mehta

In the last few months I've thought often of her, in fits and starts. The plot and character have no substance. But I feel now like I'll have to start writing, or maybe die.

Mehta's world is rotting. Cities crumble as the ground underneath them is swallowed by sea, or just disappears. Roads crack into dirt. Maybe not water, actually -- more like sand. Something that makes it hard to see, that bleaches the world white and wears it down a grain at a time.

I think maybe in her world, the people are rotting too. There's a kind of sickness inside of humans, and 'humanity' is what we call the act of fighting it back. Forcing the cancer into remission. But all around her, the sickness is winning. Like the skin is disappearing and we're seeing the black veins underneath. I'm thinking this is what a world looks like as its creator forgets it.

You've heard this story? That the world is the dream of a stranded man on a desert island. And now he is dying too, or maybe just waking up. Anyways, the dream is fading.