Here’s a 150-word prose poem based on a found photograph …

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“Doctor, what’s wrong with my perfect daughter?”

“Normal stuff.”

“But she is not perfect. She is broken. Find something wrong and fix her. I demand it.”

“I’m looking.”

“Let me help you see it. She how imperfect she is? Normal, perfectly normal, is my daughter dressed for Spring, perfect curls bouncing, in perfect lawns kept inside perfect white fences, conversing with perfect friends who use only the best diction, and enunciate. That is perfectly normal for my daughter.”

“I see.”

“Instead, she talks to the Fading One.”

“You’re right. She’s certainly not normal. The girl’s so non-normal as to be perfectly abnormal.”

“You say my daughter is not normal?”

“Correct.”

“So as to be perfectly abnormal?”

“Yes.”

“Perfectly so?”

“Precisely.”

“Is perfection attainable even through gross abnormality?”

“The grossest. Your daughter will be, as long as –”

“As long as?”

“As long as she’s one with the Fading One.”

“… I see.”

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