in the branching overeye the horizon finds trace of those “vocall and sonorous lines in Ecchoes… in woody plantations, by water, and able
to return some words;
if reached
by a pleasant and dividing voice, there may be heard
the loftiest notes in nature” alive in mist where sunholed eyes
see how reflection slips
from the sky in slight movement
water-like lit by the dark of this life the yearning eye finds
refractions
of the horizoned sun
as each hollow surface
Quotatation is from Sir Thomas Browne’s The Garden of Cyrus.
Adam Ray Wagner is a poet raised in Nebraska who is currently residing in Boise after brief stays in Colorado and Maine. Instagram: @adam.or.ray Twitter @adam_or_ray
One month ago, I was told through the death of the Emperor’s son, that we were at war.
I met the British on the beach, and seized their ammunition – the Lethean cannonballs – and ordered them away.
Now, in midsummer heat, watching opium empty into the sea, I cry out my prayer:
Ocean – you who carried such evil men, where we now dispose of this bitter sap – I’m sorry. You don’t deserve such poisons.
Lucas Davis is a 22 year old from Georgia, USA that is currently living in Madrid, Spain. His primary focus in creative works is the history and culture of Tea. YouTube: OddiTeas Twitter: @Oddi_teas
Jordan Hanson lives with her cat Ravioli in Wisconsin. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter @jordanehanson and read her poem “Altar” in the Plant People edition of Plants & Poetry Journal.
do you know, that you are very small? I think not, since you often try to scratch at me, to bite and maul though I am easily ten times your size. do you know that you are very furry? perhaps, since you spend the whole damn day licking yourself. sometimes I worry that you don’t miss me when I’m away. do you know that you are safe? do you know you’re privileged, here this home is a protected place you don’t know hunger, thirst, or fear all this to say, my little cat, whom I adore, you can’t go out there! stop scratching my door!
Ross Creason is several possums in disguise as a tweedy academic, in Instagram as @ross.wanders and twitter @halcyominous.
Fabian was in high spirits as he parked his car at his usual spot under a tree that had grown uncontrollably in the hospital’s parking space. The tree was hanging lower than usual, and Fabian stooped as he got out of his car to avoid its branches.
This needs to be trimmed. He said to himself
No one expected the tree to grow so big; now, it not only towered over the hospital building, its branches were a danger to people’s eyes. However, it provided a much-needed shade for cars, which was necessary considering how sunny it could get in Abuja.
Fabian preferred parking under the tree instead of the parking spots reserved for resident doctors closer to the entrance. He usually had jobs outside the hospital in the afternoon and disliked the heat his car emitted on sunny days when parked in the reserved spot. Fabian didn’t mind walking back to the hospital’s entrance. It gave him time to bring his thoughts together and plan his day before stepping into the main building.
Today was no different.
He crossed his laptop bag over his shoulder, preparing himself for the onslaught of greetings that would come once he walked into the hospital. He felt free and untethered as he walked, looked around the driveway to commit every scene to memory because he wanted to remember this day.
Today, Fabian was ending an essential chapter in his life. It was his last day at Goodwill hospital, and he was glad the day had finally come. Two weeks ago, it felt like time was crawling. His days stretched endlessly, and he worked more hours so the new doctor won’t be stressed with much work during his first week. Fabian also found time to put his affairs with other doctors in order, and he was glad to do so because It would have hung over his head, which he wouldn’t appreciate.
Fabian smiled broadly when he walked into the hospital building and saw the people gathered there to welcome him. He broke into laughter when he saw a banner that read, “We love you, Dr. Fabian, thank you for your service” by the doorway, adorned with balloons, confetti, and arrangements of plastic ornaments.
The gesture was heartwarming, and the cheers, greetings, and well wishes that followed suit made him feel great.
“I will miss you so much,” Adanna said, hugging him tightly to more cheers and applause from the staff. Adanna was another resident doctor, and the staff addressed them as husband and wife because of how close they were, even though Adanna had a fiancée that knocked Fabian out of the park in terms of looks.
Fabian is fair with full eyelashes. He didn’t like his puffy baby smooth face because it looked like his baby cousins that made you want to tug on it and coo. He preferred how he looked when he was in medical school. He had a bit of a structured cheekbones that made some people mistake him for a model. Fabian hated that he had no beards. He felt it would give him a more mature look, so he grew out his mustache and nurtured it as best as he could, hoping it would someday grow bigger.
It did not.
Adanna usually teased him on the days he bragged about his university looks
“I get m before no be property. You can’t look like that anymore; you’re chopping money now, your cheeks have to bear testament,” she would say, ending it with, “but you still look good.”
Adanna was nice, and for that, Fabian didn’t accept her compliment. He has a mirror that works and sees his profound cheeks and increasing weight for what it was. As such, he always avoided standing next to Adanna’s fiancee Ikenna because of how easy he made looking good look.
Ikenna is 5.8 inches tall with zero fat. Clothes sat well on him, and he had beards that always looked moisturized, even on extremely hot days. Ikenna didn’t mind that the hospital roped Fabian and Adanna as husband and wife. You could tell no one else mattered when he was together with Adanna. They had eyes for each other, in a way that made Fabian envious sometimes because of how lacking his love life was.
He and Adanna reveled in the compliment because they admired each other’s work ethics. Fabian couldn’t count the number of times they both ambled out of the hospital dead at night after an exhausting day, dreading driving home. They would share a moment of laughter, wishing each other well, before going home.
Sometimes, they would stay back, discussing how things were when they first started working in the hospital or making plans for the future. She wouldn’t be long in the hospital either. Her visa was out, and she was in the process of moving to Canada to further her education “This hospital has no idea what’s about to hit them,” Fabian had said when she told him her visa was out.
She brushed it off “they will be fine. They were fine before we came, and they would make do after we leave. Segun knows how to pick his doctors,” Fabian silently agreed. Segun was the head doctor, and he never missed a beat regarding hiring.
They had already said their goodbyes, and the week leading to his departure was more bittersweet than Fabian cared to admit. He would miss her the most, and for fear of tearing up, he hugged her fiercely in return, laughing aloud as the cheers became louder.
What a moment it was for them all.
Three years have passed since Fabian walked across the threshold of Goodwill hospital as their newest resident doctor. He had stepped in with an air of promises, greeted everyone with an unwavering smile and an air of assurance of good things to come, and made good on his unvoiced promises.
Fabian didn’t necessarily need to show up for work today, but he wanted to. He hadn’t had the chance to say a proper goodbye to most of the staff and leaving without doing so would rumple the work he had done in the hospital for three years. He had made himself indispensable to a hospital with over forty-five staff, endearing himself to many lives, and easily boasted of being the best doctor Goodwill hospital had to offer.
