blue wallflower

Chapters

Task 2: listen to a tree
Task 3: draw a blue whale
Task 6: go back
Task 7: Singing Tree Fantasy
Task 8: find the dark
Task 10: my only friend is me
Task 1: write a list
Task 4: write a love poem
Task 5: cut your shackles
Task 9: and wait

Task 2: listen to a tree

The next task I want you to do is to go the forest.

Go to the forest, and find a large tree. The largest, oldest, and healthiest tree in the whole forest. Stand with your back against the tree, so that your shadow is completely obscured by the wise old shadow of the big tree.

It is crucial that the tree’s shadow is large enough to obscure your own shadow. You cannot see your own shadow. If you have a shadow, then you exist. You cannot exist.

You must become the tree’s shadow.

It must be a tree. No other shadow will do. Most people and things do not talk to their shadows. They look at them, sometimes stomp on them, out of curiosity. And that’s about it.

Trees, unlike others, talk to their shadow. Other plants too, but their shadows are not large enough for you to fit under.

Press your back firmly against the rough tree bark, and listen. Listen to the leaves move, instructing the shadow to move in perfect sync with the wind. Scratch your fingernail against the bark, and hear the tree growl at you, telling you to stop.

If you listen long enough, you can almost fool yourself that the tree is singing a song to you. That the friction of rustling leaves create a melody. Try to hum the approximate melody that the tree is singing. Your approximation will never be correct. Because your ears are imperfect. Since they are imperfect, they only hear a flawed version of the true melody.

In some other world, your ears are perfect, and you can hear the tree perfectly. You will need to find that other world soon.

But not yet.

Locate the lowest branch on the tree. Estimate how much weight it could hold. When the wind comes, listen if you hear slight creaking coming from that branch. You will need to determine if the branch will support your entire weight.

If the branch creaks a lot, the branch is telling you to go away. It’s telling you to rethink. It’s telling you to reconsider. It’s telling you to stop doing the only one thing that you’ve been 100 percent sure of in your whole damn life.

And you don’t want anyone to tell you to reconsider.

Find the closest branch that you are certain will support your entire weight. Take a picture of that branch and send it to me.

Author's Note

Task 3: draw a blue whale

Next, I want you to draw a picture of a blue whale.

When you’ve finished, take a picture of it and send it to me.

It doesn’t have to be fancy. This isn’t an art assignment. You can draw it with pencil, pen, watercolor pencil, even Copic markers. It doesn’t have to be to scale. It doesn’t even have to be blue. I’m not even sure if a blue whale is blue or not. I haven’t actually seen one before. I went on a whale watching trip when I was nine, with my parents. It was one of those cheap one-hour whale watching trips that they advertise on billboards at the docks.

I asked Mommy if the blue whale would ever come pass by our boat. She probably didn’t want me to feel discouraged, so she said, “Of course, honey. The blue whale will come. And when it comes, it will say hi to you by spraying a huge jet of water from the hole on top of its head.”

I really wanted the blue whale to come. The blue whale is so much bigger than a human. In fact, did you know that one blue whale weights as much as 1000 adult humans? So I figured, if one blue whale comes to me, that’s like 1000 people coming to me and talking to me. That’s like having 1000 friends. And that’s more friends than even the most popular kid in school. And then for the first time I’d be the most popular person in whole school. (I was nine.)

So I leaned over the edge of the railing on the boat deck, waving and shouting “Hi Blue Whale! Hi Blue Whale!” to the water. And the water did not respond. I accidentally leaned so far forward that I tipped over, and I fell overboard.

And suddenly I felt a sharp wave of coldness pass through me as I hit the water.

There was blue all around me. Clear, still blue. From the top, the water looked like it had a lot of waves, but inside the water, it’s still. And blue. A soft gradient of blue, merging into black. It was actually very beautiful.

My whole body was cold and numb. I could feel myself sinking deeper. The air escaping from me. I could feel myself dying. Yet I was calm. The endless blue water talked to me. And it forced me to shut up to listen to it.

