Category: issue 9

I was among the first to upload to VelleSomnia, an armored, fridge-sized satellite surrounded by a football field of solar collectors in geostationary orbit over the Pacific. Despite occasional jitters and fickle object permanence, the ten thousand of us beta testers had the run of hardware meant for ten million digitized souls. However, like all good things—romances, highs, balanced ecologies—the beta run eventually ended, and the fees and charges started.

When night leaks into the sunset, you flip the gate latches. They aren’t so much there to keep the cloud sheep in, more to signal that it’s time for them to roam the hayflower fields below the Sister Crescent Mountains—twin peaks standing side by side, sharing winding roads and sloping valleys. Each sheep unfurls their wings, bristles their hide, and rubs their horns against one another or a nearby tree trunk—the vibrations wake their siblings and relatives perched on the branches as thick as their bodies, hidden, partially, by head-sized leaves.

“I only want to be seen for who I really am,” I tell my friends. Only two out of three made it over, and I’m trying not to feel too many feelings about that fact; I’m already delicate enough after the gallery opening today.

One thing I learned about Bradley Zhao before he graduated was that sometimes, it was best to let him talk until he ran out of energy.