The sphere began to rotate. Not fast, but with a heavy, deliberate gravity. A seam appeared. Not a door, but a wound. Inside, there was no trash, no machinery. Just a void that looked back.
: Ranaldo’s tribute to Joni Mitchell , blending Beat-influenced poetry with harmonic explosions. Daydream Nation
Inside, it was not a sphere. It was a city. An infinite, ruined city made of the detritus of American dreams. Skyscrapers built from stacked cathode-ray tube televisions, their screens all showing the same static snow. Streets paved with vinyl records that cracked like ice underfoot. And the people—or what used to be people—stood frozen mid-stride. They were mannequins, but not plastic. They were made of hardened ash and melted cassette tapes, their faces locked in expressions of teenage longing: the pout of a girl waiting for a call, the slack-jawed awe of a boy watching a rocket launch on a black-and-white set. The sphere began to rotate