A several-page comic called: Self-portrait (from a dream.)

It appeared in the park a while ago, a place I passed by frequently, between my work and where I ate lunch. (A place of trees and grass nestled between skyscrapers.)

It was an odd sphere hovering over the pond, layered like an onion with every single one visible at once, unable to capture, not truly. I could draw it in every way possible (a diamond of layers, the layers receding like topographical maps, the sphere coming apart into infinite consecutive hemispheres) and it would not matter, for its state renders it unrenderable.

No one pays it any mind (not anymore), but compusion leads me to sit with my sketchbook and sketch it anyways, as others pass it by, over and over.

It hovers over the pond, surrounded by grass, crowded by skyscrapers, silent and infinite. I watch it back, stoic, then--

I relax, and say: "I hope you're flattered!" with a chuckle. (I render it as hemispheres, as smaller circles floating apart, as eye-shaped peering rings.)

I didn't know the girl. (I saw the news eating lunch-- TEEN JUMPS INTO-- scrolling on my phone.) There are many strangers in the city. (I join the crowd to watch.) But seeing what happened to her...

No camera could capture the sight -- not news nor personal, not on video nor still. But my discerning eye-- how would I render it? What happened to her? How to look at her?

(The peeling away layers of her show in her hair, the line of her teeth, the ribs against her back curling and twisting beside jeans and skin, her glasses, her sweat and her cries, her peering eyes, warped around and into the sphere. I render it over and over and over.)

What else can you do but look at her?