Does it have to be this dark in here? Pinpricks of topaz, amethyst, and chrysoprase dot the ceiling like fine-cut stars, but with the house lights out, shadow consumes the masked and painted faces surrounding me. Carefully crafted homages and stiff, die-punched facades blur together in a sea of indistinct bodies, writhing to the amateur ...

I love staring at my mother’s butt. Iona is jealous of parades, like the planet unfurls before us god-beings walking down the middle of the street, then avalanches to bury the spectators cheering from the sidelines.    That’s only something you can believe from the crowd. The domos squash any hope of sightseeing with their mechanical insistence on procession. It’s ...

The rumbling overhead grows louder and the metal chute shakes more and more violently as the clamoring approaches. I fight to choke down my sense of anticipation when at last I can see that the penultimate tremors will finally deposit at my feet—an elongated gear, approximately 1/32 ratio—definitely not the ocular wiring I had punched ...