Fabian wasn’t one who ignored his importance or acted coy over what he believed was due to him when it came to his job unlike Adanna. He knew his value. He was the go-to doctor for everyone in the hospital, the one that you came to with your questions without getting a cantankerous response. The one that didn’t let his exhaustion after hours of surgery muddy people’s day.
But then, all good things must come to an end. Fabian was taking his talent across town to “PCA, Precious Care Attention,” a much bigger and respected hospital, where he aimed to attain greater heights. Fabian hadn’t dared to dream that such a move was possible, at least not this early in his career.
The hospital turned down the best of the best, and he was about to walk in there with a much bigger dream in mind and more extraordinary promises. Saying he was happy was belittling the feelings he was experiencing since he got the news.
PCA had all he needed to make him a great doctor and someone the future would not forget in a hurry. There, his work would stand for something; he wouldn’t have to go through so much rigor and answer unending questions about some of his operating methods. He would, as a matter of fact, be encouraged and his research fully funded.
The shock on Dr. Segun’s face when he tended his resignation letter flashed through Fabian’s mind again, and he chuckled. It was a comical expression, alright. At first, Dr. Segun was dumbfounded, removing his glasses and wiping them before reading the document’s content. The headline alone had given him pause.
Dr. Segun kicked off a series of wooing processes to keep Fabian, trying to match PCA’s payment, even throwing in research allocations which Fabian found more comical. But it was too late. It felt good to be needed, but the prospects of his new workplace felt too good to consider anything Segun offered.
Fabian knew he would miss everyone, but then, what use is growth if you won’t embrace what it offers when it comes knocking.
Done with the salutations, Fabian headed to his office, clutching in his hand a wooden statue the hospital awarded him, with “best doctor” emblazoned on it. He had accepted the award from Dr. Segun, who shook his hand vigorously with a severe expression before seamlessly transitioning into a smile posing for pictures.
Fabian smiled for the picture, pretending like he did not realize Segun was still angry over him resigning.
“What was Segun thinking? that I would never want to leave? After he had stalled and stood in the way of my development.“ Fabian wondered.
He was almost getting to his office when a nurse blocked his way, Chijoke. Fabian could not recall seeing him by the entrance with the others, and the disgruntled look Chijoke had currently spoke volumes. Fabian sidestepped him swiftly without a word and continued his walk; his face still bore a smile, but he didn’t appreciate the encounter.
He walked into his office and Firmly shut the door when he saw Chijoke quick on his tail. Fabian held on to the door handle, refusing him entrance when he turned the handle. Chijoke wasn’t one to create a scene; one tug at the handle and its refusal to budge was all it took to send him on his way.
Fabian sighed, walking to his desk and dropping his bag.
He was about to sit when the door opened, and another nurse walked in, followed by Chijoke. It was the senior nurse, Ifeyinwa, a woman with a knack for disrespecting authority and yet exacting it from her subordinates. She wasn’t part of the community that bade him farewell either. They had a determined look on their face as they walked in, and Fabian wasn’t looking forward to the encounter.
“Yes, what do you want?” He asked. It came out more forceful than he intended, knocking the wind out of Ifeyinwa’s sail, making her stop walking, shocked. It was too late to recant his statement; Fabian looked on at them both with expectancy
“Good morning to you too, Nnamdi,” Ifeyinwa replied disapprovingly at him. Fabian sighed inwardly. Too much familiarity did breed contempt. She couldn’t be more than seven years older than Fabian and wielded her age like a hammer, expecting every bit of respect that her forty-five-year-old accorded her.
It was too late in the game for Fabian to change and become forceful and demanding when he gave her a lenient hand. And try as he had, Ifeyinwa was the only one in the hospital that addressed him with his native name and always with callousness, as if to chastise him for disregarding the name in the first place.
“good morning, nwanyi oma; how are you?” The warmth was back in his voice, and it was all it took to turn Ifeyinwa to butter in his hand. It was like magic as Fabian watched her confidence return, with the knowledge that they were still on good terms and his earlier retort was not something to read meaning into.
“eh he, aka m asi ka iyebago ara, I was wondering if perchance you were running mad,” she replied in Igbo, then pointing Chijoke to his waste bin “please call one of the cleaners to take care of that, and give me five minutes before walking back, I have something to discuss with Fabian” Chijoke turned to leave, stopping when Fabian asked
“Is there a need for that? Calling the cleaners,” he repeated for emphasis, “they have enough time to tidy the office and prepare it for Dr. Femi when I leave. When is he starting again?”
“I don’t know; nobody tells me anything in this hospital, which is crazy. I’m the head nurse but always the last to find out about important issues. Even the rumors don’t get to me till everyone has heard and digested it.” Ifeanyinwa said.
It was a direct jab at Fabian for not coming to tell her he was resigning. Like the first time she mentioned it, Fabian wondered what she presumed was her relationship in his life. He didn’t need to tell her anything, just like she didn’t say anything about her life to anyone.
Ifeyinwa, Fabian had concluded long ago needed this information to feel good about herself, to add to her ego that you had informed her of something important to you. But also, like the first time, he smiled and replied with
“It’s not like that; I didn’t want to say anything till I was sure. When you heard it was when it needed to be heard,” Fabian said with a straight face
“Nonetheless, Chijoke,” Chijoke jumped at the mention of his name, making Ifeyinwa raise her brows and look at him suspiciously, “please tell the cleaners to empty the waste bin basket,” she repeated, “besides, what are you doing here?” She asked as an afterthought. “Shouldn’t you be attending ward 11, or have they all magically healed themselves, leaving you with enough time to wander about?” Chijoke was red in the face; he muttered something and left the office.
Fabian would have covered for him in the past, and not doing so now embarrassed Chijoke, making him leave with more questions in his eyes. Fabian pretended to be searching through his bag till he heard the door close after Chijoke.
He looked up and saw Ifeyinwa staring at him with a curious look and her face, as usual, was devoid of any makeup. Fabian noticed she had a swollen lump on her chin that looked like the result of her pressing a pimple that should have been left alone.
He didn’t want the discussion to be about Chijoke and why he was hovering around. There was no reason for Ifeyinwa to know of the referral Chijoke asked for at Fabian’s new workplace, which he was now trying to finagle out of Fabian forcefully. The entitled behavior Chijoke was displaying irritated Fabian, and he made up his mind to say no.
Chijoke always wanted things done for him, and Fabian couldn’t imagine dealing with that at RCA. Though they worked well together, Chijoke had shown his cards unashamedly these last few weeks enough for Fabian to notice how insensitive and self-centered he was.
So, Fabian directed the conversation elsewhere before Ifeyinwa would ask. They both started speaking simultaneously, Ifeyinwa stopping at the last minute to let him lead.
