there is nothing like near-disasters, the kind that lets you perch on the edge for days, even months, to let you know how fragile life stories can become. like a free-falling snowglobe wondering if there would be something soft to break its fall.

and the secret trysts with lifeforms too different to be unreal, but real enough to touch. they become bits of increasing insanity, a creature growing more grotesque, but more alluring, more seductive the longer your mind dwells on it.

telling a life story is like showing a secret wound - in a huddle, shielded from the prying eyes of outsiders. and the tale never ends because there are always rivulets of blood pointing to another wound, and then another, and another - all begging their stories to be told.

all around me i hear snowglobes shattering, breaking themselves free from the contrived perfection of their own little worlds. jabbing slivers of glass everywhere and at everyone. spilling their watery contents like tears.