Everything Everywhere All at Once
Abu Dhabi, February 28, 2026: following the coordinated 2026 Israeli–United States strikes on Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran launched a multiday series of missile and drone airstrikes on the United Arab Emirates.
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Due to the current situation, potential missile threats, Seek immediate shelter in the closest secure building, and to steer away from windows, doors, and open areas. Await for further instructions. (MOI)
NYU Abu Dhabi, March 5, 2026, 12:00 GST
There is a daily tear-away calendar still lying on the table in a college dorm at NYU Abu Dhabi. It’s a souvenir from A24, an independent film distribution company. I got it at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in LA during my January short-term study there. I remember holding it and pacing in front of the cashier because it was 38 dollars.
A film still is printed on every page. I’m supposed to watch the “assigned” films every day, but I couldn’t keep up with the assignment, so the torn pages became my physical “Letterboxd watchlist.”
Alright, this is me being very nerdy on film.
On the page for February 28, 2026, there is a still from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, where the protagonist, Evelyn, has a third eye on her forehead. That third eye has been staring at the ceiling in my empty room ever since, because the calendar wouldn’t fit in my suitcase and had to be left behind. I like to think the third eye is watching over my room.
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We are now welcoming passengers seated in rows 40 to 60 to begin boarding. Please have your boarding passes ready.
Muscat International Airport, March 6, 2026, 21:30 GST
In Taiwan, there is a saying that if you point your finger at the moon, your ears will be cut—a punishment for being rude to the gods and guardians.
There are many tales about the moon in Chinese culture. In the past, poets loved to write about it. There’s something about its reflective surface and changing phases that fascinated those writers. Many of these poems use the moon to carry a sense of longing and nostalgia, such as the famous “Thoughts on a Tranquil Night” by Li Bai:
床前明月光 (A pool of moonlight before my bed,)
疑似地上霜 (like frost upon the ground.)
舉頭望明月 (I lift my head at the bright moon,)
低頭思故鄉 (then lowered it, drowned in homesickness.)
…Or another famous reference from Su Shi’s “Water Song”:
人有悲歡離合 (People experience joy and sorrow, reunion and parting.)
月有陰晴圓缺 (The moon undergoes waxes, wanes, brightness and dimness.)
此事古難全 (Time has proven no solution to changes.)
但願人長久 (May we be granted long lives)
千里共嬋娟 (to share the same moon even miles apart.)
Believe me, much of the elegance is lost in translation. Because I translated it.
The moon is a powerful symbol in East Asian culture. “The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” (Tsuki ga kirei desu ne) is a famous Japanese, indirect expression of “I love you.” We worship the moon in every way—through literature, myth, ritual, and even our calendar, which follows lunar cycles rather than the sun. The sun is too direct, and too exposed. In our culture, the true communication often lies beneath the surface.
It was almost a full moon on March 6, 2026. I was with three friends at Muscat International Airport. It was flooded with people and their questions and their inner roar as they condemned the global leaders who were the cause of all the inconvenience. I clutched my luggage—the one without my calendar—and stared at the runway through the waiting room glass.
I pointed at the moon, and blamed it for watching all the chaos unfold like a bystander.
I wasn’t punished.
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Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We are currently passing through an area of turbulence. For your comfort and safety, please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts. Our cabin crew will temporarily suspend service and be seated until conditions improve. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.
WY817 Boeing 787-9 (Somewhere in the air), March 6, 2026, 23:00 GST
There is a sequence in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” where a montage of all the possibilities of Evelyn’s life plays out like a zoetrope. Every version of who she could have been flashes before her eyes.
The flight from Muscat to Bangkok is six hours. Under normal circumstances, I would have slept the entire way. But I couldn’t close my eyes. Whenever I did—
I saw the faces of my friends.
I heard the birthday song at a party I hadn’t planned yet.
I felt my hands clutching nervously as my thesis film was screened in person in A6 auditorium.
I smelled excitement and confusion mixed in the air at the commencement ceremony.
I saw smoke rising from Mina port.
I heard my phone screaming at me.
I felt the university campus growing lighter day by day.
I tasted the fig and cheese pizza from Marmellata Bakery by Mina port when I went with friends in January.
I felt sand between my toes at Mamsha Beach, as I remember pointing at the sea and telling my friend who visited from home in February that this is the Persian Gulf and Iran is on the other side.
I smelled the pouring rain in Abu Dhabi from my bedroom in Taipei.
—so I decided to review my assignment, and watched “Everything Everywhere All at Once” on my way to Bangkok.
I said “review”, because I’ve already seen the movie. Of course I have.
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請將您的護照放置於感應區進行掃描。(Please place your passport on the scanner.)
請取回您的護照。(Please remove your passport.)
請直視前方鏡頭完成臉部辨識。(Please look at the camera.)
歡迎歸國。(Welcome home.)
My bedroom, March 8, 2026, 1:00 GMT+8
They say the earliest published Chinese science fiction story can be found in the Qing dynasty called “Colony of the Moon”. However, people have been long curious about the metaworld, magic, and supernatural powers. In my high school Chinese textbook, there was a story from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio called “The Taoist of Laoshan.” It tells of a privileged young man who longs for magic but cannot endure hardship. He studies under a Taoist master, hoping to learn how to penetrate walls. But because he lacks patience and his intentions are impure, he ends up learning nothing.
The teacher assigned us a follow-up essay: “If I Could Have One Superpower.”
I’ve been thinking about this question for a long time.
In elementary school, I was obsessed with Harry Potter. I would whisper “Apparition” in my head, imagining myself holding Dumbledore’s hand and arriving at Hogwarts in the blink of an eye.
In middle school, I fell for Jin Yong’s martial arts novels. I would imagine myself in that world battling someone as I jump up and down on my mom’s bed.
By high school, I fell in love with films. In the romance film “About Time”, the male protagonist has the superpower to travel through time and change his past. There’s a scene where he meets his girlfriend’s parents for the first time. He is so nervous that he keeps saying the most inappropriate things. So he rewinds time again and again, until he finally creates the perfect first impression.
I thought this superpower was made for me.
If I could turn back time too,
I wouldn’t have to wait in line and could ride my favorite roller coaster over and over.
I wouldn’t have to hesitate when ordering food and could try everything I want.
I could learn from being careless without losing anything valuable.
I could do a crazy dance in the park and clear every witness’s memory afterwards.
Yes, there is a lake park by my apartment and I’ve imagined it many times.
But even if I really turned back time, to February 28, 2026, what could I possibly do? Even with the superpower there are still so many problems that I cannot fix. I would have been a bystander as well.
I was jet lagged when I reached Taipei. After a series of “welcome home celebrations” and “indirect questions on my mental state” from my parents, I lay in bed, eyes wide open. The moon had climbed its way to the top of the sky. I opened the window to let more light in.
It was 1am and Taipei felt much colder under the cold wave. I smelled cigarettes from the third-floor window. Some high school kids were leaning on their motorcycles and laughing so genuinely. I put on my coat and trainers, sneaked out of the apartment, and jogged to the lake park.
No one was there. Even the ducks were sleeping. It was just me and the moon.
And I danced.
Abigail Chien
Abigail Chien is a Taiwanese writer and filmmaker, and a recent graduate of New York University Abu Dhabi with a degree in Film and New Media. Influenced by her background in screenwriting, her creative work explores memory, displacement, and the emotional residue of lived experience through fragmented and hybrid narrative forms. Her writing often brings together multiple embodied perspectives, investigating what can be expressed through silence, absence, and sensory detail. Abigail is an emerging writer, and this publication marks her first fsubmission to a literary magazine.
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