CLOSED for @commonmonsters
hana had lived long enough to know that praise was often the most elegant form of ignorance. all evening, strangers in black silk and expensive shoes drifted through her gallery with flutes of champagne in hand, tilting their heads at her work as if angle alone might grant them understanding. they called it haunting. exquisite. one man with a silver watch and too-white teeth told her he could really feel the femininity of the violence, and hana had only smiled, because killing him in front of the installation would’ve been considered poor etiquette. none of them saw the women hidden in the negative space. none of them understood the gold leaf was NOT decoration, but burial. they looked at centuries of hunger and grief and called it striking. by the time the third curator attempted to explain her own use of vermilion back to her, hana had slipped away from the orbit of admirers with the practiced grace of a woman who had been escaping rooms for eight hundred years. san francisco glittered beyond the glass in all its fog and electric arrogance, the city reflected in the dark sweep of her eyes as she crossed toward the bar tucked near the side wall. she accepted a drink without asking what it was, lifted it to her mouth, and let the burn sit on her tongue while the crowd murmured behind her like insects in a garden. humans had become very good at pretending depth. they wore it in tailored jackets, posted it under flattering light, purchased it when they couldn’t CULTIVATE it. hana glanced back at them over the rim of her glass, bored and beautiful and terribly awake.
