When I wake up it’s always to the sounds of birds. Either the kasvetlikus or cantare. The kasvetlikus sings long and droning songs of grief and loss. Their songs are not complex and sound not unlike the rain but more high pitched. In the infinite rain of this world I awake in they sadden me and make me want to stay alone in my room forever not wanting to talk to another person ever.

  Then there is the bird called cantare: songs of joy. Songs of happiness. They make me feel like entering the world. the world of sunshine. Their songs are complex. Their songs are happy. Much unlike the somber singing of the Kasvetlikus.

  Today I listen to the Kasvetlikus as I am in Yagmur land of rain and sorrow. It is sad and rainy without a sun and without comradery between men. Without happiness. I don’t hate it though it is in balance with the other.

  I walk along the streets of my town. You may find this strange but I walk for no reason. The people of Yagmur certainly find it strange they view me from their windows seeing that I am not going to pick up food or oil the only reason one would leave their home. I walk simply to walk.

  The town I walk through is made up of small houses and large weeping trees. The world is damp so it is muddy so muddy that everyone must watch their step. The trees drip water onto the roads of gravel and mud. These roads are built for little traffic as few want to leave their houses.

  The houses are made of wood and nothing else, no metal, only splinters and logs. The homes are the only light in this world because In this world there is no sun so all light is unnatural. Each house has two windows and a door making them look like faces that stare and judge me.

  One man walks past so I commit a faux pas and ask. “Hey, how are you doing?”

  “Huh, I’m umm doing well.” says the man fiddling with his britches

  “I just think it is an incredibly nice and rainy day.” I say

  “Nice? Isn’t it just as always.” the man says getting nervous

  “But isn’t the rain just beautiful?” I say

  “Sure it is, I gotta get going.”

  I carry two things with me: an umbrella to protect me from the rain and a lamp to see in the constant dark. The lantern shakes as I walk and the umbrella makes a patter sound against the rain. It doesn't make me sad, the rain, it gives me melancholy peace. The rain is noisy but not the loudest thing I have heard.

  It’s time to sleep isn’t it. I need to return to bed. Also, my lamp is running out of oil. So I stop in my tracks carefully to not slip in the mud. I’m quickly distracted by the smell of the rain. A single strong smell something unique to this world.

  As I walk back the kasvetlikus sends a chill across me with it’s song of grief. Does it truly feel sad or is it only a melody with meaning only to the beholder. It feels as if it mocks my joy felt in this world as if I am wrong. I should feel bad, I should feel like I should never pursue happiness and the songs remind me of that.

  I open the door of my house where I pick up some fallen drawings. These drawings are of another world, a sort of way to remind myself of where I will go when I sleep. It is also to remind myself that I do not need to feel sad that there's another place I can go.

  I lay in bed and put my blanket on me. The blanket it’s warm. My body heats up as the world fades from blue to black then awakes to the yellow of Lumen. The cantare sings as birds like to do its song of joy. A song of many notes. The song is one of the most complex sounds one can hear.

  In Lumen the sun dances. It looks down at the world with its eyes. Its hands sway back and forth. While its feet tap on the horizon. It smiles wide and true. I can stare at the sun all I would like. It does not burn the eyes. The sun welcomes all.

  I wake up next to 30 other people. The other people are friends and family. All people who would accept my strangeness. Because in this world I am strange.

  I get up and walk towards the door. And am greeted by the sound of: cars, planes, music, trains, talking and all other sounds one can imagine.

  One person says to me “wonderful day to you.” with vigor

  I respond, “Yeah.” overwhelmed immediately.

  He says, “Isn’t this town especially happy today?.”

  I say, “It seems about the same as it did yesterday.”

  This is not how one is supposed to respond. One is supposed to return the joy to another. Always to share in the hope and joy of this world. He would never correct me though because that would be taboo.

  This place is louder than it normally is. So I travel to a less loud part of the city. The city is filled with towers. The towers are all filled with people. The people make tons of noise. Things fall from the towers. no one seems to care as they injure passers by. I stay towards the middle of the road. It’s important to stay in the middle to not get hit.

  It’s hot in Lumen, very hot. no plants grow. People collapse because of the heat regularly. No one helps them though. Everyone is trapped in their own worlds.

