we accidentally imagine

by andrew yoon

seed 3433715

it is 2026. we wonder what to say next, and the wind is still blowing.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

twenty seven.

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each groove and along
panels freckle and scratch on
how each the the desk
happened purpose of it on their
floating outside our bodies are
floating outside our bodies,
that the our our that might be
warm and feel floorboard
notice small dents in the
ourselves ourselves and walls the
and the wooden panels walls
of panels walls paint and
scratch on the face and someone
we wires behind did
happened these things moment
eyes like for

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.

thirty.

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we begin.. and then we
begin then laugh. can't we
questions are so aimless are so the
first place it seems like
every minute or every minute a
new so, good question to
able to read we laugh,, and we
next if nothing ever really
changes. we reject. we reject
and we ask we know. know. and
we begin to. and laugh, and
laugh, and laugh begin to
laugh, and laugh. can't we
these questions are so
aimless are so aimless in the
every minute

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.

twenty two.

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thisthat thisthat hand
while longer and the sun keeps
making that from seasonal
allergies . bird bird . somehow the
harmony against the windchimes
and we hear all these
vibrations buzzing buzzing. or
combination making one or
combination lean hear inside notice
outside outside making this
making this fuzzy kind of this
fuzzy kind grass, the again
and again while all these
angles crackling , the sun
keeps that

twenty four.

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

twenty five.

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

twenty nine.

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out in place we with ,
lines with to the next word
just going with it . happen at
how absurd is that we about
happening time might sound like if
to trying to write things
down they about scheduling
(not worrying ) about be for
breakfast or when writing without
to by one, going just it and
just going our . we suspect
things just happen somehow and
we can't help but absurd
then laugh at how is that we
even think about things ,
time might sound ) and as
listened stop about stop
worrying worrying ) about what
(not books thinking (not
worrying ) about what be for out of
another we are without of
intention lines one by one with a
scratchy pen straight next word
which ear just through next
word which bounces just
going with it. help at how
smile a laugh at how and the
same time sound like if were
(we trying they listened .
we stop so much we stop
start thinking much worrying
) about what or of we are of
intention are writing without any
begin with of begin with, just
sense of intention to begin
with , lines by and on to the
next word which bounces
through just it suspect and at
how absurd about like
numbers two like were to (we
suspect nobody is trying to
write down stop and books and
start thinking (not worrying
)

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.

fourteen.

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

twenty eight.

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hand but somehow it all
with but somehow it all
sticks our hand our hand but
somehow lead remains somehow
misread help wouldn't us
wouldn't have otherwise, or,
more idea moment , to the
airplanes and feel . we wonder what
just about, really if
prepare us for it, it , and if it
matter the sounds we've never
toward their destination as
they explain to other how
they place . so hats . sort of
even roads and dams and
enormous statues collapse and
just always were going

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.

thirty one.

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, wondering when a
minute which whyhow
thumpingly the changing and
growing, changing and,
situations sense of some. we that
don't to make be left things as
they happen happen we away
don't allowing which don't
difference not so much actions
today outside today, not so
much difference between
tied or tied shoelaces, in
trashbag eaten bacteria and
fungi the control over the
control over ourselves,
actions is a is a thing and that's
completely that's completely okay
completely that's thing and that's
completely okay if that's okay

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.

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.

sixteen.

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

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.

two.

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

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.

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.

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 three.

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care that's caring
about that never, more like
the sun laughing on arm is
glowing and the little bit, are
able, what every is doing,
how tones us the away the
kind of kinetic of why cars
turn we if in part of these
some rock after falling, and
the keeps ticking we keep
doing our best pretending
circles of room and we can't help
but notice the temperature
us, is on the whole room is
glowing on skin and we

fifteen.

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for different
responses, smiling and gestures
amplifying across a group people
first? who don't why was was
didn't even even they even
because going on all at a
different in this traffic
different life story in every jam
jam, piano .. maybe if.. the
the if there was more time..
but there isn't. the sky
seeming. none seem to be from
real people, none real
people, possibilities some
after options impossible we
up just going after, to end
the one that any go looking
for we left them we left
responses we are of dealing ways
ways of dealing and of of
because gestures gestures
people who they thought the a
group of people who don't know
why they thought the joke
funny they didn't were they
didn't even hear there were so
there it because there were so
at once, a different life
jam, a different

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.

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.

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.

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.
,