Lavender Dreams by Helen Yang

a choose-your-own adventure about rooftops, people, and New York because you explore the city as a way to explore yourself

LAVENDER DREAMS by Helen Yang I feel soft and fluid, like I’m floating, flowing like water colors on canvas. I try and remember the last time I felt this way. I remember wanting to box up this feeling, scatter it around the room so that one day, when it goes away, I will find it waiting for me in the corner blanketed by dust and nostalgia. I remember trying to find it again – weeks, months, years later. But trying to remember that feeling was like trying to remember a lavender dream from long ago, lost in the labyrinth of my subconscious with nothing but the sporadic, chaotic, electric light of my neurotransmitters. Nowadays, I do not have to try and remember – no longer frantically searching for the feeling amidst a pile of enveloped emotionality, some torn on the edges, some stained by lipstick; some stained by lipstick, some returned from a wrong address. Nowadays, it is delivered to me, dropped off my doorstep, gift-wrapped atop my welcome mat, glowing with neon spirit. I collect my things and gently trace the marks imprinted on my cheek. They feel like scars carved onto my face, permanent and stubborn, but after a few minutes, they start to fade. I remember that sometimes things feel unequivocally and inexplicably permanent, like an old stain on the sleeve of a cashmere sweater, or a broken heart. But even the feeling of utmost permanency is temporary. Hugging my belongings, I reach for the doorknob, eagerly anticipating the click and the jolt of the poorly hinged door. I am met with immediate disappointment, followed by waves of frustration and panic. My continued attempts face the same fate, leaving me stranded on top of my apartment just four days after moving in. A quick glance at my watch tells me it is almost 7 AM, and the gentle hum of the city waking up starts rumbling beneath me. Vibrations surge through the concrete, like a reminder that Manhattan is very much alive, inhaling and exhaling with consciousness and free will. Time slows down, and then instantaneously speeds up as taxis begin painting the roads, wheels kissing the tarmac with adolescent impulsivity. And for a second, being stuck on my rooftop does not feel like a dramatic inconvenience. I look around, not really knowing what I am looking for. I am flooded, veins full with the feeling of loneliness, conflict – and at the same time – a little bit of peace. My moment of ambiguity is interrupted soon, when I see him standing on the rooftop across the street. “Hello!” I exclaim, hoping my voice echoes louder than the breaths of the city, but he does not turn around. I am too far away to see his face, or even the color of his shirt. It could be gray, but it could also be blue. Everything is blue-tinted in New York, even when I wear my rose-colored glasses. “Excuse me!” I yell, this time louder, this time more aggressively. But he does not budge. I wonder what he’s thinking about. My voice alone is the abstinent vibrato of a violin, and I soon realize I need the boisterous bellow of a djembe drum. I take my left shoe and throw it over to his side, hoping it will catch his attention in my general direction. He barely reacts at first, as if seeing a shoe soar between buildings was commonplace; he goes to pick it up when he spots me – head tilted, smile somnolent, fingers in the 1

middle of running through my hair – and raises it as if to ask a question. I try to respond, but I feel muted, like the city of New York turned down my volume to listen to a different conversation, to eavesdrop on someone else. Still holding my shoe up, he opens his chest as if trying to collect on oxygen. “Is this yours?” he screams between buildings, timbre filling even the biggest cracks along the brick wall. I try to reciprocate in energy, buzzing – but only buzzing – and my acknowledgment ends up being lackluster in its entirety. He does not wait for me to try again. “Why are you awake at this hour on a Saturday?” he asks. “I was taking a nap,” I yell. I try to raise my hammock as to signal what I was doing, but he moves onto another question. “Do you need your shoe back?” It seems like he’s not screaming anymore; there is something oddly comforting about his calm demeanor, like stars could be running away from their constellation homes, and he would still be looking at me, asking me questions. He’s just talking to me, as if we’re two strangers sitting across from each other on an empty train. I run to the rooftop entrance on my left, miming exaggerated motions of trying to unlock the door with a key I do not have. Eyes closed in feigned urgency as I pull on the doorknob, I desperately hope he understands what I am trying to say. But by the time I open my eyes again, he’s gone. My eyes flicker in necessity, vision becoming less peripheral and more of a direct confrontation with the circumstances – circumstances which sing to me about my abandonment in the clearest, crispest voice. I wonder why he was awake at this hour on a Saturday. I wonder where he went. I wonder why he left. I sit by the edge of the roof, and I feel small. Suddenly, I hear the door open from behind me. Part of me almost expects it to be him, standing in the doorway, but only almost. I turn around, staring at my weary-eyed landlord, standing in the glory of his mismatched slippers and an untamed beard. “Hi, sir, how are you doing?” I ask, voice complemented partially by guilt and partially by curiosity. But he does not respond, just stands in a half-awake stupor with sober shoulders that look worn down by secrets and struggle. I nod, attempting to express my appreciation for his actions, but it is lost in translation, as I speak a vibrant language of youth and naivety that he seems to have forgotten in a past life. I think about what it would be like to hear a language you once knew like the touch of a lover, and to not recognize it. Do his cells – the fibers of his being – do they remember? Patiently, I try again. “Thank you for coming to get me. I know it’s early. I didn’t realize you needed a key to get back inside. I’ll remember for next time.”

He grins, letting out an approving mumble. His eyes are swollen, hands worn like someone who has gripped onto anger and sadness for an entire lifetime. But underneath, in his eyes, there is a layer of blooming, gulping energy, swallowing him like enlightenment after lost love. Maybe he does remember something after all. To go to the restaurant, flip to page 4. To go to the garden, flip to page 8.