“What can I do for you, Ifeyinwa?” He asked
“I need you to delay discharging my sister” she fell in line, took the seat opposite him, and started toying with his pen.
Her sister had been admitted three days ago after she collapsed in her workplace from exhaustion. She was pregnant and was one that liked to be busy every minute. Ifeyinwa had dragged Fabian to attend to her. Let this be the last thing you do for me in this hospital, she had said at the time.
“Why is that? She’s okay now and doesn’t need to stay any longer.” Fabian replied
“I know that you know that, but she doesn’t know that. Listen,” she inched closer, folded her arms, and placed it on Fabian’s desk, “my sister bu agunwanyi. You have seen firsthand how restless she can be since she was admitted. She’s a workaholic and likes being on her feet. I have told you this before, she cares only for one thing, and that’s money. Our ancestors would be proud of her,” Fabian chuckled; the reference wasn’t lost on him. Igbo people were stereotyped as money hungry and always seeking money-making ventures.
“And what has this to do with her discharge?” He stood up and turned on the AC switch, sitting down almost immediately and powering it on with the remote. Ifeyinwa was easily cold, and that was a move on his part to discharge her faster. The door opened, and their eyes turned towards it. A cleaner walked in, and Ifeyinwa was infuriated.
“Wait, are you okay? Who gave you leave to enter this office without knocking? Or does this look like your father’s compound? Eh!!” she yelled at her. The cleaner, a dark young girl of nineteen with messy braids, stood chagrined, one ear of the earpiece connected to a small phone in her breast pocket dangling from her neck.
“Sorry ma, I think say the room dey empty. Nurse man, tell me make I come clean.” She replied timidly, removing the other ear of the earpiece from her ear to hear better.
“And because of that, your knocking skills flew out the window?” Fabian didn’t think Ifeyinwa’s voice could go any higher, but she lived to surprise.
“Well, as you can see, the room is occupied. Now get out of here. And next time, knock before you walk into any room. This isn’t your house. Do you hear me?” the girl nodded and quietly closed the door. Ifeyinwa wasn’t done with her
“bia, you this girl, come back here” Fabian could picture the exasperation on the girl’s face and took pity on her. Personally, he didn’t like making people’s work difficult for them. Fabian wouldn’t have uttered a word over the cleaner entering without knocking. He would have told the head cleaner to caution her without embarrassing her.
But Ifeyinwa was a whole different breed. Fabian understood the mechanism of her reprimand. The cleaner would never come to a closed door, office, or otherwise without knocking. Even the head cleaner’s small cubicle office by the staircase would be accorded the same respect.
The door opened to admit the girl again, “take that waste bin and empty it. Then go to my office and take out mine too. If you like, don’t knock when you get here. Assume as you did here that it’s empty and watch what nemesis would do to you” the young girl genuflected, collecting the reprimand like it was her due and picked up the basket, greeting Fabian with a shy smile before leaving. As soon as the door closed behind her, Fabian turned to Ifeyinwa, saying
“That was uncalled for; you shouldn’t knock down people’s confidence that low, Ifeyinwa. It’s wrong and very demeaning. That is a young girl with a precarious mind, and you just made her feel unwanted and stupid. I don’t like it. Remember, tomorrow is not promised.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Ifeyinwa fired back, “That tomorrow, all my years of hard work that put me in position as a head nurse would vanish, and I would become a cleaner abi? Abeg!! Abeg!!” she waved it off, hissing to give her statement more weight.
Fabian sighed; as usual, his meaning was lost in translation. Ifeyinwa had sieved through his words, taken what she wanted from them, and discarded the rest.
His phone binged, suggesting a message; he ignored it, asking, “why do you want your sister here? You know that would accrue more bills for her”
Ifeyinwa relaxed back on the seat, “she has the money; she will be fine. I know if she has her way, she will work herself to the bone and, end up here again. She is five months pregnant, which you don’t need to be told, seeing as you are her doctor and should know all this” the accusatory tone was back. Fabian ignored it again
“if you discharge her now,” she continued “she is most definitely going back to work, I guarantee you. She’s not going to ask for leave o, but to work her way back to this hospital, putting my dear niece or nephew in grave danger. I am a nurse, and I don’t like those odds.”
Fabian rubbed his head in exasperation. “This isn’t the soviet prison, Ifeyinwa. You know people don’t like spending their time in the hospital, unlike us that choose this for a living. It reminds them of death and everything that’s wrong with the world,” Fabian took the remote and increased the AC unit, and continued
“What I‘m going to do, is to tell her the repercussions of her continuance to stress herself over work. I will make it as strict and severe as possible to knock it home. But I can’t keep her here; it’s unbecoming. Think of your nephew, the one you do know. He needs her mother.”
Ifeyinwa was anything but wowed by his words. Fabian could see her brain working, waiting for him to finish to interject what she felt. He stopped her, saying with a definite tone, “I am not keeping her in; I issued an order to have her discharged before coming in this morning.”
Seeing that she won’t make any progress with him, Ifeyinwa went the following best route, which was to undermine his authority. “I stopped the process,” she answered smugly, then caved in, “but fine, let’s discharge her, but I pray for your sake that whatever it is you’re going to tell her sinks in and make her request the leave or that your new workplace would not contain the both of us” she threatened him, standing up and staring deadly at the AC, throwing his pen on his desk without missing a beat.
Fabian laughed, “I will miss you, nwanyi oma; it’s nice to know you care about people.”
She looked at him strangely “what do you mean? Of course, I care for people; I’m a nurse. Whoever heard of an embittered nurse.” She stopped by the door. “By the way, we have a send-forth party for you later in the day. It was supposed to be a surprise, but….”
Fabian roared with laughter clutching his sides. He wasn’t a stranger to Ifeyinwa’s antics, and ruining the surprise was nothing out of character for her.
What a woman.
Moments later, his attention returned to the door when he heard a knock. He knew who it would be and ignored the knock.
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I’m a content writer and i have a lot of stories to share.
As N drives, hands cradling the wheel, their eyes are constantly wandering. Or rather, they must have been, because they point out to me the following things, with added commentary:
An old, dilapidated building with the trademark blue board and white serif font prevalent across India, proclaiming “CMR law college”. They inquire how different life might have been if either of us had gone to this law school instead.
A brand new dosa joint. The hiss of the water hitting the huge, square pan and the scrape of the metal against the stove seeps into our car, as N exclaims that we gotta try this place out. Maybe for breakfast sometime next week.
Graffiti proclaiming CREATIVITY STARTS HERE.
A ramshackle building with tiny flats crammed above a newly opened bar, replete with flashing neon lights called Cheers & Beers. We giggle conspiratorially in the car, thinking, well, the name isn’t all that bad. In fact, it makes us want to go there.
