Sublime

This did not feel like real life, exactly, but nowadays what did?

The cursor blinked where her mind was.

She put one true word after another and put the words in the portal. All at once they were not true, not as true as she could have made them.

It spoke of something deep in human beings, how hard she had to pinch herself when she started thinking of it all as a metaphor.

She was handling it just fine, even though her face had been replaced by one question mark after another question mark after another question mark,

For as long as she read the news, line by line and minute by minute, she had some say in what happened, didn’t she?

No amount of sugar-eating or being scared would help.

The question that was the pure liquid element of the portal—who am I failing to protect?—had found its stopped-clock answer.

Mostly, though, it passed into you, you, you, you, until she had no idea where she ended and the rest of the crowd began.