we accidentally imagine

by andrew yoon

seed 1720342

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

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 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.

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.

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.

twenty six.

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

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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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 five.

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little, with fewer
accurate, repetition getting
every repetition little more
accurate a every repetition
getting a accurate, a little
faster and with fewer accurate
every repetition getting a
with faster and more getting
a repetition getting a
little getting, a little with
fewer faster a we best getting
a little fewer heated do
while our best getting a with
faster fewer mistakes with
fewer the on outside becoming
heated while to do our best to
pretend we best getting more
accurate little faster fewer
mistakes while we do our best
going

thirty one.

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up our and roll chord and
a seems everyday it our
sleeves up our everyday in the
our desks. tones desks
words while our ears and toes
make up soullessness if we
prefer to of think prefer to we
prefer that way smallvoiced
again, a smallvoiced
reminder a smallvoiced reminder
that smallvoiced reminder
we reminder that we are
pale of sand out library
where library things don't
things we even names for have
names for even when we thought
we had a good grip on a good
not sure if not an a don't
whose though until or the
sound or maybe old cell phone
left cell phone left playing
on themselves, against
the changing and leading in
make sense of some kind sense
of make remember that
things that things don't have
to things they left just as
they consistency another
away sense to happen today
the temperature outside
today, our, on eaten by food
being eaten remember that
having that having that world
also and 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.

twenty seven.

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things of if somehow . we
are that the the somehow our
that now . we breathe and feel
hands stinging sensation in
our dents in the floorboard
and ask ourselves the
floorboard ask ourselves what came
and scrape wooden panels
and paint on the freckle and
lot desk purpose if these on
on purpose of if . we close
like is foreheads, that it to
the sensation sensation
and feel hands stinging
sensation breathe and notice
dents from of someone on the we
care lot about, how each
happened , if sort these just

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.

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.

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.

two.

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

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

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

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.

twenty eight.

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back and without
leaving any permanent mark
because enormous statues and
always what they always do
anyway come from, if some need
in such that and now
someone now we walking by
sitting place, we look up so up
don't us anything, to just not
don't know be just be. we don't
know, really. and they walk .
and another which doesn't
we and glance isn't that
the sun the behind us and
that our shadow notice how
strange our the ink and lead but
legible were remains perfectly
paper well and sticks
perfectly legible. we were hoping
make us of we but maybe better
, more the question the
idea , and we close our eyes
and just to the warming and
sun warming wonder what
could come from or we wonder if
it would matter anyway
listen to the sounds of
laughter people never met
laughter and conversation,
toward other how other they. so
of hats of hats little mark
and they do they always try
where in a cloud of maybe be
urge to grow in grid patterns
come up when the branches .
don't look us up see us say
anything. or maybe they quietly
and quietly sometimes
looking away understood that
sometimes okay to just , that be
ourselves. don't know happens
which eight, yet now now we
notice front of our behind that
our that our that

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.

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.

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.

fifteen.

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all these different
circumstances calling for different
responses, different ways of
dealing and smiling. we are
smiling and we don't know why
because one of us smiled first?
these social gestures
amplifying across a group of people
who don't know why they
thought the joke was funny when
they didn't even hear half of
it because there were so
many things going on all at
once, a different life story
in every single car in this
traffic jam, a different
struggle behind every note in the
piano. maybe if there was more
time. but there isn't. the sky
seeming like just another
ceiling. emails just keep
arriving and keep arriving and
none of them ever seem to be
from real people, all these
situations branching out into
entire stories,
possibilities fanning out into some
incomprehensible tree, options after
options impossible to weigh. we
end up just going with the
one we saw first and that
seems as good as any, for now at
least we go looking for our
instincts but we don't remember
where we left them.

sixteen.

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

twenty two.

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our not warmer not okay .
more more combination work
thing work and another not
another thing work and another ?
the vibrations more quiet
every quiet lean hear not to
notice. the sun outside making
of kind of of kind the grass
. we pause and just
breathe for a again the thisthat
, keep sniffling bird
call we don't

thirty.

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

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.

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.

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.

twenty three.

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transformed energy of
dust wonder why, and how cars
turn wheels. the end it will
all turn out to a bricks
clinging to another the opinions
the same bucket, the
screams and the and the the timer
keeps doing notice. circles
of room every the sun piece
the and we somehow feel
don't think or. we made us
happy or feel more human arm
and glowing through skin
and the going, trees bit,
smiling and in an instant we are
for what doing air just
tones floorboards and
transformed into pushes is so of
quickly and how all turn to be
part, a. bricks clinging to
rock glue one opinions and
facts same bucket the fists
and paints ticking and keep
doing best pretending of ink
going around on from

twenty nine.

fixed link mutable link
they listened and books
and thinking and books and
start scheduling might be
tomorrow we might for or when we
are of across lines one by
one going straight the with
ear with it and still just .
suspect things but laugh
,