Donna Stonecipher
Model City [16]
Model City [16]
It was like going to an exhibition where all the artworks are about melancholy, and falling into fits of uncontrollable laughter, especially before a case of little ivory skeletons “intended for private reflection.”
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It was like looking at the faces on those skeletons and asking yourself why skulls are always grinning like that, what they have to grin about, and then realizing we are all always grinning like that, under our faces.
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It was like feeling that grin under your face at all times, even when you are sobbing, or expressionless, reading a thick book late at night next to a dark window: there you are grinning, despite yourself, down at the book.
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It was like leaving the melancholy exhibition nearly sobbing with laughter, picturing the memento mori, the tiny skeletons in some noblewoman’s gloved hand, as she privately reflects, secretly grinning.