This is ridiculous. How much farther are you going to go while doing nothing worthy of praise? Doesn’t it all feel like cinema, like watching your own life in a theatre- to some extent even feeling like you’re reading the developers code in your video game due to a bug. Generally speaking, everyone is crazy. But wouldn’t you rather be known for doing something, be it crazy or not, rather than wasting your life trapped in the cycle of being unremarkable? Escape the order, Akito. Do something right for once.

Now I sit here with this boxed slice of cheesecake on my lap. My favourite, but I can’t seem to bring myself to peel back the tape and taste the soft comforting cream cheese dance over my tongue. I just can’t- it isn’t even mine. I don’t know where it came from. Today was supposed to be like any other day- my timetable was filled to the brim with studying, practicing my singing skills for that competition coming up soon and most importantly, wallowing in self-pity. So, imagine my surprise when I find a small box that I recognize almost at once on the kitchen island- cheesecake. Frankly, I couldn’t care less whether the person who left it had broken into my house; there wasn’t anything worth stealing here anyway. I was more concerned that someone actually left it for me. The note written on it addressed an ‘Akito’ – but last I checked, I don’t know any Akito’s other than me living in this apartment- making me scratch my head, fumbling for answers once more.

Cheesecake is comforting- something that my mother whipped up for me as a child and now I eat whenever I feel down, which is more than I’d like to admit. So, I weigh my options. Cheesecake to gain, nothing of higher value to lose… I slip my nail under the corner of the clear tape and quickly yank it out, somehow managing a clean tear. The tape sensed that I wasn’t in the mood for its nonsense apparently, or the heavens really want me to eat this cheesecake. 

No time for spoons. I pick up the cheesecake with my hand and nibble the corner tentatively. I wait for something to happen – maybe it’s baked with poison, maybe I get a heart attack from it, maybe it’s moldy, or worse, it tastes bad – but none of that happens. It’s a really good cheesecake, if I’m allowed to be the judge of one. If this is truly laced with poison, I wouldn’t mind it being my last meal. Yet, a voice in the back of my mind kept tolling like a bell. Why the ominous note? Something here is fishy and it isn’t the cheesecake. Well, I’m not about to waste a perfectly wonderful cheesecake. Hence, like every logical being would do, I went in for the second bite – this time a huge chomp.

The first bite tastes like heaven, the second one takes you there, I’ve heard them say. When I feel the crumbly biscuit crust combined with the smooth cheese hit my tongue, I feel like I’ve tumbled through the astral plane. This is it, hmm? My death by cheesecake. I’m sure my friends would have such a laugh at it too. I’m blinded by these lights, and then it all stops. Before I can process what’s happening, whatever furniture I had been sitting on this entire time vanishes and I land flat on the ground.

I blink a few times to get adjusted to the natural sunlight. Wait, wasn’t I in my apartment, sitting on my couch?  I whip my head left and right, trying to get a feel of my surroundings. I was no longer in the air-conditioned comfort, evidently, by how I had immediately started perspiring under the sun. A barren wasteland was where I sat. Is this hell? I wondered aloud. I couldn’t see anything remarkable. Was this the meaning of escape? That cheesecake must have been laced with such a powerful drug- I can’t even fathom this being a dream. It all feels much too real, the dry breeze against my face and the hot sand on the ground. If I stay here, I’ll either go bananas or die of heatstroke – presuming any of this is real in the first place. Or I could also die of possessing absolutely nothing. No food, no water, and seemingly nobody around me too. Seriously, what’s with me and my insanely bad decision-making skills? Cheesecake taking precedence over the possibility of – whatever this was- happening to me?

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh. There was no way I could’ve known this might have happened… I’m not dying like this. I’m not dying. Not today. I’ve still got friends that care about me. I need to be there for my sister. Her art installation is next week. All of them combined are more important than these thoughts that tell me that I should give up. I need to find an escape from this nightmare. I need to snap out of it.

I push myself onto my feet and dust my clothes. My trademark hoodie isn’t exactly ideal for this weather, so I pull it off over my head and start jogging aimlessly. There’s bound to be someone somewhere, right? At the very least, I’m fit enough to run if I need to. The breath control from my singing and running practice. Maybe my refusal to give up even while having zero talent worked to my advantage, but I suddenly feel a presence behind me. I whipped around in an instant, dropping into some weird, improvised karate stance.

Haha, improvised… I never actually continued sports after quitting football when my teammate reprimanded me for my lack of commitment. Well, he was right. I had immense talent, but none of that could make up for the fact that I didn’t actually care about the sport. I was just fishing for compliments, with no actual passion behind it. That’s why I took up singing. I wanted to move people with my voice, to make them feel hyped up because I was hyped up. I was passionate, but I had absolutely no talent. I could practice day and night, yet I’d just sound average when singing alongside my crew. I pretended I didn’t care, didn’t notice the way everyone gawked at Kohane when she improved her singing overnight, the way An could make lifeless melodies sound whatever emotion she wanted it to sound just by changing her voice a tad, the way Toya’s perfect pitch managed to pull out every tiny mistake any of us made and proceed to immediately correct it. The best compliment I ever received was, “Your voice makes me feel a deeper meaning to the lyrics- it gives the song a sense of purpose.” I appreciated that compliment so much, I truly cherished it, yet… wasn’t that the basic that any singer should be able to do? After my years of effort, even though I had so much more experience than my teammates, it amounted to nothing. I was in suspended animation, and I really couldn’t find any way to escape.

