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Hanging Babylon, fig trees of dream—uncut oasis, liquor of sun. Perfect Babylon: a sceptre, ailing queen, a gospel of hoaxes preachers hang from their lips; hang, Babylon— like illustrious light in blue. You died and lived again; the garlands of folklore welcomes as the mortal instruments resent. A nightmare’s orange grove, the tragedy’s first words; hang, Babylon—fruit of the hanging tree. Venus Fung is a seventeen-year-old appreciator of literary art based in Hong Kong. Complex  literature, well-written lyrical masterpieces and deep conversations make up the bulk of her  personality; under her pen, anything could be her muse. She believes that there is a meaning  to all that exists if it is read and looked at enough times. Writing is her preferred medium of  conversation with herself, and with those who appreciate the arts within life the way she  does. She hopes to inspire, but even more so she hopes to simply be there and support those  who are struggling through her own words.

Does darkness have an inherent appeal that lures one to her own destruction? Do we leave the life of light and clarity just to get lost in a world of hidden ugliness? She is barefooted, unprepared. An ugly bird guards the path to the world unknown. Yet she is determined to walk in. Does she know of the large venomous black spider waiting silently near the ground, counting the moments until someone walks in so it can spread its poison into her blood? Will she lie blue and dead as she tries to get into that uncertain world? But darkness also shrouds the untrodden beauties tucked beyond our sight. That grass outside is green and the sky is blue. The large patch of calmness speaks of a safe life that idly walks to death. What do we want life to be? A long one that is a canvas painted in a single shade of monotony that stays stuck where it always was, or one that comes wrapped with risks? She gambles her time into the shadowed realm. She knows there is yet another bird just behind the wall that keeps this world separated from the mundaneness. Large flowers blossom stained with exotic vivid colors. She wants it all. She might die. But something calls her in. She is ready to take her chance. Fariel Shafee has degrees in science. However, she loves to paint. She has exhibited paintings and digital art internationally. Her portfolio can be seen here: http://fshafee.wixsite.com/farielsart

The van in their driveway is totaled. May doesn’t need an expert to tell her that. The oak tree growing through it is proof enough. Bark and branches have pushed faded leather seats out of place; dark green leaves have shattered every window; and roots have punctured all the wheels. The air is still whistling through the rubber. The heart of the oak twists through the engine. The trunk is covered in oil and sickly green freon splatters onto the pavement. Other than that, the tree isn’t much affected at all. The leaves look healthy and green, and underneath the stains, the bark is whole. May frowns and sips her coffee. If the tree splitting up the car isn’t weird enough, how good it looks will definitely do them both in. What kind of oak sprouts green leaves in November? “I can’t believe you’ve done this,” she says. Next to her, Jake runs a hand through sleep-rumbled copper hair. Somehow, he looks more confused than she does. It’s not like May’s the one who made the tree appear. “I can explain,” he says. May narrows her eyes at him, and takes another long pull of coffee, waiting for the excuse. It really is too early for this. Her coffee is too bitter, not as soothing as it would be later in the morning at 7 or 8. But Jake’s outbursts don’t keep a good schedule. He’s made too much of wood and wildness for that to happen. Jake opens his mouth, then stalls. May puts a hand on her hip. He “can explain” indeed. “So maybe I don’t have a good reason,” he finally says. “But in my defense, I never liked that van.” Jake doesn’t like cars much in general. The van itself can’t be the problem. May rubs her temple with her free hand, which does nothing to stave off her oncoming headache. “So your subconscious destroyed it with a tree?” Jake shrugs. He doesn’t fully understand yet that there are consequences for these sorts of things. To be fair, it won’t be him paying for a new car. (How could he when May can’t even manage to get him a credit card? Try as she might, May can’t convince any computer system of Jake’s existence. Technology. Far too resistant to magic. Unless you went with Jake’s blunt force approach). “I don’t know why my dreams rewrite reality,” he adds, yawning. “They just do. Can we go back to bed now?” Really, this is what May gets for having a husband who was previously a fox. Her parents were pleased that she’d settled down. (And that she’d done a fairly large piece of magic to get him. They always worried she’d given up on witching entirely.) And May genuinely loved Jake. He watched all her favorite shows without complaint and his quick mind suited him well when it came to game nights. Then there are the benefits of having someone who accepts life as it comes with no complaints. Turning human, getting a job, dreaming so hard he conjures an oak tree? Jake takes it all in stride—as if it’s all part of the natural world, like the seasons changing. May wishes she could be so untroubled. There would be less of a problem if they didn’t have human neighbors. The dreams becoming reality side effects aren’t all bad. Sometimes she wakes to dogwood flowers circling down the legs of their dining room table. Or the flames in the fireplace coloring a silvery purple. Small, semi-romantic things. But the same people who wonder at Jake’s too-bright green eyes and May’s curious ability to avoid jury duty will surely question this mix of car and tree. Well, nothing for it now. May isn’t going to give Jake up, even if he does wander out and bring back dead rabbits. He knows her better than anyone else and loves her as she is. The only way to cover the tree up is to turn the whole world upside down. Luckily, May has some practice with that. She finishes her coffee, goes back inside, makes some toast, and stirs up a hurricane. Amy Oates lives in Williamsburg, Virginia. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco and currently works as a copywriter. Usually, she is thinking about two things—Greek mythology and vampires. She has been previously published in Aothen magazine. You can find her on the site formerly known as Twitter as @oatesam.

