by Angela Liu
Every time I hear the song, I think of killing birds. An explosion of blood and guts, shrapnel tearing through feather-flesh, staining windows and walls.
You’ve heard the song too, right?
“State of Mind” has been #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the past eight months. It blares from every corner of Times Square, every spinning selfie station, every neon pedicab and smoky summer street fair. The lyrics have weaseled their way into every ear canal in the city.
The artist who released the song only goes by a cryptic two-letter name “AK” and never shows their face during sparse public appearances. I can’t find a single photo of their real face online—only a snow-white mask adorned in jewels. Some claim AK isn’t even a real person, that only their rabid fans are real. Those self-proclaimed “AK’s Horsemen,” each member sporting an exclusive members-only black-and-white silicone bracelet with the AK logo, like a Chanel bracelet, except for cults.
The music video for “State of Mind” loops on every New York City subway car and taxi screen, like the second coming of Dr. Zizmor. I watch it for the fiftieth time at my dentist’s office, swimming in the smell of tooth dust and disinfectant, my back flat against the cushioned chair.
“They can’t take it from us. This broken world is ours to destroy.”
The volume is low, barely audible over the drone of the dental drill. On the screen, a young woman walks through a darkening city as the drumbeat rolls in. The volume rises slightly. The woman on the screen is now an old man stumbling through a rubble-laden crater. Bodies litter the leveled city. The volume is still rising.
The dentist puts down the drill and reaches for a scraper. His assistant vacuums water out of my mouth.
On the screen, a lightning bolt slams into a skyscraper. The whole building comes down like a concrete-metal waterfall. A volley of violins and trumpets erupt into the chorus. The woman/old man raises their arms as if in prayer, their whole body bursting into a new red river. The dentist and his assistant’s faces suddenly slice in half, blood pooling down into my open mouth. I choke on a scream.
“Are you okay?”
I blink hard. Once, twice.
The dentist looks concerned, glancing at his assistant. His face is back in one piece again. He repeats his question, his voice muffled by the green surgical mask.
“I’m fine. Do you mind turning off the television?” I ask, loosening my fists.
#
A high school friend was the first one to post the video in the group chat.
>>A coworker won’t shut up about this. What do you guys think?
>>Was this made by AI? The lady’s boobs don’t look real.
>>Shut up creep.
>>Kpop meets Vivaldi meets old school Smashing Pumpkins. What the fuck is this. I love it.
>>YES.
>>This lady looks like Ellie’s mom.
>>Yo, we don’t talk about Ellie’s mom.
I hadn’t seen my mom in years, not since she left, except for whenever her weird videos were recommended on my feed. She’d spent the better part of a decade trying to become a DIY influencer. Make your own authentic Shanghai soup dumplings, how to clean your favorite childhood plush doll so it looks brand new, how to tell the difference between penguin species. She’d had a phase when I was still in high school where she dabbled in feel-good meditation and daily affirmation videos like some tiger mom Mister Rogers.
As a kid, I remember how every night before bed, she’d make me face the bathroom mirror and clap three times.
“Do it as loud as you can! That’ll knock out all the bad, scary thoughts you had during the day, so you’ll have a fresh start tomorrow! Come on, louder than that!”
I wonder if she was already constructing videos in her head by that point.
>>It’s alright.
I typed into the chat, scratching my neck.
I don’t tell anyone that was the first time I felt the itch.
>>Hey, check out this version where they got sad Keanu walking through the city instead.
>>lol, this is mesmerizing
The intrusive thoughts worsened as the song crept into everyone’s playlist. It was like a patch of dead skin on your ankle that you don’t even notice until it becomes unbearable.
Then one day, I found myself crushing ants on the asphalt outside my apartment. They were plumper than the ones you usually see, glossy under the summer sun. One, two, five, ten, twenty. Their dead bodies clung to my sweaty thumb, the survivors scrambling around my sneakers, lugging pieces of hot dog and popcorn.
Run, little friends, run.
