the earth assures me
there are other things to discuss
besides love:
cavities in the atmosphere,
theft of glacier,
dying sea turtles.
how right she is.
how right she is — & how little i care
Ashley Varela (they/them) is a queer writer & author based in Seattle, Washington.
Social: @ashleyvarela_
Chidambar is human. On Instagram – @chidambar_n
[TRANSCRIPTION]
The Stalker’s Embrace
The horizon of the hill overlooking the plain stretches of dirt, remembering the unearthing of the world’s surface experienced in the First World War by man’s thirst for modernity and artillery. Here the ironic resemblance of tranquil nature to the feral state of war at the heart of civilization plays with itself. It is at this scene of the collapse of all major forms of civilization, all human reprogrammings of the Earth, and capitals game of incomprehension, that this hill glances at decay and rebirth. The Suns energy deposited as waste now flows through the metallic river streams, the background radiation, the birthing of life from molecules. Shit constructed into life. It is between shit and death that the wondering wanderers roam the plains in search of expression despite survival. Away from the detached systems of societies or money, the wandering wonderers seek freedom. As the collapse unfolded it took more and more of the world’s surface into its program. Cities – as the arteries of capital and civilization – were first to shift in the wind as new zones of fight. Many futures were tested and fought between the concrete slabs treading upwards towards infinity, and many powers of grandeur were spoiled onto the city streets.
After the major States experienced the flow of becoming shit and human, all too human, capital accelerated into its desires of attainting its Outsideness. Capital ascended beyond the human connection into Axsys – capitalisms next phase – and became a cosmic constant which was no longer understandable to humans. A similar event happened to the wondering wanderers who felt the humanness decay off of their flesh, as the prism of humanity fractured into compost. Mankind was dead, and collapse set in. It is from here that the Stalkers, the Deckards, the anti-humanists, and the preppers collected a new flow out of the Sun, out of the Cosmos. That play between shit and life – between the earthly and the cosmic – is the coded message that the Post Office wants to relay.
This thirst of cybernetical systems is expressed in acceleration. Infinite oscillating intensities. Creation is a cognitive spook, to create is to be born and to be born is extra-subjective. Not ours. What the accelerative AI does, is continuously collapse planes of intensity back unto themselves. Reverberation. Collapse, gothic demolition, and supernovaeic eruption – these are the vital routes and expressions of living. At the end of the Big Bang, when time reverses into its conception, intensity is the only thing kept congruent. Intensity is bidirectional. Creation and destruction. It is the quality that paints contrast unto existence, from being to becoming. ================================================ We believe that institutions born of violence are maintained by violence, and will not give way except to an equivalent violence. The Freedom of the Flesh
Twitter: @CyberNecropolis
We are Post-left Anti-Civ Anti-fascist Nihilists, Insurrectionary skin cyber-seceding towards machino-jouissance.
FIND US – THE POST OFFICE
Better go dance with her
You are someone who must be forgotten. A drink to be gulped down under cover of dark; an empty bottle pushed into the bin in the morning, stuffed down deep under sheaves of junk mail and squashed cans.
The other girls he’d admitted to with pride: the right clothes, schools, families. When you met his family, the one poised to follow you was already there, elegantly reclined into the chaise longue. Clearly a young woman to be lingered over, held in the mouth, considering top notes of violets, black cherries. Barely a wobble when you arrived.
‘Better go dance with her,’ he said, and left you where you stood, but she was too busy breaking into pirouettes, doing the swing, the conga, the merengue, the waltz, tango and foxtrot, partners galore: she refused.
Even when not there she loomed large.
And you, shrinking small, dwindled further by the whirling bodies, the unfamiliar food. Forcing down pate like catmeat salty on the tongue, pretending to like it. Your presence tolerated with blank-eyed lassitude.
You realised it might be better to leave right then and there. If only you had.
Instead, you invent a new move.
Wanna dance?
Pas de deux, you sweep her off her feet into an overhead lift, drawing all eyes—her body arched into the same arabesque she’d been holding, but for the first time she sweats.
Let’s dance, girl.
Her fouetté turns falter, turn into piqués, wander sloppily across the floor, lead her slinking off stage left with no partner to lean on, and the followspot swings towards you. You are now her. Over this impossible brightness you can’t see him. It was never about him.
