An individual slides from one nightmare to another without pause.
Coarse bed. Ivory ceiling. Beeping monitor. Loose gown. I'm asleep.
I pluck the IV catheter from my wrist. Rainbow-colored scribbles spill out—there is now a squishy blot on the pearly white tiles, and my polka-dot medical dress is stained with vibrant ink.
Barefoot, I leave the room.
Dull lights buzz like nervous butterflies. The walls are polished dirty-clean. The rooms have no doors and there are no patients.
This is not a hospital.
Faint thumping from a metal door at the end of the hallway.
I walk towards the end.
I am five steps away from the door.
As I move closer, the thumping gets fainter, the buzz of the lights weaker, my footsteps louder. I hear a stream. Curdle, curdle, curdle. It's my circulation.
Before I take another step, it opens. It's inviting me, but it's dark in there.
I am at the door. It's cold in here.
There's something in front of me. It's staring. It doesn't have eyes.
I put my palm to my neck. It's getting warmer, but I'm not sick. I can't be sick. I can't be sick. I can't
that I am inside an oil painting.
An existence of grease and sublime
where the living can only talk in rhyme.
The bodies falling up scream against oblivion
and my walnut-scented form shines through, silk smooth like Stygian
blues and reds in irises and pupils all over.
These shades of mine can never be sober.
My creator executes the last stroke of their opus magnum
"I can never surpass this stellar creation."
Down reverses, but I am still at the weightless bottom
standing through the sheer self-gravity of this accursed ambi
while it chases. I sprint. The concrete corridors of this maze are closing in—no, they're not, must be the adrenaline. Flaring turquoise torches are extinguished every time I pass through. I can grab one from the walls, but they wouldn't budge. My pursuer screeches like a hybrid of fox and human. Turquoise fire. Screeching demon. That's strange. Everything about this is strange. Why am I not exhausted? The jagged walls inch nearer. They are tighter than they were before I was chased, this couldn't be imagined—or maybe it is, and this is the climax of a nightmare. When did I even start running? When will it end? My body gets warmer and warmer, but there's no sweat. I don't want to turn around. But it's tempting. So I peek a little. Puddles of drool leave trails behind me. Whatever it is, it's starving. Pounding, thumping, pulsing, pumping, thrumming—I'm exhausted at last, and once I slow down, I start to drool,
shrieking of the rusted railway reverberates across the station as the train halts, almost like a traveling, writhing worm. The immensity of its mechanical power blasts through my courage and shatters my determination.
I enter through the automatic doors.
There's no one here. I hang onto a handrail.
A puff of turpentine permeates the narrow belly of the beast. The doors slam against each other like a migraine, the mammoth machine trudges onward, and the pale fluorescent lights blink at me. They're afraid.
There is something here.
Before I could even think of escaping, it impales me from behind. From the brutal force, I could tell it charged at me like a savage bull, using the top of its head to penetrate my spine.
I collapse. My vision blurs, but I get a glimpse of its features. Gray, pointed teeth. Flaky skin. A red spike on its head. It's a pencil. Peeling away my arms, legs,
but the villagers surround me. They all have canvases for heads, and they want me to paint on them. But I'm not talented.
"Ooh! Do me! Ooh!!" A child yells. He jumps up and down and right and left and—did he just travel in 4D?
"Alright, I'll do it, stop already," I sigh.
Another child touches my forehead with her palm.
"Are you okay? D-do you need medicine?" She says.
"You noticed? I've been hot for a while. I'm not even sick. Thanks for worrying," I reply.
The 4D little bastard shouts, "You're weird and sick! You paint good though. I have one weird friend too. He's over there, " he points.
I look in the direction (a normal one, thankfully) he pointed to, and I see something I'm not supposed to see.
In what world does a chupacabra know how to turn ice cream into sexy leopards and
stood there, frozen, in awe of this grandiose museum.
I looked outside from the comically large window. I heard drizzle, but it wasn't raining.
A light-green wisp surfaced from the ground and pinched my arm.
"Ow! Why'd you do that?"