It was intoxicatingly beautiful.

I was saved from the water. I remember feeling something heavy pushing me up and out of the water. I was pushed up, up, up, back into the light. My reflexes taught me how breathe once my head reached the surface.

When I was safely on the boat deck, Mommy and the paramedics came rushing to me with a towel and hot drinks. The paramedics asked me a bunch of questions, and hooked me up to some beeping machines to make sure I was just fine. Noisy. I remember it being very noisy.

And Mommy said, “Don’t worry honey, you’re just fine. You’re out of the water now. The blue whale saved you. The blue whale saved you.”

“Why did the blue whale save me?” I remember I asked.

“Because the blue whale didn’t want you to go,” Mommy replied. “You’re so young, honey. It’s not time for you to go yet.”

“Does the blue whale save everyone?”

“Well of course, honey. The blue whale is an all-knowing spirit. She knows your every move. We are all children of the blue whale. She sees our past, present, and future. And the blue whale knows whenever one of her children are in danger. And so she comes to save you.”

So, from then on, I loved the blue whale. Even though I never saw the blue whale save me—I only felt her—but I loved her. The water was very pretty, I loved the water too, but I loved the blue whale more.

I was nine then, and that was the last time I ever went on a boat again. What if I had gone on that whale watching trip when I was older? Say, ten? Or thirteen? Would I have loved the water more? At what point would I have loved the water more than the blue whale?

Regardless, I still love the blue whale enough to enjoy cute pictures of her. So that’s why I want you to send me a picture of a blue whale.

P.S. Please do not draw more than one blue whale. There is a law of diminishing returns. Once, I lay on my tummy amongst a million identical blades of grass at a country club golf course, and I was so lonely that I bawled my eyes out.

Author's Note

Task 6: go back

I want you to go back to the forest, during a cold, grey, rainy winter day. Wear the cute outfit that you always wished that your crush would admire. Smile in front of the mirror. There’s absolutely no reason why you should be smiling, but smile anyway.

Return to the big tree that you once stood under. Take with you a rope, a piece of paper, a pencil, and a ladder. Locate the branch that you had determined will support your weight.

Do not kill yourself. You will not be able to. The branch is too high and your ladder is too short. You are too short. You are too damn short. You are so damn short that every shadow swallows you up in its big, gaping, dark mouth.

The sun is setting. The biggest shadow of all emerges.

This shadow is completely silent.

Do not write a note. It will be too cold for you to feel your fingers.

Jump off the top of the ladder, without hanging yourself. It’s only a five foot drop onto soft ground, but you’re so damn short. You might almost sprain your ankle. Sink your body into the leaf litter. Grab a leaf. Crumple the leaf. The leaf is dead. The leaf is a corpse. You are lying amongst a field of a million corpses that have snapped off and fallen off the branch.

You should be so lucky. You should be so damn lucky to be the sole survivor.

Scream.

Scream as loud as you can while there is still a blue tint all around you. Everything is blue water.

You are underwater. And yet, you are breathing just fine. You are just fine. You are just fine. You are just fi—

SCREAM.

Kick the blue ladder. Kick the blue tree as hard as you can. Kick the blue branch because it snapped and fell only an inch from your head. Kick the blue ground that must be the calloused body of a giant blue whale pushing you up.

Curse at the whale.

Curse at the whale, like the sinner you are.

Beg the whale for forgiveness and salvation.

You know, I made up the whole story about the blue whale.

There’s no blue whale that comes to save you. It’s never that obvious. If the thing that will save us from the darkness were so obvious and superhumanly large, we would all worship the blue whale.

We don’t all worship the blue whale.

So I don’t know why I even told you that story. I just kind of felt like telling you it.

You do not need to send anything to me for this task. I trust that you will do this.

Task 7: Singing Tree Fantasy

In the morning, go and talk to your crush.

