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This is a fragment is part of an overall quest to practice writing fiction. We were aiming for the aesthetic of Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities". This piece is about Delft, a town in the Netherlands.

Micro-Delft

There was no space left for a city, but they built Delft anyway.

A micro-city. A bite-sized collection of postal codes for the breadcrumb houses. Canals that overflow if more than two people cry at the same time. A toy university for engineering toys, with a toy nuclear reactor to show off the finesse of academia, the efficient use of space and entropy. Fragrant tourist shops are lined up snug and straight, like Five O'Clock chocolate mints.

A yeast factory once fermented microscopic life. "The streets still smell of yeast every time it rains", they coo, a story which rings romantic, more romantic than admitting that beer also smells of yeast and the streets see more beer than tears. What else do you expect from a student town?

A micro-theater, birdlike, perched too close to a canal flowing with the tears of all the students who failed one dreadful course of abstract mathematics and will think about it all summer.

The King retrieves his best magnifying glass from a silken pouch, micro-embroidered with a carousel of horses. He holds the glass between His Majesty and the old church in Delft, squinting against the orange glow, peering through stained-glass windows shuddering to Hail Mary played on the tiniest grand organ.