By the time the song was playing in every supermarket, every subway, every hair salon, every little kid’s foam-covered iPad, the itch had become unscratchable. I was watching the birds in the window the way I imagine cats do. Even when I tried to sleep at night, the song’s chords flared up in my mind when I closed my eyes, lighting up all the wrong parts of my brain like a heat map.
>>Hey, do you guys ever think of killing birds?
I typed and then erased without sending.
#
“There are certain chords that can trigger deeply repressed behaviors, like pulling off the chains on the brain’s id.”
The YouTuber looks like they’re still in high school, but I’m listening to their videos like they’ve got a Ph.D. in psychology. Analyses of Vivaldi’s theme repetitions and how they reconfigure the brain, the strange magic of the Twin Peaks theme song and its ability to elicit a nostalgic reaction even from people who have never seen the show. My mother used to watch documentaries on cursed places around the world, ghost hunters putting on special headgear to “hear” the voices of the dead.
“What’s an EMF meter?” I’d ask, curled up next to her on the couch, spooning a Danimals yogurt cup.
“Want one for Christmas?” she’d smile. “We can go Christmas ghost-hunting then.”
The truth is, I never did well in school, but I always liked watching educational videos with my mother. While my classmates liked dragging their parents to water parks or shopping malls, my fondest childhood memories were on the couch with my mother, thousands of videos at our fingertips like an endless buffet of secrets from every corner of the world, all activated with the magic words, what should we watch next? There’s something enthralling about finding a new fact or way of doing something—like stumbling into a new room in your house you never knew was there.
It's 1 AM and I’m still scrolling through the videos like an addict browsing for my next hit.
Who is the real AK?
I wait five minutes for the video to load, but the cursor just keeps spinning. I stare at the vague outline of my own face in the too-bright screen, overlaid on the close-up of AK’s white mask in the thumbnail. “State of Mind” rumbles to life in my mind’s ear like a car revving up. My skin begins to peel, strip by wet strip, creamy fat down to the bone. Who am I really, underneath all of this?
I clap loudly, oxygen filling my lungs again. I shut off the laptop. Time to go to sleep.
#
>>Hey, so what does your dad do?
After the neighborhood gossips spread the news of my mother’s abandonment, everyone was suddenly curious about my father. How did he take it? My grandma said she saw him just staring at the wall at the supermarket. Is he okay? What kind of work does he do? Are you guys close?
>>lol, we don’t talk about that
The truth is, a few months after my mother moved out of the house and started her new life as a wannabe YouTube star, my father started to change. He took fewer shifts at the post office and spent all his time in the kitchen, newspapers smoothed over the dining table, trying to fix some broken radio or tape player he’d found in someone’s garbage. We’ll need these when the monsters take over everything else. It’ll be the only way for us to communicate with each other.
He wouldn’t stop talking about some song he kept hearing: “There’s one every generation. No one knows where it starts, but soon it worms itself into every commercial, every corner shop and car radio. It plays at graduations and political rallies, baseball games and…” He’d glance up from his work to make sure I was still listening. “Once it gets in your head, it’s too late.”
“What happens then?” I’d ask, peeling the plastic off our TV dinners.
“You’ll do unthinkable things. Things you never thought you were capable of.”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but he started playing my mother’s YouTube videos on the living room speakers. He’d do this for hours at a time—when I struggled through my math homework, as I played video games with my friends, as we ate dinner in silence. Sometimes, he’d raise the volume so much that the neighbors would start knocking angrily on the floor and walls with broomsticks. Make-up tutorials, pop song covers, how-to write confessional poetry, her voice droning in the background all day and night.
Sometimes my father retreated to his bedroom and didn’t come out for days. But even on those rare occasions when nothing was playing, I could still hear my mother’s voice like an overly peppy ghost echoing through the walls: You can learn anything if you put your mind to it! What are you waiting for?
“Can we listen to something else?” I finally asked after a few weeks, unsure if this was just his way of coping with the loss of my mother or he’d simply gotten so used to the sound of the videos that he’d stopped noticing it altogether.
He only shook his head.
“This is the only way I can protect you,” he said. “Don’t you see the monsters outside the window? How they’re rounding up the children?”
