Field guide No. 734
Stratified mirage on a desert road
The heat, standing up.
On a straight desert road, the shimmer of a mirage has set into tall sheets of clear glass along both verges, each one bending the mountains behind it. The road goes on regardless.
Field noteA mirage is a trick of hot air, with no body at all. These stand in panes on the verge and cast shine.
- Specimen
- No. 734
- Genus
- Generated
- Kind
- Impossible (the round square kind)
- Breaks
- Material
- Where it doesn’t exist
- A straight desert road, midday.
- Nearest existing relative
- A heat haze.
- Filed in Fresh slop as
- Spaces
Also impossible, also breaking material
The balloon that bent concreteBalloons float, yet this one sits in a crater it pressed into a warehouse floor, cracks spreading out.
Liquid saguaro after the stormSpines need something to stand in. Water holding a cactus shape, spines and all, is solid and not.
Taut rope, wrinkled airHung from a rope like washing, a patch of air creases, drapes and casts a shadow it has no surface for.
Mustard bus becomes a paper ticketA yellow bus fades into a paper ticket at its rear. The fare has become the vehicle.