Do not look her in the eye. Meet her in the bathroom. Stand at the sink to the left of her, and look at her through the sink mirror next to you. Ask her what she did last night. When she asks you what you did last night, talk to her about singing trees, with no context. Speak as incoherently as possible. Do not respond when she laughs and jokingly calls you weird. Do not retreat into the cocoon of the shadows when you see her walk away giggling and chatting away with her friends.

Exchange phone numbers with your crush, on a pretext of your choice. Save it under the letter “S”, or whatever letter the name of your crush starts with.

Go back to the locker of your crush. Undo the combination lock, and search for the love poem that you wrote her. You will not find it. Either you will not find it, or it will be sitting torn and faded next to a moldy banana.

Resign from the yearbook committee, so that you will never see your crush again.

Return to the forest, and stand inside the big tree’s shadow. By now you should have been visiting the tree many times. You should be visiting the big tree at least daily, if I have not mentioned this before. Each time, listen to the tree as it speaks to its shadow. Make a note of any patterns in the sound, or any unusual sounds, such as an acorn falling and bouncing on an exposed root on the ground.

By now, you should be familiar enough with the tree’s talking that you’ll be able to make a reasonable approximation of the melody that the tree is trying to sing to you. Write down your approximation on a piece of paper, take a picture of it, and send it to me.

Now, on the back of the paper, draw a picture of you and your crush standing under the beautiful singing tree. The both of you are standing under the shadow of a single tree, so you will have to stand very close to one another. Draw your best guess of what your crush looks like. Once again, it doesn’t have to be an art project.

You do not have to send me this drawing. Keep it in your treasure chest, get it printed on a pendant, or put it up on your bedroom wall, so every morning you can imagine the possibility of the two of you being together. If you are a talented artist with “X-ray vision”, you may masturbate to this picture if you wish.

But not yet. Now, press against the bark of the tree, so hard, until a bruise forms at the bone of your spine. Listen to the tree. Listen hard. It will not sing anymore. It will scold you. It will scold you for ruining everything. You had your chance to impress your crush. And you ruined it with your stupid, dorky self.

In another reality, you wouldn’t have ruined it. And by 4 o’clock today, you would have going out together on your first date. Walking through the woods to the parking lot, hand in hand, pausing under the shadow of the big tree. Gazing skyward, listening to the choir of leaves serenade the happy couple. Can you hear it? Can you feel it? Close your eyes. Gently march in place, grab your left hand with your right hand.

Yes. You can feel it. You can feel it all.

That is what would have happened, in that reality that you drew on the paper.

The “Singing Tree Reality.”

The “Singing Tr—

Open your eyes and wipe that stupid grin off your face and cut yourself with the edge of the paper.

Now, you will sob for 6 hours straight. Sob so loudly, you cannot hear the tree scolding you. You, the shadow of the tree. Continue sobbing for 6 hours, even though all you were doing was fantasizing, you did nothing illegal, you did nothing immoral, you did nothing harmful, you did nothing—

—you did nothing.

Sob about nothing for 6 hours.

Author's Note

Task 8: find the dark

Wake up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet. Between the hours of 1am and 4am will suffice.

Do not turn on the light. Your eyes will not adjust to the bright light.

Stumble over to the bathroom. You are very groggy, but you have to use the bathroom. You cannot hold it in.

Remember to wash your hands. See the faint silhouette of yourself in the barely illuminated sink mirror. Now fall asleep while standing up. Enter a dream. Watch the silhouette melt. Watch it reform into the shape of a big tree. You are in the shape in a tree. You have become the tree. Your clothes are bark. Your torso completely ossified. You are frozen. Rooted. Trapped. You cannot break free.

Wake up on the bathroom floor. Your head hurts.

Stand up. Wash your face. Wake up. Wake up. Turn on the cold tap. It’s cold. But not cold enough.

Wake up. Even if you don’t want to wake up. Wake up to save your life. Wake up to save the life you yourself said isn’t worth saving.

Doubt yourself. Run two laps around the house. Even better, crawl so that your knees abrade against the carpet. Do not turn on the light.