There are four types of people in elevators. The Talker Immediately, upon stepping into the elevator, the Talker greets the other people in the space with certainty, making consistent small talk and conversation despite how short or long the ride may be. Usually either very charming or very nervous in character – oftentimes some beautiful blend of the two – the Talker is more intimidated by the potential for silence than the potential for verbal embarrassment, as even standing around other people without communicating with them for even a few seconds is overwhelming, like how it would feel to be in limbo, or in a DMV line, forever. The Talker can either dominate the conversation or simply start the conversation and shift to a position of listening. The Texter Genreally seen as a wild card, the Texter remains busy by immersing themselves into their phones, whether they’re texting, browsing through social media, sending emails, or simply looking busy. By participating in these actions, the Texter appears preoccupied and is therefore absolved from the potential of having to contribute to any human interaction. Even if verbally addressed by other parties, the Texter consistently has a tangible busyness to fall back on. The Texter can also be the Reader, in which there is no phone, but a book, a newspaper, or some kind of literature that is either genuinely or loosely read during the duration of the elevator ride. The Daydreamer Similar to those that sit in the window seat on buses, trains, and airplanes in order to stare out the window, maintain an aura of pensiveness, and allow themselves to enter a moment of introspection, the Daydreamer will immediately seek out places within the elevator to stare at which will not cross paths with other people. Rather than gazing in the direction of the other people in the space, the Daydreamer will look wistfully at corners, buttons, the ceiling, or the floor. Oftentimes, such action is taken in order to avoid human interaction, whereas other times, it will sincerely be in the Daydreamer’s nature to constantly reflect on their lives and their philosophical musings. The Daydreamer is never fully present in the space that they physically occupy, as their mind is waltzing around from place to place, time to time, life to life. The Non-Verbal The Non-Verbal is very much defined by their interactions – or lack thereof – with other people within the elevator. If alone in an elevator, they will most likely wait with patience, oftentimes glancing at the floors going up and down. However, when surrounded by other people, the Non-Verbal will present themselves with a sense of apathy and indifference. Sometimes giving a sign of acknowledgment through a slight grin or a head nod, the Non-Verbal usually ignores other initiations of conversation or pretends to not have heard any exchange that takes place, especially if there is more than one other person on the elevator. The Non-Verbal experiences a wide range of emotions, but tries not to react to anything in order to limit the amount of expression they themselves give off. Throughout one singular elevator ride, individuals can shift types multiple times. In different stages of life, in different places, people can embrace and wholly embody the different types. Today, I want to be a Talker – I want to greet strangers and share a moment of intimacy, real or not, in the twenty seconds it takes us to travel upstairs to the rooftop; I want to show them parts of myself that are still being finalized, like blueprints before they’re done, notes scribbled on sticky notes.

But there is no one there as the elevator doors open, so I whisper to myself on the ride up. I tell myself a secret. I tell myself a confession. I step out of the elevator feeling lighter and heavier at the same time. The line to be seated at the restaurant stretches all the way to the doorway that leads back inside, but I take my place and wait. The commute to Williamsburg was almost fifty minutes today, so I decide that waiting a little bit longer was acceptable. As I continue to stand in line, I look around, and realize that waiting here is like waiting in a very, very long elevator ride. The woman in front of me is a Non-Verbal – her hands in pocket, eyes in defense, thwarting every possible opportunity for communicate with a glare and furrowed brows. She wears an exclusively yellow outfit, with the exception of her orange socks and her fire-glazed red hair. For someone wearing such a colorful outfit, she seems upset – a stark juxtaposition that only amplifies her anger – but she acts as if she’s trying to conceal her emotionality, with the consideration that maybe her stoicism will negate her melancholy. There is a tear streak running down her cheek, maybe from ten minutes ago, maybe from three hours ago. She is a Non-Verbal because that is all she can afford to be right now. The man with the ponytail three spots in front of her is a Texter. Standing so far behind, I see his screen flicker from app to messaging to news article to email. I see him open up his notes, type something, delete it, close his notes, and then repeat the process seven times. I see him rereading old texts. I see him – frantic, vulnerable, and just a little relieved. I look to the side, drawn in by the mumblings of a child standing next to his father. I look at his father, completely occupied by a retelling of what I can only imagine to be an old, golden story, one that has been passed down for generations with an orchestra playing in the background; his father is a Talker, but the small child with white-rimmed glasses is indefinitely and undeniably a Daydreamer. He stands there, holding his father’s hand, but he stares at the ceiling, muttering to himself as his father recites a story smoother than silk on satin and satin on silk. I cannot quite catch what he is saying. All I want to tell him is that one day, he will feel so alive. I keep looking around, trying to find stories in everyone’s body language, trying to translate their mannerisms into concrete narratives. Soon, I reach the front of the line. “Table for one, please,” I say. A look of disappointment falls upon the waiter’s face. “I’m so sorry, but we are completely booked tonight, but you’re free to make a reservation for another night if you’d like to come back then. We can give you a coupon to compensate for the troubles of waiting in line for so long,” he says, softly, almost as if he’s never had to give bad news before, almost as if he was worried about being a liability in yet another person’s life. I don’t mind. But as I begin to leave, a familiar voice chimes out. Back turned, he says, “She can sit with me at the bar,” before pausing. He speaks with such finality, but I can’t seem to place his voice. Was it the voice from a childhood movie? A lo-fi CD I used to listen to? The radio that my mom would play whenever we would go on long drives? Someone from a dream?

