Self-Similarity [A. Cross.? Unfinished, can't remember idea]

As far as he can remember, his mind has always been like this.

He closes his eyes and in the darkness sees a spiral branching off at every turn, every path continuing down into infinity. He opens them again, and the sunlight blinds him for a moment and fractal starbursts blossom in his vision. He got in trouble as a kid, stealing the surface marker from the janitor’s shed and painting grid after grid upon the blacktop until someone wrenched the device from his hands.

His parents consider him a failure. They nod quietly to themselves when he tells them that he’s moving to the small town by the forest. He’ll have no trouble living there, his parents assure themselves. Fish in the rivers and fruit in the trees. You can live there happily for years, even without their self-styled currency ever touching your hands. He’ll do just fine, they say, and it’s only once he’s out the door and down the street and out of sight that his mother cries.

She knows she’ll never see him again.