The man wasn’t hungry, the man wasn’t sad. The man didn’t know what he
wanted, but something ate a little piece out of him in the mornings…and in the
evenings…and every afternoon. Sometimes the man thought that he just needed to go
to the bathroom, or take a little nap. But the toilet water remained still and his eyes
remained open as he lay on the very far right side of his two person bed, and tried to
see animals on his white popcorn ceiling. The man loved his white popcorn ceiling. He
even preferred it to television, because television told him what to see, and he thought
that was very rude. The white popcorn ceiling, however, was much more magnanimous;
it provided endless channels and genres and characters, and could show any film at
any time of day, and he thought that was very beautiful. Sometimes, the man thought about the woman that used to sleep on the left side
of his two person bed. The woman would yell at the man when he tried to see animals
and films and the universe on his white popcorn ceiling, and told him that he was stupid.
Sometimes it hurt, but sometimes, the man just felt sorry for the woman that she wasn’t
able to see all of the beautiful things that danced along his ceiling. But, the man didn’t
like being yelled at, so he would simply close his eyes until she fell asleep, and that’s
when the creatures would come out to play. Thinking about the woman made the hole in
the man’s stomach grow bigger, so he tried to think about other things, like how it was
possible for sets of chairs to all look the exact same, or why some people have bigger
eyebrows than other people, and what is the point of eyebrows anyways? 
The man had a lot of questions like these ones, and thought about them when he
ate his Corn Bran cereal on the east side of his two person kitchen table every morning.
He thought about them as he sat in his gray cubical, staring at the computer screen that
told him what to see. He even thought about them as he stood in his shower, letting the
water run over his face and pretending to be in a dramatic rom-com where the girl runs
to the boy and kisses him in the rain. He thought about small questions, like why the
universe made food that tastes bad, but he also thought about big questions, like why is
there only this limited spectrum of colors? Are there other colors around us everyday
that we just can’t see? The man liked to think so. It made him happy. Sometimes, trying
to see the hidden colors in the sky and in the crinkles around people’s eyes when they
smiled helped the hole in his stomach feel a little bit smaller. Once a week, the man went to a bandaid-colored office to see a therapist named
Marty in order to fix the hole in his stomach. On most days, Marty would just stare at the
man for a long, long time. This would make him uncomfortable, and he would start to
look for his friends on the ceiling; but Marty’s ceiling had too many bumps in it, which
made the man even more uncomfortable. At the end of each session, Marty would give
the man strange advice to further his discomfort, like “Go make some human friends” or
“Take a vacation”. But neither of these things appealed to the man…he didn’t need
more friends because they were all at home, and he didn’t need a vacation because he
had a home. So he went there. And he laid on the very far right side of his bed. And he
asked the creatures in the sky when he would finally stop feeling empty inside. But the
creatures never had an answer, so the man went to sleep. 
 One morning, the man woke up. Of course, he woke up every morning…but, this
particular morning, the man woke up this particular way. He ate his Corn Bran and he
typed on his computer, and he wondered why there was always dirt under his
fingernails, even when he had barely touched anything. On this particular day, however,
the man walked behind a woman with fiery red hair on his way home from work. The
woman’s hair possessed a smell he had never encountered before, and it made him
feel ticklish. He tried to walk as close as possible without stepping on her heels. Except,
after a few blocks, the woman slowed her pace, and the man bumped into her. She
turned around, startled at first, but then smiled warmly. Her rich chocolate eyes
penetrated his, and he almost felt the urge to look away, as he usually did with these
types of encounters. But this time, he liked the way her eyes felt locked on his, and he
fell deeper and deeper into her gaze. The woman said hello. She said her name was
Roxy, and asked what his was. But the man couldn’t answer…he felt too dizzy, too
swirly, too entranced…just simply too. The woman ignored his silence, and asked if he
wanted to walk her home. He managed to eek out a small “yes”, and they made their
way down the street together. As they strolled, the man watched the way Roxy’s feet moved in her big, shiny
red shoes that matched her hair. She walked like she was dancing, and the sound of
her feet hitting the concrete was the music. The man thought this was quite beautiful.
He still said nothing, but listened as Roxy talked about the weather and money and the
tattoo on her lower back. She flashed him the tattoo, and his face grew very hot and
red. The man was embarrassed. The world was fuzzy that night. The charcoal gray of the sky was smudged as if
water had been spilt across it, and someone tried to wipe it off unsuccessfully. The man
saw everything in little pieces. He realized it was the woman that was making the world
spin. The city lights were suddenly Bang Bang Pop and the street was Boom Boom Bop
and he never wanted the thumping in his chest to stop. The woman sent a whistle
through the night and the night did a rapid tango to it. After another couple of blocks, Roxy asked if she could come back to his place.
The man didn’t understand why, but he agreed, and led her through his brown door, up
the gray steps, through a slightly darker brown door, and to his bedroom with his white
popcorn ceiling. He wanted to show the woman the animals and the films and the
universe. So, they laid down on the bed, and he asked her what movie she wanted to
watch. She told him to pick, and he said they should watch the animal kingdom on
mars. So, he told her to stare at the white popcorn ceiling, and to tell him what she saw.
The man’s heart was racing, because he feared that she would laugh or yell at him like
the woman who slept on the left side of his bed used to. But after a moment, Roxy told
him that she saw an extraterrestrial kangaroo smoking a cigarette with an
extraterrestrial rhino. A sudden warmth rushed from the man’s toes all the way up
through his fingertips and to the tallest hair on his head…no one had ever seen things
with him on his white popcorn ceiling. For the first time in a long time, the man didn’t feel
empty. He felt full, he felt so full he was bursting, he felt so full he was overflowing onto
the sheets of his bed. They spent the rest of the night observing alien monkeys on the
ceiling and talking about what life would be like if humans had no necks or if the ground
turned to lava one day. The man watched the lines that formed around the woman’s
mouth when she smiled, and he thought that he was floating. Soon, the man fell asleep,
and he wasn’t even sure what side of the bed he was on. The man awoke a little while later to Roxy’s soft hands shaking him awake. It was
still dark out, and he didn’t understand. She told him to give her the money, because
she had to get to her next job. The man grew more confused, and asked her why she
needed his money. Suddenly, Roxy’s sweet-as-candy voice shifted into a sharp, bitter
one, and she told him he was stupid….which hurt. Seemingly frustrated and annoyed,
Roxy stormed out of the bedroom huffing and puffing. Her feet didn’t dance, and the
hole in the man’s stomach came back. The man didn’t sleep that night, and the next day he didn’t ask questions like,
why really cold things have steam, or why belly-buttons are so cute. He didn’t stare at
his white popcorn ceiling before he went to bed, and he let himself grow hungrier with
nothing. This continued on for a couple of weeks. And then a couple of months. Until one
day, while walking home from work, the man looked up at the sky and saw a woman in
the clouds. The clouds were especially fluffy that day, and he couldn’t help but stop to
enjoy them. The woman in the clouds had hair made of slightly rosier pieces of cloud,
and she gestured to him to come and dance with her. The man smiled, and told the
clouds that he preferred it down on the ground, where he could watch. So he did. He
watched as the woman and the other creatures that started to come out of the sky
danced for him…they moved with such vitality and such certainty, as if they knew the
answers to all of the questions that flooded the man’s head daily. They told him to keep
asking the questions, because they are important. Because they are alive. And soon,
even the man was tapping his feet to the music in the wind, which he was never able to
do while laying on the very right side of his bed staring at his white popcorn
ceiling………….and he thought that was very beautiful.