we accidentally imagine

by andrew yoon

seed 5644666

it is 2025. we wonder what to say next, and the wind is still blowing.

three.

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how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a red
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the first
place another why and another
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something is
burning so we all try to remember
what we had done in the
kitchen last but we can't
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout with fewer
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and again

eleven.

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we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
world began to read them out
loud all at the same time and
then the wind began to blow
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence we
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's just fine we
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.

nineteen.

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the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound the ink never
seems to dry.

fifteen.

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just going with the
least we where all these we
don't these different we left
them. don't remember where
we left looking for our
instincts but we left them our
instincts but we don't remember
where we we left them
circumstances calling for different
responses them. these responses,
different circumstances calling
we people was funny when
they they thought half going
on all once because was
funny because there even many
were so many things going on
all

twenty six.

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goals sneaking into the
and interactions. spray
paints while we smile. it all
into other other things
things things making
themselves the geometries and
relationships relationships pushing
buttons and and dominoes which
not going that could be be
the thoughts again. ideas
and thoughts again, all we
happens things squares and
outlines of just just happens,
trangles into other things,
making themselves up behind
each other which always seem
geometries and each

one.

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and just like that, the
page turns for us. the next
series of random numbers fill
the screen and we begin to
imagine dots and we begin to
connect them and agree and
disagree with them, relate to
them and question them and
share them. the page glares.
we glare. everybody is
glaring and nobody is laughing
and then one of us starts
laughing, and another one of us
starts laughing, and we are all
laughing and the paper is
laughing and the inkdots are
laughing: the numbers are
laughing too.

six.

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silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers things happening all
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.

fourteen.

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the eyes again, the
again with ideas under we are
stuck inside are stuck inside
the slowly seems to working
with those clunks with and
suggest a counterpoint really
about the a while eyelids how a
color when a color are color
when we to be clunks fingers
clunks and little little
clunks and little fingers
woodenbits we suggest. stays same
and nobody really seems to
care the wind . agains the
wayingsong a we to while behind,
behind the, and underthere, a a
beforemaroon the with questions how
see under when these but
woodenbits fingers and woodenbits
. a counterpoint. seems
to eyelids, with
questions and ideas how to see
under we color stuck inside it
stuck it inside it usual those
and with those clunks and we
same seems. about
wayingsong agains the wayingsong a
we to to and underthere, a
questions when under a are stuck we
are stuck these it clock we
woodenbits suggest a the nobody
really same and nobody same
stays the to care about to care
seems to agains the
wayingsong a we while behind
eyelids, a the eyes under a color
when we it these things these
moving so slowly but the clunks
and fingers and and and
suggest a counterpoint
conversation conversation stays the
the wayingsong a or to
beforemaroon, the the eyes how how to
to see under a color it
moving so things moving so the
clock seems working seems to
be seems to usual fingers
and little suggest a
counterpoint really wind care or to

twenty eight.

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be better. we question
the idea of relevancy of it
go eyes just listen to the
wind and airplanes and this
just about it , would matter
sounds of all never met
laughter and how learned to each
other how they about to place .
so many learned about the
place so hats. all little
motions little motions because
any sort mark dams and
statues collapse statues what
they always do where cloud a
cloud of the we try to figure
whether it from all maybe if
there, that maybe the leaves
decided or felt some need or
decided or felt some need in that
these grid when we when we look
now by but we us so they say
anything sometimes it's okay to
just not just not that
sometimes we sometimes we say
anything, to just not that just,
that we don't can anything
ourselves. we don't out. and walk
another we it isn't we notice it
now we , now the that front of
us how when the wind it to
smear the ink paper legible a
note or misread a or note or
two and help us think of ,
different technique idea of
relevancy for a the moment, we
close we feel this or couldn't
prepare and it sounds of
laughter and , pointing about the
place . going back and without
any sort of permanent mark
because even roads and statues
and things just do what we .
we in leaves we made come
from whether all up or we made
it all up there in such
these in such a such these and
now and we don't see don't
see us so they maybe

thirty.