Rivers of blood oozed down the beached leviathan’s blubbery skin, darkening the foam of incoming waves and staining the sand. Frenzied sharkaraks thrashed in the surf, tearing flesh and circuits out of the carcass, their carbon-steel teeth scraping on bone. Next to the mountain of meat and glittering metal, Edric’s daughter and her skiff were mere specks. Edric slip-slided down the shoreline dunes, thanking the gods under his breath as he ran. He’d reached Shoal before she set out to sea. “Shoal, I beg you, please don’t leave,” Edric said, fighting to catch his breath after dashing the length of the island. “I need to do this, Baba,” she said, tightening the rigging, knotted as the muscles flexing across her sun-dark back. When had she become so strong? He remembered teaching her the knots and ties as a little girl, her fingers always quick to pick up a new weave. She was destined to become an adventurer like her mother and her mother’s mother. But when she turned to face him, Edric still saw his little girl. He couldn’t bear to think of her alone on the wide ocean under a sail barely twice her height, great leviathans in the deeps below and semi-flesh sharkaraks stalking the waves all around. “I know you do,” Edric said, touching her arm. She burned with life even the cool ocean waves couldn’t wash away. “But can’t you wait? Just a little longer?” “The currents will shift any day, Baba. I won’t wait another season. You said so yourself, that by my age, mamma had voyaged and started her life here.” Edric sighed and let his hands tremble. Shoal would leave and there is nothing more he could do to protect her, the only family he had left in the world. Shoal smiled like the sun. Then, without warning, Shoal’s arm shot out and shoved him backward with more strength than he could have dreamed she had. Time slowed as a frenzied sharkarak burst through the waves, jaws snapping at the spot in the surf where Edric had stood a moment ago. Shoal spun and leaped into her skiff, grabbing her harpoon. With the fluid motion they had practiced together over years of fishing, Shoal launched the harpoon straight into the monster’s glassy eye. The sharkarak veered towards her but Shoal leaped again, away from the hungry maw. In a last burst of fury, the beast sank its teeth into the boat and tore a chunk away. Still snapping, it retreated into the sea, churning bloody foam in its wake. “Are you hurt, Baba?” Shoal helped Edric to his feet, her hands strong and steady. Shoal’s breath was no more labored than if they had been pulling fishing nets in for the day. Edric leaned on his daughter as he stood. “Shaken like a palm tree in a storm, but still here. Thanks to you,” Edric said, squeezing his daughter’s shoulder. He tried to step away, but his knees buckled and Shoal helped him down to the sand. “Maybe I can stay another few days,” Shoal said, a look of concern in her eyes. Nearby, another wave crashed against the leviathan’s body, sending a cloud of rainbow spray high in the air. When the wind and water changed their direction, what was left of the giant would wash away, ushering in the season of isolation. The island would be unreachable to all the world. “You should go. I’ll be fine,” Edric said. He was proud of Shoal. He would be more proud thinking of her as she flew over the water to new lands. “Can I help you repair your skiff? The currents will shift soon.” Alex Zoubine lives outside New York with his partner and dog. When he's not writing speculative fiction, he can be found learning new languages or geeking out over technology.

