imaginari

Sometimes, when I feel small or a little wobbly, I do a ridiculous thing: I ask a machine to stitch me a story. I tell it, "Make me laugh. Make me ridiculous. Make me enormous." It spits back this image of a woman hovering above a city, with a cape like a gull's wing and lightning framing her like an angel’s halo. She looks at once tired and utterly convincing. That look is the best part: the face of someone who has remembered, halfway through microwaving leftovers and texting "On my way," that she is, in fact, indisputably dramatic. Her name in my head changes depending on the mood. Tonight, she is Nariman the Zen. Other nights she's Nancy the Noteworthy. Her suit is ridiculous: sleek black armour traced with veins of electric blue light that hum with minor inconveniences like overdue emails and unmet expectations. The emblem on her chest is a stubborn glyph, the sort you get when you combine optimism and thrift-store couture. Her cape flaps like it’s aud...