we accidentally imagine

by andrew yoon

seed 5414838

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

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.

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.

four.

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it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies once at peace and
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere hard to find
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.

fifteen.

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

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.

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 seven.

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wires if of just sort of
happen on close our eyes eyes
for and our eyes for a, that
incense is it might. we
sensation breathe feel we breathe
and our hands dents
floorboard and ask the floorboard
small now and ask groove
panels and walls paint every
freckle the face someone
someone we care a the desk
happened the wires behind the
desk happened, it on

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.

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.

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 eight.

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learned so many
different types . any even roads
and and enormous fade
eventually, do what they to do to do
to do anyway the patterns
in a cloud come from all it
all something could really
be there , leaves the
leaves decided some to grow in
grow in branches , don't see
say anything. us looking

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

sixteen.

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

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.

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 four.

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

twenty five.

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

twenty three.

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will turn out be part of a
a story without glue, one
and facts falling into the
fists and the violins and keep
on while we hear and can't
help but changing every
moment around us of we on our
skin and for a moment we
anything but caring made feel
like sun and skin going, wind
in to see everything
around, how the air just
turning by into pushes bits of

thirty.

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we: in.. and then to
laugh, aimless in the first
place when it seems like it
minute or minute like question
much more of a of a good begin
we., laugh what, if over
these years or we changes the
if or we the idea nothing
changes and we an unexpected
question in return you are we
begin to cry we, and. can't
laugh to to laugh, and see why
seems like every minute so

twenty nine.

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

eighteen.

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to know who who praying
want.. fading. systems
systems piece piece piece as we
keep keep to the mind and and
later in in hours hours hours,
against the significance know
who we want. fracturing and
our piece as we keep to in the
mind and we we in in hours, a,
singulars not having and subtly.
we pray what want our our
piece trying to
architectures in the as we we realize we
we, this chair and its its
skulls skulls now don't, what
we what we should want.
fading. systems all keep poems
, we begin to jittery as we
we haven't stood up up,
this chair and a narrow,
pressing so when lights
flickering so subtly are
flickering to want. fading should
should lives fracturing as we
poems and poems and
cathedrals

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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saying or why we are
saying saying something
saying something belly still
belly every why they are and
why cabinets are when there
when there to explain a
thought build a chord a chord and
that is there is a, in new
piece of a new piece of
different of tones of voice,
probabilistic or emptiness or
soullessness if we prefer to prefer if
we prefer that breaking
illusion. the illusion breaking
again, a smallvoiced a
smallvoiced that we are a grain where
every book for names even when
we on we shuffling feet is
few or an old long until we
phone left old or the
ventilation the ventilation fans
turning ventilation fans
turning back on asking
themselves are asking are hurtling
, finally stop for
finally when it will finally the
doors, might make sense of
have to make sense, just as
consistency is consistency that
taking a step not much
difference and actions not so minds
and or off or trashbag
somewhere eaten by bacteria and
fungi we remember that having
we that having no having no
over the world, this. watch
the watch ground strange
speck green at same time
together with a goal standing
vaguely defined don't or why
they saying what we
ourselves the wind saying
something outside

twenty six.

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

fourteen.

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

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.
,