An autorickshaw that has a family of five squeezed into it. And N whispers, look at the creepy kid. I turn my head to watch a small face reaching out beyond the non-existent confines of the auto, eyes fixed on us, and flash a grin in return. The eyes widen in childish fear. The face retreats.
A lake, with rain trees lining its boundary. Its surface catches the city lights. It’s too far, we don’t make plans to go there.
Sadhana (she/they) is a researcher/writer based out of Bangalore. They enjoy long walks, long reads, making lists and melting into the couch with everything they need within arm’s reach.
NOTE: This story depicts graphic scenes of sexual assault that may be overwhelming for some readers.
The editors feel this depiction, while incredibly difficult, is in service of a worthwhile narrative with worthwhile intentions. Please read with care, for yourself and and for the subject matter.
This will be your last session with this inmate. The Chief Warden has told me this morning as I entered Lang’ata Women’s Prison in the southern parts of Nairobi, once green city in the sun, now transmogrified into hot metropolis of concrete, haze, and terrazzo. Those words have chilled me. I had been coming here for months to write a story about this inmate but had stopped because she never gave me anything other than useless words, blank but intimidating stares, and sullen silences. Until the Chief Warden called me two weeks ago and told me the inmate was wanting me to come back.
Oh? I had wondered, surprised. Inmate never tells me anything writable, why would she want me to come back? I had given up on this story, and moved on to the next one about the Police Commissioner’s son who had allegedly killed three people while on a drunken driving binge. Now, that was the story that had taken over my existence. Late night guttural phone calls threatening me with the most grotesque rape and violence if I continued with this story had sent me into a dark place, sitting in my apartment in a gated community on Kenyatta Road, lights out, sipping gin with trembling hands, and jumping at the slightest noises. It had sent me here too, a welcome break from the privileged murderer hiding behind the tall, blue shield of paternal police protection. This country refuses to let me be fearless.
Because she is being transferred to Kamiti. The Chief Warden had said. They will not permit you to see her the moment she disappears behind its gates. So here I am, already processed through the prison’s security, sitting in a room whose mien screams government facility – stark, greying, peeling walls with a dark green paint where the skirting should be; lone, flickering fluorescent tube overhead; and stalactites of dead insects, moisture, dust, and God-knows-what hanging from the once-white stucco ceiling. There is a constant hum you feel through the walls, of voices, repressed anguish, curtailed innocence, and hard-core crime committed by hard-core convicts. That’s what they are here. Inmates. Identified by numbers and crimes, stripped of all other identities, layers and colours. I am here to see Inmate 3679.
The inmates here are given numbers according to the crimes for which they are brought in. The 3-series is for capital crimes, the next is for the year, and the ensuing numbers are the volume of crimes committed in that year. It is 2035. This inmate was brought in here in the year 2026, and was the seventy-ninth to be apprehended for capital murder. Allegedly, as she always loved to taunt me with before I stopped coming.
The door opens, and in she comes. Inmate 3679. That is her name, and every time I came here, she would tell me to call her “Three-Six”, after the now-defunct popular music group she grew up listening to, the Three 6 Mafia. I am a most known unknown, she used to like telling me, which would leave me confused, until I discovered this was the title of one of their songs. She always loved to play with my mind the way a satiated cat plays with a semi-dead mouse. I remain seated, struggling to keep my mouth closed when I see her. I have been away only a few short months, but the change in her is catastrophic. Where there was a voluptuous, full-haired woman then, what stands before me right now is a thin, bald one. Her face has lost its sardonic smile and sarcastic eyebrows. In their place is a sallow, drooping cheek, stark, bony features, and thin, cracked lips. I am stunned. Three-Six is chained at the ankles and wrists. A prison warden brings her in, and sits her before me, and goes to stand by the door, inside the room. I look at him and he returns my questioning glance with a hard, steady one that tells me he will be standing there all day and night if need be. I shrug and purse my lips. Three-Six is unlikely to say anything anyway, other than her usual taunts, or perhaps even those are now gone and she will say nothing at all.
‘Happy to see me?’ She asks, and her voice is deep, thick, and cracked, the voice of someone who was at a music festival three days straight, singing as loud as possible, breathing in the sweat, smoke, narcotics. The coarseness of her voice vibrates through the metal table on which her shackled arms rest, jolting me. I fold my own hands and pull them off the table.
‘Yes.’ I say, and she laughs. For a second, the old face I remember comes back.
‘Good. Let’s get started.’
‘On what?’
‘On my Orison.’ She says.
‘Your what?’
‘There was a character, in a book from long ago, making an orison.’ She says. ‘I want to do the same. Let’s start with why I am here…’
‘Let’s start with what happened to you in the time I have been away.’ I say, unnerved by her missing upper front teeth, struggling to catch up. I did not expect this. At all.
‘I live in prison.’ She says, shrugging her bony shoulders. ‘And we don’t have time. I want a clean record for my children.’
Children. I look into her eyes and see that old mirth. She has never mentioned children to me. I think she is pulling my legs. Both of them. At once.
‘I am here because I was accused of killing four people. Three of them policemen.’ She says.
‘And did you?’
‘Allegedly.’ She says, her eyes shining behind the boniness. ‘This is the twenty-first century. Killing and dying are contextual.’ I digest this quickly and in silence. ‘I am doing this because I must, are we together?’
It dawns on me that Three-Six means business. All she has said, I am hearing for the first time. I nod, wondering what exactly she has experienced since I have been here to make her reticence disappear, to fill her with mush, talking about children and orisons. Something has happened. Something drastic.
‘They say my killing spree started at the beginning of 2026. But that is not true. It started in 2023.’ She starts. ‘On Wednesday April 12th 2023, on my way home from my job at the then Mount Kenya University, I was stopped by three policemen. That was two days past Easter and ten days to Earth Day. I remember this because we were in the middle of starting a campaign on campus. 5Cs. Cooler Cities & Combating Climate Change.’
She stops and looks up at the stalactites, some of them swaying rather precariously in a light breeze that is coming from somewhere. I want to tell her to look down because last time I was looking up like this myself, something entered my eye and came out after three excruciating days, but I don’t. I am astounded. Three-Six used to work at MKU? Of course, they totally obliterated her past life. They do that now, as soon as they clap that number on you. Only very expensive, risky hackers can get this information, and even they are hard to find on account of some of them occupying cells in prisons with numbers that start with 3.
‘Has it started raining again?’ She asks, startling me out of my reverie. ‘I have not seen outside since they brought me here in mid-2026.’
‘No.’ I say. ‘Just haze and dust. The sky is yellowish, we don’t see the sun very clear, and at night we don’t see the stars.’ In truth, children born after the end of 2025 have never seen rain in their entire lives, and those born after the cold season of mid-2026 have never seen fog, mist, or dew.