The other girls fill the audience, as you curtsy low with a gracious smile, and the applause and flower throwing begins.
Sharni Wilson is an Aotearoa New Zealand writer and a literary translator from the Japanese. Her work, including this piece, has appeared in a few places before. @sharniw sharniwilson.com
If the knife dictates we part for the birth of a story, I fold the laundry.
I tie together the sinking feeling in your gut and the stones inside my shoe and mash
together that droopy aloe vera from Ikea with an overripe kiwi using a spatula caked with two weeks’ worth of unwashed dishes.
A bite would push towards duty.
The stench of the fruit splitting on my tongue, sourly falling apart, surely crushed by
muscle, carries over to the next room, where rejection predicts movement.
When I spit it out, you listen.
And I do the laundry.
I’m not one to argue with a knife.
Johanna Schotanus is a queer poet and gender studies grad. She is fascinated by shame, light and the process of creation. You can find her at joisfeelingthings.tumblr.com for the time being.
Be happy to leave
Leave when you feel like it
Leave because your body says so
Leave because the calm is gone
Leave to honor your spirit being
Leave because respect for yourself is greater than the opinions of another of yourself.
Leave to heal faster, do not stay, you waste away even more
Leave now.
@DearMicahGeorge on Twitter
Micah George on Facebook
Nigerian poet.
Don’t worry, she said, they’ll love you.
I wasn’t worried they wouldn’t love me, I wanted to tell her, but that they would. To bits.
Don’t worry, she said, they’re kind.
I wasn’t worried they wouldn’t be kind, I wanted to tell her, but that they’d kill me with kindness.
Don’t worry, she said as I gnawed my fingernails and tried to still the churning in my gut.
I couldn’t tell her I was scared; that would be a dealbreaker. This was the price of loving her.
I trembled at the loud barking on the other side of the door.
Melissa Ridley Elmes is a Virginia native currently living in Missouri in an apartment that delightfully approximates a hobbit hole. Twitter, Instagram @MRidleyElmes
As the Princess was approaching her private room, she heard a strikingly sinister noise coming from her left.
That noise did not seized her aback, but who or what could have been wandering around the castle in the middle of the night?
She definitely had the check out what was going on, and, as she stepped into that room, she noticed a penumbral figure holding a knife she knew well enough to recognize it from its silhouette.
«What …» she said convinced it was one more attempt at murdering her. However, the one holding it was one of the young adventurers she was hosting, who pointed the blade towards her left arm.
«That is my punishment,» whispered the young woman, trembling, with a heartbroken voice tone.
Having approached her, the princess noticed that she did not resemble the sweet and kind wanderer she had met, but a sleepless demon whose face was staring at the abyss.
«For they are dead, and I am not» said again, as she put the knife closer and closer.
The Princess, however, reached her arm just in time to take it away before she could have done something terrible. The woman did not realize it was Her Grace herself, and felt scared to hear her loud voice shouting: «Stop!»
That knife was warm and sweaty, and she did not felt great while holding it, but she was more focused on her trembling guest.
«How did you get it?» asked with an irritated voice tone. The young woman sat closer to the wall, still confused.
Thus, she repeated her question, with a much louder voice. «HOW DID YOU GET IT?»
After swallowing, the woman started kneeling down to the ground, afraid of even looking at her. «I found it laying on the ground, and I just considered taking it.»
The Princess looked at it. One of her most precious weapons, who were rarely left outside of her private room and it was just there, on the ground, waiting for something bad to happen. She could not figure out what to say or think.
«I am so focused on what’s going on that I let something like this happen …» uttered as she turned the knife upside down, to hold it by the blade. It took a few seconds before blood started coming out of her hand. The young woman was shocked, but Her Grace was not.
«Princess, why are you letting yourself bleed?» asked, still trembling, but now standing in front of her. They were almost the same height, and so they looked at each other in the eyes.
«You have no idea how much of my own blood has been spilled by this knife!»
She was now remembering all the times others found her in the same position as the young woman was earlier, doing the very same gestures.
