The Illustrated Encyclopedia of an Imaginary Universe

The thought: ‘Sometimes things that seem more beautiful farther away are far from beautiful once approached.’ Apart from the simplistic measure of this sophomoric intonation, the meat of the matter still heralds bold truth. Finding gates that I had unknowingly built myself, sudden electric hindrances long ago put into place surreptitiously, all have come to my aid. Tiny hands holding me back from the brink and desires like unique pungent stenches war, one wanting to push me over, the other holding me back. A belligerent leering plot twist is somewhere nearby, hunched in the greasy alleyway, misshapen back pressed against cold black brick running damp with downward flowing water ripe with disease.

I’ve seen faces and delicate heads like this one before, porcelain, little chips of freckled daylight dancing below the eyes, hands to small to function properly, a heart rate out-pacing hummingbirds. Smashable, dangerous, delicate, far to precarious to be placed anywhere but on the very edge of the mantle, gently shoved into teetering, ready to fall at any given moment. After washing my hands in a pool of holy writing, I hesitantly back away from it, watching her move in tiny circles, growing tinier but still, the thrilling lethality of the drop is stunning, and from it I cannot take my eyes. Half of me, all little hands, wants her to stay upright and safe here, the other half, distinct little odors, wants the graceless tottering to grow and throw her from the edge and into the flickering darkness below. I know I would never hear the crash and I would never even hear the down falling scream; I would see her eyes, deep saucerfuls of milky terror run black with death close-at-hand, bees buzzing there, ready to kill the comfort with their cacophony, and I would see the open chasm of her tiny mouth, silent but gushing out great sprays of invisible air marked by no matching noise whatsoever; she would be frozen truly, falling down in an almost unrealistic manner, arms and legs frozen into their final flailed position, a dimming photograph in a mirror receding at a static pace.