The grass is perfect. For about three minutes. Then the first delivery truck sinks slightly into the lawn, leaves a shallow rut, and you can almost hear the groundskeeper inhale…
The curtain hangs heavy and silent, breathing with the room. Dust clings to the velvet like a gray memory. A soft pull at the hem leaves a faint line on…
The iron gate is half rust, half memory. Paint clings to its scrolls in thin flakes, like the last bits of costume on an exhausted actor. Behind it, an old…
Fog hangs low over the Willamette, swallowing the tops of the bridges. Headlights slide along wet pavement. Brick, steel, timber, glass. So much of Portland still feels like a stage…
The paint smells faintly of linseed and damp plaster. A ladder leans against a raw brick wall. Somewhere outside, a bread line is shuffling forward in the cold, but inside…
The stage is empty. Work lights hum overhead, flattening everything into that familiar gray. Tape marks scar the floor where worlds will appear later. For now, it is only potential…
The rehearsal room smells faintly of paint and cold coffee. Spike tape scars the floor in crooked colors. Someone is stapling fabric in the corner. Someone else is balancing on…
A face appears from the dark backstage, half-finished. One eye circled in chalky white, the cheek streaked with vermilion, the lips only outlined. Overhead, a naked bulb hums and flickers,…
The screen glows in the dark room, a kind of artificial moon. Your chair creaks once as you settle in, fingers resting on the controller. A quiet menu hums. Then:…
The lock clicks open. The drawer slides out. A secret compartment pops, a light shifts, the room inhales. For one breath, everyone is 8 years old again, staring at a…