we accidentally imagine

by andrew yoon

seed 7477852

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

thirty one.

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and combinations of
words, probabilistic, ears
way. the illusion breaking
down again illusion
breaking down that dot, a grain of
out of in a a different in a
different language and there and
we don't recognize or had a
are; we are shuffling is few
a shelves down is we
haven't seen in a haven't seen in
a long whose name don't we
sun back from an from an old
cell left music, or the
ventilation or the ventilation
remember they where are hurtling
where own, wondering

twenty three.

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and the staring us in
being absorbed kinetic
energy which pushes bits
wonder why wood quickly how
cars. we wonder end to part a
joke clinging to some rock
glue one after another
falling into the the screams,
the hugs our circles on room
and can't help but, how on
the whole can somehow feel
about anything don't know
themselves or okay never more happy
or laughing on our glowing
through our skin just keeps
keeps keep we are able what it
and object the air just sort
of staring us turning away
being absorbed by the

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.

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 two.

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which slantingway or
combination making one thing work
and another not? the
vibrations more quiet every time we
lean our ears closer trying
to hear inside the sounds.
we are aware of our actions
but try not to notice. the
sun outside making this
fuzzy kind of sound against
the grass. we pause and just
breathe for a while. where again
the thisthat theringly,
the second hand ticking by
again and again while all
these angles crackling, we
breathe for a while longer and
the sun keeps making that
sound and we keep sniffling
from seasonal allergies. a
bird call we don't
recognize. we can't help but smile
at the sound of people
laughing and somehow the voices
make this sort of harmony
against the windchimes and we
hear all these acoustic
vibrations buzzing inside our
chests and making us feel not
warmer but more okay. more
okay.

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.

twenty six.

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

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 seven.

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

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.

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.

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

ten.

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from it so often when it
to go and that this way
isn't even the easiest or most
efficient or beautiful or
surprising most the it is the take,
and take, and how beautiful
is not say that one that we
think they do that particular
way we know way too just as we
don't see a reason why not it's
beautiful enough it's surprising
enough and that itself
surprising thing because we can't
hear, muffled because our we
feel becoming heavy,
cottonfibers grabbing skin becoming
heavy, between our maroon bag
full of snacks full of snacks
. plastic bag of we notice
it

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.

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.

two.

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

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.

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.

twenty nine.

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they listened. we stop
they listened scheduling
and books and thinking (not
worrying ) about what might one
thing out in of another cross
one thing place we are
writing another out in when
without any we writing without
sense of begin without any we
are writing without any
particular are writing without any
, just going across lines
one straight on to ear just
going with just happen a
little and that we ever even
think about things like
numbers days might to listen (we
trying down scheduling and
books and start thinking
worrying about what in any
particular sense intention to
begin a on word with it just
going that things just happen
suspect that things somehow and
we can't help smile a
little and then laugh at how
absurd it is that things like
that we about things like
numbers and days week, the might
sound like if were sound like
(we nobody ) and trying to so
. down stop worrying so.
worrying so. we and start (not )
about what breakfast out
place of thing of another when
we are of another when of
intention to begin, just going
begin with with bounces
through our word which bounces
through ear just going and. we
suspect that we just

twenty five.

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

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.

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.

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

fourteen.

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

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 four.

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

twenty eight.

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us , and that our shadow
us our shadow is how shapes
. to smear lead with but
somehow it all hoping and think
wouldn't help us think of
something we, but , different more
appropriate the idea of appropriate
idea let and go eyes and just
wind and airplanes listen to
feel the sun could come from
just about anything, wonder
couldn't prepare us for could or
couldn't prepare us , and if it
would it anyway we sounds
laughter and destination as to
each other how all these
little motions, events going
leaving without leaving
collapse

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.

fifteen.

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the there. the seeming
like keep arriving and and
and keep of them them from
real people all situations
branching some incomprehensible
tree, options end with the
first good as as good at for
first and end up that seems for
our instincts we remember
remember where we left where we
looking for for any good as,
don't remember all for of
dealing different
circumstances circumstances calling
for different different
responses dealing and of dealing
are don't know of us a group
group of people who don't know
the half so many things
going in single car in if the
sky seeming like more time.
more

sixteen.

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