The Six Inch Skyscraper

Ajay was a collector of miniature trinkets. Every Saturday, he wandered the street fairs along the Upper West Side, searching for something unusual. One morning, something caught his eye. Tucked between a signed Derek Jeter baseball and a crate of sun-faded LPs was an unmarked velvet pouch, musty with the scent of dust. Inside it rested an impossibly detailed six-inch skyscraper.

It resembled the Empire State Building but wasn’t quite: its spire narrower, its setbacks steeper, its symmetry slightly off. Its doors bore logos that Ajay didn’t recognize. The windows, though no bigger than sesame seeds, caught the light in a way that made Ajay squint—because, if he stared long enough, he could almost see movement inside.

Ajay was twelve, a straight-A student who read three grade levels ahead but struggled to speak up in class. He lived in a world of busy parents and preteen isolation. His mother, Professor Sharma, spoke in clipped English about postcolonial theory and American hegemony, her brow knitting in worry over a country that preached equality but whispered prejudice. She published papers on displacement while barely noticing her son's quiet dislocation.

His father, a scholar of foreign policy, tapped at his laptop in the living room, groaning about Senate debates and the half-truths politicians peddled. They—two brilliant souls from Mumbai, India, who had come to Columbia University for its prestige—had little time for bedtime stories or interpreting their son's silent glances. At faculty dinners, they praised Ajay's intelligence to colleagues, but at home, they assumed his silence meant contentment.

So Ajay had turned, as he always did, to his miniature world: tin soldiers plucked from flea markets, plastic dancers from birthday cake toppers, and matchstick replicas of the Brooklyn Bridge. In his bedroom, these little souls listened to what his parents never heard.

That Saturday morning, Ajay brought home the tiny high-rise he’d purchased for seven dollars and set it on his desk, where, beneath the lamp’s glow, its windows shimmered alive—soft oranges and faint blues, an eternal twilight dancing inside walls no bigger than his thumbnail.

This is impossible, he told himself, as the rational part of his mind—the part that earned him gold stars and teacher praise—rebelled against what he saw. Buildings didn't have lights. Toys didn't breathe. But his eyes betrayed his logic.

He told his parents that night, approaching them in the kitchen where they debated immigration policy over reheated takeout.

“There are lights in my building,” he said.

His mother glanced up from her laptop. “What building, beta?”

“The one I bought today. I think there are people inside.”

His father looked up from his tablet and smiled. “People? What kind of people?”

“Little people. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” his father repeated, amused. “Sometimes little people have big problems—especially if they’re trying to run a democracy.”

Ajay shrugged. “I guess.”

“Speaking in the abstract, of course,” his father leaned back and smiled. “You’re not running a refugee camp, are you?”

“No.”

“Good,” his father said, already turning back to his screen. “Give the little people what they want.”

“They’re not real, Amit,” his mother said with a smile.

His father glanced at Ajay. “I didn’t say they were. Are they real, Ajay?”

Ajay hesitated. “No. Maybe not.”

“Well then, problem solved,” his father said lightly.

And just like that, they returned to their screens, typing through the next article, the next panel discussion about belonging and displacement.

That night, in the adjoining rooms, they argued quietly:

“Look at how free this country pretends to be,” his mother hissed. “It’s hell, Amit—every other day another policy, another deportation.”

“It’s the same in some parts of India now,” his father replied. “But here—never in my wildest dreams did I imagine academics would have to choose their words so carefully.”

Ajay pressed himself against the wall, the tension making the air thrum. Outside his window, New York sprawled in all directions—millions of lights, millions of people, all of them strangers. He felt suspended between his parents’ world of theories and a reality that seemed to shift with each blink.

He stepped back, returning to his desk where the skyscraper now stood nearly a foot tall. It had grown in his absence.

No, he thought. Things don't grow. Not like this.

But inside the highest windows, a faint silhouette had appeared: a person, or something that looked like on