She stares at me. ‘Seems I’ve missed very little then?’
‘What work did you do at the University?’ I ask instead.
‘What one does in a university.’ She shrugs. ‘On that day, I was walking home, as usual. Even then, Thika was far safer than Nairobi, making the five kilometre walk between home and work well worth the exercise. But these policemen waylaid me, hustled me a little, arrested me, and took me.’
I hold my breath and wait for her to continue. Her face has not changed, but her voice has.
‘For nine weeks, I was gone. Disappeared.’ She says. ‘In those days if you did not appear at work for more than a month without a reason, you got cut off. Too many people, scarce jobs, and we all wanted those jobs for the small security they offered. Being gone nine weeks, incommunicado, and not yet a professor…’ She shrugs, mouth turned down at the corners.
‘Where were you?’
‘When I came back, I went to KU and they did not even let me through the front gate because my entry card had expired.’ She does air quotes on this last word, ignoring my question, and her chains rattle.
‘Where did they take you?’ It is a whisper. I can already guess what the answer is, and I can feel the bile rising in my stomach.
‘Not far.’ She says, and starts to open the buttons of her shirt.
‘You don’t have to do that.’ I say, and the Guard at the door stares. All along he has been quiet, watching me take notes and adjust the position of the recording device that lies on the table between myself and Three-Six.
‘Because?’ She asks. ‘Do you think there is an inch inside and outside my body that has not been seen, touched, poked, invaded and violated the years I, an alleged police killer, have been here? This body is now nothing but a shell of dried bone and skin. Don’t start with that false protection of my dignity, yes.’
She says all this, especially that last flat “yes”, as the buttons come off. I see deep, old, unevenly healed welts, cuts and new bruises lining the skin of her chest. The stretch-marks along her breasts tell me there was once weight there, but it’s now gone, leaving a almost nothing behind.
‘Forget the newer welts.’ She says. ‘These old ones, that is where they cut me open with a blunt knife, twelve on each side for each of the ribs their fingers could trace. They cut my chest, my arms, my legs, everywhere.’
‘Why?’ I cannot believe what I am hearing.
‘Because they said they wanted to see how much fat and meat I had before they could reach my bones.’ She said. ‘Back then I was quite the dish, mmh, more a pig, they said. Good enough to cook, they said. They did that too. Cut off flesh from my arms and seared it on a grill before feeding it to their dog.’
‘Did they…did they rape you?’ My voice is shaking, my hands are shaking, and I can feel my throat fill.
She laughs. Loud. Her raspy voice sounds like a dull, pneumonic cough in the starkness of the flickering fluorescent light and dangling stalactites.
‘I’m telling you they chopped off part of my body and fed it to their dog.’ She says. ‘I’m telling you I was gone nine weeks.’
She raises her hands with a raised eyebrow, and the chains linking them to her feet rattle. I shudder at her steady stare, and I wonder if she is telling me truth, making up a story about children and justifying why she killed three policemen. Or perhaps totally unhinged because of it. I feel immense shame for thinking these things when her eyes, her voice, are telling me the obvious. I was gone nine weeks…they must have done everything imaginable.
‘I was kicked out of my little apartment some months later, after my savings ran out.’ She says. ‘I spent those months lying in my bed, doing little else apart from thinking and thinking and thinking about that Wednesday, the 12th of April. Then I spent that December in the streets. My wounds had healed because one of my students would bring me bandages, spirit, and morphine. And on the streets, I learned a trick or two about staying alive. But I will say this – remember I told you death is contextual? I did die in 2023. I held onto life for nine good weeks, but I lost the battle. When they ask when I died, tell them it was in mid-June 2023 when the cold weather bit hard into the bones. And the dead commit no crimes.’
There is a buzzing bell somewhere behind the walls we sit between. Lunch, she mouths, and leans back in her metal chair, her chains rattling with every slow, deliberate movement.
‘And then?’ I ask.
‘Then I survived. Three years on the streets taught me more than the nine I had spent teaching at the university.’ She says. ‘It is on the streets that I learned the names of these policemen. And do you know how? Because they were known for this sort of thing – false imprisonment and torture of women. It was their thing. And not just in Thika. They had done this all the way from Mombasa to Embu and the towns in between. Always the three of them.’
‘How?’ I ask, and the scepticism that rises deep within me is quelled when I think of the voice at the end of the phone telling me to drop the Police Commissioner’s son’s story or else.
‘How indeed.’ She smiles. ‘When you leave here, don’t go finding out their names, or paying attention to their familial ties.’
‘Are you not going to tell me that?’
‘I could.’ She says. ‘If you want me to, I will. But the moment I mention their names, this little chat of ours ends, and when you step back into your hazy, hot world outside the gates of this underground prison, you become a hunted woman. Is that what you want?’
A chill goes through my body. I glance at the guard, but he looks away. I feel a chattering of my teeth coming on. I entertain the possibility that she is saying the truth and my heart pounds with panic. Then I burst out in a short laughter, and to my surprise, she joins me. We laugh together, clearing the tension that had built up. It dissipates as quick as it had risen.
‘Good story, no?’ She asks in her gruff voice. ‘And now you’re wondering which parts, if any, are true?’
‘Yes.’ I say, struggling not to look around as the panic inside swells.
‘I can tell.’ She says as her chains rattle under the flickering fluorescent tube. ‘You think all I am saying is made up, just like I keep saying I allegedly killed those policemen. You think I’m lying. Going out with one big bang. No doubt you are aware I am being transferred to Kamiti Max this evening after supper, eh?’
I nod yes. In 2025, Kamiti Maximum Prison built a unit for women convicted of capital offences, specifically, murder, treason, and robbery with violence. This was significant because in June 2024, a year after Three-Six claims she died, the death penalty became active, with three convicted robbers hanged at Kamiti. The outrage had not come as expected when the death sentence was revived after being dormant for over forty years. The populace had become easily cowed into silence when police had become very powerful after the 2023 reforms when the new regime had been installed. Once a number of visible human rights activists had been found murdered, including high-profile lawyers, civil society types and vocal university lecturers, it had become prudent to remain seated, in silence. Social media offered thin anonymity, if any, and outbursts on Twitter and Facebook, both of which were now defunct, had ceased. Government critique and incessant rants were replaced by old cat videos from the 2000s, NatGeo Wild clips, and slapstick comedy from the old pre-millennium series Just 4 Laughs.
‘Anyway, let’s finish, then, eh? My fake story?’ She says. ‘I was telling you how the streets told me that my three attackers were now in Nairobi, posted to the big city to continue with their good work.’
‘You followed them.’
