I had formed a vague impression of him that was mostly “that guy sure is more confident than he has any right to be.” He was skinny and awkward with printer-paper-pale skin. Somehow we got stuck with Andy (or probably, from his perspective, he got stuck with us). But Professor Kennedy was dividing us up into groups of three, which meant a random third wheel. We were obviously going to be in the same group whenever there was a group project. Maya and I, by that point, were taking most of the same classes because, well, we really liked each other a lot. Maya and I had done it by occupying the same four hundred square feet.Īndy, on the other hand, lived across town from us, and we didn’t even know him until junior year. You know those moments when your life shifts and you think, I will definitely, without a doubt, continue to love and appreciate and connect with all of these cool people I have spent so many years with, despite the fact that our lives are changing a great deal right now, and then instead you might as well unfriend them on Facebook because you ain’t never gonna see that dude again in your whole life? Well, Andy, Maya, and I had somehow (thus far) managed to avoid that fate. I paused for maybe five seconds before shivering both in the cold and in the gaze of the thing and then walking on.

not some spray-painted cardboard cosplay thing. In the streetlight, the metal was a patchwork of black‑as‑night matte and mirror-reflective silver. But instead it just stood there, silent and almost scornful, like the world didn’t deserve its attention. It looked like it might, at any moment, turn and fix that empty, regal stare on me. It just stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, full of energy and power. So that’s how I felt when I saw it – a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor, its huge barrel chest lifted up to the sky a good four or five feet above my head. It’s just that there are a lot of people doing a lot of amazing things, so eventually you get a little jaded. That doesn’t make those things unwonderful or not unique. The local news does a story about it and everyone goes “Neat!” and then tomorrow we forget about it in favor of some other ABSOLUTELY PERFECT AND REMARKABLE THING. It’s beautiful and it’s powerful and someone devoted a huge piece of their life to it. in New York City people spend ten years making something amazing happen, something that captures the essence of an idea so perfectly that suddenly the world becomes ten times clearer.

How do I explain how I felt about it? I guess. I mean, it’s AWESOME, but it’s also a little bit “New York awesome,” you know?

An absolutely remarkable thing plot