I stare blankly at the presence that I had felt. It was a person, but something was… off. That was when the realization hit me like a sandstorm. That was me. I was the person that I was looking at, but I looked different. I had longer hair and was dressed in a brick red tunic of some sort, and had a bandana to keep the hair out of my face. I couldn’t recognize the emotion that flashed across my face; I couldn’t even understand that it was me. My – his – face contorted into something that I vaguely discerned as concern. He opens his mouth to say something, but decides against it. He simply motions towards himself and starts walking away, as if he wanted me to follow him.

What kind of drug was in that cheesecake?

I have nothing better to do… I’ll follow him. It’d be interesting to see how he is. My feet start dragging, one after another, subconsciously as I revert myself to my thoughts. Should I ask him something? No, he’s clearly stopping himself from telling me whatever it is. Knowing how I am, straightforward, I wouldn’t drag anything along like this unless it was important. We walk for a while, and I couldn’t hear anything other than the crunch of his boots and my sneakers against the red sand till he abruptly stops and seats himself on a red rock. He looks ahead blankly, while I seat myself on a rock in front of him, trying to make sense of everything. There are a few yellow flowers blooming from the cracks in the red rocks. Those are my favourite, but I don’t know why. I don’t even know their name. I feel something refreshing, vital when I see them.

“You do know that yellow dandelions like these symbolize perseverance and the sun’s power, right?” He speaks up. His voice is much deeper than mine, but softer around the edges even though it’s clear that it’s worn from unuse. I nod, but it comes off more as a bobblehead-like wobble. He was still looking ahead, so I didn’t know if he’d noticed my nod. He continues talking before I can mumble. “You have any idea what caused you to have your bounce?” He shifts his gaze towards me, “You escaped for a reason, didn’t you?” I would answer if I knew what he was talking about, but instead I raised my eyebrows. Sweat started beading up on my forehead, I didn’t know how much longer I could take the heat.

He laughed, and it was a hearty one, like he was content with what he had, like it came from the bottom of his heart. I can’t remember when I last laughed like that. “Look here. When I had my bounce, I was at my lowest. I wanted to disappear, because I felt like I was never enough. Then, I, or well he, I could even say you, talked to me. It was like talking to a younger me- The one filled with hopes and dreams about the future. I don’t know if I can ever do something like that for someone, but if I do, it starts with me, doesn’t it?” He grinned at me. No way that’s how ridiculous I looked when I smiled, but I feel different when he talks to me. It felt refreshing, I felt like I didn’t need to keep running a marathon with a huge weight on my shoulders, like escape was unnecessary. “No matter how much you try, you’re never going to be enough for someone out there, but whatever you do, don’t let that someone be yourself. Your team has your back. Your sister does. Your songs are worth singing, and they bring hope to people who’ve never experienced hope. Don’t let those few who think you’re miserable… make you miserable, you know?”

I nodded along to whatever he said, ingesting it like the cheesecake that was probably halfway through my digestive tract by now. I know they care, and maybe I care about that a little too much. Maybe always trying to escape my cold-coloured life wasn’t the solution… to a problem… that never actually existed. “I don’t know and can’t control what you do after this, but I hope you’re happy with your decision, as I am now… goodbye, Akito.” And with that, he stood up and walked away.

I need to get back home- but he wasn’t telling me how? What was I expected to do? I have all this fire burning in me, fuel igniting, encouragement from myself, but what use is that if I’m stuck in an alternate universe? Maybe I need to spread hope here too. I might be desperate, but one thing I know for sure is that singing makes me feel warm, from others’ joy. Even if there wasn’t anyone here, I’ll try to be heard.

I open my mouth. I start singing. The lyrics to the song I wrote come to me naturally, Cinema. I smile, knowing that my friends were right beside me when I first wrote that song, and that they still have my back now. Right as I finish up the final chorus, I hear a soft pop behind me. I spun around for the second time that day, wondering what it could be now. 

A half-eaten cheesecake, in opened plastic packaging lay behind me on the ground. I’ve seen enough- this cheesecake is my ticket home, and I’m going to seize this opportunity. I dust my hands on my track pants and pick up the dessert before cramming the whole thing in my mouth. For a brief moment I wonder whether I should have visited the other realities, or reincarnations, of me. Either way, it’s too late. I let myself relax when the bright white light flashes before me.

I’m seated on my sofa, back at home. I pick up my phone in a swift, robotic motion, and my thumb slams the send button on a text without my brain actually processing what I was doing. “hey, wanna grab a cheesecake later?”