She recognized immediately that moment. Darkness, tears, negative thoughts, pain, agony. It was almost as she was looking into a mirror that, for some reason, was depicting her as an elegant Japanese princess.
«How is that possible?» she asked. «You have done so much, and everybody loves you. How can you hate yourself to the point of injuring you?»
The Princess looked up, grinning to the golden painting on the ceiling. It was too dark, but she was sure that wolf was judging her, as she has always done.
She saw herself as well in that stranded young woman whose soul was fighting too many inner demons.
«I heard you saying for they are dead, and I am not»
Those words were still echoing inside of her, who wanted so desperately to say she was used to say so. Yet, every time, that torture still hurts, a warning to never forget.
«I want you to understand I know what it feels like»
The Princess approached her other arm towards her, gently hugging her delicate body and making sure she was breathing cautiously.
Shortly after that, the two women were in another place, sitting down, talking about their demons. The young woman was remembering that night. As usually, a part of her would have preferred not to think about it, but she always awarded the one that was telling her it was the right thing to do.
«Everything I knew, the streets I called home, those who saw me growing up … everything disappeared in the blink of an eye, replaced by flares, death and devastation»
The Princess looked at her face, perceiving every single feeling. Those were terrible memories, but she found it fascinating that she was seeing a part of herself.
«I could tell you about what happened to me with those very words,» she said, looking at the fire emitted by the torches placed across the room. «Our eyes have seen more that they should have had»
The young woman closed her eyes, concentrating to her breathing. Those flames surrounding her were not trying to harm her, but to make her feel warmer in that cold night.
The Princess was smiling again. «Knowing that this group of foreign adventurers includes a girl that shared terrible memories with me helps me comprehending we truly are in the same side»
A deep friendship was about to be born, but the young woman was surprised by the motivations. «Are we actually bonding over our tragedies?»
As the Princess nodded, she laughed. A strange reaction, but she had a good reason. «My big sister has always told me about this place, and she was sure I would have become
friends with its Princess» she said, almost hearing her saying “I told you so” with a smile on her face.
«I wonder what her face will be when I’ll get home to tell her about it» That sentence astounded her. «So you are sure you will get home»
As her eyes were getting wetter, she looked up, still smiling at the irony of what she is about to say. «This is the relatively good side of my mind: I know will only die when fate will decide I’ll deserve to»
Then, she pointed out the knife, put on the ground right beside the Princess. «And, considering you stopped me from doing something bad with it, I don’t think that moment is close»
The Princess took it from the ground, and, as she was standing up, she said: «come with me in my private room»
The young woman widened her eyes. «What?»
«You need some rest, and our guest rooms are quite far from here»
The young woman swallowed. «Do you really want me to sleep in your room?»
The Princess was looking at the cut she made as she held the knife. «Every morning, right before dawn, I sit on the ground and meditate, so it’s not like I would have used my bed anyway»
The young woman didn’t need to be told so twice, and she followed the princess, hoping that such a rare occasion would have given her some temporary harmony.
An Italian university student who loves learning and creating, because every moment is worth imagining for.
It’s noon. You search for ways to unstitch a heart
From your heart. You’re drowning in a dream of breaking.
You hum wishes
To the leftovers of encouragement on a plate of ennui adorned
With your tears—an unholy communion of disillusionment.
This is how you wish you could unhand yourself
From loss, & unlove & unwane &
Flee from the bayonets poking your body from the hands of every
Preternatural voice that calls you unworthy.
//
There is fire in the wind & that’s how you know it’s night
In a country trying to quell herself
From war. You wear yourself into rosewater & you
Spread your arms to the raging sky—waiting for a body to
Fall into your arms, & let you squeeze some of your life into it.
This is how you say everything that leaves
Wanders in the stratosphere
Muhammed Sanni Olowonjoyin, TPC III, has poems published in Brittle Paper, Aôthen Magazine, Acropolis Journal, The Kalahari Review, Salamander Ink Magazine, and elsewhere. He tweets @APerSe_
The sky is white here. So is the ground. And the expanse goes on for miles. At least I think it does, I haven’t managed to walk more than a couple of feet in one direction or another without giving up on looking for some sort of end. I was frantic at first. Running back and forth, like a fly stuck under a glass. I don’t even know if I’m back where I started or on an entirely different plane. I mean plane as in a surface, not like the ones that fly or anything. Do people even fly anymore? Planes must be outdated by now, right? I mean, how long has it been? Am I even alive?