Find the light. Find the light.

Do not find the light. You will never find the light, so do not try.

Find the dark. You have to try to find the dark. For some reason, being alive is somehow still the default when being alive is the most painful.

You do not have to try to live for you to live. But you must try to die before you will die.

Crawl to your desk. In the darkness, list all of your successes on half of an index card. Write as fast as you can. You can omit as many successes as you want. It can even be totally illegible. You already disregard all your successes and augment your failures. So why bother to remind yourself of them?

Take a picture of the list and send it to me.

Author's Note

Task 10: my only friend is me

You have completed all the tasks.

Congratulations. You have experienced everything I have experienced. You have felt everything I have felt.

You are the only who understands me.

You could even say you are now me. In every possible way.

So won’t me join me?

My shadow will fit perfectly next to mine.

Come and join me.

Underneath the shadow of the Singing Tree.

Author's Note

my only friend is me.

this was catharsis writing. may delete this story later. i'm sorry.

Task 1: write a list

The first task that I want you to do is to write a list of all the things you have failed at.

Don’t worry if you cannot write. I cannot write either. I just write the things that good writers write.

Writing a list is not difficult. It is very easy. Just get a piece of paper, or a computer if you wish. And start writing. Every single failure. Write it all down. Write it in the present tense. If you’re not sure if it’s a failure, it probably is.

Start with the most embarrassing failure, and work your way down. If while you’re writing you think of an even more embarrassing failure, just add an asterisk at the top. Put whatever title you like. For example, if I were writing the list, the title could be “I, Wallflower Blush, will always fail at…” or “I, Wallflower Blush, will never be good enough at…”

Now proofread it carefully. Dot every i, cross every t. Add a professional header if you want. Write this like it’s the most important paper that you’ve ever written.

Now, take a picture or screenshot of the list, and send it to me.

Once you’ve done that, print it out, if you are working on a computer. Crumple up the paper with all your past failures on it, and toss it into a fire. Get up from your chair, stand up, tall and proud, chest out.

And look away from the fire.

They don’t exist. Your failures don’t exist. Nobody remembers your failures. If nobody remembers your successes, how do you expect anybody to remember your failures?

Now go to bed, and spend three hours after midnight tossing and turning in the dark.

Thinking about things that don’t even exist.

Author's Note

Task 4: write a love poem

Next, I want you to go into your crush’s locker.

In the unlikely case you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, they do not count as your crush. You have never talked to your crush. You may have never even established eye contact with them. Your crush is oblivious to your attraction to them. You do not confess to your crush because even if you did, they would probably dismiss you.

They can comprehend the words you say, but they do not hear you. They do not see you. They do not feel you.

Remember, you do not exist.

Go to their locker. You will need to crack their combination. Spend at least 7 hours of a Sunday evening learning how to pick a combination lock on YouTube, instead of doing homework.

You spend 7 hours because the 7 hours mean something. These are the first 7 hours of your life that have actually meant something.

(If you cannot open the lock, even after 7 hours of YouTube, you may skip the rest of this task and add this to your list of failures.)

Once you have opened your crush’s locker, sift past their schoolbooks, pencil bag, and magical geode. If you see a strange vibrating book with the picture of a red and yellow sun on the cover, do not try to open it. It’s not a diary or anything. It’s not worth the trouble trying to pry it open.

Write your crush a love poem. It can be in prose as well. Even though you do not exist, sometimes the things you make do exist. For example, if you write down a list, counting up all the votes for the yearbook superlatives, and show it to your classmates, they will see the list. But they will not see you.

Without a doubt, people will look at the things you write down and hold up to their faces. But they will almost never seek the person behind them.

You must write the poem in less than five minutes, so write fast. You can write about anything except her magical powers, her biggest meanie status, and her breasts. You are too afraid to comment on her breasts. Even though they are beautiful. They aren’t flat like yours.

