My cousin and I were standing at the window of our apartment while a typhoon was raging outside. We were watching a crow push some logs around the balcony which eventually formed a bridge to the roof across from us. There was a basket of apples on the other side.

I opened the cover of the piano that was sitting on the balcony. I assumed that the heat and long periods of neglect were responsible for the keys having been warped and discolored. A thin film was peeling off of the keys on the right side. I sat down and started fumbling around the keys until I rediscovered the opening notes to Itsumo no Fuukei, a song that I used to play often. My sister-in-law, who was inside the house, overheard me playing and popped out to ask me to show her how to play it. I felt a little embarrassed about forgetting how the bass notes went. I went back indoors to look for my old sheet music but was unable to find it among all the loose papers.

We were walking back home together when we saw a friend sitting on a bench playing a phone game. He seemed to ignore us while we passed by. “Wow, you’re so attached”, my friend said.

I was in the buffet area on the first floor of a hotel. There was a large crowd of people milling about. Sometimes a person would fall to the ground before getting back up a few moments later as a seemingly different person. There was a slow moving wave of people forgetting who they were as they reawakened with more irritable personalities. I asked my friend about her note-taking system and if that was the key to staying sane. She said that she felt like it helped. We sat on the steps by the wall and scanned through her notebook together. I wrapped my arm over her shoulder.

A coworker was showing me an acceptance letter he had received from a college abroad and wanted me to help translate it for him. However the e-mail seemed to be from a personal address instead of an institution. I looked at the top of his browser to see a bunch of open Google Translate tabs. The content of the e-mail itself was rather informal and even asked about what kind of anime he liked.

We were on a road trip through the middle of America and we stopped by the highway to look at a giant rock formation in the desert. My cousin’s friend was re-registering her iPhone as we sat at a picnic table. The process required her to not only set up face and and retinal scans but also provide some form of photo ID. She set a huge cardboard replica of her California driver’s license onto the table to take a picture of it.

Class had ended early and my classmates were using the extra time to start on their math homework. I took out my laptop and launched Ableton to look over my works in progress. For some reason whenever I got to the end of one timeline, it would seamlessly transition to another file which caused a bit of confusion. I really only wanted to focus on the latest track, which was supposed to be a recreation of a deceased artist’s work in progress. The notes for the original score mentioned prominent use of a manual coffee grinder and I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to implement it. I held a golden coffee grinder in my hands and someone nearby asked me how I intended to play it. The notes from the artist weren’t very illuminating.

It was the first week of classes and I was so busy that I had not seen a single freshman on campus. Although classes were starting a day later this year, it was already Tuesday and I wasn’t ready yet. A friend told me about how he’s had plenty of time, only to reveal that he was only taking three classes this semester. I encouraged him to pick up some art projects on the side since he’s got the time.

I was looking after my niece who was playing in the garden. She was singing a song about catching butterflies as she ran back and forth across the grass. However I was watching her from around the corner of the house, which meant that half of the time my view of her was obscured. It was getting dark and the surveillance camera above the gate I was standing behind started making clicking noises.

There was a giant brawl in the gym which lasted through the entire night. By the time morning came, everyone was on the ground or leaning against the wall, exhausted. We had initially gathered to figure out who was the “Pepsi murderer”. They were named as such because the victim was clutching a can of Pepsi when the body was found.