‘Of course. I started to literally follow them after three months living on the streets of Thika, when one of them drove by where eight of us street women were taking a snooze in the middle of a hot afternoon, and he told us to make sure we were gone by evening because he would be back with his friends, and we did not want him to come back.’
‘Where was that?’
‘One of these new roads had a nice, cool culvert where we would hide to catch a snooze in the afternoons.’ She says. ‘Garissa Road, which was by then being expanded, near some church.’
‘Not too far from MKU.’ I see the intense look in her eyes. ‘I went to school there from fifteen to eighteen.’
‘Yes.’ She is looking into my eyes with a scary intensity. ‘You know what the elders used to say long ago – a dog does not stray too far from its home even when it has been chased away.’
‘Wasn’t it painful to keep being reminded of all you had been through?’
‘Not as painful as the unfinished business I had there.’ She looks down at her hands. ‘There’s things I had to take care of. Especially after I saw this one policeman telling us to clear from the culvert on Garissa Road. He did not recognize me. How could he? He and his friends had killed me. I was a corpse. Unrecognizable.’
‘So you followed them, incognito?’
‘Everywhere. I knew where they were stationed, their shifts, everything.’ She says. ‘You see, they were never on shift at the same time, even when they took me. They were together that day, the three of them, but they were never on shift at the same time. The one on shift always called the other two when he knew he was going off-script. And I would soon discover that that was once every month.’
‘What?’
‘Once every month, when one specific one was on shift, he would go off-script, call his compatriots, and they would take a woman and keep her somewhere and torture her. Many physically died. One or two, like me, survived – dumped out in the bush and left for dead – maybe we were just too stubborn to leave this earth at once.’
‘Death is contextual?’
‘You’re getting it.’ She smiles, exposing her missing teeth. ‘I did meet one other survivor of their torture, used to be as plump as I was, but she could not speak at all, only showed me the cuts along her ribs, and I guessed the rest.’
‘Was she so traumatised that she could not talk?’ I ask, horrified.
‘No. They had cut off her tongue.’
I pause, my heart now pounding and my head aching. This had started out like fun and games, stories from the wild imagination of Inmate 3679. But we had taken a dark turn. Still, I also felt I couldn’t really show the seriousness of this conversation on my body, because if the things she’s telling me are true, then it means my own life is in danger, especially because there is a guard standing there in the room listening to every detail of a story he’s probably also hearing for the first time. Plus, I am sure there are recorders in the room, taking in every word, maybe every facial expression of the both of us.
‘In late 2024 they grabbed a woman who turned out to be a bit connected. Secret girlfriend of a local married politician. They took her and tortured her to death. It was brutal. Because she was pregnant. That’s how the three were quietly transferred to the big city.’
‘She was a politician’s woman, and this did not cause some noise?’
‘Which woman, is what you’re asking.’ She says, eyebrow raised. ‘Which one do you think he would make noise over, and keep quiet over?’
It takes me a few seconds to comprehend what she is saying, and this time, I cannot help dropping my jaw in surprise.
‘You’re still not getting it, are you?’ Three-Six says. ‘When I tell you this was their modus operandi, I want you to understand exactly what I am saying.’
I frown, trying to decipher that she is saying, but she forges ahead anyway. Time being short and all that.
‘They come to the big city, where the hunting grounds are larger and free.’ She continues. ‘And I follow. Twenty-three women in two years is the toll, and all of them die. Business is booming in this here city, yes? Are we together?’
I’m not sure we are. She’s telling me that in two years, twenty-three women were killed by the tyrannical trio, and they got away with it. Easy enough to believe. But what I find hard to swallow is that she knew what they were up to in the course of the twenty-three women, and did nothing about it.
‘I decide to make my move. They start being careless, drinking too much, being too confident.’
‘How do you do it?’
‘That’s the big question, isn’t it? One that even the prosecutors themselves have been asking me since time immemorial, and one which my jailer here,’ she gestures at the guard, ‘is keen to hear and report back, so that they know what else to look for in case of other copy-cat killers out there, at least that’s the fancy television term they are slapping on me, and others like me.’
‘Others like you?’ Are there more killers out there? Other survivors?
‘Allegedly.’ She says. This time, there is no smile.
‘So how did you do it?’
Three-Six leans forward, her eyes as intense as that of a snake about to strike. ‘If you’ve been paying attention, I have already told you how I did it. And I will not repeat myself.’
‘And the fourth man you allegedly killed?’ I ask, looking at her eyes without flinching.
‘Woman, you mean.’ She says, and a smile dances on the edges of her torn, peeling lips. ‘That’s the part they do not want to say, ehee? It was a woman. I got no pleasure from doing it, just a sense of justice and closure. I desperately needed that, and I gave it to myself.’
‘Was she connected to the three policemen?’
‘In a way, yes.’ She says. ‘And I have already told you what the connection was, if you’ve been listening to me.’
I pull back. I can feel the story ebbing, coming to an end. Something momentous has happened here, but I am not able to put my finger on it, yet.
‘And this is your orison, then?’ I ask.
‘The most powerful one.’ She says, and this time, her gruff voice is soft, maybe even tender. ‘One day, even you will see what it means, its depth. My children will be proud of me.’
‘You keep mentioning children, and yet your record shows you never had any. Is this as contextual as death, and killing?’
‘You will soon find out.’ Her voice drops to an unintelligible whisper. ‘I have faith in you, Muppai, descendant of great Chief Utthai of what was once a great clan of our shared ancestors.’
I feel my eyes widen with shock, and struggle to keep them from the reach of the cameras I am sure are recording every facial twitch. I have always told Inmate 3679 that my name is Imani, a freelance journalist working for Split TV. Back in the day, this country had a handful of daily newspapers and mainstream television channels, but since mid-2027, with the death of Twitter and Facebook, news apps sprung up everywhere, spewing news, gossip, and every inane subject imaginable, from sex and scarce love, to Artificial Intelligence, space travel, space colonies and all the kinks in between. Animal shows are very popular, owing to the fact that about three-quarters of the wild animal population are now extinct, thanks to the new, permanent climate. The remaining few have been carted off to private ranches, where artificial rain conditions are affordable and allow these animals to thrive. Here in this country, these uber ranches are in Laikipia area, which is now cordoned off, and only the ultra-wealthy can afford to go in and see these rare animals, including lions, giraffes, rhinos and the odd elephant and warthog. Some sneak videos of these animals out to online subscription video and streaming channels. I work for one of those video channels, at least that is the identity I gave to Inmate 3679. How she knows the real me is a matter that scares me, because even my official identification cards that have gained me access to Langata Women’s Prison indicate that my name is Imani from Split TV, where our business is news, gossip, and human-interest stories.
‘Who are you, Three-Six?’ My voice is a horrified whisper. I am convinced she is taking me down with her, if she has outed my true identity like this, in front of a witness who is part of the prison system. My heart has sunk to the ground.