Not fully sure of how to carry myself or a conversation with him, I quickly say thank you and order something to eat, something to drink. Within minutes, it is served. We exchange small talk, sharing bits and pieces of our day in ways that do not reveal our true selves. Suddenly, he stops talking and looks back at his empty plate, tracing circles around the rim. “What are the small pleasures you enjoy the most in life?” he asks. Stunned by the shift in conversation, I do not respond. I chew. I think. I apologize for taking so long to respond. I chew some more. We sit there in silence for a few minutes. Then, I respond. “When another subway train dives parallel to mine for a brief moment and then it slows down before speeding away; it reminds me of the carefree suspense I used to feel when I was a kid playing duck-duck-goose. Or the sound of heels walking across a newly cleaned museum floors. It sounds like the heartbeat of the art. Small dogs sticking out their tongues, breaking the surface of ponds as I slide my fingers across the top, sunshine filtering through the leaves, the smell of linen after a fresh load of laundry, the first stomp on a fresh layer of snow. Sitting in a seat that faces the opposite direction that the train is going. The feeling in my stomach when I stand too close to the edge of something. Sticking my hand in a warm load of laundry. Cleaning my glasses and being able to really see again. The gust of AC that relieves me momentarily after walking home on a hot, humid day.” He does not react, so I prompt him with the same question. “Do you have any small pleasures?” “Yes,” he says, but does not explain. We continue talking, him asking questions, me answering them eagerly: a reprise in an interlude in a reprise in an interlude. “What smell reminds you most of your best friend from seventh grade?” “The smell of the bathroom in the pawn shop on 34th street.” “Do you ever feel lonely when you’re ordering coffee?” “Only if I order right after lunch.” “If you had to describe yourself as one letter, which one would it be?” “The letter C.” I talk, expanding and expanding with information to share. We talk until the restaurant closes. By the end of our meal, I know nothing about him, and he knows everything about me. But I do know there is something juvenile and triumphant about him. Speaking to him feels like I am living poetry. 6

We step into the elevator together to go back down. He is neither a Talker, nor a Texter, a Daydreamer, or a Non-Verbal. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a Stranger. To go to the office, flip to page 23. To go to the Empire State building, flip to page 12.

For a period of my life, I had a very large and expansive indoor plant collection. Ivy grew up the pole raising the loft, succulents lined my windowsills, and ferns hid timidly – but grew ferociously – in the corners of bathrooms. My most prized plant was a gloxinia, a gift I had received from my grandmother when she came to the United States for the first time. She traveled to my home for my college graduation, and somehow, despite only knowing Chinese, she was able to make a stop at a corner shop off the highway and purchase it. She said the flowers reminded her of my spirit. She said my aura was glowing lavender, like indigo tattoos down my spine. The plant was beautiful – a kaleidoscopic bloom, especially under sunshine – but incredibly hard to maintain because all it did was consume its surroundings. I remember telling my grandmother just that, to which she said, “Just like you,” she said. A few months in, I realized that my entire home started to smell vaguely of fertilizer and pesticide, so I tried to shift my horticulture collection to strictly outdoor plants. I gave most of my indoor plants to friends, and I planted the ones that could survive outdoors in a small garden near my front door. For a while, it was a success. My garden became a living, breathing entity. On rainy days, all the leaves would wilt down from the weight of the droplets. It looked like shoulders slouched from the stress of solemnity. On sunny days, it was as if the flowers were dancing, stems linked in community and kinship. But, on any given day, visitors would come; at first, there were deer, a family of six, and then there were foxes, bunnies, chipmunks. And my flowers slowly, inevitably, began to disappear. On rainy and sunny days alike, it started to seem like all my plants were in a mode of sleep paralysis, like they were closing their eyes and holding their breaths, but unwillingly. That was two months before I made the decision to come to New York. The only indoor plant I still have is my grandmother’s gloxinia. Being around so many tall buildings in the city makes me miss the greenery and the florals that I so readily got before, so I am eagerly anticipating the sample sale today. When I was younger, whenever I came back from school to the smell of freshly cut grass and a new layer of mulch, I knew that my father had bought new flowers for our garden. Walking onto the rooftop platform today, I am suddenly thrown back in time. I can almost hear my father’s voice, lingering, making conversation with nostalgia. There is a strong scent of leaves around me. For a long time, I thought that plants did not have much of a smell, that there was nothing too viscerally distinguishable from them, but in the same way that water has a taste, plants have a smell. I follow the scent to a corner, and I sit under the canopy making a list of plants that I want to buy. A voice peaks out from behind a wall of ivy. “What’s a synonym for the word spontaneous?” Unsure if I hear her correctly, I ask, “Sorry? I didn’t quite catch what you said.” She walks through the branches, making a place for herself on the bench next to mine.

“Do you know any synonyms for the word spontaneous” “Maybe serendipitous? Why do you need a synonym?” “I am writing a letter to my son. He was the reason I came to this country, otherwise I would still be in China. I want to show him I learned better English.” We talk in Chinese for almost two hours, sitting under the shade of the willow tree. My broken Chinese drops to the ground, but she picks them up like it’s porcelain and gold. It’s been three years since I have had to speak fluent Chinese. I have not spoken the language since my grandmother passed away. The woman I speak to reminds me of my grandmother, and suddenly my vulnerability floods our conversation. I tell her about my shame, about listening to my parents’ Chinese through the cracks of my door, about listening to my Chinese fall through the cracks, about listening to their sighs through the cracks of their disappointment, about listening to my cries – voice cracking more than the language. Shame is sister to anger. They grew up together sharing beds, sharing stories, sharing pain in the dark of the night. Shame is realizing that sometimes you want to be your sister. Shame is wanting to be angry because shame is too shameful, too quiet, too internal – and angry is loud. Heartbeat echoing harder in my ears than the sadness that fills my family’s voice when they realize that I am but a tourist in their culture. Angry is the monster waiting in the closet, but shame is the monster hiding under the bed, too scared to show face, only haunting from the darkness. I tell her about how when I was fifteen years old, my grandmother came to visit, and my parents were preparing tea for everyone when they asked me to use chopsticks instead of a fork. Shame is sister to anger, but shame is also twin to disappointment. Shame is realizing that my American nightmare was breaking their American dream. We walk together along the rooftop when she stops me. “,” she exclaims. “There’s a flower on your back. Hold on,” she says. She picks it from my back, where it was caught in the knitting of my shirt. She hands me the flower. It’s a gloxinia flower. “啊。好想你,” she says. “Oh, it reminds me of you,” she says, just like my grandmother. To go to the film screening, flip to page 21. To go to the pool, flip to page 10.

