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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Just a Few Butterflies” Down in the Dirt, v193 (the 3/22 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology The Ice that Was the Down in the Dirt Jan.-April 2022 issues collection book		get the 420 page Jan.-April 2022 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Boring dystopia

Xiao Gan

The sunrise dumps its brick dust onto my floor, my furniture.
Stop dirtying the spotless tiles, I complain. The complaint unfurls itself and wearily crawls
on its stainless steel knees to the city councils where it would be filed away
in color coded binders lodged in labelled file organizers.

The sun yawns at the complaint and decides in its obnoxious, nauseating thoughts
to ignore the polite warnings sent by the city council (‘kindly stop the surely unintentional
        upsetting of newly scrubbed floors’).
With its endless infinite limbs, another fistful of red dust is thrown
over the skylines, over the swimming pools, the offices, the city,
this city, of skyscrapers of level scraping, streetlights of dull blinks, unambitious achievements.

Your coffee break is over in that gray cube at 9am,
the static frequencies are here to facilitate creative thinking,
Wear the stipulated attire to save hassling, my demure mailbox spits out at me everyday.
I passively acknowledge its spittle in my nightly sleepwalks.

On those odd Thursdays, Thursdays that play peek-a-boo from behind my weekly planners,
I would look at Descartes’ portrait hidden inside the bedroom mirror and decide
spontaneously, mischievously, to question the unquestioning routines and laws,
then conclude that they are simply set for my own good.

But today the dirt covered the public loudspeakers and birdsong drowned out modest
        unmusicals
My attire was dyed red. Red, like the single unmatching sock you were wearing- appalling.
Gray was vandalized by red, and entered my blond locks of perfection, curling them.

You walked into the door and held out your bucket of ingenious plotlines to me.
Everyone else, even those men in blue suits and red ties wanted a glimpse, that half of their
        redefinitions.
You stood in your glittering blue eyeshadow, your unmistakable butterfly dress, your diamond
        medals,
your reinvented melodies, so visibly on my horizons with your ship of novel visions,
each one waiting for us to fulfil.

You did not arrive on Mondays, Mondays that scripted themselves onto my calendars and
        timetables.
You burst through the door on those odd Thursdays and demanded me to set sail with you,
to a future that lives in only the wildest imaginations, to a future still waiting to be graffitied onto
        walls.
Seeing the silvers of oddity from my briefcase, I strikingly, astoundingly, stepped into Thursday.

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