Mmm...Ask About It

art and article by Shahad Salman

When the pandemic started, isolation and quarantine suggested a state of disconnectedness. But my friends and I grew closer by asking obscure, open-ended questions that allowed us to construct realities of altered dimensions. We realized that your weirdest, most complex ideas could be points of relatability or interconnection.

We spent nights sprawled on soft, almost cloudlike fields and went on the weirdest of tangents about meaningless and out-of-this-world topics. Sometimes, it becomes necessary to utilize your imagination for an hour or two and adventure through your creative mind, just to take a break from everything—especially this year. Grab a mask, your desire for introspection, and maybe a friend, and use these questions to foster new, otherworldly conversations.

1. If you could choose one inanimate object to make alive, but you’d have to spend the rest of your life taking care of it, what would you choose and why?

2. If you were presented with the choice, what substance would you choose for facial hair to be made out of instead of hair? (ex. flowers)

3. It’s the most important day of your life, and you’re carrying a bag with five things for this day; what are those five things?

4. What is the one attribute that you would want others to say when describing you?

5. What would you choose for your last meal?

6. What is the one event in your life that you believe changed your entire story’s trajectory?

7. You can make one thing in the world impossible; what is that thing?

8. Would you change the color of the sky if you could? What color would you change it to and why?

9. A painting of your life so far is composed. What is painted? How much of the painting will be things that you want people to see? How much will be things you don’t want people to see?

10. The moon requests a meeting with you. What do you wear? How do you prepare?

11. What is one thing you said you would never do and ended up doing? Why do you think you changed your mind about it? Do you regret it?

12. Do you believe everyone has a soulmate? Do you believe everyone will meet their soulmate or one of their soulmates?

13. What is something that is not edible right now that you would want to be edible? (Your forbidden snack that you would want to be able to eat safely?)

14. What do you think is in space/the universe that we haven’t discovered yet?

15. How do you deal with the unexpected? Do you find it stressful, exciting, both? How have you changed the ways you deal with the unexpected?

16. Would your crush/partner be your crush/partner if you had first met them while you were both wearing masks? Would you have pursued them if you had seen them only with a mask?

17. You’re invited to a masquerade party; describe your ideal attire. What kind of mask do you wear? Do you have a date? What are they wearing?

18. If you could teach the entire world one lesson, what would it be?

19. How do you think your interactions and relationships would have changed had you been born into a world of masks?

20. How do you treat yourself?

21. What makes you/has made you feel the freest?

22. What movie scene have you always wanted to be in or recreate?

23. You get the power to pause time three times throughout your lifetime. When would you have paused? When do you think you’ll need to pause?

24. What parts of your life do you mask that you believe would change people’s perception of you if uncovered?2

5. What’s a question that you would never want to be asked?