A library at night, shelves rising past the reach of any lamp, and a giant assembled from ribbons of amber light standing in the stacks, pulling more light out of the books and winding it into itself. At the far doorway, small enough to miss on a first look, a person stands with a single white-gold spark cupped in both hands, not yet speaking it. The whole room is lit by only those two sources.

The golem was animated by a written word and stopped by unwriting it. That story got attached in my mind to systems that now read and write past the point where any person can follow, and the image arrived almost immediately: a figure made of handwriting that never resolves into words, feeding on a library, growing while its maker watches from the door. I painted the ribbons warm on purpose and kept them warm when a cooler version was on the table, because at this heat the giant reads as burning as much as glowing, and that double reading is the honest one. It is beautiful. It is also consuming the room it stands in. The spark in the maker's hands is the smallest light in the picture and the only thing in it with a choice.