Chapter Three: Beyond the Bleed

The man had his height and voice, but his face was assembled from rejected self-portraits. His left eye was charcoal from age twenty-two, his right a vector drawing deleted last year. A gray NOT SELECTED stamp covered his mouth. His coat was folded from redundancy forms. On his chest sat an open circle missing the final upward stroke. “Who are you?” “The Gu Yan you never finished. Call me Zero.” Gu Yan remembered the warning: Trust no one who is finished. This man had made a point of declaring himself unfinished. “Where is the first stroke?” “Inside the source file for your first commercial poster. Twelve years ago, you gave it to Shen Zhuo. He won an award with it.” Zero pointed at the inverted tower.