tiny white slashes that move in animation. The clouds that surround the sun, a sickening gray and white halo of stains on a tiara of cobalt, wispy bits of ice surrounding granules of dreams, as if each were a package to be delivered with grace to the ground, a feeding. It’s the sky’s way of breathing.

Down into the city where the grease of mankind rises up to form the skin of the buildings and streets. A pale glaze of dirt. Greasy finger painted buildings and cracked concrete, faded stripes yellow and white, the totality of a failed sculpture formed from inept fingers out of the ripe clay of ennui. A steady tone and hum, lacking in deviation, seems to settle around everything like a ribbon that winds amongst all objects, hugging them together, a satin caress, her delicate white fingers touching the gentle surgery of my words.

But it was never really there and the bus lurches to a stop near a building in decay hurried along by gaunt, yellow and soiled machinery.