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we wonder what might be
next, if anything actually
changed over these years or if
nothing ever really changes. we
reject the idea that nothing
really changes and we ask
ourselves an unexpected question
in return: “who are you?”
and we are unable to answer.
we don't know. and then we
begin to cry. and then we begin
to laugh, and laugh, and
laugh. can't we see why these
questions are so aimless in the
first place when it seems like
every minute or second a new
question comes to our ears which
is so, so, so much more
important like why we can't think
of a good question to begin
with at the moment or how we
are able to read bad
handwriting. we laugh, and we laugh,
and we laugh.

twenty seven.

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in foreheads might be
breathe breathe and stinging
hands in the floorboard and
ask ask ourselves what
caused each groove and what
groove scrape along and and
scratch the face scratch on the
face of someone we we about
behind someone did, if someone
did it purpose if someone it
on just of did of if somehow
.. close our outside our ,
that the incense is somehow
that incense somehow in our
foreheads , that now open the
windows now open the we breathe
hands now now now we and groove
and walls scratch, how each
knot the wires behind in the
wires behind , purpose if
these things own for a outside
our in our foreheads , that
it warm and. to be that it
might, that be, that windows
now stinging hands ask
ourselves where they what caused
the wooden panels and walls
wooden panels freckle a lot
about , how the wires behind
the desk happened, just
sort eyes we are floating the
our bodies in foreheads,,
might be warm enough outside
it warm enough we in our
stinging sensation in our hands
hands we notice small groove
the groove what caused
scrape along paint on the face
of someone

seven.

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tangling wires into
these bizarre shapes, rugs
with strange colors and
melodies waitingly, taking deep
breaths before the speech where
we finally speak our
minds: "won't everybody
please, please stop this
cruelty? can't we see how
unnecessary it is?" some glass
window creaking under winds,
some oil spilled in a parking
lot. how again the why's and
who's before and after or some
some behind throughingly, a
manual for writers of research
papers about electrical
engineering and game theory,
complex analysis and early
marxist painting; the
walls of this place have
shoulders that are
sagging, somewhere in these
pages an actual answer to a
question that matters. a new pair
of jeans, a holiday
decoration left up for months, a
lightbulb which doesn't fit even
though we could have sworn the
size was right at the store.
color combinations making us
feel sick and wonder why we
care about the dissonance,
why we should prefer one to
the other. we conclude that
we're all just bits of air
moving with the waves of some
song we can't hear: now
banging on the wooddrums, the
thoughts and the doubts, hopes or
imaginations throwing fists at the
organ keyboard, some body of
loud waters, some
electrical structure groaning in
rains particles trapped in
the breezings, the sine
waves, the eyeballs thrown
left and right or up and down
or is that a sign of
happiness, of
peacefulness? who's to tell what's
harmony and what's dissonance?
who's to tell the words of the
song when each moment's just
a few bits of data? hard to
see the picture from a
pixel, hard to find the poem
through a word a letter an inkdot
the arounds and behinds
lost somewhere in the mix,
the breath being exhaled
before we even noticed it was
inside our bodies, each note
rising just a little higher or
just a little more like dirty
wallpaper: we ask each other where
it happened. where the
music got faster. where the
blue became green, where the
light was switched on and the
newer waves began to
interfere with things and distort
the shapes, canceling out
or multiplying or
performing more complicated
operations until the noise is noise
and the signal is noise and
the noise is still noise yet
somehow wider, more sideways
and spinningly and
uppingly and backwardly, more
harsh and out of sync, now neon
colorlines and batteries, strange
gaps in the spiral not
patterns but something about
them which makes us feel the
walls are moving further away
and the room is becoming
smaller, that one moment is
another and the second hand is
somehow different this time
around. we cannot help but go to
sleep again, this time with a
strange smile and already
looking forward to coffee. this
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.

twenty five.

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heated while outside
going on we do our best to
pretend every to pretend we more
a to pretend heated while
we do while the
conversation going on outside while
outside becoming heated do our
best to a aren't listening. a
and the becoming heated
while becoming heated while
to aren't we heated on the
mistakes . the conversation our
best to aren't listening. a
little with faster and little
going on outside
conversation going on fewer mistakes
with conversation going on
heated while conversation
going while we becoming
heated fewer mistakes with

twenty four.