Danielle extended a long white leg into a long white stocking and watched without interest as servants hooked the delicate lace into place. She didn’t understand why they stood on ceremony today of all days, but was too exhausted and too far beyond caring to protest. What was one more day of playing the puppet? The rest of the morning progressed as it always did: two hundred brushstrokes on the right side of her head, two hundred on the left, a soft step into her skirts and a teeth-clenching battle with her corset. Two maids solemnly strung gold chains around her neck and twisted diamond combs into her hair, before a third stepped forward with a silver tray bearing brushes and white powder. Her unloved husband, the reigning king, stepped into the room, his face nearly as pale as her own, without the same layer of powder. “They’re nearly ready for us,” he said, voice shaking. She nodded. Together, they walked outside, garments sparkling and heads raised high. They laid those high heads atop the wooden stockades set up in the center of the square, and turned their eyes to the sky, which was cloudless and blue, and its twin reflected in the executioner’s axe. It was a cold, brutal end to a cold, brutal marriage. Danielle’s last bitter thought as the axe fell was that she’d make an exceptionally well-dressed corpse. There was sunlight in the underworld. Living people would never have envisioned it that way, but when Danielle opened her eyes, it was golden hour in a redwood forest. There was a thatch of ferns next to her and a small creek squirming over white rocks—all of it glowing with innumerable pinpricks of glittering light. She sat up in disbelief. It was beautiful. She leaned forward and touched the tree next to her. It didn’t feel much different from the ones she’d touched in life—perhaps a little softer—but sparks swirled and eddied at her touch like dust motes that had been disturbed. Looking down, she saw similar glimmers in her own palms, blinking and sparkling with soft green luminescence. “You’re seeing the particles of existence.” Danielle turned to find a withered old woman in a velvet robe walking toward her. The sparks dancing under the woman’s skin were mostly lavender, and her skin was thin enough to display them clearly. “Is this death?” The woman nodded. “It is. A part of it, anyway. Not as bad as you imagined, is it?” Danielle looked around. “No, I suppose not.” But she shook slightly, and laced her hands together. “I’m here to be your guide. My name is Adeni.” Danielle inclined her head automatically, then paused and raised a tentative hand instead. “Danielle.” Adeni took Danielle’s hand and led her toward a dirt path, bare feet leaving imprints in the wet earth. It was hard to focus with the swirl of multicolored atoms everywhere, making Danielle feel like she was walking through the cosmos. The path led them to a little town with houses carved directly into the natural rock and a waterfall crashing into kaleidoscopic radiance at the far end. Adeni let Danielle pause and admire the vista before herding her into a large building where people of all ages drifted back and forth with plates of food and settled into large, decadent cushions—much brighter and softer than the ones in the living world. The feeling of the gathering was familial and light. Danielle realized that all of these people must also, naturally, be dead. She wondered how they’d made this little community, and if she was expected to stay. She wondered if her husband was in a town like this one, choking down outrage about spending eternity in the company of peasants. That thought almost made her smile. Adeni selected a cushion and presented Danielle with a mug of rose petal tea. “You’re lucky; Aaron is cooking tonight. In his hands, food is a high art.” “Do we need to eat?” Danielle asked. Adeni smiled. “No, but we like to. Food can nourish the soul as well as the body—and you’ll find that most of the dead like to imitate the experiences of living, at least for a while.” An old man offered them a meal on a polished ebony platter. Danielle wasn’t hungry, but years of etiquette lessons compelled her to fill her plate anyway. Her fork moved automatically, but her brows raised in real appreciation when she experienced the flavors: lentils simmered in savory broth, fruit stewed with cardamom and cloves, cheese whipped and blended with fresh herbs. Each taste was impossibly, magically vivid, and all of it glimmered with gentle yellow light. Adeni smiled at her reaction. “It’s good that you are able to enjoy it so much. Many of the new dead are too distraught to do so.” Danielle smiled hesitantly. “It is very good. And…I was not overly attached to my life—at least, not at the end. I didn’t have much in the way of personal autonomy.” “Ah.” Adeni’s eyes were gentle, understanding. The man who had served them returned with a thin blonde man. This time, Danielle looked more closely, examining their particles. The old man’s were mostly blue, but the blonde man’s were the same cheery yellow as the food, but there were also speckles of lavender at their wrists and temples. Adeni spoke. “Thank you for the meal, Aaron. It was delightful as always.” He beamed. “I’m glad to have delighted you.” Danielle emboldened enough to thank him, and he smiled at her. “I’m glad to have eased your introduction to the underworld; it’s overwhelming for many. You’re lucky to have Adeni as your guide.” She nodded and slipped back into silence as the others spoke about the meal and the little joys of their day. When they left, she turned to Adeni. “Everyone’s particles are different.” “Of course, child. How dull if we were all made up the same!” Danielle’s slender eyebrow wrinkled. “But those men had bits of lavender.” Adeni laced her wrinkled hands and sat up to eye her squarely. “I’ve given some of myself to them.” “You’ve given…yourself?” “My particles. My essence.” Danielle stilled as confusion and another, icier feeling raised goosepimples on her skin. She looked at the rubble of the meal, still radiating that distinctive yellow glow—Aaron’s color. “What happens if you run out of particles?” Adeni didn’t respond. Instead, she took Danielle’s cold hands in her own warm soft ones, and squeezed. After the meal, they walked to one of the carved stone cottages and Adeni delivered Danielle to a bedroom full of silk cushions and