"I think her wings should come off," says a student, and so her wings come off. They fall like dirty bandages. "There’s something about the light in her eyes, it doesn’t seem earned," (the voice, impatient, feminine, too quick for "jaded".) Immediately her eyes, Byzantine almonds—they are wiped away, replaced by the eyes of a soldier. "All this self-awareness in the features, it makes me queasy," says a boy (who swears he has instincts—it’s in his nature to know when a face is two-faced…) "So what happens next?" (Another boy, the one with the serial killer trading cards) says (after a semester of silence): "I mean the afterlife, nothing happens, there’s no smell of blood or whiskey." He says it, and although no one knows what he means everyone agrees the halo has to go."Now she looks like one of Brancusi’s eggs," the last student says. "She’s perfect, featureless, and derivative."
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 