INKFLOWS

Memory Box, Lau B.

10.12.22

No More Chasing Ghosts - Prologue

“It’s Not You, It’s Your Trauma”, a.k.a. “I Was Transported to Another World to do Mundane Tasks!?”

The world’s most prosaic isekai.

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Stuck in an unfamiliar world inside a library that records the entirety of its history through mysteriously magical means, Sammy Baxa must… dust the shelves? Well, at least she’s got a friend to accompany her while she waits for a way back home.

“It’s Not You, It’s Your Trauma” is a short character-focused game with lots of dialogue and lots of silly faces and just a little bit of drama.

A seemingly arbitrary kidnapping. A lost child with a missing eye and an untold story. An unexpected sentience. What is it that connects these strands of fate?

No More Chasing Ghosts is an ongoing fantasy/drama/comedy webcomic about death, tragedy, and the people left behind to make meaning out of the meaningless. And also there’s catgirls, so that’s cool.

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— tuyet an liu | aimi liu

(transcription of image below)

…every person that you’ve ever been or will be. you wake up like the cold & wintry corpse of someone you once buried in the garden. you’re atoning for all the years you’ve spent alive & the blooming marigold of dawn has yet to break the horizon. you’re an abandoned painting, nebulous & pewter-grey with dust.

the wind wends through the sleepy absinthe forests & steely fog while you’re wishing you’ve prostrated yourself on some decaying stone altar with a cut throat. you want to beg for a morsel of forgiveness for even breathing. you’ve forgotten a world unmarred by your existence & you’re burning offerings as if they’re apologies, as if they’re bridges you no longer need.

i wish i could grab you, lily-white nails digging into your cheeks, palms soft against your trembling jaw. i’d scream into your ears about all the things you’d hate to hear but you’re just a ghost inhabiting a body that no longer belongs to you, fitful & hollow. you’ve molded yourself in the image of sisyphus. how could i ever reconstruct you when you’ve subjected yourself to a litany of acrid fire? tomorrow, you’ll yield your bird-boned spine, bow your head, & call yourself atlas, burdened by the whole world.

you pluck sunflowers out of their beds every morning & loathe everyone who’s ever loved you for making that mistake. your breath catches in your brittle throat when the first syllable of your name rolls off a bitter tongue. you’re carrying grievances like a looming cloud threatening a disaster at the slightest change of wind. you sing a lament for some form of salvation & find yourself wanting, knotted & inelegant with displeasure.

you’ve shut yourself in the distended canyon of your bedroom, built by your own hands. you keep shouting, searching for anyone else but you, & the only words you’ll ever hear are your own. every scorching wail that leaves your mouth is so thundering that it silences the seething screams from the sun, skies, & shadows. not even the loudest proclamation of love will cut through the miasma you’ve concocted. the white noise you’ve crafted in fits of self-flagellation is the only sound you will seek shelter in. as long as you’re drowning in something of your own making, there’s no one else to lay the blame upon.

no one can penetrate the damp sorrow you’ve sentenced yourself to decompose in. you’re aimless but alive, nestled in a static of stormy melancholia. i want to seize you by the throat & tear you out of the sickly, sullen ice you’ve encased your remains in. i wish i could cut you with the benevolence of a sword’s edge & drag you to the edge of a scarlet sunrise where life continues to thrive. it’s time you’ve mourned for the savage monstrosities you’ve fabricated in your thoughts. i press in like a taut crescent of metal & carve out the writhing shadows of your mind. you shriek, desperate & sputtering, & claw at the the broken glass of your falsified contentment. this isn’t revenge or one of the bloody vendettas anchored in your heart. look, the sky is lightening & the day is breaking.

it’s 5 a.m—the morning is unyielding & unforgiving, but sunlight unfurls, an appeal to innocence & tenderness. your fragile hands are cradling singing seraphs & the absolution you once sought.

& i hope this is how you’ll always remember us in the future. june is heralded by the singing cicadas, humid breeze, & your lips curling around the rim of an over-sweetened cà phê sữa đá. the cusp of spring to summer has softened the world with a mist. the emerald leaves of freshly cut hedges & swaying cerise-pink blossoms splay against our exposed skin as we brace ourselves for the sudden heat of afternoon. an insinuation of clouds blur the cerulean blue skies & embrace the mountains far in the distance. i grasp your hand with all the rose-gold tint of sentiment colouring my movements. if someone had asked, i would’ve told them the truth — if i could submerge myself in this moment for the rest of my life, in a deluge of every second spent together, i would.

one day, our recollections of this neighbourhood will fall victim to a hazy softness, like the hasty strokes of a paintbrush over an unprimed canvas. but right now, it’s bright & crisp like the edges of just-poured copper. i’ll remember you in these minutes, illuminated at every angle by the gentle sun caressing your features like a lover’s questing fingers. if you could ever recall the times we were inseparable with even a fraction of this guileless affection, i promise i’ll tend to them like the delicate cashmere gardenias & amethyst irises in your mother’s gardens. the heat of the sidewalk underfoot scorch our shoes but i’d endure it even for you. your fingertips graze the dainty aurelian chain around my neck, mindlessly grasping the evergreen jade pendant brushing the dip between my collarbones. everything might change, but this effortless devotion, this simple adoration, has already immortalized itself in this city’s hidden histories.

the imperial reds & yolk-yellows of chinatown colour the margins of our silhouettes. every inch of this place is crooning with a song from yesterday, a chorus of years bolstering the melody. the brush of your knuckles against my waist, the gentle murmur of your voice in my ear. the new boundaries of our world set by the millennium gates. you guide me through the waves of people, hand in hand, & i wish we could’ve lingered here just a little longer. but we’re enclosed in a sea of green while tying up fortunes & laughing at unsteady feet as we jump mossy stones across a stream. i press a fragment of a wild red strawberry against your lips instead of a kiss & hope you understand the words i can’t say.

stifling summer nights & i’m telling secrets only you’ll ever know. every word whispered into the crevice of your neck as we seek solace on the floors of an air-conditioned room. we sleep in each other’s arms & on unforgiving hardwood, blankets strewn all around like children. you’re smiling at something i don’t know about but you’re cast in gold by the incandescent lights we forgot to turn off & i’m too mesmerized to ask. one day, we’ll have to leave this behind, & i already miss it in my little artless heart. i lie awake & you’re scratching your charcoal pencils against the cream paper of your sketchbook. morning light cradles the downy drapes bordering the windows & i sprawl on the length of your legs before breakfast. a record plays in the background, accompanied by the sizzle of a pan & your wholehearted requests to dance in the kitchen. one day, we’ll tell stories of the days we spent wasting away our golden years together. i promise you, i will never want anything more.

Kudzu, Lau B.

05.25.22

— in the sinkhole of growth, you’ll find me there

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