we accidentally imagine

by andrew yoon

seed 4308566

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

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 seven.

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our hands now we notice
dents dents and and ask caused
and scrape caused each
groove and scrape along caused
wooden freckle on care a knot
wires each knot in wires
behind the desk happened the
wires behind the on sort of
these just sort of happen just
purpose of own somehow for a
moment our eyes for floating
outside we are that is somehow
might windows now. breathe
and feel hands from scrape
along and paint every and
scratch of how each knot wires
behind knot in the if did, just
sort if if these things
things on these sort these
things close a are bodies that
incense, windows windows now
breathe this in hands dents the
caused each groove panels and
walls of paint we care lot in
the desk if it on on, if if did
it on just sort these
things just sort of close our
moment that the the foreheads,
enough the. we breathe and and
and we we small dents where
from scrape of scratch on the
we a a face of someone we we
wires behind sort these
things on purpose of if these
things own somehow for a moment
outside, that the bodies, are
floating is somehow in, might the
. we windows now. we
breathe feel notice our our now
small dents in the they came
caused groove groove and along
the wooden scratch every
freckle and scratch on face of

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.

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.

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 nine.

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. help but and then laugh
like numbers and days, the
same time might if someone
were (we were trying to write
things we stop worrying much
books and worrying ) about
what (not worrying or why for
or we are of another any of
by one with scratchy pen on
pen and going straight on
the our just it and with it
that but how think what sound
like if someone and if they
(we someone were to trying
to we stop so much they .
down as about scheduling and
books and worrying so much
about scheduling and so much
about books stop ) what or why
we cross one thing out in
another when we are writing
without any particular sense to
begin with, across lines one
by one with a scratchy by
one with a going straight on
the which bounces through
our just going with and just
going with it . it and with it.
suspect that things happen
somehow and we can't help a
little and then at numbers and
of the two things
happening of the week, what two
things happening at the same
time if to they were listened
we stop worrying
scheduling and books much we stop
(not be breakfast tomorrow
why we cross one place of
another when we are without any
particular sense begin sense of to
begin with, by one with to the
which bounces through still
just going with somehow and
then laugh that we ever even
think week , happening at
listen (we down trying to
things they listened. so much
about thinking (not worrying
might for breakfast tomorrow
or why we breakfast out in
place of another we without,
just sense writing

two.

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

twenty eight.

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we listen to the sounds
of all these people we've
never met laughter and
conversation, pointing toward their
destination as they explain to each
other how they learned about
the place. so many
different types of hats. all these
little motions, events going
back and forth without
leaving any sort of permanent
mark because even roads and
dams and enormous statues
collapse and fade eventually,
and things just do what they
do what they always were
going to do anyway. we try to
figure out where the patterns
in a cloud of leaves come
from, whether we made it all up
or if maybe something
could really be there, that
maybe the leaves decided or
felt some need or urge to grow
in such a way that these
grid patterns come up when we
look at the branches from
below. and now someone we know
comes walking by our sitting
place, but we don't look up so
they don't see us so they
don't say anything. or maybe
they noticed us looking away
and quietly understood
that sometimes it's okay to
just not say anything, that
sometimes we can just be
ourselves. we don't know, really.
and they walk out of sight.
and another thing happens
which doesn't matter, and we
glance at the clock and wonder
if it's eight yet, and it
isn't now we notice that the
sun is behind us, and that
our shadow is in front of us.
we notice how strange our
hair looks when the wind
moves it around into
different shapes. we try to smear
the ink and lead with our
hand but somehow it all
sticks to the paper so well and
remains perfectly legible. we
were hoping that the smudges
might make us somehow misread
a word or note or two and
help us think of something we
wouldn't have otherwise, but
maybe a different technique
or execution would be
better, more appropriate. we
question the idea of relevancy
for a moment, and let it go.
we close our eyes and just
listen to the wind and
airplanes and feel the sun warming
our legs. we wonder what
could come from this just
about anything, really we
wonder if anything could or
couldn't prepare us for it, and if
it would matter anyway

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 one.

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

eighteen.

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

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.

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 two.

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

thirty one.

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a, the for, standing
some role in this thing we
call society, vaguely on
everyone what anyone is saying or
they are understand what
saying it the wind still saying
something still sun's with about
wooden shaped the are many ways
to write a thought, so
thought, so a thought, so many
ways to build to build is sky
on our desks

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.

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.

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

fifteen.

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there but there seeming
like just another but there
isn't like. emails them seem,
all out into some
incomprehensible the first and that any,
for at we looking we don't
where we left them. all these
different calling for different
of dealing don't know we
don't know why smiling. we
don't know one of because one
of us smiled smiled first
these social social gestures
amplifying across gestures
amplifying a of people who the the
when was funny when hear half
of hear half of it because
at life life life story
going going on all at once,
there,, a this traffic the
piano. maybe there. but there
like just keep arriving from
real entire stories tree
impossible to with the the and that
any least we go looking our ,
for we we remember we don't
remember for our instincts we
different left. these different
circumstances remember them .
instincts instincts but we don't
remember different
circumstances calling for. we ways of.
we smiling know us smiled
first people who don't know
they thought the joke was was
funny when they were, there on
all single car in, in
different struggle maybe if there
sky. sky seeming ceiling

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.

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 three.

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and the the wind we to see
what person sort moves
around. away by kind pushes
bits of wonder so resonant
trees their wheels all turn to
a punchline a sentence.
bricks with some rock glue, one
falling into and the smiles

thirty.

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next , if anything
actually we reject. we reject
nothing changes and we ask an
unexpected: “who don't know. and
then to answer. we to laugh
can't we questions why these
see and laugh, and

twenty four.

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and things it trying, ,
one to the other sometimes
it and one to the even okay
they and sometimes it
happens we go the other without
even trying. and sometimes
they we go from it other
without sometimes happens
sometimes one to the other without
even one to the other without
even they are, and even
trying. and and sometimes from
other trying

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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. it with it all with
outlines of squares and trangles
shapes sort into other things
making the geometries and
relationships pushing buttons and
each other themselves

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 five.

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

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.

sixteen.

fixed link mutable link
the incense still
glowing and smoke in still
glowing we our lungs breathe
somehow we breathe breathe
breathe ask forget ask we forget
breathe and we we our our breathe
in breathe and we we
breathe and we breathe we forget
questions breathe. we ask ask
questions how we can't the sun
starts when the sun we can't
remember of many that lines the
the stick remember lines is
still and becoming smoke and
we breathe and we breathe
ask questions. isn't

six.

fixed link mutable link
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.
,