Dust motes danced

Dust motes danced in the light above the workbench as a hand pressed into the cool, damp clay. Beneath that touch, a network of minute fissures appeared and reformed, like sediment shifting within a canyon wall. Repeated attempts to sculpt yielded not stable forms, but instead a growing collection of subtle warps—each echoing previous impressions layered upon one another. The individual recollections surprisingly coalesced into something resembling likenesses, yet always fragmented; the material itself seemed to remember its own becoming.