we accidentally imagine

by andrew yoon

seed 6625597

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

twenty two.

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from seasonal smile at
the and somehow the the
voices the voices make make
this sort this and somehow
the voices make and these

twenty seven.

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care a lot about wires
behind the the the if behind
happened happened, things just
sort on their own somehow. a
moment , that it might warm
enough outside to open the
windows enough might the
windows now small small dents in
the floorboard and what
came from

fourteen.

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a color clock seems to
fingers and woodenbits. and the
conversation really wind wayingsong
or to while behind the
eyelids how to see a see when we
stuck inside inside it these
things clunks

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.

twenty six.

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fall direction. not
going going the way we
expected or intended, but maybe
that could be be the ideas
ideas ideas and interactions
and. spray paints all these
permeating a permeating just
happens squares and sort up the
geometries and relationships
pushing to fall way we expected
or intended, but into
paints these colors. and
trangles into shapes sort of
squares of making other, shapes
themselves pushing buttons and
dominoes which always seem seem
and and relationships
pushing in the wrong direction
the way we expected or
intended, sneaking into the that
could thoughts interactions
all these colors and ideas
all ideas permeating while
we watch with a a outlines
it into into up shapes
trangles, themselves up up
buttons and seem to fall in not
going the way we not maybe that
could way maybe the point or
intended the point. goals
sneaking spray paints

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.

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.

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.

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.

sixteen.

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

two.

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

twenty three.

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around a little bit, and
instant we are able to see
everything, what object how moves
us in eyes absorbed into
dust and makes us so how cars
end it will turn joke
without a story bricks clinging
one another with some
another the the screams and the
and the ticking and we keep
pretending not to notice on
themselves we room the all around
landing on how the whole room is
glowing feel it on our skin and
about anything at all. we
don't somehow we don't care
okay because have made feel
more the sun is blood skin
going pushing trees around a
and we to see

twenty eight.

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really be there that
felt such or such a way grid
patterns come up at the at the
branches below we know comes
walking our but , but they don't .
they that sometimes be don't
really, really. and they walk
out of sight. and clock and
yet, it isn't is behind us
notice how strange looks
around into . smear the ink and
with our hand it paper so well
and remains perfectly
legible or or help us something a
different technique, we question
the idea of relevancy eyes
and just listen airplanes
sun our . wonder what this
just about really, anything
could or couldn't wonder if
couldn't to the sounds anyway we
listen we listen sounds all
these people these people
we've never met toward their
destination as other how. all these
little permanent dams and
enormous things they do what the
of come whether up or maybe
something could there, that maybe
really , that maybe the that
patterns come we below. know but
we don't look up so they
don't see away and understood
that sometimes to just
anything, that just that
sometimes it's okay not anything ,
that sometimes ourselves .
we walk out of sight.
another out of out of sight which
doesn't matter we glance at the
clock and that , and shadow is
us of us. is in front we
strange hair looks hair it lead
and lead with all sticks to
well and. legible hoping the
smudges might were remains
hoping that might make were
somehow note or misread a word
and us we have but maybe
question, and let go moment, and
let relevancy for it go our
eyes to the airplanes and
feel the wind the sun warming
. legs . we wonder
couldn't us it sounds of all these
conversation, pointing their
destination as they explain to
learned about the place . back
and mark and dams and and
they do what they do anyway .
figure patterns to , whether we
it all the a when we look at
below someone walking by our
we don't so they. or
looking, can just be ourselves,
walk out of thing wonder if at
glance we glance and if eight,
and it isn't behind, and
that our shadow is in notice
how hair when the wind
around into. we try we try

thirteen.

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we wait for a few minutes
and wonder if it would be
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody noticed and we
watch the air just sort of move
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with the
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
again the time continues and
stops and continues again.
circles of ink we close our eyes.

twenty.

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

twenty four.

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to the other without
even and sometimes things
sometimes they that we we go even
trying . and sometimes things
are not okay, and sometimes
one to and sometimes things
are are not , go the other not
okay , and sometimes they are
, it happens from one and
sometimes sometimes and and and go
go from one without even ,
they they are, and we go from
one sometimes things
things are from one without
without without even trying .
are sometimes we one
sometimes things are, we go from
one not sometimes they

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.

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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when there so or so many
ways to so chord and roll up
our when it seems everyday
that there is a new color a new
there everyday that there is
new, a our desks voice and
combinations of words,
probabilistic relationships words,
probabilistic words, ears their
emptiness their emptiness or
soullessness emptiness or their or
emptiness or soullessness down
again, we, a grain of out of
place in a library place sand
out of place a library where
every book is in a different
language recognize or we don't
recognize or have a we had we
thought

thirty.

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

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.

twenty one.

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we though we it's know
it's hazard and puts our
danger and the lives it puts our
, the people we and all
below , and of the people we
know who happens to us even us
we them to we never asked
them to. it should matter
that something happens
should matter wonder why it
should matter that something
happens to anyone matter should
matter that something to
anyone wonder why we care. we
wonder we wonder we us what go
which keeps distracting
happy, make this make what
would us, what would this
headache go keeps distracting us
go away happy would make
this headache, headache go
away distracting us from
which away which

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 nine.

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pen one with a next word
and going straight on our
just going with it still we
suspect with it still going with
it and still just suspect
that just with it and just it.
we things just happen a
little absurd then absurd it is
that we ever even think days
same time were to is things
down much about scheduling

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

twenty five.

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

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.

fifteen.

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in this car jam life in
every a a different in the but
piano . maybe isn't. maybe if
struggle if. maybe every
struggle behind behind piano
like just another ceiling
ceiling but there isn't. emails
just keep arriving of them
ever ever seem be from real,
out into be from all all to be
all these situations
branching out into tree ,
incomprehensible the one we saw for for now
at at at least we go looking
any good as any, for for them
. all these different
different of dealing
circumstances calling, different
ways of dealing are smiling
we are smiling because why
because? these social gestures
amplifying across a group group of
people who don't know who they
thought when there things life
jam , story in every single a
different single, a. maybe if.
more seeming like just just
arriving to be from from all out
situations branching out into
entire stories into some
incomprehensible tree to the first and
that any, we least our
looking for at least at least
instincts but we different
different of dealing and smiling.
. because gestures
amplifying across who don't people
they know why they know why
even hear were so all at it
because there when they didn't
it half different life in
note time. the sky seeming
like just another arriving
and keep from real people,
these situations branching
branching branching out entire
entire stories, fanning,
options after options
impossible end up just one we as go
for now now at we left
responses, and and and we ways of
dealing don't know why because
one one amplifying people
why they thought the when
they didn't
,