Take a picture of the poem and send it to me. Then stuff the note in a nice cranny in the back of the locker and shut the door quietly before your crush comes back.

Author's Note

Task 5: cut your shackles

I want you to cut yourself.

The cut should be far from nonfatal. Accidents and panic can happen the first time, when you are inexperienced. So be careful.

You don’t need a very big cut. A small cut is okay. Even just a paper cut. The intention is what matters.

You have to feel the blade press against you. And make the conscious decision to move one centimeter along that axis. Imagine that as you bleed, your pain and troubles are literally oozing out of your body. Your life is disproportionately full of pain, and this will balance it out. Or, imagine that you are breaking a shackle, binding you. And with each cut, you set yourself free.

Of course the shackle doesn’t exist. They're both stupid fantasies. But it will help you justify why you’re even cutting yourself in the first place.

Prepare as much as you can for the actual event. Sit in a comfortable chair. Set your razor blade nicely on the counter, lining it with a paper towel. Pour yourself a refreshing drink. If you’re not too depressed, you can play your favorite song on a Bluetooth speaker. The one that makes you feel like you actually mean something. The one that motivates you for 3 whole minutes to become the greatest, most relevant person that ever lived.

Do not tell anyone, under any circumstances. You cannot have a pity party. That makes you an attention whore. And Mommy taught you better than to be a whore. Respect Mommy. She is a fine woman. She taught you well. Just like how she taught you well about the blue whale.

Moreover, you do not exist. Even Pinkie Pie will admit that you can't hold a party in honor of someone who doesn't exist.

And you hate parties. You hate them.

So, in short, just keep cutting.

As you cut more and more, you will find the experience becomes more and more mundane. The anticipation prior to the cut will turn from terror to a trembling hand. The thrill of the cut will turn from euphoria to a little pinch that feels weird.

Nonetheless, it is always good to try to make your first experience feel as sacred as possible.

Send me a Youtube video of the song you listened to, if any. I’ll add it to my special playlist.

Author's Note

The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better

Task 9: and wait

On the coldest night of the year, excuse yourself from dinner early. If you live alone, leave behind half a plate of food. You shouldn’t be eating meat anyway.

Go to your room, grab the rope, and a chair. Do a quick Google search on your phone on how to tie a noose. Quickly scroll past the large phone number on the top of your screen, chipping your nail in the process.

Get everything set up. Stand on the stool. Stare at the noose. Do not put your head through it.

Just stand there on the stool.

And wait.

Wait for no reason.

Do not admit that you are afraid. Do not admit that you are nervous.

Stick your hands into the noose, and let your wrists press against the rope while your hands hang limply over the other side.

Spend about an hour standing on the stool, thinking about things that you shouldn’t be thinking about. You will be dying in a few minutes and all you can think about is the weird smell on the sheets that you haven’t washed yet. Or the open notebook on your desk with the last problem on the homework half-finished.

Do not complete the problem. Even if you want to. No, it’s not going to be overdue. It’s not going to be late. Nothing will be late. Nothing will be early. Nothing will be on time. You must understand that. You must understand that.

How are you so normal?

There is no echo in the room. The sound of your voice is soft, and cushioned.

Take your wrists out of the noose. Do not hang yourself. Jump off the stool. Be careful, you might sprain your ankle again, because you’re just too damn short.

Call your crush’s phone number. Put it on speaker. Stare at her name on the screen.

Listen to the dial tone. Maybe she will answer, and come to save you. Or maybe she will not be available.

22 seconds until it switches to voicemail.

Keep listening to the dial tone.

Listen. And wait.

And wait.

Imagine that moment.

And wait.

The two of you together, standing under the shadow of the Singing Tree.

Create the darkness with your eyelids, and try to picture the moment. You will not see it. You will just see a big blotch of color from staring at your bright phone screen for too long. Dully bright.

Orange, like a Sunset. Shimmering. All encompassing.

It kind of looks like a blue whale. If blue whales were orange.

And wait.

And wait,

Author's Note

And wait,