I spend an unreasonable amount of time crafting lives for other people. I see them sitting in class and walking down the street, quietly existing in a world that runs parallel to mine, and I rework them to fit the model in my head. They receive new backstories and new goals; I wrap them in mighty quests and fell them with subtle tragedies. The more special of them become so complete, so real, that I feel like I could just pick them up and drop them into their custom-built constructs.

I generally don’t talk to them once their new inner-universe selves begin to take shape. If I did, they could escape back to the banality from which I’ve pulled them…

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