The paper skyline

An original description of an invented city-model display.

From the doorway, the model city looked complete. Towers rose beside a river of painted glass, and a railway crossed the surface on narrow silver legs. The small windows caught the exhibition lights in rows of bright, identical squares.

Closer to the table, the buildings lost their solid confidence. Behind one tower was an open seam. A roof had been cut from the lid of a biscuit box, its printed lettering still visible underneath. The railway ended at the edge of the display, where a single length of wire hung down towards the floor.

None of this destroyed the city. Instead, it gave the view two scales at once. I could follow an imaginary train between the towers and also see the patient work of someone bending the silver supports. The maker had not hidden every join. The unfinished edges allowed the enormous place and the small act of making it to remain visible together.

How does the writer develop the contrast between the imagined city and its small physical construction?