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thing’s eyes opened, it spoke in the sweetest voice, pleading,
“Please help me. I’m lost and I can’t find my mommy.”
Just then, the wind picked up again and the patches of
thickened shadow stirred. I patted the clever decoy upon its
overly soft head, eliciting a wet and brittle sound. Quickly
departing the patch of monstrous earth and its sugared lure, I
couldn’t help but wish it luck securing its next meal. Indeed,
the lovely Dorothy was wrong—there was truly no place
like Nowhere.
At this point I’d theorized the Great and Vanishing
Nowhere as a badly damaged dream—whose, I had no
clue— forsaken to the hungers of time and purpose, just
a body anchored in brambles, barely resisting the pull of
surging currents. Nonetheless, I began to see a unity despite
its sundered parts, the fusion of subjects enabled by the
monochrome of an ancient photograph, a web of infinite
connection. A theme, quite possibly. Or perhaps that’s just
the way it appeared to a mind too long denied the fresh air of
a proper dream. Either way, the place was entirely delightful.
The Nowhere had passed the torch of light to another
and equally unconventional form of illumination. Gone
was the freestanding shaft of broken daylight—in its stead,
a brilliant rain, liquescent fireflies falling like tiny comets
from an uncertain sky. I cursed myself for trying to deduce
its nature and function, realizing I’d been too well fed upon
the doldrums of solid worlds. I lifted my face into the sky’s
offering, allowing the rivulets of light passage into the
deep scars of my face, filling my smile with flowing fire.
I summoned forth my sisters, their own smiles set ablaze.
The journey was its own destination—another unity, another
mystery.
I soon glimpsed a structure in the distance, a huge house
soaring unstoppable against the falling sky. Its uppermost
portions were visible despite their impossible height,
slipping the limitations of ordinary spectacle. Fantastically,
this was not only a house of grand design, but an aggregation
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