beautifully engraved mahogany furniture. She lit a beeswax candle and fluffed the pillows, then excused herself. Danielle crawled into the bed and found that it was decadently soft and springy—far more comfortable than any bed she’d slept in at the palace, and blessedly, blessedly free of scrutinizing attendants. But tonight she didn’t sleep. Instead, she stared at the embroidery on the coverlet and the fine detailing on the desk and the delicate leather bound books on the shelves, all of which flickered with faint rainbows in the darkness. Then she looked at her own palm and the precious green sparks freckling its surface. You can lose yourself here, she thought. You can give pieces of yourself away until there is nothing left. To finally get freedom now, and then to lose it… She watched them, sleepless, until morning. The next day, Adeni greeted Danielle with pastries that melted in the mouth like snowflakes. They sat at a stubby little table in the garden, surrounded by roses. In the sunlight, it was harder to see whether the food they were eating was seasoned with somebody’s particles, and Danielle relaxed. For the first time, she overcame the strangeness of her circumstances and considered the afterlife’s possibilities. She was so incredibly unwatched here, and the liberty of privacy was dizzying. She’d spent the last hour before sunrise teaching herself to wriggle into her dress like a fish, and the triumph she felt when she finished was half because she’d figured it out and half because she’d made herself look ridiculous and no one cared. What was existence like without unwavering scrutiny and responsibility? Adeni interrupted her thoughts. “My task now is to deliver you to a person or place of your choice, where I will leave you to make your own way. Do you have any loved ones you’d like to try to find?” Danielle considered. Most of her immediate family was still alive—thriving, she hoped—in her mother country. Her thoughts went to her husband, who would likely even now be sinking his vicious teeth into the people around him, and she winced. “No, no one. My family is young. But…” She hesitated, then pressed her hands firmly against the tabletop. “I can choose? For myself?” Adeni nodded. “Perhaps…there is a city somewhere here—a place where a woman could make her own way in the underworld?” Adeni’s eyes crinkled in the corners. “Then we will go to one of the cities.” She stood and hefted the tower of crockery, and Danielle leaned back warily as it wobbled. “Is the underworld large, or complicated to travel through?” “It is exactly the same as the living world, only more so.” Adeni’s laugh sounded like a boxspring wheezing, but her smile was lovely. They collected two horses and saddlebags from a thatch-roofed stable, packing oiled tents and thick sleeping rolls, and jars of Adam’s curry and scones. “Won’t you miss your house and your work here?” Danielle asked. Adeni shook her head. “Death isn’t like that. And I won’t be gone long.” The horses had glossy gray coats and white forlocks, and were dappled with so many hues of particles that Danielle struggled to discern their original color. “Helter and Skelter have been well loved,” Adeni said, stretching onto tiptoe to plant a kiss and a single lavender particle onto each of their shaggy foreheads. Danielle pulled her arms away to avoid brushing them and held her skirts tight when she mounted. The nearest large city was called Viveret, and was three days’ ride away. They kept a gentle pace, and the forest setting made the exercise pleasant. Eventually, Danielle asked her companion about her previous life. “I don’t remember very much,” Adeni said. “I’ve been here a long time, and have transmuted a lot of myself into other things. But I remember the midwinter festivals and my home in the mountains, which was green and quiet and surrounded by sheep. I was a wool weaver.” Danielle’s lips gave a brave twitch. “That sounds lovely.” “It was. I was much luckier in life than most, and even my death was easy—a few minutes of chest pain and then a warm baptism into the underworld.” She’d opened her mouth to speak again when Adeni hauled her horse to a stop. The old woman kicked a foot free and tried to leap down, tumbling knee-first into the pine needles and kicking up a fog of dust. Danielle hissed in alarm, but Adeni was already up and bobbing toward a grassy clearing on the other side of the trail. Danielle squinted toward the target of her guardian’s concern: an old man crumpled in a heap on the ground. He was so short and frail that he looked like a child. Adeni sank to her knees and, with surprising strength, gathered him up with his legs bundled like firewood. She dragged him to her lap and gestured imperiously for Danielle to come join her. For a heartbeat, Danielle hesitated. She’d been a queen. But she wasn’t any longer, thank God. She obeyed. In the next hour, Adeni taught Danielle how to make a splint and brew a painkilling tea from poppies and willowbark, which the man sipped tentatively when it cooled. He’d been making a pilgrimage to see a beloved grandson, and fallen from his horse. “I shouldn’t have brought my weakness with me into death, but I couldn’t let go of it. It’s a part of me,” he said sheepishly. By lunchtime, the man could stand and walk, and he left shortly afterward with a stick clasped in his fist and a few new lavender particles mingled with his dense red ones. “Did you heal him?” Adeni smiled. “He didn’t need healing, not truly, but we gave him the care he needed.” “And you aren’t worried about the cost?” Danielle asked, touching Adeni’s dun fingertips apprehensively. “To me, it isn’t a cost. We don’t all hold our identities so tightly, and I have been in existence a long time.” Adeni gave Danielle’s arm a soft squeeze. Then she swept up the husks of their healing efforts and began to make camp. The next day the landscape changed, and trees surrendered to wildflowers and limestone. On the way, Danielle asked Adeni about her world, learning about the villages and the people, and by proxy about the woman herself, who chose her observations with great care and spoke of her companions with enthusiasm. They stopped for the night in the shadow of a pockmarked boulder, and Danielle pitched the tents so that Adeni could rest. It took some significant trial and error, but the end result was indisputably tent-esque. She