I step outside, and all I see are lines, like the way cable wires and power lines straddle suburbia. Except here, there are lines of people, lines of food, lines of drinks; here, there is geometry to humanity. Even at a pool, New Yorkers know how to be efficient, how to arrange themselves in grids of consumption. The reflections make the space seem bigger – wider – like the pool does not just end on the rooftop, but continues into the horizon where one can float on clouds and slide down skyscrapers. Quickly, I place my belongings onto a table and sit on the edge of the pool, letting my body slowly soak into the water like toes in warm sand. Somehow, the water feels simultaneously relaxing and aggressive, a duality I have come to appreciate on a blistering, humid day in the city. After my body becomes familiar with the pool, like the feeling of an old sweater during the rise of winter, I dip my entire head underwater. I scream. There’s something beautiful about your anger turning into bubbles, popping the moment they hit the air, dissipating into the atmosphere as if they were small flutters from hummingbirds. I scream again, this time laying on the floor of the pool and opening my eyes to see bubbles of angst and anxiety float and race to the sky. Coming up from underwater feels like waking up from a deep, vivid dream. I have to take a moment to reorient myself, figure out exactly where I am, what direction I’m facing, who is around me. Figure out how much time has passed. But as I resurface, I hear the whistle of a familiar tune, and I immediately try and find the origin. Like a dog chasing after its tail, I spin in circles in the water making whirlpools out of my determination and waves out of my concentration. I scan the space, a panoramic shot where the pool is my movie set, and I am the cinematographer. But the soundtrack to my film has come to a sudden halt, leaving only silence to filter through the noise. I stand to the side of the pool, still invested in finding where the music came from. I finally see a little girl whistling to herself from the other side of the water. Every few minutes she stops to try and make bubble rings in the water. I swim over to her. “Hi, are you okay?” I ask. She glances at me, up and down, with squinted eyes under her goggles. I glance back. The pinch of her nose piece has left a strong mark across the bridge of her nose, and her swimsuit straps are all tangled together with her hair. She has a large freckle on her left cheek, and her nails are painted in three different shades of red. “I just want to be able to blow a bubble ring,” she says, voice lined with reluctant defeat. “Are you here with someone?” I respond, curious as to how she got past the bouncer at the door asking for identification. I look around and only see other adults. “My mom owns this place. She said I could either go to camp or come here with her for work. I don’t like camp. There are mosquitoes.” “Don’t you want to be around other kids though? I’m sure it gets boring here every day since it’s just grownups and their cocktails passing through and through.” “Yeah, but sometimes they bring their pets, and I get to play with them, so it’s not too bad. Also sometimes I like to trade out their drinks with fruit punch. Lester lets me. He works at the bar.

Sometimes people still think they’re drinking fancy alcohol. It’s funny what people will do if they really believe they’re drinking alcohol.” “How old are you?” I ask, incredibly impressed but also slightly worried about her constant exposure to alcohol. “I’m twelve. Don’t worry, I do other things too. Sometimes, I write down an address to a park and instructions to meet at a particular time and date, and then I put the index card in people’s bags. Then, I’ll go and watch them from the playground. Sometimes everyone I give the card to shows up. Sometimes nobody does. Sometimes two people do, and they talk for hours. Sometimes two people do, and they both leave after five minutes.” “Do you always stay hidden? Or do you ever try and talk to them?” She looks puzzled, as if the idea had never crossed her mind before. “Why would they want to talk to me?” she asks. “Would you talk to them, though?” “Yeah, I guess. I don’t think they would want to talk to a twelve-year-old though,” she says with frustration. “They’re the ones that choose to go, not knowing anything about the person that put the index card in their bag. You never know. Maybe you’ll meet someone with an interesting story.” She pouts a little, but does not say anything. Suddenly, she goes underwater and starts trying to blow bubble rings again. After a few tries, she comes back up, exceptionally out of breath. I smile. “Make sure you’re lying flat on your back. Puff up your cheeks real big, and then pop your lips like you’re saying the word pool.” I leave her be and swim laps back to my side, where I collect my things. I dry off a bit and scribble down an address and time on a sticky note. Before leaving, I place it on her towel. To go to the bar, flip to 16. To go to the art installation, flip to 19.

Whenever I go to new places, whether it is for a vacation, for a business trip, or for a new chapter of my life, I consistently face the same problem. I walk around in crowds, and my mind matches faces with people I know. So sometimes, as I’m turning the corner, I think I see an old classmate – maybe the girl who sat behind me in statistics, maybe the boy who lived two floors down during my first year of college – or maybe a close friend. I see glimpses of peoples’ profiles, watch their cheekbones say hello and goodbye within a second, and it’s almost as if my mind wants desperately for it to be them. I think my mind yearns for a sense of familiarity. When it realizes that I am in a new space, it manipulates it so that I can feel, maybe, just a little bit more at ease. New York has been filled with moments of pseudo-recognition. But I must remind myself that the man in the subway car across the platform is not my old calculus professor, and the little boy playing chess in Washington Square Park is not the younger brother of the girl I used to tutor after school. And the girl with long, thick hair is not my old lab partner from high school. Every few days, I must tell myself that it is never the person I think it is. I walk down the street after getting on the wrong subway, trying to figure out how to go back downtown. I stumble across an area that feels all too familiar. I get a lot of déjà vu in the city. I’m not sure if it’s because every single basketball court I have walked by looks the exact same, or if it’s because the city is starting to feel like home to me – because home is not a place, but a feeling. Disregarding the feeling as yet another case of stark déjà vu, I continue walking down the street in attempt to find a street sign. “Fifth Avenue,” I read as I turn the corner. There is a long line by the doors, and the crowds are overwhelmingly uninviting. Flocks of tourists are churning together in what feels like excitement mixed with uneasiness, a cousin of anxiety and a sister of anticipation. I try and figure out what spot I’ve found myself in when I suddenly feel the sensation of a paper cut slide across my arm. I grab my arm, as if human touch will quell the pain, and I quickly try and identify the culprit – but he immediately emerges and apologizes. “Oh goodness, ma’am, please, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.” Still looking down, I nod in acknowledgement, letting him know that I heard him but do not necessarily forgive him. I pause and think about how my frustration is probably due to the heat and the subways. He is quick to offer me continued comfort, seeming genuinely concern about his actions and how they may have impacted me. I continue looking at my arm, tracing the paper cut and feeling the impression in my skin become more protrusive and pronounced. “Are you okay? I can go grab a Band-Aid for you, if you’d like. I don’t know if you want to wait out here in this kind of weather though, I know that around this time the humidity really gets to people. You can come and wait in the lobby, and I’ll be just a minute,” he says. “I’m alright, just, maybe be careful going forward. Your pamphlets are really – ” He cuts me off. “Sharp, I know. Sometimes it’s just really difficult with this kind of crowd and all. There’s been a celebrity sighting at the Empire State building today, and it’s gaining a lot of traction on social media, so a lot of the New York tourists and transplants have been trying to come by. It’s been going on for two hours now. I used to be really good at passing things out before, back when I

