Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

It’s a common mistake to assume that someone is weak because they are accommodating. If you think this, you might be the type who has no idea how much effort—how much strength—it takes to put up with your nonsense.

Why do we tell stories? They are a universal human experience. Every culture I’ve ever visited, every people I’ve met, every human on every planet in every situation I’ve seen…they all tell stories. Men trapped alone for years tell them to themselves. Ancients leave them painted on the walls. Women whisper them to their babies. Stories explain us. You want to define what makes a human different from an animal? I can do it in one word or a hundred thousand. Sad stories. Exultant stories. Didactic morality tales. Frivolous yarns that, paradoxically, carry too much meaning. We need stories.

Trauma doesn’t decrease with company, but it does grow easier to work through when you know someone else understands.

Never let something trivial, like a sense of humor, get in the way of a good joke.

Art - and all stories are art, even the ones about real people - is about what it does to you.

Everything is useless, intrinsically. Nothing has value unless we grant it that value.

Plus, here’s the thing. A kiss doesn’t need to be good to be valuable. It doesn’t serve any real purpose. It’s valued solely because of the person you share it with. Things only have the value we give to them. And likewise, actions can be worth whatever we decide them to be worth. And so, to these two, that kiss was priceless.

It’s said that everything you eat, even the air you breathe, becomes part of you. The axi that make up the matter you take in come to make up you instead. I, however, find that the moments we take into our souls as memories are far more important than what we eat. We need those moments as surely as the air, and they linger. Potent. Yes, a person is more than their experiences, stacked up like stones. But our best moments are the foundations we use to reach for the sky.

But then again, there’s nothing intrinsically valuable about any kind of art. That’s not me complaining or making light. It’s one of the most wonderful aspects to art—the fact that people decide what is beautiful. We don’t get to decide what is food and what is not. (Yes, exceptions exist. Don’t be pedantic. When you pass those marbles, we’re all going to laugh.) But we absolutely get to decide what counts as art. If Yumi’s people wanted to declare that rock arrangements surpassed painting or sculpture as an artistic creation…well, I personally found it fascinating. The spirits agreed.

Art is about feelings and emotion. It's about letting them escape, so they can be shared. It's about capturing a truth about yourself. Like you're ripping a hole in your chest and exposing your soul.

She remembered days of exhaustion when all she’d wanted was a kind word, a teardrop’s worth of empathy. Choice. She had a choice. 'You don’t have to be like her,' Yumi thought. 'You really don’t.' Such a novel idea, and so much harder to do than she would ever have assumed. Still, Yumi forced out the words. The ones akin to those she always wished she could have heard. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “I know you’re trying. That’s what matters.

Like a man with diarrhea in a sandpaper factory, sometimes all available options are less than ideal.

I only stare," he said. "when I see something too beautiful for my eyes to take in at once.

This was art. Something the machine, however capable in the tech- nical details, could never understand. Because art is, and always has been, about what it does to us. To the one shaping it and the one expe- riencing it.

Don't force people to live up to your dreams of who they might be.

Humans are incredibly malleable. Despite my breadth of experience, I've never stopped being surprised at how durable human beings can be. They can survive in almost any environment. They can recover from debilitating loss. They can be crushed physically, mentally, emotionally- and still ask you how your day is going.

Then she felt ashamed. Because guilt has a great number of friends and keeps their addressses handy for quick summons.

Art doesn't need to be good to be valuable. I've heard it said that art is the truly useless creation - intended for no mechanical purpose. Valued only because of the perception of the people who view it. The thing is, everything is useless, intrinsically. Nothing has value unless we grant it that value. Any object can be worth whatever we decide it to be worth.

She seemed sorry in the same way a tank commander might be apologetic after destroying your house. He might be in the wrong. But he was still in a tank.

(Technically, I was a part owner of that noodle shop. What? Renowned interdimensional storytellers can’t invest in a little real estate now and then?)

The people are the energy of a carnival. Excitement bleeds. It flows like rivers. Ask any carnie, and they’ll agree that there is a frantic current to a carnival. Yes, it’s completely fabricated. So is the electricity that powers a light bulb. Being artificial doesn’t mean it isn’t real—it only means it has a purpose. It’s this power of excitement that carnivals tap, feed upon, exploit. And for all that people call carnivals a scam or a con, they’re nothing of the sort. We go to them to be exploited. That’s part of the charm. While you’re there—among the dizzying overload of lights, chatter, excitement, sticky ground, and thronging people—you feel that there must be more than enough energy to go around. Human exhilaration is a renewable resource. And you can generate it with cheap stuffed animals and fried foods.

But…I always felt like I was standing on the other side of a large glass window. I could see the world passing beyond it, could even pretend I was part of it. But that barrier was still there. Separating me from everyone else.” He looked away. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?

Smiles, like radiation, are made more potent by proximity.

Despite it all, that's still my instinct, she thought, listening to Painter eat. I know I've been lied to. Yet my training holds. It's a depressing fact. Abuse is a more effective form of captivity than a cell will ever be.

Giving someone a jibe, then having them internalize it, felt awful: the conversational equivalent of going for a comedic burp and accidentally inducing yourself to vomit.

In storytelling, we pretend you can read all kinds of things from a furrowed brow or a fleeting expression. This is shorthand for a real phenomenon, but it’s more complex than we pretend. The longer you spend with a person, the more you know them. But beyond the obvious details like learning their favorite foods, we internalize the way that they react. The way that they express worry. For some, it’s the archetypal furrowed brow. For others it’s the way they linger, the way they won’t meet your eyes. It’s more than eyes, more than posture, more than brow. Human beings are bundles of emotion puppeting muscles like a marionette. We emote not only with our bodies, but with our very souls.

Each yoki-hijo trained in an ancient and powerful art. A deliberate, wondrous artistry requiring the full synergy of body and mind. Geological reorganization on the microscale, requiring acute understanding of gravitational equilibrium. In other words, they stacked rocks.

I don’t want to be a girl,” he said. “Oh hush,” Design said, quickly mopping the floor. “I’ve been pretending to be one for years now, so I’m an authority—and it’s really quite nice. Except for the sexism. But it’s hard to blame that on being a woman instead of on, you know, morons.

We shouldn’t be so afraid of showing inexperience. Cynicism isn’t interesting; it is often no more than a mask we place over tedium.