"I will be your guide for the exhibit," it said with a raspy, dulcet voice.
Aster Bleu (b. 19XX)
Magic for Beginners, 2004
Acrylic on oneirofabric, -500 cm x -430 cm
Gift for an individual named Stygian Blue
"This is our first piece. A masterwork on the usage of negative space."
A snowflake fractal that kept popping out and in of nonexistence.
"Uh… What am I looking at?"
"This is how you do magic. Such a simple demonstration, yet so elegantly crafted. When I first encountered it, honestly—it made my jaw drop!"
"Huh. I don't really get it, but it looks cool. Also, you don't even have a jaw."
"Moving on!"
Unknown
Procrastination, 2193
Classical jazz, stored via qualia phonography
Donated by an anonymous arranger to be exhibited in the future
"This is the second piece. A fantastic composition, don't you agree?"
An empty podium. The golden plate with the word 'Unknown' was corroded. How antique.
"Where is it, then?"
"It's not finished. But it will be here soon."
Oh.
"Ah! Did you know that for every one hundred and sixty-eight years, the year on the label changes to—"
"Okay! Let's move on already."
I followed the wisp to a darker section of the museum, but what awaited there was a sight that delightfully punctured my eye sockets.
"This is our final display for today. It's an aquarium."
It was an ocean. I looked up and couldn't see the ceiling. The glasswork housed water with earth-shattering volume and unfathomable height—it should have collapsed from the pressure. Waves of unfamiliar critters glided through the masses of neon shrimp with glee. A cephalopod with magenta tentacles waved at me.
The wisp giggled. "It won't crack. It's not glass."
"Are we below ground?"
"We're not below anywhere."
"Where are we?" It took a long time to process, but I finally asked.
The wisp seemed to be deep in thought, and they turned into a cold sapphire hue.
"I could kiss the stars and I would never reach the height of your dreams."
"Pardon?"
"These pieces… This is the birthplace of your aspirations."
A small navy blue bed materialized.
"Lie down, friend. It's time to wake up."
I didn't understand. It urged me to
as we sat down. The crimson curtains split open and the actors ascended to the platform.
I elbowed my partner. "Wake up, silly! The show's about to start."
We were the observers and the observed, the onlookers and the performers, the angel puppets on stage and the devil manipulators off stage. We knew the script, the tricks, the themes, the devices, the costumes. But we discovered new meanings and reasons to love each time. This was our play.
Even as the temperature rose from our hollow wooden husks—nothing could take this away from us.
Twenty-three. You wanted to wake up from the longest dream.
Twenty-one. You graduated from uni.
Nineteen. You moved out of your parents' house.
Seventeen. You submitted your work to a magazine.
Fifteen. You made a decent living from commissions.
Thirteen. You wanted to taste all the food in the world.
Eleven. You wanted to be the rain.
A poem you wrote in your diary after school on an overcast day.
i like the rain i'd like to imagine that the earth cries whenever it rains but i know that it rains at different times at different parts of the world and you don't need to tell me that i dream of stupid things and think of stupid dreams and ponder at how much wonder can be discovered hidden in different parts of the world and i'd like to imagine a world where it didn't have to rain and i didn't feel different all the time and i didn't have to cry every time it rained i just wish i wasn't stupid enough to imagine the earth crumble beneath my feet and crush the corpses that fell down after the huge quake that ended the world a long time ago when it didn't have to rain and i didn't have to write and i didn't have to worry and i didn't have to fall between the cracks of my mind i'm insane i'm alright i just need to take a breather and you don't have to tell me i don’t read books as often as i should or as i used to and i call myself a reader i hate the rain because whenever it rains i know i have to fall again
Nine. You wanted to write things.
You conceived of a short story where the main character slid from one nightmare to another without pause.
It would be self-referential and surreal, but you felt that you lacked the imagination and sufficient vocabulary to construct a project of this scale.
Nonetheless, you put pen to paper and went to work.
You showed it to your parents. They loved it.
You showed it to your classmates. They rejected it. Different flavors for different people, you said.
