Look.

Line one: "It's a lipstick kiss on a piece of paper." He saw lips, neither feminine nor masculine, facetiously puckering up to the papyrus. He saw words on the page that suggested a playful melancholy, malaise and magic. He wanted to see this because he wanted to see himself. He wanted to see this because he had hoped to see noise and beauty choreographed delicately and especially for him.

Now look again.

Line two: "It is Krakatoa in mid drown, armies of lava storming into the ocean." He saw the fingers, like ladies', spidering out and grasping. He smelled the steam. He wanted to be a survivor's ship, riding atop a tsunami, wild and free and living at last, unready for the action of a wave hitting land. He was ready to be a sinking ship, an island on fire. It would take a moment, but he could place who the ocean was, place where in his childhood the island would reside. Distant scratchings of archeological surveys absorbed in the rosy fingers of his life could place why he could name the island, but not why he could tell the tale.

Look. Now look again.

Line three: "It is a dole queue, it is a blockbuster premier, it is a slow moving train that's too fast to jump on." Now he could see what wasn't there, what was more than visible. He could see the drawing's reluctance to change, its constant shifting. Seeing past the image was the important step in deconstructing the world. He was still thinking in physical objections, though. He was still ill prepared, ill mannered, ill.

Close your eyes. Now look.

Line four: "It smells like fifteen years ago in Florida."

The proctor smiled along a thin blue line. Maybe he was getting it after all.

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