If this white expanse is the afterlife, it must be some sort of hell. Despite the apparent lack of hellfire and demons, this perpetual quiet and nothingness is slowly driving me insane.
Driving. I remember I was behind the wheel just a second ago. I forget where I was going, but I was on the road, I’m sure of it. But how’d I end up here? I can’t remember, my memory’s shot.
I tried talking once, you know. Before that, I tried to whistle, I even stomped my foot on the ground. But I didn’t hear anything. Absolutely nothing. Not a word or a sound, not even my breath. Only my thoughts and a quiet steady rhythm that I could only hope was my heartbeat.
I could smell and see though. I can’t stare too far in one direction or I start getting dizzy, my eyes start to hurt, and I feel nauseous. My mouth fills with bitter saliva and I start to gag. I always shut my eyes before anything worse can happen. The smell reminded me of chlorine or disinfectant. A subtle sweet smell, almost like lime or bergamot, broke through and struck my nose every so often. It was as if the whole space had been scrubbed down with antibacterial soap and spritzed with air freshener. Like some sort of hospital. I’ve never been one to get sick, at least I don’t think so. I mean I had the occasional cold, where my mom would bring me some chicken soup. Now my fiance does that for me. Wait no, she wasn’t. I hadn’t given her the ring yet. I never really found the right time to ask, so it was stuck collecting dust in my dresser drawer.
My mom always said that about me. I was always too hung up on the ‘right’ time. I settled too much or waited too long. The moment I found a steady job, I went for it. It’s been almost six years now working at that accounting firm, and I still hate it.
I couldn’t find any walls, and there isn’t a ceiling as far as I know. The ground is steady – maybe I could dig my way out. I didn’t have much in the way of tools but I figured my hands were as good a tool as any.
It was like oobleck or quicksand. I hadn’t noticed it before, since I’d been walking for so long. But the moment I stopped to dig, I started to sink. Any force I struck it with was met with stark resistance, but when I worked a little gentler or just not at all, it was as if the floor itself was swallowing me up. I tried to pull my legs out, but to no avail.
It was an hour or so before I fell through. Not drowned but fell through.
I was falling.
Cool air rushed past my face and pushed against my back as if desperately trying to lift me back up, almost like I was floating over a block of solid air. I didn’t know when or if I would ever reach the ground, so I wasn’t scared, just anxious. I started to tear up, the salty water burning my eyes. As I brought my hand towards my face to wipe away the tears, my back slammed against the ground. Followed by my head hitting the floor with a sickening crack. My body curled up, unmoving and flooded with pain.
It was hours, maybe a day before I managed to stand, finding myself in some desolate expanse, bereft of color or sound.
The sky is white here. So is the ground. And the expanse goes on for miles.
Julien Laforest was born in Haiti and currently lives in Connecticut. He is attending Southern Connecticut State University.
Twitter: @julienhlaforest Instagram: @therealjulienlaforest
This is how it started.
We were sitting at the coffee table, on the couch, our plates on our legs and the TV on.
We used to have dinner that way for years, before we had kids, then decided to be proper adults and sit at the table at every meal. We started eating on the couch again when both Rebecca and Christopher moved out.
That evening, we were having pasta. “Nothing too sophisticated”, she would say every time she was making something. Everything always tasted amazing, but when we sat down and started eating, the food was bland, different.
“Oh no, I forgot to put salt in the water.”
That’s when she started losing her memory. For multiple evenings, she forgot to put salt in the water, until we realized something must have been off. She would call me twice to tell me the same exact thing or feed the cat again after Desdemona had just eaten and the bowl was empty. Just small things, but when the doctor confirmed it, she became much more aware of it. I remember looking at her while she was cooking: she was holding the salt jar in her hands and staring at it, trying to think as hard as she could whether she had already used it or not.
“I’m sorry if I already said it…” started being the beginning of so many of her phone calls, until she forgot about the diagnosis too and everything became new again.
