Something is terribly, terribly wrong.

You hold in your hand a flower of blue, only to blink and find it a flower of red. You blink again and in your hand a bird lies dead and still. With trembling fingers you place the bird upon the granite altar here, in the quiet of your mind. When you step away, the old woman beside you wakes. When does the bus arrive? It should have been here, she says. Always comes by now.

Down the road you see a man under a street lamp. Your eyes meet despite the distance. What is that in his hand? A blade of flawless obsidian. He brings it up to your neck, but you are yourself no longer, and you watch from under the streetlight as the man waiting for the bus cuts open his own throat.

To each his own. You have tea to make.

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Write a story which does not make sense because it can’t make sense. It can’t make sense because the place in which the story unfolds is broken. Or maybe the story is broken. Maybe both are fine and your eyes are bleeding.

Let’s find out.