Article & Art by Kanitta Cheah
This turns into a good story, I promise. Exhilaration is around the corner. Keep reading. Keep turning pages. Aren’t you excited for the fanfare of the happy ending? To see “THE END” in big curly letters? And the iris transition to bookend the perfect story? This is the beginning. This is where it starts. The egg is about to hatch. The bud is about to bloom. Actually, scratch that and backtrack, the egg is about to be laid, the seed is about to germinate. Or: the egg is about to be fertilized, the seed is about to be planted. Or even more: The mother is about to be born. The flower is about to be pollinated. Conceptually, it would be interesting to revise my entire life, only I don’t have the time and energy to repaint my nails, so I don’t know if I could do it. Also, when you paint the walls of a room, it gets a little smaller. When all the walls are painted over again and again, will we still fit in our bedroom? Maybe it is a cave of color.
I’ll paint over myself til I’m as big as the universe. I’ll become like a pearl or some other type of accident. Perfection is asymptotal. That’ll be the end. I’m still looking for the sharp thing, what the sharp thing means, whether it can be me or you. Plus I’ve never seen a coyote before, not in real life I don’t think, I’ve only heard their cries. The self is a string of invisible coyotes. The self is invisible. Only the coyote can see you. Wolves don’t exist anymore, the crows got to them. They need another Catalyst, another word for the Big Bang which isn’t even a word or even a nice-sounding noise; they need another Beginning. The version that goes right, or that goes differently, which is the same thing.
I’m out of questions right now. Does that make me a bad person? Haha, gotcha. Three years have passed, by the way, or three hundred. What a hopeful tenet. Magic will still be there when the Big Bang Part Two Hundred Sixty-Three Thousand Four Hundred And Twelve occurs. I’ve memorized lots and lots of words in an order that is not mine, and they will flow again in the new time as though they haven’t been spoken before, written before, thought of before. They will gain new magic. That’s how mana works, I’m told. It’s close to karma, but not really, because both of those things have been wildly appropriated. Okay. What’s next? That’s not a new question at all, is it? What should I do with the name that I was given? Hopefully I’ll come across maybe like a really big open door because I’m sick and I need space.
Did I catch you skimming? Are your eyes blurring? Am I fading to white noise? I told you, this turns into a good story, why are you falling asleep? Hey. Hey, please yell if you’re paying attention, wherever you are, break some glass, burn your roof, throw an egg at God’s windshield. I wonder if in the next iteration there will be a God, and if that’s what the entire concept of being will be called. I wonder if we’ll all be creatures of magic instead. By the way, I always have something more to say. By the way, there isn’t going to be a fanfare or an ending or an iris out. By the way, I really hate iris transitions.
I want to go in and pull all the words apart; the words that repeat themselves to me, the words that call my given name. I haven’t been recognizing the call. This is an entire book and the book is my life and what came before and what will come next. Time stands still. Time is a lava lamp. Time is upside down. Space is a bubble game. Space moves if you want it to. It gets curly at the bottom. Something has just happened. Something is about to happen. Here, I stumble upon the scene, contextless, contactless. You are here with me. You are too. Maybe there are more of you. I keep doing this, I keep missing the big event. The background is far away. Am I the big event? Did I happen?
Suddenly I want to write a postcard. Look, destination reached, here are three words that explain how I did it: I love you. I made it. Driving was rough. Flight was safe. Mom was proud. Dad finally smiled. Hold my hand. Please hold me. Please help me. Or: Do Not Disturb. No trespassers allowed. Caution Keep Out. And so on. (Please Answer Soon.) Or the postcard is hand-spun Thai silk and all of the words in my world have been spoken as it’s been made. Or the postcard is batik on canvas in the shape of how I feel about my family, you included, all of you. Or the postcard is made of the fabric of the universe and it’s tied to the bedpost. It’s tangled in your hair. It’s stuck down my throat. It’s the stuff of dreams. Dreams are the story, dreams are the sharp thing, except I don’t remember the last time I had one.
Sixteen more years have gone by. And thirteen hours, eight minutes, forty-five seconds. During that time I was nonsensical, mysterious, deep, interesting, something that I don’t fully understand, a medium through which otherworldly knowledge flowed, nonexistent, haunted with no resolution or explanation. During that time I wrote.
I liked wearing clothes that were anti-clothes. I liked coloring my beautiful Chinese hair. If I’m born again into someone who already died, can I change their life? Will they change the one of mine that already ended? I wonder if we would have been friends with each other if only we were alive at the same time. If only we were me at the same time.
The ending comes at thirty-six. I got points off on it for my math test because I didn’t specify which unit. Thirty-six what? Thirty-six elephants? They always used the same examples and I got bored. What creativity is there in muscle memory? What newness is there from existing in the same body day after day? Cells regenerate and elements pass through in a continuous cycle but I didn’t get that email. It got filed as spam. Plus, I got distracted. There’s still coffee in the pot, coffee in a clear mug, ice cubes in the window sill. Some icicles fell off my roof this morning, and the drawer was stuck. The draw-er was stuck. Next time I paint I’ll have to remember to use all the colors we cannot see. Invisible painting. Invisible writing. An invisible museum next. The invisible coyotes will howl real cries at the invisible museum’s invisible guests. Invisible selves shaking invisible hands. The next universe in a minor key. The sheet music is upside down, and God As A Placeholder Name is laughing and spinning on a round stool in front of the pianorgan. Keep making noise. Heels on the pavement. Heels on an escalator. Guitars when you put them down and the strings clang. Zippers. Breathing. Heart valves opening and closing. Ghosts’ footprints in snow. The flood of endorphins. The last suitcase at the carousel, and wedding rings closed in the cabinet. The scratch of a pencil drawing a circle. The squeak of a whiteboard marker drawing a circle. The crash of the universe turning on its axis, swinging on its fulcrum, creaking in its hinges. An accordion. A kazoo, an oboe. A bassoon, a cello. Swiping swords and slicing arrows, and the roar of fire and the spray of water. Bread rising in the oven. Soil pushed by an earthworm. Everything makes a sound. Everything. Makes. A. Sound.
Tired of drafting a grocery list, she puts on headphones and doesn’t play anything, just listens to the blood flowing in and out of her ears, offset by her heartbeat, the air between the cushion and her skin. She wonders if there will ever be a street named after her, if she will ever find her given name in a gift shop on a pocketknifekeychain. You used to wonder the same thing, in the last whirl of time when the universe was right side up. (The only reason you called it right side up being that that was its orientation at the time of your beginning.) You were given a different name the next time around, in the next era of right side up, but obviously you forgot that you had that wondering and you thought it once more. As though the words were new. As though the thought had never been formulated by you or anyone else. Like petals unfurling on single flowers at different times, connected by the same roots and vines. I am lying in wait beneath the fungi that will follow the flames. I am lying in weight beneath the words we’ve saved. Where do you start counting down from? One hundred? Let’s try from three. Give me some ribbon to wrap this up nicely since you’re still paying attention. Especially since you’re still paying attention. The ending’s coming up.