ᴡᴇ ᴀʟʀᴇᴀᴅʏ ᴋɴᴏᴡ the answer to every question that we ask ourselves. Just bear with me for a second. Believe it to be true. Every inward question is an answer I do not verbalize, out of muteness of spirit or the complacency of familiarity. Consider the antithetical: When I ask you a question, I am in wonderment of you. My eyes glitter like stars. "Where were you last night?" and "How does an engine work?" and "Does that taste good with tilapia?" and "Why does it have to end?" and other questions I ask out loud are in starry-eyed amazement of the mystery outside of myself, the collective knowledge of mothers and sisters and bachelors I have never known. I am at the top of a tower, sitting firmly in a chair slightly skewed towards a window, looking over a city of a hundred-thousand mothers. If I drop a length of string that has been knotted into a loop, and I overlaid that shape over this city, and took that path by boot or wheel, who would I meet? How thick is the string? How thick is the air? What affects the fall of a loop that transforms into the curled eight of infinity? We stay balanced on the precipice of something like fear. A teardrop of unknown source-spring stays precariously balanced by some magic of liquid tension between two slight eyelashes. We ask ourselves a question, "Why am I fearful?" and the lack of mystery in that inward question is the beginning of a flat feeling of fear itself.

ʀᴇᴀʟɪᴛʏ ɪs ᴀ ᴛʀᴏᴜɢʜ. The earth is a fat teardrop balanced on a sloping gridded edge and we roll with mysterious gravity toward some cosmic chicken feed. A year where the crops don't yield and we will find a few maggots when we sift through the feed with our fingertips. Or... Or the universe is a saddle. Hyperbolic curvature with a chafed ass topping it like a doily and a great, heaving, slick hot horse beneath. And whether from trough or saddle, when that large cosmic horse comes to grip you in its tongue, all you can ask yourself is, "Did I do ok?" But you already knew the answer to that.

When it rains, do we glimpse the world in sequences from between bars? Or does the rain varnish, does the rain spread and melt into a glaze, and does the world drop behind in subjectivity and then harden, like ceramic? If we squint at the ground we can see that raindrops actually shoot out from the asphalt like torpedoes. Listen, I’ve told you a thing about rain. Humor me when I tell you about love.

There are six boys on the bleachers sharing a box of Pocky. They are watching me walk by and I hear their crunching intensify. They bite hard into the Pocky, some using their teeth to scrape the chocolate off the long, crunchy biscuit. They say nothing but continue to eat from the tiny little box when two of them accidentally touches hands while reaching into it. They look at each other... sweating


膩I嶮薤篝爰曷樔黎㌢´　　'wi1dbr0
艇艀裲f睚鳫巓襴骸　　　　贒憊
殪幢緻I翰儂樔黎夢'”　 　 ,ｨ傾
盥皋袍i耘蚌紕偸′　　　 雫寬I
悗f篝嚠篩i縒縡齢　　 　 Ⅷ辨f
輯駲f迯瓲i軌帶′　　　　　`守I厖孩
幢儂儼巓襴緲′　 　 　 　 　 `守枢i磬廛
嚠篩I縒縡夢'´　　　 　 　 　 　 　 `守峽f
蚌紕襴緲′　　　　　　　　　　　　　‘守畝
f瓲軌揄′　　　　　　　　　　　　　,gf毯綴
鳫襴鑿緲　　　　　　　　　　 　 　 奪寔f厦
絨緲′　　　　　　 　 　 　 　　　　 　 ”'罨悳
巓緲′　　　　　　 　 　 　 　 　 　 綴〟 ”'罨椁
巓登嶮 薤篝㎜㎜ g　 　 緲　 　 甯體i爺綴｡, ”'罨琥
I軌襴暹 甯幗緲fi'　　 緲',纜　　贒i綟碕碚爺綴｡ ”'罨皴
巓襴驫 霤I緲緲　　 纜穐　　甯絛跨飩i髢綴馳爺綴｡`'等誄

As the sun finally burrows its way into bed, you leave Ji-eun's apartment, finding the empty street outside lost in mist. You know your way back home but you don't take it.

Throughout the city you find velvet gardens draped in the colors of nearby shop windows and cafes. The tender stare of a stranger, their face illuminated by phone light from below and street lamps from above. The steps you take start to melt into one another, softly being enveloped by some unknown force that carries you forward.

The night blooms further, the light becomes more and more neon. The skyline turns obsidian and the same old doubts replay in your head. But the momentum of something greater than yourself pushes you forward. Into and then back out of the lights of different entrances, effecting your egress into the night over and over again.

You lose track of time, slipping into ash filled streets farther from the center of the city. Outskirts where all color has been lost save for the silver rain of moonlight. An empty palette, a lake of mercury and ash, obsidian and velvet. Would any life have been lived the same as yours, City Girl?