I looked out the window: children were playing in the spray of an open fire hydrant, nothing but the nostalgic jingle of a passing ice cream truck.
#
On the R train to work, everyone is wearing a black-and-white wristband. A girl with a Labubu plush clipped to her bag watches a fan-made music video for “State of Mind” featuring cats, giggling into her fist. A salaryman is making a call, the wristband visible under the sleeve of his burgundy blazer as he holds the phone up to his ear.
I feel their eyes on my bare wrists.
I turn on my phone for a distraction, scrolling through my Reddit and Twitter feeds, every post about AK and “State of Mind”:
Keep the streams up everyone!
We’re gonna break five billion! Then ten!
Come on fam, it’s all on us to keep this going! AK’s depending on us!
Who the hell is AK, and what do they want?
When I get to the office, I sip watered-down coffee and make a new fake account on TikTok to post my own “I love AK so much!” on all the official and fan-made videos. I’ve been doing this every morning, like slipping on an enemy’s uniform in hopes of sneaking into their war room. I just need the right word, the right video, the right timing, to get that golden ticket into AK’s official fan club and all its secrets. A wristband of my very own.
I should be more careful, I know. Reality is a slippery slope. Hadn’t I seen my own father descend into a pit of his own creation? They’re trying to kill us, he’d said after waking up from a nap, pointing feverishly out the window. Don’t you see them chopping up the bodies outside? I was too scared to look. By the end, my mother’s videos were playing 24-hours in the house, the only way he would even attempt to sleep at night. This is the only way to keep them from hearing our thoughts.
“Ma’am, you have a phone call.”
My secretary watches me from the doorway, chewing her gum. Can she read my mind?
“Sure, I got it.” I play it cool, pretending to look for a document on my desk.
The old woman shrugs and closes the door.
When I’m sure she can’t hear, I pick up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey, long time no talk.”
The voice sounds like the beginning of a how-to video rather than the woman who’d let me stay up late to watch documentaries with her as a kid.
“Hey…mom,” I say; the word feels uncomfortable in my mouth. “How did you get my contact information?”
“Google does most of the private eye work for me,” she answers. “But all joking aside, how are you? I want to see you. There’s something I want to give you.”
“I’m busy.” Why is she contacting me now?
“You don’t trust me, I get it,” she laughs, which irritates the hell out of me. “But your father would tell you despite all my faults, I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“Dad passed away last January,” I said. I’d sent her an invitation to the funeral, but she never showed up.
“I know.” She hesitates. “I’m sorry. He called me a few weeks before that.”
“To talk about what?”
“Well, you know your dad. He wasn’t so clear-headed by then. He made a lot of accusations. But he also told me to take care of you. To make sure you’d be okay. I’m the only family you have left after all.”
“Yeah, I have a meeting. I need to go.” My hand tightens around the phone, but I can’t bring myself to just hang up.
“Hey, I—. Ok. I’ll be in Columbus Park in Chinatown tonight for an event, if you’re willing to talk.”
I want to tell her off, but my brain flashes briefly to the Fay Da Bakery on Mott Street where she used to buy me coconut pastries on weekends and show me off to all the old ladies there that she’d grown up with. Can you believe how big my little baby’s gotten? Smartest kid in her class, she’d nudge with a grin.
“Sure. Not like you ever have much to say outside of camera, anyway,” I blurt out and quickly hang up the phone, my heart hammering in my chest.
Smooth, real smooth.
I scroll through my feeds again, trying to calm my nerves. What am I upset about? How do I know she isn’t just looking for new video fodder? How to have a heartwarming reunion with your estranged daughter. Anyone can try!
That’s when I see it in the AK Unofficial Fanclub on Facebook:
GET READY FAM!
Free AK Concert TONIGHT at 6PM at Columbus Park.
Free Hibiki whiskey tasting, exclusive wristbands, and a sneak peek at AK’s BRAND NEW SINGLE.
Get your State of Mind READY!!!
Something slams into my window. I don’t even look; I know it’s just another pigeon.