  I walk and walk across the burning asphalt. Towards a place where the noise is lesser but I don’t know where that is. Everyone across the streets I travel through says hello to me as I walk by. But they speak with confusion walking quickly is uncommon.

  I entered a familiar place, a place where I grew up. I had two childhoods, you see. One childhood here and another in Yagmur. My father from this world still lives here. He lives alone in this tower. The gray tower. I walk up the steps and open the door. There are no closed doors in Lumen.

  My father sits tired. He doesn’t understand the concept but he feels it nonetheless. He’s old. That is what happens to people as they age. So he sits happy in his chair. Unable to walk the streets anymore.

  ”Who is it?” he says.

  “Hi dad.” I say.

  “Huh, is that you my boy!? Finally come home.” he says. He doesn’t look at me, he's finally gone blind. “Come here, let's talk.”

  So I sit while the screeching of Lumen plays in my ears. “I’ve returned.” I say.

  “How is that other world you’ve been talking about?” he says.

  “I haven’t brought that up in years.” I say.

  “But oh when you were a child you used to bring it up all the time. What was it called?” he asks

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  “Yagmur”

  “Right! Yagmur.” he says giddy. “You used to talk about it all the time, Yagmur this Yagmur that.”

  “right.”

  He talked and talked about my childhood as if I was not the one who lived it. Soon I felt sleepy. I yawned.

  “Off to Yagmur?” he says.

  “Yea.”

  “Ya know I hope that place is real because then you get to live twice the life.” he says.

  “Yea yea. Off to bed now” I say.

  I slowly exit the yellow and enter the world of blue. The sound that awaits me is the rain and low growl-like sound of the Kasvetlikus, the bird who mourns.

  I wonder to myself what I should do today. Visiting the other world has given me an idea. I have not visited my other father in a while I suppose. So I should go there.

  I walk the dim, damp, and dark streets towards the home of my father. The way to my fathers home is deeper and darker than the direction I normally walk. The store and the place I walk to walk, are in the other direction.

  This direction I only go to meet my father because there are so few houses. And since other than a lantern the only source of light is the houses this direction can get extremely dark.

  I don’t like thinking about what could lurk in the darkness. I tell myself there is nothing but there is definitely something. Some beast with claws maybe or a snake with the power to turn me to stone. I don’t know what waits for me so I walk fast even though I know there is nothing.

  There is no path in this direction, the way to the old town. It is called the old town because it is where we all grew up. Every time a child leaves their parents to never see them again they move to the new town but the old town will still stand.

  Every generation builds a new town and leaves the old town behind. Leaving the old to die, so the old die leaving a ghost town no one wants to enter. This leads to a serpent of villages constantly slithering forward over the years.

  When I make it to the old town not all the lights in the houses are on. When the lights are out that means the people living there have died. There is no investigation, no doubt either. You keep your lights on to make sure you can find your way back, when you don’t you cannot find your way back so you keep your lights on at all costs.

  I make my way through the familiar mud, the familiar fence and knock on that familiar door. I can hardly make out my own knock from the rain but it should be able to be heard from inside just fine.

  I wait for a moment then the door opens to see my father staring at me. My father looks at me like he has seen a ghost the way he always does. I stare back never knowing how to start a conversation with him.

  “Hello,” he says.

  “Hi,” I say in return.

  “Come in.” he says

  I hang my umbrella and coat and put out my lantern to save oil. He looks at me but says nothing.

  “How has it been going?” I say.

  “How has what been going?” he says.

  “Life you know,” I say

  “Life is as it always is,” he says

  “Don’t you get lonely?”

  “Lonely?” He says. “I don’t understand.”

  “You know, sad, like you could be with people but you're not.” I say

  “I like being with you,” he says “but I don’t understand why I should be with anyone else.”

  “For your health. For fun.” I say “don’t you understand.”

  “You have always said I could be happy. But I’m content.” he says. “Can’t you be happy in Lumen? That place you used to talk about when you still lived with me.”

  “You remember that too huh.” I say “Lumen is something else.”

  “You walked for a long time, have you not?” he says “you may sleep in your bed from childhood.”

  “Yes I think I’ll do that.” I say

  So I exit the world of blue and enter the world of yellow once again but it’s different, the cantare doesn’t sing. The screeching of the city is nothing but a shrill drone in my ears. Maybe because the city is silent but I find that unlikely. I believe it was only quiet in my ears.

