The Fall
Decadence, when the leaves turn the colors they will die in, is the most beautiful of humanity’s seasons.
She had stars in her eyes and sequins on her shoes, she had all the baubles and bangles a girl could wish for on a very important day. She had the satisfaction of knowing that she was the reason for its importance, the center of the world, the gravity to which all eyes are drawn. It would last for 13 very good hours, before it all collapsed under its own weight; anyone who has never had this experience has never levitated, but anyone who has lived through it knows: eyes are heavy. Far, far, heavier than a crown.
Two hundred years before, Talleyrand had said that anyone who hadn’t been a member of the aristocracy just before the French Revolution had never lived at all. So long as it is stable, a contradiction with itself, decadence is the most beautiful of humanity’s seasons. The fall, when all the leaves turn the colors they will die in. The days leading up to “Let them eat cake” were a glamorous time, and so is the early 21st century. A thousand pixelated flowers bloom, each one less sustainable than the last, attracting no bees – a sterility that you cannot turn your eyes away from, waiting to devour a girl like her. In a climate like this, 13 good hours was not a bad run.