We were operating from a colony on a foreign planet and one of our engineers had just come back from a long mission. We didn’t know how to break it to him that everyone he knew was already dead so we implanted the memories of all of his loved ones into machines to welcome him home. He seemed to be convinced that he was talking and interacting with his deceased family members.

I was standing on the roof of a hotel and looking down at an island that was lit up by street lamps late in the evening. We were on some sort of trip and I recalled the entrance of the hotel with its white walls and blue lettering. I was strangely fascinated by the shape of the land mass.

My mother’s neck had been reduced to a tube of toothpaste and when the seams on the side were peeled open, her spinal cord was revealed to be a bloody coil of wire. I cried for we were not able to piece everything back together.

I was shouting from the walkway above to tell “Naxon” not to shut down their power plant. “Don’t let things end” I said. I ran down the stairs into some underground vault that was crumbling. I had at one point in time intended to rob this place but the plan was never finalized as the rooms started cracking and splitting in half. I stuffed what I could into my pockets and ran out.

We had already sat down in the tatami room but the tea ceremony wasn’t going to begin for a bit. I picked up a pink hardcover book from the table and tried to read the title with great difficulty. I eventually succeeded (and consequently forgot what it was) and concluded that I had to look for the blue book and read its cover as well. I stood up and walked through the hall until I came upon the shoe cabinet in the unlit entryway of the residence.

We were going up an outdoor escalator while it was dark to get in line for a ride at an amusement park. Someone said how they wanted to to go but didn’t have the money.

My family and I sat within a white tower that overlooked the road that went through the residential area by the mountain. We were having a picnic and I was thinking about what it would be like to bring my lunch to the top of the Taipei 101. Some person in business attire and a boxed lunch in his hands walked through the glass door only to turn around after finding out that the spot had been occupied and apologizing.

We sat on a bench by the wall that went around a shallow pool. I was telling the person next to me how some institution was harboring alien life forms and they asked me how I knew. I recounted seeing the depressurization and defrosting chambers in the labs used to safely retrieve specimen from the deep waters. The aliens themselves mostly resembled bulbous cephalopods.

I was working on my laptop in the middle of the library. I couldn’t tell if I had Photoshop or Steam open from the color scheme of my screen. Someone in front of the table kept walking back and forth. They eventually approached me to confess that they’ve been interested in me for a while. Later they hurriedly walked away.

I walked down to the docks as our land to the west was being occupied through war. I went in the opposite direction along the lake shore and noticed that all of the seating had been redone, with some part using materials that we had recovered from our lost territory. After going further, I saw the words “That’s racist” in foam boards floating on the water.