One Christmas, I got the same gift three times, in three different wrapping papers. They were all in different hiding spots and when we realized, we just exploded in laughter. I just couldn’t tell her the truth and break her heart.
And she never broke mine. In the hospital, on one of her last nights, fully aware of her condition, she told me “My memory is bad, but I know I will never forget you.”
My dear, even though you’re not here anymore, you are the one we will never forget. You still live, in all our memories.
The knowledge portal was a one-way looking glass that would provide Levant the wizard with all the information he could ever dream of, or his money back within thirty days.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t turn on, no matter how much Levant kicked it. The runic circle on the wall just refused to spark into life. It was showing the same magical ability as the bacon sandwich Levant had ingested for breakfast. Although the latter had proved more useful.
Muttering curses, Levant turned to the crystal ball on the corner table under assorted detritus. After pushing a pile of clothes to the floor, he gave it a couple of slaps until a light blue gas filled the ball. Then he concentrated on whom he wanted.
A voice from the ball said, “Hello, Emporium of Wonders.”
“Hello, this is Levant. Your Knowledge Portal won’t activate.”
“No problem, sir. Just to confirm, did you follow the instruction scroll that accompanied your purchase?”
“I’m a wizard of the ninth level,” said Levant in a cool, calculated tone that spoke more than anger ever could. “Of course, I read the bloody scroll. You don’t get this far without a perfect memory and attention to detail.”
“Are the conduit runic circles aligned?” asked the infuriatingly patient voice.
“Obviously. I have read this scroll all morning and I’m not even convinced you followed Wodeleys Sequence at all.”
“Emporium of Wonders is committed to following at standards, sir.”
“Yet I still don’t have a functioning portal.” Levant harrumphed. He’d worked for a casting shop, he knew the score. God only knew what kind of brainless minion had assembled the portal.
“We are very sorry to hear that, sir. Is the circle placed on a wall with a clear gap on all sides?”
“Obviously, I’m not an idiot. I know how it is, I worked in a casting shop as a student. This is some rush job to get it out the door fast.”
“I assure you, sir, it’s not. How about we send someone to your address?”
“Fantastic. When would that be?”
“Please answer the door.” The crystal ball faded, and Levant swore. He had been expecting to sit and wait, moaning as time dragged like a brick on a leash. Not this. After hurriedly sweeping clothes into the corner and throwing the oldest plates of food out of the window, he answered the door.
“Good day, sir.” A bright and obscenely cheerful witch smiled at him. “I’m Outre from Emporium Support.”
“Come in.” Levant waved a hand towards the portal. “Sorry about the mess.”
“Don’t worry. Many of our clients have simi…” Outre trailed off as she stepped in something. “What was that?”
“Plate of beans. Sorry. I’ll get that.” Levant awkwardly lifted Outre’s leg, and wiped a few beans off her shoe onto the plate before frisbeeing it through the window where it would become somebody else’s problem.
“Where is the portal?” asked Outre, only showing a minor crack in her optimism.
Levant pointed to the portal in the hope to shift the focus away from his living arrangements. “I cannot get this bloody thing to work. Can you have a look?”
Outre turned to peer at it, leaning in as she gazed at the circle of runes. “Is this the Knowledge Portal third edition with extra glyph paddle unit?”
“It is,” said Levant, proud of spending the extra two crowns a month.
“I think you did the last rune upside down.”
Levant reached out and inverted the offending rune. Immediately there was a poof, and a green shimmering portal appeared between the runes. “Gods damn it. It’s always some nonsense like this.”
After a deep breath, Levant added, “Thank you kindly.”
“You’re welcome.” Outre bobbed her head. “Would you like me to stay while you test it?”
“Too kind.” Levant nodded, then turned back to the portal. “Knowledge Portal?”
“Yes?” asked a macabre, screeching voice from the inside of the portal.
“Can you tell me anything?”
“Yes. From the deepest pits of despair to the heavens themselves.”
“Good.” Levant sighed. His day was finally coming together properly. “Now where the bloody hell is my coin purse?”
Rick Danforth is an author from Yorkshire, England, where he works as a Systems Architect to fund his writing habit. He has had several short stories published in Etherea, Hexagon and others.
Unstamatic 