worked the Times Square spot, but then I broke my arm and had to take time off from work. I can’t really pass out flyers quickly with a broken arm, you know? And people think that passing out brochures doesn’t take skill or practice, but this is the city. Have you ever played Crossy Road? It’s the mobile game where you play as a chicken and try to cross busy, high-traffic roads. This job is like a real-life version of that. I don’t know. I’m still recovering now. Sorry again, ma’am, really.” He talks, a lot. He talks as if I am the first person to see him in a very long time. He talks as if I am the first person to talk to him in a very long time, and I’m not even the one that is talking. He talks as if I am the very first person to listen to him, and I’m not even really listening. I slowly look up at the building I am walking by. The building keeps going, my line of sight running to keep up with it. I have walked by this building at least four times since moving here, and I have never realized that it was the Empire State building. All the crowds suddenly make sense. “Are you sure you don’t want a Band-Aid?” he asks. But I am still staring at the Empire State building, entranced like a musician experiencing synesthesia for the first time. “It’s starting to bleed a little. I don’t think that’s a good thing. Most paper cuts don’t bleed that much for that long. What if you were hemophiliac? Are you? Wait here. I’ll go get you a Band-Aid,” he says quickly before running off. “Wait!” I yell, voice trailing after him. “You don’t need to go all the way inside. I’ll be okay!” I say, but a little softer, knowing that he can’t and doesn’t want to hear me. Still, I continue. “I’m not a hemophiliac!” The crowd looks at me bizarrely. A little girl points at me and asks her mother what a hemophiliac is. At this point, he is well swallowed by the crowd trying to enter the door. I realize I never quite caught what he looked like. All I see is the top of his red hat disappear behind the strongly tinted door. I shove my way through the crowd, using my shoulders to navigate around people, overhearing bits and pieces of their conversations. I fall inside, being released from the grip of the crowd to find him standing there with a Band-Aid and a water bottle. “I thought you might have gotten thirsty too. I would have gotten you a soda, but those cost more, and my boss would have gotten angry with me. But if you really want one, I can probably get one when my boss gets up for his break. He won’t notice if I just rearrange some of the stuff in the fridge – it’s the illusion,” he rambles, talking to me as if he worries I’ll leave. He rambles as if he’s experienced abandonment before. I finally get to look him in the face, and I feel heavy with the weight of surprise, like it buried into my shirt and made a home in the stitching. My body steps back, trying to process and reanalyze the situation in front of me. I see him continuing to talk, lips moving in a soft flurry and hands moving like blurred lights in an over-exposed photograph, but there is silence in my mind. I am fluttering, flustered, trying to understand.

“Are you okay? Ma’am, are you alright?” he asks, for the fourth time before I conjure up the energy to respond. “Yes. You just … you look a lot like someone I used to know,” I say, finding it harder and harder to breathe. “Maybe it would be best if I could actually get something else to drink.” He does not respond, but motions me forward. I step into the elevator slowly. He presses the button, and we both wait until the ding releases us from bathing in our own interaction of non-interaction. I step out, and the heavy anvil on my heart becomes surrounded by a frenzy of emotions. I almost screen. Loudly, I ask, “Why are we on the roof of the Empire State building?” He nudges me forward. “The roof is reserved right now because we’re prepping for a wedding photo shoot. It’s the celebrity I mentioned earlier. Just take a moment for yourself. You seem really overwhelmed,” he says. I stand there, heart raucous with panic. But looking out and looking down, everything else feels small, like there are strings and wires pulling the cars around. Humanity feels mechanical, systematic, like an algorithm for an amalgamation of anxiety. I stick my hand out, just over the edge, and that feeling deep in my stomach appears trying to warn me from doing something dangerous. I feel just over the edge. But I remember that it’s just evolution. I turn to him and start speaking. “This is the most alive I have felt in months. I moved here because someone I knew very well disappeared. I don’t know what happened to him. But he was an incredible force in my life. He still is. We grew up together. Our backyards shared the same forest, so we would meet at the creek and try to skip stones. We never figured it out. When we were fourteen, his parents were arrested for tax fraud, so my parents became his legal guardians. He was my brother. He still is. But one day, I couldn’t get ahold of him, and soon that day became a week became a month became a year. And I think ever since his disappearance, the doubt, the curiosity, the grief, it shut me down, burnt me out. I felt everything, all at once, and my fuse crackled into fiery oblivion. At first I thought I was no longer living in the abyss of heartache, but then I realized it was just because I was numb.” “I’m sorry,” he says. “You don’t have to apologize. It’s just hard to be in public spaces sometimes because everywhere I walk, I see him. That played a large role in me moving here, because I would see him everywhere at home – whether it was in memories, in faces, in hypotheticals, in regret. But since coming here, I understand that a new location means nothing. A new geography just means more landscape to flood until I can find closure.” He frowns. “I understand,” he says.