  My father is on his chair looking normally except he doesn’t breathe. I get up from the ground and look at him and scream for someone to save him. But nobody comes. The city is loud once again as I listen for a response but no one cares.

  I run into the city. It’s loud. The planes, and screaming towers. Not a single person in those full towers will help me.

  I cry no one cares. I scream no one cares. People in Lumen die all the time from fallen items from the towers.Why doesn’t he? He has lived for so long.

  I pause in the palace and just look forward to all of the people without a care in the world. Had their parents died, did they care? Why did I care?

  Questions lingered in my head when I had this pain in my head making me collapse. The world slowly went red as the light dimed.

  A soft rainlike drone draws me to another world. A world of blue. My father in Yagmur is staring at me.

  He says “are you crying?”

  I feel my face. I am crying. I look down. When I look up my father is embracing me.

  “It’s going to be alright,” he says. “I’m here.”

  “Something terrible must have happened in Lumen.” he says “but I am always here.”

  “No you won't.” I say

  “What?”

  “You're going to die one day.” I say

  “...”

  “Then I’ll have no one.” I say

  “As long as I live you will always have me. I promise you that.”

  It is cold. I never realized how cold Yagmur is. It’s so cold but my father will be there for me as long as he lives. So I guess I’m fine until then.

  After a while I leave through his front door. When he calls to me “are you sure you're okay with returning home?”

  “Yes, I need some alone time.” I say

  He can’t understand. If I told him he wouldn’t be able to wrap his mind around it. to him Lumen is a dream, nothing as real as I feel it is. So I keep what happened to myself despite him.

  As I walk I barely notice the dark. My fear is gone as I return to my Yagmur home.

  I walk in and push the drawings away without a thought and lay in my bed for the next few hours not sleeping. I wonder if I can ever return to Lumen. Is it because I died there or is it because my father was my anchor to that world. What would happen if I die here?

  Soon I sleep and exit the world of blue to enter a world of red. That I have never seen before. The world is empty, just red as far as the eye can see. Soon I see cyan. A massive creature the size of galaxies.

  I look at it and ask “why?”

  It simply stairs back.

  “Why did he die?” I say “I thought that these worlds were fake.” I say “they both seem so unreal” I say “why have you done this to me. Who are you!?”

  “I am a being” it says “that cannot understand you.”

  “What?” I say

  “I have lived in many worlds.”

  “You're like me?”

  His handless arm sways and grabs a galaxy. Before his masked face examines it.

  “I am mind and matter.” it says “You're dreaming, for the first time, it's time for you to wake up.”

  The red turns yellow and I awake on the streets of the city of towers Lumen. It is bright and unknowable but someone I know stands over me. He’s A friend. I have a lot of those in Lumen.

  “You look different, an entirely new look.” he says

  “Huh.” I say

  “You have always been so different.”

  “I have haven’t I”

  “But that is what makes you so great.”

  I giggle “thank you.”

  “I don’t know what is happening with you but it doesn’t look pleasant. Is there anything I can do?”

  “Let’s draw.”

  “Like pictures?”

  “Yes.”

  So we drew pictures. On the asphalt. Nobody tried to stop us. There is nobody to stop us. We painted on the towers. The road. He painted flowers and the sun. I painted weeping trees and small houses. I painted rain and lamps filled with oil.

  Soon I grew tired and went back to my home filled with something, a feeling I didn’t understand.

  Soon I returned to the world of blue. Than to the world of yellow. After a while my fathers death while never leaving me became another part of my weirdness to both worlds. I talked with my other father and friend about it, they didn’t understand in their own ways. But it felt invigorating to get it out.

  I went from world, to world, to world. Unable to stop. But the being the size of the cosmos never returned. But I had other dreams: Dreams of candy, Dreams of dinosaurs, dreams where I, oh you get it. And I never stopped dreaming. This is simply my world now. I am alone but I have people.

  I awaken to the world of blue to a somber drone. I leave my home and knock on the door of a neighbor. There is a long, very long pause. Then he opens the door.

  He looks at me and says “do you need oil?”

  “No”

  “Food?”

  “No”

  “Well what do you want?”

  “I wanna talk.”

  “Alright I guess.”