a mist desert,

with a vapor ground in awful shades of sweet pastels in constant motion, a slow motion, but whirring, like a restless fan.

some spans of the surface, camouflaged in the pale gradients of viscous matter, were fluid, and exploded on occasion with inverse geysers that rocketed deep into a layer below.

golden stone monoliths thrust upwards through the odd buzzing ground, a brief and elegant relief in the discomfort of floating and wading through that thick bubblegum floor. i lunged for a solid, safe rock, warm and inviting with its bronze sheen and stationary positioning, organic and familiar in the sea of tumultuous pink ambiguity. it was slippery. and it reacted to my touch by letting out a groan—two groans.. three? hundreds, now! i looked to the top and thick black cables swayed leisurely, almost mockingly, attached to faces in the top of the rock. many faces. trapped as it would seem, in vexed side profiles. their mouths didn’t open, i doubted that they could, but they cried their laments, a counter-melody to that relentless humming arpeggio, the whole dreamscape coming alive with noise and dislike for the intruder that made herself known.

mouth-clouds slid down the wire that held them in the sky like laundry on a clothes line, opening their lips and closing them silently, warning me and lip-synching to the background symphony of leave now, the volume of which was becoming unbearable. they were finding me, converging at the spot directly above my head.

i felt a soft, moist slap on my wrist, the texture of which resembled wet cloth; limp and a little warm. to my right was a creature of unsettling symmetry, a head on either side, reflective and shining as it waded effortlessly towards me. it looked up with the closer head and seemed to say something. it was a siamese snail and i think it was asking me a question.

watercolor and ink on tracing paper, layered at angles over canvas paper