“Do you want to hear my story?” he asks. “Sure.” “Two years ago, my parents told me that I was adopted. A year and a half ago, I reached out to my biological family, trying to see if I could get any more information. A year ago, my cousin left his home and came to find me, and he got me a job. A few months ago, when I was working in Times Square, I broke my hand because someone pushed me into a street sigh. I was free-falling for a moment – the lights around me danced like ballerinas if they could perform on flower petals, and the commotion of the streets became the symphony. It was almost peaceful, until I collided into a woman quickly walking by. She was a Desnuda. They’re the women who wear painted on clothes and walk around Times Square, making money off of their sex appeal. Depending on who you ask, it can be empowering, embarrassing, eroticizing, or exhilarating. A man took a photograph of me mid-fall. I know this because a week later, he walks up to me and hands me a series of developed photographs, each catching a still shot of my fall. He told me he was doing a project on me because I reminded him of himself. For the remaining months, he would come every day and bring me food for lunch, and I would ask him questions. He told me he grew up in a nice suburban town, where self-sabotaging chaos was the only form of insane sanity. He told me about his childhood friend from home, how she has a freckle on her right hand under her ring finger knuckle. He told me about her fear of polka dots and how she called her father by his first name only. He told me about her love for the smell of linens, of sunshine, of footsteps, and of how satisfied she would get from cleaning her glasses after a long day at work. He told me he left because he felt lost. He didn’t really talk about himself much though, but I could tell he was genuine.” My heart feels like the staccato hum of the concert master’s solo. Slowly, I stutter out a question. “Did … did … do you still see him?” “He’s actually the photographer for the wedding that’s happening today.” I stand there, frozen in time and space. “He’s on the other side, actually.” Wondering if I am in a dream, I start smiling and sobbing at the same time. To go to the bar, flip to page 16. To go to the pool, flip to page 10.

Everything smells vaguely of pistachios when I first walk through the door. But as I venture further forward into the crowd of people, I pick up on different odors, all which hit me in waves that almost align with the beat of the music. The man in the middle of the dance floor smells strongly of heavy cologne and body wash. His hair looks glossy with sweat, gel, and gleaming, glowing confidence. The woman standing on the side of the rooftop lingers into her date, carrying with her a blatant whiff of garlic bread. Soon, the girl besides me pulls out her hand sanitizer, cleaning her hands and reminding me of cinnamon and wintertime. I sit down at the bar and make up stories for them all, giving everyone a narrative that explains how they got here. The dancing man spends most of his day as a consultant in the Financial District – he keeps a clean house, one that he Swiffers on a daily basis and dusts every week. His clothes are always ironed because that is what his mother taught him. He wears a different tie every day of the week, but he’s always liked blue ties the most. He likes to shine his shoes himself, but only to the soundtrack of his favorite movies playing in the background. His favorite instrument is the piano, but his father never let him play as a child, so he’s been taking night classes every day. His goal is to play something at his sister’s wedding. He likes to come to bars to dance and drink, especially after he traveled briefly through London. Every day, he schedules times to reapply his deodorant and his cologne to avoid the potential disaster of smelling bad because one time, as a kid, he was teased for smelling like odd spices and eggs. The woman on her date recently moved back to the city and is trying online dating for the first time. Men often tell her she looks very happy, especially based on the photos she used on her profile. She has recently had a string of good fortune and met three men and one woman that she felt a strong connection with, so she is going on second dates with them all. She owns a loft on top of a bakery, which she often uses for her wedding planning company. She promises herself that her wedding will be the last one she plans. Her father is in town visiting for the weekend, but ever since he and her mother got divorced, she does not know how to spend time with him alone. She really likes Italian food because the smell of spaghetti and bread reminds her of the last restaurant her entire family ate at together. The girl next to me is a Parsons art student who did not want to go home to Wisconsin for the summer. Instead, she started doing freelance art for a media company until she got fired for trying to steal a tablet from the inventory lockers. Now, she’s learning three languages and conducting literature reviews on digital linguistics while working part-time for a small boutique by Central Park. She’s allergic to bread and grapefruits, so she hates breakfast and brunches. She recently started making her own soaps in her apartment bathroom. Because the scent travels upwards and out the window, many people have started stopping in the area to talk and take in the fragrances. She then put a table and some chairs and started a small community garden in the spot so she would feel more comfortable with the fact that people are casually standing outside her bathroom window, which is right by the front gate. She likes growing tomatoes the best and believes a fox is eating her peonies. For me, daydreaming about real peoples’ fictional lives started at home – I would glance out the window and see people in apartment buildings adjacent to mine, watching TV, cooking food, doing exercises, tanning on the rooftops, and I would wonder about their lives. In a way, I am seeking closure. I start to look around the bar, trying to find other people for closure, when I hear a voice come from behind me.

“Hi! Thanks so much for meeting me here. My friend said you’d be wearing a black dress with a golden necklace,” he says enthusiastically, and a little bit nervously. I look behind me, wondering whether he might be talking to someone else, but he continues to talk, still nervously. “I don’t usually do this kind of thing. I’ve never been set up on a blind date before. Do you want a drink? We can head to a booth and talk for a bit.” I stare at him, looking at his facial scruff and his sharp jawline. He’s wearing a suit, but his socks peeking out from underneath his pants are striped and colorful. I stand there, bewildered, wondering what the girl he was really supposed to meet looks like. Is she here? What if she’s been waiting for him on the other side of the bar? I excuse myself quickly to the restroom. I walk confidently, without looking back, even though I am overwhelmed with questions. I open the door to find a girl dressed very similarly to me, on the phone with a friend. She speaks loudly as I enter a stall. “I didn’t know that he was going to ask to get back together. It’s been half a year since I left. What am I supposed to do now? He wants me to go meet him. Should I do it?” I stand in my stall quietly. “Okay, okay. I was supposed to meet someone here tonight though. My boss’s intern set us up. I don’t know. Can you believe this? I come back from Thailand and within four days everything and anything is happening. Alright, I’m just going to leave the bar and head to Brooklyn.” I stand in my stall quietly. She leaves, and I walk out to the sink, staring at myself in the mirrors. I find it so exceptionally easy for me to make up stories for others – now is my chance to make up a story for myself, to live spontaneously and be in a constant state of flux. There have been so many times recently where I just want to be a different person for a night. My reflection is no longer myself, but a woman who recently lived in Thailand for a few months. Her favorite part of the trip was when she bought a motorcycle from a junkyard and traveled around the countryside on that, collecting herbs and flowers to help her aunt’s tea business. She has a lot of emotional baggage, especially when it comes to relationships, because she establishes emotional intimacy very quickly, probably due to her over-sharing nature and the lack of support she got from her family while growing up. She likes to fly kites and canoe through rivers because when she was little, she read a story about how the wind and the water are symbols of peace and fortune. She always hopes for peace and fortune, but only because she rarely receives it. She likes embroidery and water colors, and her favorite fruit is the lychee. She has dreams to become a pilot. I walk out and head over to him, ready to be a fictional character for the night. I sit next to him in the booth. “Hello,” I say. He smiles. 17