set out the jars of curry and bread, and had uncorked a bottle of dandelion wine when she caught movement near her ankle and lept back with a yelp. A field mouse staggered into the waning sunlight and came to rest inches from Adeni’s unshod feet. Danielle stepped forward to shoo it away, but Adeni waved her back and petted it absently. Danielle stilled—not because the wild creature was so calm, which she’d grown used to, but because it was so lightless. A single orange spark hovered at the tip of the creature’s nose like a raindrop. Adeni lifted it so that she could look into its little eyes, pepper flakes that they were, and held its gaze as her thumbs stroked its cheeks. The mouse lifted its tired head and tapped its nose against the old woman’s palm, simultaneously relinquishing its final spark as casually as a tossed coin. Danielle’s breath froze in her chest, and there was a moment of absolute silence. Then, the mouse’s body dissolved into the air and vanished, and the entire valley filled with an unearthly, beautiful sound of chimes. The sound swelled slowly and then held, vibrating the skin on Danielle’s face and hand before fading away. Above, birds swirled in circles above them and a shower of flower petals fell from the trees to carpet the ground at their feet. The orange particle in Adeni’s palm migrated to her thumb, where it glowed brighter than any star Danielle had seen. Danielle felt a wave of conflicting emotions; here was proof that everything she’d feared could come to pass—complete dissolution, an absolute end to individual identity, real, permanent death. But it had also been peaceful and lovely and, above all, voluntary. She looked at the particle glowing in Adeni’s thumb like a beacon. The older woman caught her looking and gave her a radiant smile, then caught her in an unexpectedly tight hug. Danielle was unused to receiving hugs, but found, in that moment, that she didn’t mind them. On the third day, the two women talked. They talked through the low rocky hills and up into the high, grassy mesas, talked through fern-dotted woods and fields of wildflowers, and talked through the groves of figs and oranges that surrounded the city. Adeni’s voice grew haggard, but never lost its warmth, and Danielle’s laughs became freer and freer. At sundown, they reached the opalescent pink wall of Viveret, and were greeted by a pair of giddy-faced welcomers who waved them on their way with lit candles. They found succor in a little inn built from the same pearly rock, directly next door to the building where new immigrants could come to find a place for themselves. Adeni tried to unload the horses, but Danielle could see that her legs were trembling from the long ride, and took the reins instead. She watched the old woman carefully, an unexpectedly strong wave of tenderness coming over her. The inn was unattended, but well-stocked with warm food and cold drink. The women spent their final night together laughing over a hearty stew dinner that never grew cold. Adeni was a wealth of advice about life in the city, and Danielle was pleased to listen. There was fear, of course, but also excitement, and Adeni’s words only added to Danielle’s fascination. Their talk ran late into the night, and eventually Adeni’s fatigue stole the remainder of her words and they sat quietly, the old woman battling to keep her eyes open and her spine straight. Then, with slow deliberation, Danielle reached out and took the old woman’s hand and squeezed. When she released it, a single green particle remained behind, blinking on the wrinkled old palm like a star—a gift, freely given. And in the giving, Danielle herself felt free. Colette is a California native living and working in Amsterdam. She’s spent most of her career writing, editing, and ghostwriting for various tech companies in Silicon Valley, but is increasingly focused on her creative pursuits. She has a grudging history in PR and marketing and a passion for studying history.

The end of life is a beautiful woman beside you; her yellow self cast forth from the yellow lamp: a buzzing papilio yellow-robed, red hair; dawn rising through an ocean of translucent gold. Your lady and legs crossed; green needles outside combed with cool breath (sap fading)— as she files her nails and draws out the cherry color, sea breams her fingers, touching the wheat portraits, of Whitman? Pound? She touches your face, then an orange peeled after the dried citrus of lacquer; it rests upon your nostrils too while the undulation of golden fins shake the red stream. Grinning, she will read to you, caressing the faces of earth, then depart from you, to the timeclock, to throw her socks, washes, wiggles in bed for warmth giggling all throughout. The dew slowly falls and sloshes upon the cathedral’s crosses, as Sunday mass arrives and leaves, with none attending. Your Bible is both for leisure, commonplace: a pan of dust; you asleep beside her. Elvins Artiles is a writer based in Boston, Massachusetts. Engaged in an adulterous affair with life, Elvins strives after the subduing of the sublime with the few words he feels confident in showcasing. A self-proclaimed literary masochist, Elvins enjoys the celestial contempt acquired in every turning minute he gives to his writing. He hopes to make beautiful things. https://elvinsartiles.wixsite.com/website

I pray to Dionysus— begging him to walk me through his vineyard Asking him to sew me to his thigh and make me twice-born too I fear he is the only one who will truly understand I offer him the last sip of every wine bottle And he will craft my very own drinking cup He’ll tell me of the lover he grieves How loss concaves into surrender His body turned to leaves How it was from that vine That Dionysus first made wine Feet outrunning the mourning Just by thinking of running I pray to Dionysus— The only God who has proven himself to me The only God to give me retribution I offer him alternating sips of my Pinot, Drunk tears collected in a bottle and Worst fears in pairs Meredith Brown is a queer poet based in Austin, Texas. Her work reflects on the minute and the growing pains of both childhood and adulthood (with a focus on light and love). Previously published works can be found in Soul Talk Magazine, Glaze Zine, Heartbalm Lit, Dipity Literary Magazine, Palindrome Journal, and Mid-Level Management Literary Magazine.

