Constamavis smelled like pencils. It wasn't where she lived or worked, her lifestyle, detergent, or what she ate. It was the way she was made. Something peculiar to her body chemistry gave her the unmistakably distinct aroma of graphite. There was nothing she nor anyone else could do about it.

Her odor was not the only peculiar thing about Constamavis. She was clever enough, but not exceptional. She was interesting, but not very. She possessed all the virtues, but none in any exceptional abundance. So, although overall she was more intriguing than not, eventually people found her to be unimpressive and inexplicably dull.

Her body had the kind of figure that caused a quickening in a primordial part of the male abdomen. Indeed, men could not help but swallow hard on taking her in. Her face, however, had a unique, subliminal defect such that her features, pretty enough individually, when taken as a whole, pointedly turned men off.

And so, Constamavis, for right or wrong, was desired, but only momentarily, found love often and lost love often, was one moment enveloped in warm companionship, the next moment coldly alone.

At 34 a person is chronologically young. But at 34 the collective cultural conciousness sliently considers a person not young anymore. A 34-year-old becomes bored with the younger crowd's pointless, self-centered, and deeply self-conscious collective neurosis. But a 34-year-old lacks the maturity to engage the older crowd.

Collections themselves are laughable things. People mousing away this and that, paying twice what it costs for a toy in a box they'll never open and enjoy. Setting their collections on shelves, they dust them, tend to them, run their eyes over them, deify them. Stowing them away for the mere sake of having them, collections serve no other purpose than to feed the purist "I."

So it is with the collective conciousness, the popular Narcissus, enraptured by its own image, reflected in its own eyes, staring back at itself having picked the pleasantest and put it on, it sees a beautiful Frankenstein's Monster, and the creature it has made becomes the litmus. It holds up perfection as the standard of Average. It collects all it desires and makes it one with itself. It is the ultimate collection. It is a collection shared by the culture that collects it, and everyone in the collective culture abides by it as the axiom of normality. Oh, Bat of Yob's Wumpus!

I often judge a book by its cover. I also buy one brand over another because I like the label on the package better. I've thrown away things I love because they irritated me when I couldn't find a good place to keep them.

Did I do wrong?

Moss cannot see nor think nor speak. I have walked barefoot in the yard, and so has my wife. We both have stepped upon the mosses. My wife's second toe is shorter than her big toe. My second toe is longer than my big toe. If the moss could see and think and speak, which foot would it find beautiful, mine or my wife's? By which would it prefer to be pressed upon? If it preferred my foot over my wife's and was disappointed and moaned at having been pressed upon by her's, resentful after a time of having to stare at the short toe, preferring to have nothing to do with it, would the moss be wrong, superficial?

When Constamavis went out with people, male or female, they liked her at first. They enjoyed her company. They politely ignored her odd aroma, found clever tricks of illusionment to see around the subliminal disappointment of her face, found her clever and interesting.

After a time and they'd gotten to know her well enough, nothing about her was new, her cleverness was predictable. They became disillusioned about her face. Whenever they got near her, her odor brought images to mind of pencils that won't sharpen no matter how you grind them because the lead is off-center in the shaft. So these people would drift out of Constamavis' life.

Should they stay? Should they bear resentment and disgust just to avoid upsetting her? Are they wrong to put her back on the shelf because the cover is disturbing, the toe too short?

Guilty if they stay, guilty if they leave. Therein lies the justice. The justice of partial judgment, judging partially, judging parts, judging the sum of the parts.

No matter how we judge: declaring him or her culpable or innocent, beautiful or ugly, boring or fascinating, we are guilty the moment the judgment is formed. "Stop judging that you may not be judged."

Constamavis, when she was young, judged herself. She would catch the scent of graphite, see the indescribable shadow behind her pretty features, become bored with her own predictably clever thoughts. But when Constamavis was young, she also judged people and things, parts and wholes, outside herself. "As you judge so you will be judged."

Until one day.

On the fine July day when Constamavis turned 34, she stepped out into her moss garden in her bare feet. The moment her delicate shorter second toe touched the earth, snow fell on her for 11 seconds, two planets that had been circling a distant unnamed star in intersecting orbits finally collided after 373,291,472 earth years, and she was certain she heard very briefly the faintest, high-pitched moan of disappointment from somewhere on the ground around her feet. She realized she was no longer young and not yet mature. She realized she fit nowhere, was neither great nor small, and that the universe could exist perfectly fine without her, but without her would be a different universe altogether entirely.

From that point on Constamavis ceased to judge others. When she did, she ceased to judge herself. Constamavis has lived in perfect serene contentment since that day.

And that is the greatest happiness of all.