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sometimes it happens
sometimes it happens go from and
are not they are, and are ,,,
not okay,, they are
sometimes happens that it happens
from from we from one to even
trying, from one go are not
sometimes are sometimes they, and
to things it they are, and
sometimes it it one the. things
sometimes to the other to the the
other other

four.

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it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies once at peace and
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere hard to find
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.

sixteen.

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when the smile when
starts can't shades colors
back cue sun on whose names we
remember stick smoke smoke of
incense is still glowing in our
lungs and we to.. can't smile
when the sun starts starts
coming but smile right right
right right coming back lines
and lines and so remember
that of still somehow
glowing and and smoke in our
lungs breathe breathe and ask
questions. laughing! isn't it!
isn't it it how

twenty one.

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we wonder what would
make us happy, what would
make this headache go away
which keeps distracting us
from everything going on the
scratching pens and observations,
a quote out of context we
leave the incense burning
when we go to sleep even
though we know it's a fire
hazard and it puts our lives in
danger and the lives of all the
other people living above and
below us, and all of the people
we know and the people who
care about what happens to us
even though we never asked
them to. we wonder why it
should matter that something
happens to anyone, we wonder why
we care. and everything is
so quiet.

eighteen.

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systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
things back together with
words and theories and poems
and cathedrals
architectures in the mind and and later
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its arms a little too
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to who we are praying for,
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.

twenty nine.

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and thinking breakfast
what thing of intention to
begin with, lines one a pen and
going on to next bounces and
going with it. we suspect that
a little laugh how absurd
it like that we about
things is and then laugh at how
is that ever even think
about things like numbers and
things happening of the what
two like and suspect nobody
write things down as they
listened. we much about books and
about what might be for
breakfast one for breakfast why
cross tomorrow why we cross
one thing place of another
when we are any across lines
one next word which it and
with it. it and still just
going with it . we suspect that
things just happen can't help
but smile absurd then laugh
at how absurd a somehow and
a little at how it that
ever even think that we ever
week , things at the same time
were to listen (we suspect
nobody is trying we stop
worrying so much about thinking
(not worrying or why for why
we without any we any
particular sense to begin with ,
just going across straight
on ear just going with and
still that help but smile a
little and how absurd it think
numbers the week same time
listen (we suspect and down as
they listened things
worrying thinking for breakfast
of

five.

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quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
the way they are and stay the
same when they need to stay
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to stay the same or
need to change but maybe
instead want to stay the same or
want to change, or rather: it
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps just
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on or what's not going on
but instead just
mentioning about whatever is on
their mind at that moment,
letting it out and letting it go,
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass, split and
muffled and distorted and
echoed until they sound like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.

thirty one.

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in don't remember even
years ago we had laughed until
sun maybe the sound is maybe
left the ventilation the we
asking of their own wondering
where they are stop the, the
momentnow where things in kind
things remember that things,
make sense have to make sense
, just as they
consistency is another sense to
difference between, not so much
difference between our minds or
shoelaces food somewhere
bacteria and eaten being that
having no having world also
world also means having this
is this is thing and that's
okay watch we watch we the
ground in its strange path

seventeen.

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marbles in a glass bowl,
not going anywhere in
particular seeming to wonder where
the birds get their
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
the dark bottle looking
right back, eyes glimmering
so loudly with the
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings or uncharged
batteries. the lithium looking for
water. how's this different?
asking between colorshades
and subject matter like it
were important or something
or something or something
or anothersong
thismomentingly or an old box of cereal,
casting shadows longer than
expected somehow while the light
reflects in its own color onto the
walls and the nearby desk
surface, papers scattered from
months before piled over each
other, some important some not
so much, some with colors
and blindly drawn
paintings and some printed out
from an old black and white
laser jet printer, whatever
that means, whatever those
meaning.

twenty two.

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and somehow sound of
people laughing all buzzing us
more slantingway or
combination another not quiet lean
actions sun outside making
sound just while and just
breathe for breathe for a while
breathe for a angles crackling
angles crackling,, while
longer and the sun keeps making
we keep we. a bird call we
don't recognize don't. don't
don't don't recognize we we
the but smile can't make
this windchimes and of all
hear all inside our chests
and making making us feel
not warmer and another and
more we lean we lean to aware
try not sun kind of . for

ten.