The hills of home were hewn with gray—gray, gray, gray—haunting gray. Their house stood silent, still, upon the hill—it never sold—perhaps because my parents had taken their own lives, each with a .22 pistol, facing each other, cross-legged in the living room with blinds closed, two years ago. I received a letter. The night’s darkness deepened this drowning feeling, this sinking, gloomy feeling, like crows watching from overhead singing eerie dirges—this air of imminent death. I went home to fulfill a promise, one so black and twisted it remained to be seen if I could do what those before me did in their darkest hour. It was Christmas Eve and in the black of the night, I went to the canyon—and trepidation crept up, crept up, crept up. The canyon, caustic like his own cancerous mind, cascaded down, down, down to a river beyond their house, the river wherein we used to play. I saw him standing statuesque on the old wooden bridge, motionless, poised to fall. How could I forget his blackness—boots, pants, coat—his heart reached out to me, corrupting all my thoughts. I went to him. “You got the letter,” he said, his voice raspy as if he hadn’t spoken for some time. “Yes,” I responded robotically. “Then we’ll do it in the house.” “Yes,” I whispered. I remembered when we had been in foul moods; for months we were in foul moods. If we had ever seen too much, done too much…and now my parent’s demons were out to destroy. We scaled the canyon walls wading through the sagebrush as one wades through the people at an airport. Every sensation from the touch of the harsh brush to the burning of my thighs was distinct and powerful—these moments, these thoughts, these feelings were our last. I was a few short steps back from him, my stomach twisting and turning as do the pigs being lead to the slaughterhouse. I thought of what comes next: green, gorgeous fields, a white house with a woman, one who loves and loves to be loved, waiting, just waiting for me. He and I would be together as we envisioned as youths: grow up, live together, play video games at night and program games during the day— and our wives would play too and love us, but that could not happen in this world, not anymore. We reached their house, and my legs, bloated and full of trepidation as if it were served gratuitously at dinner, stopped and my mind froze. Their house stood before me like the closed coffin that it was. “There’s no going back now,” he said. “We promised each other, and we have nothing left.” What did I have? For months I had no doubts. The marriage had collapsed; the divorce was finalized. She now wanted nothing of me, and I couldn’t live without her. She had stayed with me as long as she could, but I wanted the impossible: the wife, asleep in bed, waiting with open arms after I took a night of sexual reveling with the bar floozies and ex-girlfriends. I wanted the days with her and the nights with them. And the day she had said she was through, I had thought then she would be back. I was her world. But I was not her world; and she never came back. I went into the house and it reeked of decay; the dust of two years' time unsettled with the door opening wide. The house was dead and there was dread—dread engulfed my every sense, my skin hairs prickled up and my heart beat to the beat of the drum—ba beat, ba-beat, ba-beat, ba-beat, ba-beat, ba-beat— —And it was Christmas Eve! “We’ll sit there,” he said. “Where they were,” I said. I had found them Christmas morning. I had opened the door to the horrors of blood, to two visages I could only identify by the clothes they had worn. I had vomited and closed the door quickly, but the image was forever lodged—my father, slumped against the wall, cross-legged, my mother blasted to the side. I looked now at the floor and the walls, empty save for the dust. Who would find us, bloodied and unrecognizable? We sat facing each other like they did. And we each in turn pulled out the .22 pistols, those same pistols. “When I went to war, I thought I was fighting a global enemy,” he began. “I remember it had been a hot, hot summer day, July 14th. I was positioned in the tower. There was no fan, only a little space to move and no time to take a shit or a piss. I just had to watch.” He shook his head slowly from side to side as if what he was about to say he could scarcely believe. “It was early afternoon. I had been up there for five fucking hours. And then a little boy came out of the market and the sun lit up his face and I remember him looking right up at me. And then he walked with his eyes squinted from the sun right towards the base. I yelled for him to stop, but he didn’t. And you know what I did…? I put a bullet into his head. And you know what? There was no bomb, nothing. My first kill. It was easier after that: a woman with a strange backpack, a man wearing a cast, the list goes on. A license to kill. I had smiled at the faces of the dead. Now it’s their turn to smile.” And then he paused. “When the world offers you nothing…” “We each in turn offer nothing back,” I said. “Then on three,” he said. And then to my horror, we both put the guns to our heads, the sweat poured from my hands, my legs, my body—but he was stone, set on destruction, hollowed face, shallow voice, cold heart. But for me, the passing of passivity had begun—I remembered them, tortured minds, bullets ending everything. They left me to grieve, to wonder… “Three, two…,” he begun. What had it been? Financial ruin…gambling debts, a lost mortgage, I couldn’t remember. Their credit cards had been scattered about them. They left me with their debt, their demons, but more so, questions, so many questions and no answers. I thought of her and what questions I would leave her… “One…” “Wait…,” I said. He pulled the trigger. His last action: shedding the tears he couldn’t before let go, a simple movement of his finger that ended it all. I saw green, gorgeous fields turn to smoke, a white house turn to ash, a woman who loves and loves to be loved turn to blood, and us, I saw us—him turning down and me turning away. What he saw I will someday know, but what I saw, he will never know. Tim McDonald grew up in the Pacific Northwest, went to school at Pacific Lutheran University for creative writing, and has worked in copywriting, teaching and the wine business. He currently owns and operates a small Italian restaurant in north Seattle.

