Kissing was invented in the city of Thusk, a seaport with thousands of citizens, yet only one dentist. Her services were scarcely needed, for the civic biologists had rendered most of her profession obsolete.
Beyond a handful of major cities, the American Midwest can be understood as an archipelago of small towns rising from an agricultural sea. For most travelers, these isles are little more than waypoints between two nodes in a great concrete network: exits from the highways where gasoline is gathered, and urine is left behind.
"This telescope was built to accommodate several different modes of operation,” the observatory’s director explained. "For instance, right now, it's set to hermetic mode. That means that whenever you focus its lens on a particular star, the image of that star exists just as far backwards within your mind as the star itself is from your eyes."
I wanted to believe the tales of Polybius, the arcade game that drove its own players to madness. It was the perfect urban legend, for the details of its telling reinforced its own state of unverifiable limbo. Any and all cabinets which may or may not have once existed were seized by the powers that be, leaving an empty-handed public to speculate about whether or not they’d ever actually been there to begin with.
When he is seen in visions, Nexorpan, the god of small agonies, has no face: what appears to be a sea urchin sits atop his neck as a surrogate head. Its numerous spines have shredded the torso of his three-piece suit, exposing the raw patches of violet skin beneath. Every morning, his handmaidens bathe him, dress him, and tend to his wounds, yet all of their work is swiftly undone.
In his bestiary’s entry regarding tigers, Leonardo da Vinci describes a bizarre interaction between humans and these mighty beasts:
"This is a native of Hyrcania; it bears some resemblance to the panther from the various spots on its skin; and it is an animal of terrifying speed. When the hunter finds its cubs he carries them off instantly, after placing mirrors at the spot from which he has taken them, and immediately takes to flight upon a swift horse."
There are two separate sources of gravity competing for control of the city of Hyperboleon. These operate perpendicularly to one another, drawing objects towards two separate grounds whose horizons meet at a right angle.
He noticed the crystal ball on the oracle's table. “I take it that this is what shows us the future?”
"Nah." Her face flashed briefly into view beneath her hood as she lit another cigarette. "You didn't do your homework, did you? Looking in from outside, the crystal ball shows you the past. Looking out from inside, it shows you the future. Here, let me show you how it works.”