“Hello.” Flip to page 1.

I have a large tattoo of a 3D rectangular prism on the inside of my left forearm. I like that it looks different depending on the angle. It reminds me of people because from different angles and perspectives, people are different. And that’s a relationship that exists based on not just me, as the person with the tattoo, but on others, who are observing. I often get asked about the meaning behind my tattoo, to which I give a brief explanation. Ever since I was young, I struggled with anxiety – so to cope, I would draw cubes and prisms, tracing them over and over into the palms of my shaking hands until I was able to breathe again. In high school, I painted one of my walls with chalkboard paint so that I could draw on it when my mind was too awake to fall asleep. Getting a tattoo gave me the agency to be my own chalkboard wall – one that is always with me wherever I go. I remember sliding into my lavender dress, feeling the touch of satin glide against my body. The bottom of the dress trailed out a bit, but I as I slipped into my heels, it became the perfect length. I grabbed my pair of scissors laying on the nightstand and cut off the tag sticking off to the side, and I glanced at the price. Ever since I was promoted to the New York office of my company, I have been lucky enough to get numerous benefits, including covered payment for clothing that I wear to networking events. My mind drifts back. I step onto the rooftop and walk up to my boss. “Hi, thank you so much for inviting me today,” I say. She smiles and gives me a hug, encouraging me to eat the food that is being served. Ever since I joined the company three years ago, I have had the chance to attend numerous art gallery openings in support of the Humanities to raise awareness and fight against the unintended consequences regarding the push for STEM in education. Walking around, I see pristine examples of modern, interactive art. I walk up to a curtained section of the gallery and read the description. “therapeutic tattoos: have a blindfolded conversation with a psychiatrist-turned-tattoo-artist and take a risk – based on your exchanges, she will tattoo something on you that captures your essence” The curtain slides open to reveal a woman full of emotion and passion. She places the blindfold over my eyes, and she sits me down on the chair. We talk for about an hour, and I tell her about my upbringing, my family, my best friend, and my worst nightmares. She scribbles in her notebook during exceptionally odd moments. I tell her about my confessions, and she sits there silently, barely breathing, barely moving; however, when I tell her about how I type at a 134 WPM, she begins churning out notes in her lap, loud enough for me to hear the scratch of pen against paper. It feels like therapy. I do not trust her, but she is a stranger. Knowing that I will never see her again creates a different kind of trust. And then I feel the scratch of a needle against my ribcage. When I was younger, my mother used to playfully pinch me, pretending to be a mosquito. She’d say – bug bite! – right after, and I would break out into beautiful, unadulterated laughter. I never really understood why I thought it was so amusing; I just knew that those moments were radiant examples of my fluorescent adolescence, those moments were ones that I continue to hold onto. The tattoo needle pierced my side, feeling like multiple . I think about my childhood. I think about my mother. I think about my family. I want to call her, tell her about this feeling that

resonates so strongly in my bones, this feeling birthed from nostalgia, guilt, shame, love, and admiration. I want to tell her about these moments of sheer introspection, but I know she does approve of tattoos. My mind wanders, leaving my body on the chair in a trance of tranquility and serenity. Thirty minutes later, I feel my blindfold moving. The sudden burst of light shocks me into discomfort, leaving me squinting and yearning for the soothing darkness again. But over the course of a few minutes, my eyes adjust, and I stand staring at my new tattoo in the mirror. “It’s a gingko leaf,” I say, partially to myself and partially to her. “Gingkoes symbolize longevity and endurance. You have the spirit that will live forever, the strength that will continue to sing even in moments of nothingness,” she explains. She puts on the final bandages, and I walk around, humming to myself the tune of the song my mother used to sing to me when I was a baby. To go home, flip to page 1. To go to the bar, flip to page 16.