#
“Your mother is still learning how to be a mother,” my father used to say, but I wanted to tell him that she could spend a lifetime learning, and it still wouldn’t help. People don’t change unless they have to. I didn’t hate my mother, but I also knew her flaws were forever and to hope for anything else was to disappoint myself.
The last time I saw her was when she brought me to a fortune teller in Chinatown that she said was an old friend of hers. I was only eleven years old, but I already knew it wasn’t the place to bring a child. With broken escalators and tiny partitioned spaces, it was in one of those back-alley malls the counterfeit bag sellers bring you to where you worry you might not make it out alive for the sake of that $30 fake Louis Vuitton.
The fortune teller was in the basement floor with a smoke machine in the corner that sounded like a lawnmower when switched on.
“Things don’t look good. Not good at all,” the old woman said, fiddling with a fat jade ring on her left hand as she stared at the cards I’d picked. “You’re going to die a horrible death.”
My mother clucked her tongue, frowning deeply, which made the fortune teller laugh and wave a hand dismissively. “But nothing’s ever fixed. Your mother here always believes in second chances. A soul cleaning might clear things right up.” I wasn’t sure if we were talking about imminent death or clogged pores.
The two of them motioned for me to get up. I followed the fortune teller behind another curtain, my mother staying behind. On the other side, there was a dog bed and a covered hole. It looked like a well. Why was there a well in the middle of a building?
“What is that?” I asked.
“Nothing. Look at this.” There was a shelf of vinyl records and cassette tapes. My parents had a similar shelf in the living room—I had vague memories of them listening to music together at night after I’d gone to bed. The older woman pulled out a plastic case with no liner notes or cover, only a year written on a strip of tape on the cassette inside: 2015.
“Play this for an hour every day, for the next year.”
“Next year? What happens then?”
“You’ll feel better.”
I scratched the back of my ear the way my father did when he thought he was getting scammed by a plumber or car mechanic. “Our tape player is broken. My dad says he’ll fix it, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
The old woman snickered as if she knew exactly what I meant. “You can come here and play it then.”
She picked out a few wrapped candies from a glass bowl and offered me one like the aunties at Fay Da.
“I don’t think my mom would agree to that.”
The old woman smiled, unwrapping one of the candies. It was the color of jeweled blood.
“Don’t worry kiddo, your mother just wants you to live longer, so she’d do anything.”
#
Columbus Park is a crowded sea of black-and-white wristbands holding up cardboard signs.
I love you AK!
We came all the way from Texas!
State of Mind saved my life!
All the nearby shops are trying to make the most of the visit. There are “State of Mind” teriyaki chicken combo sets and gyro platters, bubble tea shops with a “limited time” menu that includes blue “State of Mind” sodas to mountain tea topped with gourmet “State of Mind” orange cheese foam. As long as you slap the words “State of Mind” on it, people will pay extra for anything.
The bronze statue of Dr. Sun Yat Sen presides over the crowd like a petrified god. The only time I’ve seen this many people is during the Lunar New Year parade. I can’t see the makeshift stage or even breathe any air that isn’t half-warm from someone else’s mouth. Even the elderly folks who usually play chess or Go in the elevated gazebo have been invaded by clusters of tourists and giddy students. People pack in tighter. Near the open gate, an old man is playing an erhu rendition of the song, his cardboard box stuffed with dollar bills, until a cop shoos him away. People in black trench coats and combat boots bark at the crowd to stay behind the demarcated line.
I buy a “State of Mind” mango sago smoothie and stand next to a retiree couple in matching checker-patterned tracksuits and wristbands. They look like they’re about to see Santa descend in a golden chariot. I take out my phone to record the event so I can analyze the video on a bigger screen later, parse out any clues about who AK is and how they’re planning to—
“Hey, so you’re a fan too?”
I spin around, expecting to see one of the muscled trench coats with a taser, but it’s just a middle-aged woman with a bag big enough to hide a baby golden retriever inside.