Rain slickened the cobbled steps up the long road to the professor's home. The home had stood on its mountain perch for over four hundred years, and the professor had lived there just as long. He likely would until the mountain itself gave way to time. A stiff knock on the door caught the professor’s ear. He had just started a bottle of wine, and hated to be interrupted before it was finished, but stood nonetheless, and shifted to the door. The poor courier’s hands shook in the cold as he handed a letter and parcel to the professor. “Terribly sorry to hear about your student, sir.” The door had already been halfway closed. It creaked slightly open again. “What was that?” “Your student, James. With the pneumonia.” “Oh yes, James. How is he doing?” “He died, sir… He left these for you.” “I see. Terribly sorry to hear that, son. Send my best to his family.” The door was shut with force. First the letter. Then the wine. Maybe he’d get to the parcel in the morning. Knowing James, it was some foolish art piece, and the professor hardly had interest in such things. The envelope was damp from the rain, and so opened without a letter opener. Solemn final greeting, heartfelt opening, thanks for the time they shared. The professor skimmed the letter, until reaching his student’s remarks on death–which he skipped entirely. Why bother? His eyes landed on the final note before the final goodbye. I’ve left for you, a work of mine. May it brighten your halls as you brightened my mind. The professor chuckled. He had been right! Some crude depiction of himself, or perhaps the study hall in which he taught. Now curiosity overcame him, and he took the parcel in hand. He tore the covering to reveal an oil painting. Blues and yellows and greens, the Sky in brilliant display could convince you that the painting itself was on fire. The sharp radiance of the sun cutting through a morning mist, a small array of avian silhouettes flew in the corner. At the very bottom edge, rolling hills of green and stone remained just barely in view. They knew not to come any closer. The Sky was the focus. And what a focus it was. The professor observed the painting, and laughed. He pulled it, corner dragging, to the window and threw open the shades. He held the shining canvas to a cloudy sky. “See this, sky? Bring the storm, bring the winds! When your gale threatens to tear my house from its perch, I’ll fetch this thing from my attic, dust it off, and nail it over the window. Let that keep my home intact!” He laughed, coughed. Stared down the sky. Its rain kept falling. A sniffle, then shut the blinds, turning the painting over in his hands as he walked towards the door to the cellar. One bottle wouldn’t be enough tonight. “The sky is seen by all, fool. Who needs your interpretation of it? When this canvas rots away, in time, and your name comes up by chance in the depths of some forgotten record, they will ask me who you were. What you did. I will tell them–oh, he painted the sky. You’re welcome.” He tossed the painting aside and descended into the cellar. Beads of rain were squeezing through the stone walls, bringing with them a suffocating humidity. Forgetting a candle, the professor made do with his memory and brought back the first bottle his hands could find. For now, the other bottle would do. After another quarter of it, the professor returned to the painting. Ought to do something with it. He tried it around his home, on various walls at various angles. No matter where it was, it was too bright. Darkened its surroundings. Finally, he found a spot where it didn’t look quite awful–next to the glass door of his balcony. The brightness of the sky, even cloudy, combated the brightness of the painting. Taking a step back, he laughed. “Dearest departed, you seem to have forgotten to name this… piece. You leave that honor to me! A toast!” The professor finished his glass and poured the last of the bottle back into it. “Now, what to name you? As you contrast the real sky, perhaps Reality? Optimism?” He laughed a drunken laugh. Suddenly, he was stern. “No. I dub thee—Art. Simple name, yes, and not very creative. But I thank god I am not creative, lest I had been lured into the arts and not the sciences. Lest I had found with my time not mathematical truth, but fantastical lies. Lies! As much as a lie to depict the sky as a shining wonder when without moving my eyes I can see the real thing! The cloudy, windy muck that tears and claws and drenched that poor courier. You, Art, claim it sunny and pure. But you can’t change it.” He took a few steps back to the table, but paused to toast the painting once again. “To Art. Foolish, foolish art.” The professor grabbed the second bottle of wine and turned to open it, but paused. His hands grew shaky for just a moment. On the bottle, the label had been ripped, leaving a white blank surface on which was written: My Love 25 Years couldn't have come sooner Another bottle for us to share I promise I’ll take this one slow XOXO At once the bottle was thrown against the wall, against the painting. Hues of gold and blue were sicklied over with deep wine red. The professor took a step back, breathing, and observed his mess. Shards of glass dug into the canvas, a red puddle formed on the floor as drops from the wall traced their way down. The professor sank to the ground, wailing, eyes locked on the painting. The clouds outside flashed with lightning. The brightness of the painting, even stained, combated the brightness of the sky. “I’ll find another. Another love, another house, another bottle of wine. Hell, I’ll grow the grapes and ferment my own wine for eons. I'll be there to try the first sip. I’ll dedicate it to my 10,001st wife and watch her die like all the rest. I’ll teach millions of students, and watch them die in waves as time rolls on, carries them away from here, away from here.” He held his face in his hands. “I know the Sky, James. I wish you could have painted death, so that I may know it too.” Gavin Hansen is an emerging writer with a focus on screenwriting and short stories. He is fueled by a passion for storytelling and filmmaking, and has been doing both since a very young age. You can find more of Gavin’s work— including his films— on Twitter: @realgavinhansen