I take a pair of headphones and put them in my pocket as I walk around the rooftop, trying to find a free seat. I spot one in the corner, covered in pillows – immediately, I walk over and sit down, getting comfortable before the documentary showings begin. However, as I sit down, I see the pillows moving, and I spot a tail wagging through the cushions. Worried that someone might have lost their dog, I look for its collar in hopes of finding a number or even a name, but I have no luck. I quickly stand up with him in my arms, and I flag down one of the ushers at the event. “Do you know if this is anyone’s dog? He was sitting under a pile of pillows over there,” I say as the dog starts licking my hand. “Oh, his name is Boba. He’s a stray that our organization kind of adopted.” “What do you mean by kind of adopted?” “He lives on the rooftop mainly. We provide him with food and water, and he likes to socialize with people during our events. But nobody takes him home because nobody on staff has an apartment that allows pets.” I pause. “Can I play with him throughout the event?” I ask. He nods enthusiastically and runs off to do his tasks. Boba follows me, bouncing up and down from the attention. There is about an hour until the first documentary begins, so I buy some food for the both of us, feeding him some jerky that I bought from the snack center. He hops up onto the seat and curls up into the pillows, yet he still has an expressiveness to him that reminds me of being a kid on a snow day. I think about the phenomenon of object permanence, in which little babies have not conceptualized the idea that physical, tangible objects continue to exist even when not observed. I think about the happiness they embody when mothers, fathers, siblings, friends, strangers appear in peek-a-boo. Boba is like a living, breathing manifestation of that kind of feeling. As time passes, more people start crowding around me, asking if they’re allowed to pet him. One girl takes a photo with him. Another girl tries very inconspicuously tries to take a video of him hopping around from pillow to pillow. I think Boba likes the attention. I think I like the attention. We work in symbiosis, a mutualistic relationship at its peak. He barks, and I laugh. He eats, and I drink. He smiles, and I smile. The film screening begins, first with a panel of speakers that talk about the importance of documentary work. You can hear the passion in their voices as they talk about the way storytelling and narration has changed their lives. There’s something different about people who think about the world as a series of stories – they act just so slightly different, they speak with a different twist to their intonation, they listen as if you are the only person in the room. They understand the intricacies of language, the power of words, the authority behind communication and untainted expression. The first showing debuts a collection of interviews conducted with Muslim refugees, talking about the experiences they faced after seeking shelter in the United States. There was anger, there was pure happiness, and there were moments of painstaking reality. There was privilege, there was apathy, and

there was empathy. A showcase of the vast fluidity of human emotion, the interviews captured the essence of humanity that most are ashamed of, some are proud of, and some are uneducated about. I pet Boba, slipping my fingers through the fur by his ears. Throughout the screenings, his tail stops wagging. Even he understands the poignancy of the discourse. The second showing presents the pilot episode of a comedy web show about a girl starting her new job in the aquarium. Parts of it included her falling into the sting ray pit, and others included her mourning the death of a sea anemone she may or may not have played a part in. As the fifteen minutes of footage comes to an end, there is an indescribable energy dancing through the air. Boba is now lying on his back, with his feet in the air, and while everyone else is not physically in the same position, we all feel the same kind of euphoria. It’s the same kind of bliss that kids get from laughing so hard at a joke – the laughing that comes back ten minutes later, ten days later, when you think about it again. The third showing is a video of a slam poem done by an undergraduate student. Her voice trails around my goosebumps. Her voice lingers. Her voice stays. Everyone cheers, Boba barks, and she smiles for what I feel like is the first time in years. The fourth is a documentary about a Chinese immigrant who came to the United States following her son. We watch as she talks about teaching herself English. It feels familiar. It is the story that runs through my veins. The videos, the movies, the performances continue, flowing like waterfalls under rainbows. By the end of the event, as I try to leave, Boba follows me around diligently. As I try to return Boba to the event volunteers, they let me know that Boba is always up for proper adoption. I pause. I act. I walk out of the event realizing that sometimes being around people is exhausting – making conversation, forced conversation, fake conversation – that sometimes being around people is draining. Talking to storytellers and documentary makers makes me understand that there is something incredibly intricate about language and communication, that there is power in words, but there is also power in the absence of words. Sometimes, you need someone to project emotion, to express what they feel on a very explicit level. And sometimes, you find that comfort and that solace in a dog. I wonder if Boba is going to find a home in me, or if I am going to find a home in Boba. To go to the restaurant, flip to page 4. To go to the pool, flip to page 10.

I look down at the streets as the raindrops hit the top of my forehead. Pulling out my umbrella, I look around to see everyone walking so systematically. As the crowd thickens, you see every few people raise their umbrellas to let others pass through; like a well-oiled machine, New Yorkers strive for maximum efficiency. New Yorkers work to optimize every opportunity. And while we look like checker pieces, jumping from place to place with vigor and astute determination, people in New York function like chess pieces – they plot out their routes, knowing full in mind their final destinations; they adapt to the obstacles they face, but never without considering the various different paths to take. Some days, I feel like the Queen, existing and understanding the agency and the authority that I possess. Other days, I feel like the Knight, functioning on 1.5 speed as a way to protect and progress myself as a person. And then there are days where I feel like the Pawn, taking one step forward and one step backward all in efforts to eventually, maybe, get somewhere. My days feel slower, my actions feel blurred and muted all at the same time. But I continue onwards knowing that my actions will inevitably catalyze me forward. I stand by the door, realizing how different it feels to have open space, even forty-four floors up. I stretch my arms, then inhale, exhale. Sometimes in New York, I feel like a shrinking body, but right now, I inflate. I expand because I can. Soon, I hear the door open and close, followed by a trail of smoke. I turn around and see my boss standing, eyes stained by her smudged mascara. “Are you okay?” I ask, concerned. She takes a puff of her cigarette, blows out the smoke in one long exhale and responds, “That’s a question I stopped asking myself a long time ago, dear.” She takes another puff. “Why are you here?” she asks, staring forward – not at me, not through me, just in a kind of distant gaze that defaults through existence. “I forgot the keys to my apartment rooftop in the drawer of my desk, and I needed to make a call – but the reception in our office is really fickle, so I just came up here to get better service,” I respond. She takes another puff. “Do you want to talk about anything?” I ask her. Immediately, she laughs. “I don’t even know where to start. I’ve run out of words. I’ve run out in general.” “Did something specific happen?” “Honey, everything happened.” 23

There is a specificity to her ambiguity. Moving to the city means carrying my emotional baggage alone â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it means accepting the fact that everything is happening; it means accepting the fact that sometimes, I will be shrinking for a long time. We stand there in silence, both listening to the sirens as a way to fill the time. The smell of her cigarette smoke mixes with the rain in a bizarre way, and I no longer feel like I am in the city. I feel like Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m in the jungle, or in the countryside, or anywhere but here. I stand there with her for a while, her smoking, me breathing. To go to the pool, flip to page 10. To go to the Empire State Building, flip to page 12.