My mother looks good. Happy even. The last time we’d come to Chinatown together, we were walking down Mott Street, away from the fortune teller, the cassette in her bag. She’d been so upset over something the old woman had told her on the way out that she snapped at me when I tripped on a crack in the street. What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you ever watch where you’re going? A waitress who’d been taking a smoke break outside came over to see if something was wrong because I was crying so hard as my mother walked away from me.
She packed up her bags a week later and left us. And I never went back to that creepy back-alley mall again.
“Look, I know you’re upset. But I had to do it.” She tries to take my hand, but I step back, bumping into someone with an AK mask on. How many times had I rehearsed in my head how I’d ignore or tell her off if I ever saw her again in person? My vision glitches red as I watch a bird land on Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s head. My mom reaches into her giant bag and pulls out a plastic cassette case. There’s only a single thing written on it: 2025.
“Take this.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” I snap, feeling a vague, unpleasant sense of déjà vu. “Just leave me—”
The lights dim and the whole park explodes with a drumline. I freeze mid-sentence, the air cut from my lungs like a burst balloon.
Scratchy speakers announce AK’s arrival. The crowd goes wild, drowning out my voice.
My mother is saying something, but I can’t hear her over the stomping as people surge forward. Everyone is dancing. “Listening is an act of reverence,” my father had once said, and now watching all these strangers with their arms raised, eyes half-closed, full of inexplicable love, I finally understand what he meant.
AK steps onto the stage in brown leather pants and a feathery red vest, a mask covering their whole face in sharp jewels. They look like some mythical creature, their voice a forbidden instrument:
The end is near. The ships are coming.
But only the true will be able to board.
Open your ears to the drumming
For the end is coming.
A baby is crying inconsolably. My body tilts, sinking into the sound like a pool of red water. I think of that video in the dark, the white mask and the cursor spinning, swallowing me up…
CLAP!
The sound is so loud and clear it startles me back, just like all those times in front of the bathroom mirror. My mother catches me from falling, and I think of all those videos that played on loop in my father’s house. This is the only way I can protect you.
The music crescendos, a volley of trumpets. Everyone is screaming now. My mother sinks to the floor, clutching her head. She’s screaming now too.
AK is looking up at the birds above the gazebo like we’re in a quiet spring field, the jewels on their mask catching sunlight. The itch twitches to life, stronger than anything I’ve ever felt before.
I squeeze through the crowd, past screaming strangers and abandoned food carts, my mother’s clap still resonating in my head like a memory of thunder. The ground is scattered with spilled mango drinks, half-eaten sandwiches, and skewers of sugared fruits. I leap over bags and bodies, narrowly avoid people who try to grab a hold of me, begging for help. The image of the birds pulses at the edges of my vision. Kill or be killed.
I stumble up the backside of the stage, past the speakers and cardboard cut-outs of the New York City skyline. It smells like sawdust and sweat. I grab a hold of AK by the mask and yank hard, the band snapping under my fingers.
A familiar woman’s face grins back at me—it’s the fortune teller, but she looks at least a decade younger.
“So you didn’t listen to the cassette? That’s not a very good girl.” She reaches out and cups my face in her cold and leathery hands. “Not good at all.” She digs her nails in and pain blooms in my cheeks as she starts pulling at the skin. “I told your mother you’d be a liability. She told me she’d make sure you listened to it. I even hand-picked a song that could get rid of you cleanly, calmly. I’d been less generous with your father.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, feeling my whole body go numb, trying not to recall my father pointing, wild-eyed, out the window, Look, the birds are singing. They’ve decided I need to die.
“Witches are not allowed to be mothers. Our children are the equivalent of curses. The only ones we are allowed to keep are the ones who exhibit potential for witchmusic—cursed songs that let us control the humans. It’s our job to guide you, to fix your mistakes afterall. And sometimes that means making you kill each other a little more than usual,” the fortune teller grins.
The backing track of the song grows louder, pushing aside the main melody, the synthesizer worming into my ear, sharp and insistent. My hands squeeze into fists.
“You were supposed to listen to the tape and be gone from this world, leaving your mother untethered, childless again. Instead, she ran away and wasted all her time on those stupid videos, thinking she could save the humans from themselves in her own way. Witchmusic used to teach instead of control—you might as well dump the last of our pride into a shit-filled river.”
