i remember when i used to fantasize about moving away to a far off place after the shards of my broken heart had rendered my sternum raw, red, pulpy, the shreds like ribbons strewn on the floor after a raucous celebration. each day after the break-up i would walk the streets, willing my vision to blur momentarily, and when it returned, my eyes focusing on a quotidian street curb or an unassuming stop sign, i'd realize, with a start, that neither were familiar but rather were otherworldly, for suddenly i was somewhere exotic like taipei or jakarta and i'd never have to fear the likelihood of crossing paths with my ex-lover again.

so why then, when my heart was whole, and my bed was shared, and my soul was light... how could this happen?

this morning i awoke slowly, a blade of sunlight having wedged itself between my upper and lower eyelids, the world at first fogged glass when i peered out at my surroundings, but steadily sharpening, as though i'd reached over to the bedside table and recovered a pair of spectacles.

but then, with the sudden realization that finds you after a night of heavy drinking, with an earth-crushing weight of finality, gravity, sputtering disbelief, it became apparent to me that *i was no longer in the same world i'd inhabited the night before*

my impressions are still uncertain and smeared, like fingerprints on a picture window... but i must try to make sense of this. in this new space, there is very little at all: a disheveled mattress on the floor; alien plants on a windowsill; a shabby dining set; a computer on the table. when i woke it, i found a clean desktop, except for a single folder labeled "website." i hastily added a folder of my own with a .txt file to gather my thoughts. i'll more thoroughly investigate the computer files later on, but at the present time, i must document what i can, like what i’ve learned so far, and what transpired during my first exploration.

there is a window in the small bedroom, and as i reached to find the plastic tassel to manipulate the blinds, they contracted instantaneously. i gasped involuntarily as the flimsy vinyl slapped against my fingertips, revealing a lavender sky in the far beyond, and in the foreground, black tar heroin skyscrapers, stalwart and erect like index fingers hushing pursed lips, their windows ablaze with strobes and flashes of phosphorescent light. it was impossible for me to discern the time of day; there was no visible sun, and i had no frame of reference for contextualizing the trickle of ambulating bodies on the street stories below.

i knew my anxiety ought to be electric but i felt very little at all. perhaps i'd taken sedatives the night before, but i had no way of knowing - it was as though my memory could only conceive of that which was an arm's length away, and at the moment, that was a cyan bodysuit and a pair of tattered black tights, which i stretched on over my clammy skin so that i might leave the apartment. the door closed behind me with a dry cough, a flickering overhead light illuminating the narrow and windowless hallway with doors identical to mine, identified only by alien scratchings on the metal. there were no doorknobs. i scurried down the hallway like a cockroach evading the laser beam of dawn, entering a cupboard at the end of the passageway i assumed to be an elevator. it plummeted without warning and i felt the mind-erasing terror of my certain, splattered demise the way i've only ever known it before in dreams, where i step naively off the ledge of a building and jerk awake, the thick greasy atmospheric chute transforming into sweaty tangled sheets about my twitching limbs.

i'm sure it was only moments later that the free-fall ceased, but it took me much longer to catch my burning breath and refocus my gaze on the lavender light outside that was pressing itself against the glass of the windowed door just beyond the cupboard like wet flesh on a stainless steel countertop. the door moaned against my weight, expunging me like ejaculate out onto the lead-colored sidewalks. i hadn't expected the oppressiveness of the air quality, full-bodied and slimy, and unnaturally warm, like accidentally turning on the heat instead of the air-conditioning at the height of summer. i breathed in too deeply and choked on the acrid particles that entered me, slapping shoulders with a passerby on the sidewalk when the grandiose kinetic energy of my coughing fit unintentionally caused us to collide. they shrieked at me in a shrill voice, enunciating syllables i'd never before heard, which clattered together like metal refuse at a junkyard. i lurched out of the way, taking shelter from the dripping acid sky underneath an overhang near the building that i supposed must be mine. i felt unbearably uncomfortable lingering on the sidewalk; i needed to duck into some shop or business, or else try to figure out how to return to the sallow mattress upon which i had awoken. i peeked out from under the awning and again integrated myself into the rhythmic tide of the sidewalk traffic.

i passed numerous storefronts with fingerprint-stained glass and buzzing neon signage but i did not permit myself an opportunity to stop until i'd been so rain-drenched my bones felt cold and metallic, and only then did i loiter momentarily outside of the shanty labeled "zeitgeist arcade" in cursive lime font, plaited strobes braiding the perimeter, and half the sign flickering in and out of consciousness, instead spelling out "zeit" every other second. my rain-awakened nipples threatened to glue themselves to the door as i leaned into it, the asynchronous lullaby of the citrus sky-tears against cement fading into the piercing blitzkrieg of throbbing 8-bit pixels and salacious ditties and shuddering coin slots. from some far off, remote galaxy in my mind, i felt as though in my past life... * where had it been? * ... i had loved arcades... and initially i wove my way through the aisles, fueled by the unworldly and inert belief that perhaps i would recognize some game i'd once enjoyed, and that might bring back a fragment of self i was convinced i'd somehow been made to leave behind. as far as i know, i did not uncover a cherished console from my past, but i did find someone... i found *her*