Magnificent Niké alights upon a plinth of stones her huge wings of blue the wrapped mantle of fine linen around her legs hemmed in blue fight the sea storm of wind the deck of a warship prow riding high on surging waves of victory. I visit the Louvre in mid-September the tourist season is over the museum is quiet I have no expectations of the massive monument’s placement at the top of the main staircase rising more than 19 feet above me a trihemiolia warship in the harbor the monument is not an altar requiring reverence or a vault in the stillness of a national cemetery yet her glory stuns me to solemn silence the draped figure of the marble Goddess moves alive from the battle she memorializes military pride the West replicates in a thousand civic plazas Yet her aesthetic grandeur hides the horror in the sea behind the victory she announces. hundreds of warriors float bloody dismembered, drowning, or dead ripped to bits by the ferocity of battle their cries muffled by explosions of noise ships tear asunder wood hulls with submerged rams of iron, marines leap from deck to deck, fireballs ignite wooden ships become flaming crematoria What happens to those bodies floating in the seabodie s of defeat and bodies of victory? Water blood red and bony debris are they consumed by feasting fish and cackling birds avaricious? Do they linger after warships leave listless riding waves up and down tides eventually draw them to shore foot here, head there slashed torsos wash up on beaches defy identification. Are these human detritus collected by families of the losers and burned to the choruses of wailing sorrow. What is the end of victors who survive? How many wounded struggle in the salt stinging sea to breathe choking smoke of wood gag on the stench of charred flesh or bloody are carried to anxious families at the docks where they supply politicians and rulers with stories to inspire patriotism in citizens to console widows and children and praise gods for glorious victory. Warriors killed in battle are not defeated no matter how labelled friend or foe for they are spared further agony granted the mercy of death victors live only to fight again, and perhaps then to die welcoming death. There is no victory in victory. The dismemberment of history in broken art shields us, we, rising on the steps of her sanctuary, thousands of years later thousands of battles later, from the horrors victors celebrate, could not otherwise be awestruck looking up into this eternal moment. Ron Tobey grew up in north New Hampshire, USA, and attended the University of New Hampshire, Durham. He farms in West Virginia. He writes fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. As an imagist poet, he expresses experiences and moods in concrete descriptions in haiku, lyrical poetry storytelling, audio poetry, and in filmic interpretation. Ron has published widely in poetry journals. He was a finalist in Cleaver Magazine 40th Anniversary Flash Fiction Contest. Ron is active on X @Turin54024117

I believe there is a conspiracy ongoing involving all of us. I don’t know when or where it began, nor who initiated it. They occult from me their talks just as I approach one of them. It seems to me a stealthy fellowship, a strange one, saints and demons, angels and warlocks, even goblins. They congregate to rule all people, fighting for our souls, one by one. Someone has been told it is a caste that rids humanity from wrecking and leaves it alive on the road, leavening us before ultimate battle. Edilson Afonso Ferreira, 80 years, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than in Portuguese. Widely published in international literary journals, he began writing at age 67 after his retirement from a bank.  Since then, he counts 190 poems published, in 300 different publications. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and his first Poetry Collection – Lonely Sailor – was launched in London in 2018. His second, Joie de Vivre, was launched in April 2022. He is always updating his works at www.edilsonmeloferreira.com.

My toes curl into the sand on a New England shore / thousands of miles (even years) from another world. My ancestors lived by the moon, the soil, the overflowing rivers that eventually came to fall. Rejoiced with the harvest and declared that this is proof: death is not the end. It’s funny what stays around— the Apple made its way across a sea of tears / waiting for me still to twist, twist her off the tree’s branch / dip her in honey and rejoice that there will be another chance / another chance to return to the orchard, the woods, witness the leaves flush with crimson I wonder if my ancestors are watching as the veil thins / they’ve traveled awhile to see me here / surrounded by woods, the ocean, our new homeland. Will they join me at the table? Lauren Elise Fisher (she/hers) is a writer and stage manager based out of Bridgeport, CT and holds a B.A. in Theatre Studies from the University of Connecticut. She has been published in the United States, India, and the United Kingdom; these publications include New Voices Magazine, CultureCult’s Spring Offensive anthology, Canyon Voices, Afterpast Review, Naked Cat Lit, Swim Press, Local Gems Press’ Connecticut Poetry Review 2023, and Quabbin Quills Our Wild Winds anthology. Keep up with Lauren on Instagram, Twitter, & BlueSky: @AllFishSwim.