Mikal drives North West to collect sculpture

A vast tarpaulin seemed to stretch over Mikal's being, tugged at with equal vigor by the hands of his various proclivities—now towards happiness, now towards rage—such that when they at last relented the canvas fell limply in the approximate center. Thus, Mikal, if a shade restless, felt basically at ease.

"Boise, Portobello": the interstate forked dramatically, demarcated by a pair of nearly identical, bluish-green signs. "Bear left", barked the sat-nav; Mikal dutifully obliged. Encouraged by the map's subsequent expanse of more or less straight road, his mind settled once again on the object of his journey.

A 72-inch obelisk of silver-grey Emperador, dappled with little patches of ivory and umber. Engraved in its base was the sculptor's hallowed monogram, a tiny uppercase "M", denoting Mikal's namesake. Somehow, the sculpture seemed to represent not triumph or defiance (as obelisks are often wont to do), but something more akin to struggle, perhaps humility. It stood on solemn tiptoe with intent to pierce the heavens, but did so with a kind of glum indifference... As though aware of the false azure overhead as only thin self-deceit.

Following the same road, but a separate, emerging stream of thought, Mikal mused that he too might have been as sculptor. Not here of course, not now, but in some other reality, and even then only for argument's sake. But still, suppose...

Therein lies the beauty of fiction, he reasoned: the capability to peer at what lies behind doors long closed off in the dull realm of the "real". No, the real beauty—or the real horror—is not in grasping the indiscriminate orb of that putative future, but in turning back to see that flimsy wooden veneer—with cracked paint-peel surface and barely-attached hinges—that has been scarcely any impedance all along. And what is one to do then? Trudge back inside that pretend prison and feign ignorance?

Presently, another highway sign loomed overhead: "Exit, Boise".