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we ask ourselves some
question we can't hear, muffled
because our heads are
underwater, this cold sensation
pressing on our foreheads while
we feel our socks becoming
heavy, cottonfibers grabbing
skin and dragging behind our
feet, cold passing between
our toes. maroon painted
walls and a thick sweater,
crinkling plastic bag full of
snacks. we notice it is becoming
later every moment, and that
as soon as we count one
number there is another in
front of that, always room for
another one or zero or eighty
seven or pencilcase
dirtyshoe, these power outlets
rusting over even though we
can't see where the water
could have come from fading in
the carpet telling which
way people walk most
without asking why they walk it
so often when it seems
there are so, so many other
ways to go and that this way
isn't even the easiest or most
efficient or beautiful or
surprising: they are taking the path
because it is the path they take,
and we can't help but
laughalittle at how beautiful that is
not to say that one is better
than another or that anyone
is wrong for going the way
they do or that we think we are
better than going that
particular way to the couch, but
that we know in the end we are
going to go that way too and
that's just fine. it's just as
good an option as any so we
don't see a reason why not it's
beautiful enough and it's
surprising enough and that itself
may be the most beautiful
and surprising thing of all
at the moment.

zero.

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and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls, distant
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite tell why the wind
chooses the pitches it sings
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had been heading
there all along as if there
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides to
fall in this rotting pile we
notice a pain in our lower back
from bad posture and some
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom of our right foot
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice a coin lying on
the ground but we can't make
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is it good to
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
back.

twenty three.

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smiles and the and
ticking ink themselves while
hear muffled but notice the
the sun is paper and and feel
a don't think about don't
know if things somehow we
care we okay never made or
feel like our wind keeps
pushing bit and in are able to see
what it is, is doing, sort
moves around. us turning
kinetic energy which and makes
us resonant trees of
quickly it be without a story
without a these bricks clinging
to one another with some
rock glue another facts
falling smiles , the hugs the
timer keeps ticking
pretending to around on voices from
can't help but notice how the
how is glowing and

eight.

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we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof or
something similar and we are
sitting in the front passenger
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you? and we
think for a minute, and then
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a held
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about them
just because they asked.
they can't answer either,
and the grip gets tighter
and they aren't making eye
contact but that's okay because
we aren't looking anyway
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about an itch
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on laughing
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something the grip
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it is
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
making sense to just accept
this and close our eyes and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated and start to
do things we don't want to
do, blaming other people
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of. we
forget that they are us, that
their grip is getting tighter
and that nothing is okay for
them either. we remember
that their boxy head is
crying and we have been trying
not to notice. we remember
that we are all the same
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.

two.

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because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
matter.

thirteen.

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another breath with the
warmer. throughs and arounds
and nowing while again
again we close our circles of
ink we close would us would
be okay minutes and wonder
wonder now noticed this
beautiful ?" we wonder through
sunlight another breath with we
move around the with the
sunlight now nowing while again
the stops and time
continues and and stops stops
while again the stops while
again the time continues and
stops and continues again
again and stops and and

twelve.

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we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
look away and we notice this
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.

twenty.

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., for once, it a.
everything is why, maybe but for now
why, but for a while ?” once,
damp sticks from outside. a
we is so pink how
everything is now it for and, for
smell a everything is so
remember why, but for don't but
don't stay like, for once
outside. outside sound how
everything maybe we remember don't
it stay like a while once,
damp sticks from does damp a
slowmoving sound everything
everything is why for. why, but for
now. “can it stay like,

nine.

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we are breathing. and we
are still breathing. one
thought and another passing by
in the street while we ask
ourselves if this is going
anywhere if we should instead be
focusing on something else like
the way the smoke is
drifting away from the incense
stick, or the sound our eyelids
make when we blink. is there a
place for rushing anymore?
the softmurmurs again,
reminding us about our breath: and
a little blue bird lands
on the windowsill. it is
singing.
,