Magnified Frontier

Cold night air had claimed the yard. I slipped back through the screen door and navigated the warm hall, scaling the leg of the low study desk. Right across the blotter, a stout brass-rimmed magnifying glass lay tilted over an open botanical journal. I stepped behind the heavy convex lens. Brilliant. A tiny sketched seed pod swelled into an imposing armored fortress, every paper fiber magnified into thick, interwoven ropes. I braced my stance, nudging the solid brass frame with my forearm to sweep across the inked grid. A colossal new landscape, hiding right on the flat page.