You read your story again. You hated it.
Your parents were probably lying.
You could never be a good writer.
You could never be a good artist.
You could never amount to anything. You were a good-for-nothing, inarticulate, defective brat.
The next day, you won second place at your school's art contest where the participants were instructed to make an illustration of the sea with homemade and improvised materials.
Seven. You wrote a letter to your future self.
To Aster, ten years from now:
Hello friend. How are you? You're finishing up high school and going to college, right? That's amazing. Good luck. To be honest, I can't think of anything to say, but I just wanted to talk to you. I can't really know what you would be like. But I think you are awesome. Right now, I'm having a hard time with maths. I'm in third grade, if you don't remember. I can't believe you went through all of that. You know, my English teacher, Mr. Park, said my voice was redundant. Not my "voice" voice, you know. My writing voice. He's mean. I wonder if you came across many Mr. Parks. That would be awful. I don't want to be presumptuous (I learned that word from Ms. Finley, she's nicer), but I'm proud of you. Maybe right now, it feels like no one in the world appreciates you, but you should remember that I do. Believe me, I know what that feels like. Whenever I sweep the floor of our classroom, nobody notices. Whenever I try my best at drawing a landscape, nobody thanks me for my effort. That's why I'm going to thank you. Thank you, Aster, for getting us through everything. You don't have to carry us on your shoulders all the time. We'll take turns. I won't hate you. I want us to be okay. That's all from me. I don't want to keep you too busy. But I'm always here if you need me. I plan to write lots of entries. Hope you're doing well. Go kick some butt! (I can't say the other word yet, I'm not at that age)
Five. You wanted to draw things.
You were unstoppable. You were my hero and I
sky was porcelain The ground was porcelain I was chasing a porcelain thief But the ground cracked The heavens collapsed I ran faster So did the thief The clouds pierced my eyes I bled porcelain But I caught the thief And I stole their eyes And they bled porcelain too And then they told me My pieces were dispersed all over the porcelain universe And I will never be put back together again So I killed
forty degrees—this was not my body. It did this. The ugly creature beside my feet. It was the reason why I was burning. This unending sensation of hell from within me. It was the catalyst for my afflictions. An amorphous, slimy clump of failures and abandoned dreams, an abominable, one-eyed devil with no mouth. It shouldn't exist.
It had the gall to look at me.
I gripped my pencil and stabbed its pathetic face again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again
Convulsion. Yellow ink gushed from its head, and it slid away from me. It wailed and whimpered.
No, no, no, this wasn't me. This wasn't me.
It was crying. I fell on my knees.
I didn't mean to hurt you. I did want us to be okay. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I did you wrong.
It looked at me, worried, then smiled with its eye. It forced itself between my knees and rubbed them.
It slept snugly on my lap, content with its position, its breathing slow and sound like a loyal puppy.
How could you? How could you love me after everything I've done? Please don't forgive me.
Pastel blue watercolor trickled from my eyes,
Cozy blanket. Ivory ceiling. Beeping alarm. Loose shirt. I was awake.
My bedroom. This was my workshop, where poems and drawings and stories and all my other children were born.
I turned off the alarm and leapt out of bed while "I" stayed asleep. It was an untidy disaster—laid beside "me" was a fox plush, muddy paintbrushes, scattered color pencils, and the plain drawing book my father gave me. "I" had dozed off while scribbling.
I looked outside from my teensy tiny window. The downpour was heavy today.
I touched "my" forehead with the back of my hand. "I" had a fever. I grabbed the haphazard collection of fun tools and organized them on the table. I adjusted "my" blanket and smoothened the edges. There. All tucked in.
It was time to go. "I" slept snugly on their navy blue bed, content with their caramel candy fantasies, their breathing slow and sound.
Before I took another step, the door opened. It was inviting me, and it was bright in there.
Barefoot, I took deep breaths and basked in the cold sting of the softwood floor—my soles swollen and sore like red-orange shrimp. I looked behind before the door closed forever, gently shut my eyes, and left the room.