Paragraph: (Fiction-stories-masc-captured_moments-5.txt)
Sent 1: Search "Emiliano Malaquez" and you'll find he's a master of the "captured moment" school of sculpture.
Sent 2: Even The Terran Times has only praise for his work.
Sent 3: To compare his pieces to those of others is to compare mannequins to living models.
Sent 4: He accents the illusion of reality --I paraphrase his entry in La Enciclopedia Humanica --by doing life-size scenes in "The full round," never the easier frontal or three-quarters view.
Sent 5: Moreover, he never did portraits of famous people; his works were therefore the reality and could never be compared to it.
Sent 6: As is typical of his school, his pieces are sealed in stopboxes.
Sent 7: The shimmer of light on their surfaces always reminds us that we're looking at an instant snatched from under the hooves of time.
Sent 8: They say the cubes will outlast planets and suns, that when the universe dies, the works of Malaquez and his followers will be the last things seen in the final wink of God's eye.
Sent 9: Yes, Self, I am also bothered that this observation ignores half-eaten cheese sandwiches, incomplete insect collections, and locks of infants' hair, forgotten in closets, basements, and warehouses.
Sent 10: You see the inspiration for my latest play, "Captured Moments."
Sent 11: The mindwipe will take its creation from my future self --but time too often does that without aid.
Sent 12: The play's second act concludes with the last fight between Tasha and me.
Sent 13: I have disguised us in the play, and deleted one brief melodramatic interchange.
Sent 14: Now I will mention it, in case I/You decide to restore it.
Sent 15: Shortly before she left, Tasha said, "You steal from life for art, Bernardo.
Sent 16: You'll impoverish yourself."
Sent 17: I only snarled at her and -- My story leaps ahead of itself.
Sent 18: Let me retreat and retrench: One night during N'apulco's mild winter, Tasha returned to The Flamingo, saying, "Nardo!
Sent 19: Nardo!
Sent 20: Guess what?"