‘I have already told you who I am.’ She says, and she stands up. ‘I have faith in you, that you will preserve my words, and make sure all my children get to hear them, understand them, and embody them. And here ends my Orison. May it do well, even after my ending.’
The guard comes and pushes Inmate 3679 towards the door she emerged from. He bangs it twice, and after someone peeps through its tiny window, the door is opened, and someone else reaches out to escort Three-Six from the room. She turns and looks at me, waves one of her shackled hands at me, holds my gaze, and winks. Then she is gone. As I gather myself, trying to ask myself what just happened, the guard who was with us all along comes back, goes to a wall unit and opens it, switching on some buttons. Out loud, he says,
‘Sorry, Miss Imani, but I am going to take all your notes and all your recordings.’
‘Why?’ I am taken aback. ‘This was an official interview, allowed to take place by the prison! These are my notes!’
‘That was a mere indulgence we offered Inmate 3679 so that she could confess before she is handed over to the hangman.’ He says. ‘I am sorry she appears to have said nothing of importance, as usual. I will take these all the same, thank you.’
We both look down at my notebook. The front pages, six of which I had been taking notes, are gone. I can’t believe it. Where are my notes? All that is left is the page on which I had been doodling with my marker pen. Everything going on here is not making any sense. The Guard takes my recording, and glances, too briefly, at the camera I had not spotted in the far-right corner of the flickering fluorescent tube. He then searches my body by patting me down, and then he leads me out of the room back up the corridor we have come. When I clear security and pick my bag, sans my notebook, pen and recorder, the guard escorts me to the gates of Langata Women’s Prison. At the gate, he makes the effort to search me one more time, patting me down in front of the two guards manning the gate. He winks at them and they make sounds of ribaldry and mirth, telling him to “get it” before I leave.
‘Don’t let us down.’ He whispers in my ear, and then, after one final pat-down, he allows me to leave.
I am shaken to my core as I make my way out of Langata in my tiny hybrid car. That is all we are allowed to drive these days. I disappear into the only road out of here, which is through the new, 2025-built Kibera Sector Three, as much of a shanty as Sectors One and Two.
When I get home hours later, and enter my house to unpack and shower the unpleasantness off, I find my notes tucked into the front of my shirt, as well as my slim Sony recorder.
***
27th December 2035
New Story on Split TV running on Split.com and TubeNews.com
Convicted Killer Executed
Convicted killer known as Inmate 3679 was this morning at 5am hung to death at the Kamiti Maximum Prison. Inmate 3679 was found guilty of killing four policemen from the Central Police Station of Nairobi Metropolis. Inmate 3679 opened live fire at the four policemen who were on patrol in the Central Business District in 2026, killing them on the spot. Inmate 3679 was later cremated at the Kamiti Crematorium, and her ashes scattered within the grounds of Kamiti itself. The Chief Warden of the prison has intimated that the cremation and scattering of ashes within the prison grounds was to ensure that Inmate 3679 would not gain cult status outside of what she had currently enjoyed. The killing of the police is something that many notorious gangsters use to gain notoriety, and the conviction and subsequent death of Inmate 3679 has served to make killing of any law-enforcement official a capital crime punishable by hanging. It is hoped this will be a deterrent to other gangsters as well as civilians.
*A full clip of the hanging of Inmate 3679 is available for streaming at Kamiti.com, and is accessible for a fee of 25,599 shillings via credit card, debit card, or mobile cash*
7th July 2037
News reel on Orran App, a dark web site of “real news and true stories”
The Orison of Inmate 3679
When someone paid three notorious killer police money to murder the girlfriend of a Thika City’s Ward Headman in February 2024, it would lead the so-called convicted killer Inmate 3679, executed for murder on the 29th of December 2029, to uncover a murder cartel involving the police and many higher-ups in the government. The then Ward Headman, Stanslaus Wambugu, had a girlfriend who was murdered after being kidnapped and tortured by sibling police officers Jonas Naima, Wycliffe Naima, and their cousin Subba Wanga. The three police officers, sons and nephew to the Vice President Munavu Naima, were part of a murder gang-for-hire that routinely kidnapped women, tortured, and killed them on orders from top government officials and their wives, chiefly to wipe out evidence of extra-marital affairs, which were outlawed for government officials and contractors under a secret State Secrets Act of 2023.
Inmate 3679 had been wrongfully accused of having an affair with an MP by a close friend and colleague in 2023. She was kidnapped and tortured for nine weeks, her body thereafter dumped off the Thika-Nairobi highway near the River Ndonyo. She survived the attack, and ended up homeless and destitute. While on the streets, she came to learn of this death squad, tracking their once-a-month killings. Majority of the kidnapped and murdered women were rumoured girlfriends and “side-chicks” of high-powered politicians and business moguls.
Inmate 3679 tracked these three killers to Nairobi Metropolis, where they continued their killing unabated.
Inmate 3679 decided to put her plan to stop these killers into action after one of her nieces, left in her second sister’s care after the death of their older sister in 2015, came to Nairobi, and fell into the killing sights of these notorious policemen. To catch them, she lured them by posing as a client, and then killed them one by one. Her fourth victim was her former accuser, one Professor Criss Mbae, who Inmate 3679 killed for revenge and closure.
‘It is something I desperately needed, and so I gave it to myself,’ she said during her final interview back in late 2029. The reporter who took this confession, and who worked for Split TV up to 2030 but has since vanished, managed to remember, off-head, the entire confession, having had her recordings and notes of the confession taken from her and destroyed. She certifies these words as the final orison of Inmate 3679, as told to her at Langata Women’s Prison, on 15th December 2035.
*A verbatim transcription of the Orison of Inmate 3679 will be published here in its entirely in the next hour*
5th August 2039
Video appearing on all major Tube channels, and reposted after being pulled down repeatedly. Members in the video are masked and have their voices heavily distorted.
Arise, people of this great country
We are the Resistance
Arise in the name of Inmate 3679! Resist the oppressor until justice is restored
Finish these killer gangs!
Lure these murderers in uniform!
Kill the killers until justice is restored!
We are The Resistance!
Long live, Three-Six!
21st January 2040
New Story on Split TV running on Split.com and TubeNews.com
More Corrupt Police Wiped Out by The Resistance
Good day, watchers, whatever time you see this. The number of policemen killed has today climbed to 254 after four more were gunned down at the Nakuru CBD earlier today, at 5pm local time. The police had reportedly raided a bar and hustled the owner to part with his most expensive drinks. As the police selected bottles of Hennessy, Doubleton and Delmore whiskeys, armed men making the signs of The Resistance and calling on their idol, the late Inmate 3679, raided the bar and opened live fire, killing the four policemen on the spot. The owner of the bar, Bantu Sol, escaped with minor injuries after a bullet grazed his shoulder, leaving a flesh wound which doctors say is not life-threatening. The Resistance gunmen, who now call themselves the Three-Six Group, took responsibility for the killings in a video posted to all major tube sites.