She raises the microphone toward me like a knife.
“I should have just dropped you down the well that day like the others.”
The crowd’s screams are in sync with the violin chorus now. I can’t breathe. The music is a scalpel, cutting into my hands, my throat, my eyes.
CLAP!
The fortune teller stumbles back. I see my mother hunched in front of the stage, her hands clasped together, her eyes on me.
Come on, louder than that. I remember her laughing, just the two of us in front of the bathroom mirror. Knock out all the bad, scary thoughts.
CLAP!
My hands sting. I suck in a breath and clap again, harder this time. Hard enough to feel it in my bones. To feel it in my chest and throat. Again and again, until it’s all I can hear, until everything hurts, until the ground is shaking.
“Any parent would tell you that when you fuck something up, you take responsibility for it. You don’t get to act like it never happened. You don’t just wait for someone else to come and clean up the mess,” I say. “So take your half-assed guidance and go to hell.”
CLAP!
A bolt of light streaks down, slamming into the stage and the fortune teller. The speakers explode into a shower of sparks, melting metal and wire, crackles of pure, exhilarating sound.
#
Welcome to the evening news.
At noon today, the mayor declared a state of emergency across all five boroughs.
After dozens were hospitalized with dizziness and headaches after AK’s flash concert at Columbus Park, medical officials suspect a sonic attack of unknown source. As of 12:01 AM tonight, the city-wide ban on “State of Mind” will go into effect. According to Protocol 7.1a, designated for public safety, “State of Mind” has been deemed a public hazard and has been banned from all public spaces until further studies are completed.
AK has not made a public statement about the incident. AK’s Horsemen have been disbanded. A special police force has been assembled for arresting anyone still engaged in the ‘fanclub team mission.’ All official channels have been shut down. All videos are being removed from all social media sites. Officials have asked people to be vigilant.
Early reports suggest a century-old cult engaged in witchcraft and musical hypnosis. Others report seeing a strange light wash over the park—
#
I find the cassette player in my father’s old room. The buttons are a bit sticky, but it surprisingly turns on after all this time. It must have been one of the last things he fixed before the end.
I slot the cassette in and press play.
A delicate humming fills the room, the tape hissing in the background. A familiar song spools out of the old speaker like a mother’s lullaby. I sit on my father’s wooden chair and stare at the ceiling, feeling the tension leave my body for the first time in years. I think of my mother and father listening to music together in the living room, the warm light and rotating stars above me, a memory so long ago that it’s covered in the same fog of a half-forgotten dream.
Then I feel a vibration in my pocket.
>>Hey, did you guys see the news?
>>Yeah, wtf did AK want? Man, I knew that song was fucking weird.
>>My sister was obsessed. She was so pissed when I told her not to go to Chinatown.
My phone buzzes with new messages from the group chat. Everyone’s seen the news. Everyone’s pinging in with their hot takes on witches and why we can’t trust anyone anymore. I want to tell them this was never about mind control or conspiracy theories. I want to drag them to a mirror and tell them to clap until they wake up, until every cell in their body feels like it’s on fire.
“Anything broken deserves a chance to be fixed,” my father used to say to my mother. It used to embarrass me, how he’d pull old electronics and toys from the garbage after they’d been thrown out. But I think now, he was just trying to save them. That even when the world is ugly and broken, it isn’t unfixable.
>>Hey guys, what do you think of this song?
I type and hold my phone up to the tape player to press record.
© Copyright 2025 Angela Liu
About the Author
Angela Liu is a Chinese-American writer/poet based in NYC and Tokyo. She is a two-time Nebula Award and 2025 Astounding Award Finalist. Her work has also been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, Ignyte, and Rhysling Awards. She previously researched mixed reality at Keio University in Japan with a focus on new narrative platforms and tangible interfaces for remote communication. Her stories and poems are published/forthcoming in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and Logic(s), among others. Check out more of her work at liu-angela.com or find her on Twitter/Instagram @liu_angela and on Bluesky @angelaliu.bsky.social.