11th November 2040
New Story on Split TV running on Split.com and TubeNews.com
Breaking News!
The Three-Six Group, now a formidable army of hard-core militia, have this evening pierced through the heavily fortified mansion of Vice President Munavu Naima, killing him and his entire family. We still do not have full details, but we understand the Three-Six Group have released footage of the slaying of the Vice President, which we do not have access to…wait a minute, viewers, I have one of the leaders of the Three-Six Group on the line. Go ahead, General Muppai.
General Muppai: Good evening watchers and listeners. Your Vice President is dead and here is his body (phone camera pans away from masked General using a distorted voice to a visibly dead Vice President, lying at General Muppai’s feet). Our message is very simple, and is aimed at the illegitimate President of the Republic who has been ruling via imperial edict having defied our 2010 Constitution which our forefathers died for: You are next, and there’s nothing you can do, or nowhere you can hide to escape what is coming to you. We desperately want freedom, and we shall give it to ourselves! Over and out! Long live The Resistance! Long Live Inmate 3679!
CKR Mose is a Nairobi-based writer of fantasy and sci-fi. She has published a short story in the anthology Nairobi Noir. She tweets as @Wordslinger__
If I take my bra off fast enough Maybe you won’t see the water bugs in the bathtub You won’t hear the neighbors whisper/yelling about The End You won’t see the stain in the carpet I swear was already there The missing chip of paint where I placed Too Much Faith In a store brand command strip to hold me up Like Jesus on a new cross in a burning church Whose ceiling chain hooks sway in the smoke Will He stay up? Will we?
Yaritza Quintero is a writer based in the Central Valley in California. Her works can be found in Mosaic Art & Literary Journal and Papeachu Press. She can be found on social media: @yaritzaistired.
[Image description: A two-column poem entitled “Pandemic Sonata.” Each column is positioned in a plain rectangular black border. The first column reads:]
Behold the corona crown
All the world’s gold impaled
Kingdoms at the mercy of a touch
In suspension the droplets seem
You couldn’t have it but you still could
Scrape them for it to come off
Ricocheting off the nasopharynx
Down the drain of your throat
Waveforms of bespeckled plight A crowned virus, invisibly
[and the second column reads:]
Spiked protein towers for gemstones
The emperor naked in his new clothes
Dry coughs pounding porous walls
Almost lyrical in their transit –
Some days pass like congealed blood
Cardi B screaming coronavirus
it’s DEAD IT’S DEAD d ea d
A hackneyed guttural hiss
A ventilator drawing its last breath Dethroning us
[End image description]
Hamayle Saeed is an accidental physician and deliberate poet; moonlighting as an aspiring eponymous disease in Lahore, Pakistan. @hamayle (instagram) @hamyelin_ (twitter)
Deniel Basilio is a burned-out senior high school student from the Philippines. When he’s not drowning in research, he tries to squeeze in time to write a poem… or two. Twitter: @DMBasilio
Normative Modes in Acoustic Reprisals of Jeff Buckley: 1999 – 2007
Downward Trends in Reproductive Cycles among Heavy Users of Frozen Pizza
Radio Interference: Gertrude Stein and the Noise of “Patriarchal Poetry”
Bush’s Brush Touch: The Painted Realities of a Former President
Far Too Many Stories: A Longitudinal Study of Architectural Fuck-Ups in Library Construction in the Age of Computer-Aided Design
Relativist Frameworks for the Appearance of Dragon Fruit Sculptures
Melody vs Solo: Ontological Disputes Surrounding Slash’s Guitar Performance on “November Rain”
White Guilt and Habitual Masturbation Behaviors
Laboratory Language: The Jargon of Modernist Science in “Experimental” Writing
Preferentiality in Tuscaloosa: A Taco Casa Case Study
Interpretive Strategies during Rejection Scenarios within Human Male Populations
The Contemporary Cento as Technicity for Ego Construction
Monkeys
Calvinist Clock Towers: Swiss Protestant Communities and Oppressive Monuments in Capitalist Time Management since the Reformation
I Don’t Want a Funny President: The Affective Turn in the Obama Years
Flight Behaviors of Urban Swallows in Western Europe
Le Corbusier, Prison Warden
Lyric Presence and the Endless Suspension of Grief
Moving Mountains: Theories of Limit and Pure Possibility
Culinary Preservation Practices among Montemaggioresi Emigrés in Interwar Bay Ridge
Choose Your Own Thesis
Qualitative Depreciation in Tarantino Productions Following the Widespread Disappearance of Constraint
A Document over which I Cried and Cried and Cried Wolf
Fractures in Prevalent Frameworks for the Unidirectional Flow of Time
Put to Sleep by Atheists: Rhetorical Strategies in Anti-Theist Activist Communities
Spatial Poetics: Poetic Practices and Spatial Design
Quantitative Analyses of Why the Letter E is the Greatest Letter of the Roman Alphabet
Punchline Abelard and Heloise: A History of Weird Intimate Jokes
Authorial Myths and Work Ethic Formation
Just a Cheeseburger, Please: Economic Grounds for Passing on the Meal Deal
Studies Toward a Paraconsistent Understanding of the Really Real
The Right Side of History: Whatever the Hell That Means
A Selection of My Favorite Pennies
Fluid Dynamics in the Fiction of James Baldwin
Observers from Vienna: The Role of American Civil War Tactics in the Founding and Prolongation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Annex: How American Troop Supply Practices Set the Scene for World War in the Following Century)
Post-Facto Protest: Continued Demonstrations by Anti-Vietnam War Activists in the 21st Century
Start with Something Catchy: Then Break It Down: Colon Usage in PhD Titles: A Demonstrative History
More Things to Disapprove of in Switzerland
This Isn’t Water: David Foster Wallace and the Diluting of Buddhist Practices for the Benefit of the Capitalist Status Quo and Compounded Alienation
Adulation in the Academic Community since the Invention of Shakespearean Scholarship
So Now I Know Who Shot JFK and Where I Left that Talk Talk Album
Inadvertent Homages to Jason Noble in the Plastic Arts
Necessity as a Construction and the Politics of Not Just Oppression but Grinding Domination
Poetries Various and Sundry
Who Knew Clouds Could Taste So Good: A Critique of New Directions in Afterlife Studies
Jeremy Allan Hawkins is author of A Clean Edge (BOAAT 2017) and Enditem. (Beir Bua FORTHCOMING).
Unstamatic 