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Acknowledgement of Country

This edition of Avenue was edited, compiled, and published on the occupied lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and that colonisation is ongoing. We honour Gadigal custodianship and the continuing strength of law and culture on Country, and we recognise the knowledge held by Elders past and present, and by emerging leaders today. We reject the fiction of terra nullius and recognise that the institutions we work within, including universities and publishing, have materially benefited from invasion. We stand in solidarity with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and support their rights to Country, culture, language, self-determination, and safety.

This land always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.

We dedicate this edition to everyone who kept creating when the world felt dim

To the students who wrote between assignments, the editors who made time out of none, the artists who smuggled colour into blank pages, and the readers who carry these works forward.

If you ever thought this was not for you, it is.

Editors in Chief

Marc Paniza

Faye Tang

General Editors

Anabelle Lyons

Poetry Lead

Adela Goh

Gracie Allen

Prose Lead

Katie Short

Non-Fiction Lead

Justin Ho

Creative Director

Oscar Lawrence

Publications Director

Maddy Burland

Samaira Dua

Poetry Editors

Lachlan Griffiths

Matthew Platakos

Prose Editors

Maddy Burland

Theo Wade

Non-Fiction Editors

Samaira Dua

Anne-Marie Aroney

Visual Art Team

Monique Frasca Arnav Jain

Gian Ellis-Garnell

CONTRIBUTORS

Alex Smith

Anabelle Lyons

Emma Lee

Gracie Allen

Jesse Carpenter

Kiara Steele

Leela Gosling

Maggie Grant

Nathan Philis

Pia Curran

Ally Denford

Dana Kafina

Feronia Ding

Jenny Fung

Katie Short

Lachlan Griffiths

Maddy Burland

Marc Paniza

Nicholas Osiowy

Sebastian Tuzilovic

Scooby Doo (2002) & Daphne’s Red Ascot

Re: Construction, De dinner / breakfast Margins

Life Cycle of a Home

On The Riace Bronzes

Untitled

The Suffocation of a Voice Once Strong

Dissection Grasping

Mount Digital

A Case Study on Convincing Your Client

The Translator’s Task Stargaze

Atleistas

On Meaning and Its Absence

Palingenesis

Things Are Changing

The Ibis

The Tempest

Gathering Storm

A Brief Guide to Genesis

To all who find themselves here,

A Note From the Edtors-in-Chief Marc

Paniza & Faye Tang

AVENUE is a journal with a long and winding history, and though we’ve hit bumps and let a pothole or two grow, we are finally—with the help of a large team of caring, enthusiastic editors, writers, and artists—ready to get it back on track.

The wonderful writers and artists for this edition are keen-eyed, talented miniaturists, especially attentive to that which usually passes unnoticed. Good writing is often produced in motion (many English canonists advocated for the literary productivity of a brisk turn in the park, or around an empire), but in 2025, amidst constantly erupting chaos, genocides, and the breakdown of the world order, our writers are sitting down, slowing down, showing radical care to the world immediately around them. They are committing to paper the beauty and the violence ensconced in circumstance.

Though our writers are, I’m happy to report, stable, their chosen genres are (delightfully) not. Prose pieces break into poetry, memories splinter into playscripts, lines of verse separate syllable by syllable. There are manifestos declaring the aesthetic worth of leaving things unsaid, untitled; meditations on meaning in the constantly rupturing modern world. An ode to that particularly dirty and beleaguered campus bird with the plague-doctor beak.

A recurring setting for this edition was the museum—literal and figurative—an institution that bears witness, that leads us to our histories and humanities, but the most hallowed of which are complicit in the aftershocks of brutal European colonialism. In these halls, particularly apt for representing what it means to write and create art in the unceded lands of so-called Australia, our writers find themselves contemplating naked, bearded warriors set in stone; or leading you down the museum of a ‘self’, turning to light the intimate horrors of memory lane.

A word must be saved for our tireless artists and design team, who have pulled together a visually striking magazine, treating each piece with care and a ravenous creativity. Thank you also to our general editors, Anabelle and Adela, whose supporting edits we couldn’t do without, and our team leaders Katie, Grace, Oscar, and Justin, for your attentiveness to both the team and the zine.

The biggest thank-you to Maddie, our operations manager, for your energy and thoughtfulness and expertise that has brought this project to life. And finally, to our editors and contributors, who have somehow found the time to (re)animate this magazine with such charm and dedication.

Yours most sincerely, Faye and Marc

SCOOBY DOO 2002 AND DAPHNE’s RED ASCOT

by Nathan Philis

My first memory of “body swapping” media was in 2009 — sitting across from my pink PlayStation 2, gleefully watching the first live-action Scooby Doo movie on an archaic Panasonic TV. For those (un)lucky enough to be uninitiated, at minute 54 of that movie, Fred body swaps into Daphne.

This wasn’t a eureka moment for me. Nor was Robin Williams’ geriatric disguise in Mrs Doubtfire. Or Violet’s assumption of her brother’s identity in She’s the Man. Because body swapping and cross-dressing wasn’t made to be about gender exploration in the 2000s. It was made to be about comedy.

Most people reading this will have been born between 2000 and 2010, meaning many of you will have grown up on DVDs and movies released between 1980 and 2000. Better yet, like the above anecdote, you may already have a handful of deeply nostalgic yet subtly transphobic movies in mind. If you scrutinise the numbers, you will very quickly realise just how much of a pillar men in dresses was for comedy before the many successes of the Pride movement post-2010.

I grew up in that era. Be it Mulan during a rained-out PE lesson, or your dad watching a rerun of M*A*S*H, public exposure to transness before there was a name for it was trivialised by that cultural climate.

There is a discord here. These movies and TV shows are, in many ways, dismissive and often openly harmful. However, on multiple occasions, I’ve been blessed to see a queer man dote over the campiness of The Birdcage. Beyond some exceptions like I Saw the TV Glow, it’s rare at least in my small circles for a piece of cinema with trans representation to reach cult status like those cross-dressing classics.

In fact, there’s an abundance of people who, on one hand, dote over these 90s movies, while demonising anything with an overtly trans character on the other. Forgive a tangent, but this is certainly (and glumly) due to homophobia and the delegitimisation of transgender people.

Mass media has the ability to subtly influence what is considered normal I know, shock horror. Therefore, when fluid characters were used as the comedic heel, transness was considered a joke. Whilst this was and is horrid, it did allow this representation to pervade the mainstream as much as it did in real life. Crossdressing became an act not just for the queer, but for the everyman. Your talk show hosts and your celebrities could frock up and act, then put the dress back on the hook and hide behind the role, as cis as the day before. Anyone could see casual transness on the news, or in comedy, or in children’s TV, and the queerness was accepted as a “normal” part of the role, even when portrayed toxically. This is a level of casual gender fluidity that I hope one day becomes normal and universal to see, without a need to hide it under comedic relief.

While the more recent decline of depict ing transness as laughingstock is certainly healthier and better than dressing Daphne in a red ascot, I can’t deny the inherent de light that comes from watching Bugs Bunny playing flight attendant in a blonde updo and elongated lashes.

In a world where queerness is still, unfortunate ly, taboo in so many places, conservatism seems to take root in a new country every other week. Hard-won queer victories feel challenged where they ought to be universal. These 2000s texts can feel like acceptance when true acceptance feels distant.

Simply, what speaks to me about this clunky 1980-2010 gender swapping is more than just the nostalgia pervasiveness and the indifference towards it. It was seeing myself and my queerness paraded by other cis men while knowing it wouldn’t make a lasting headline. If you know me in real life, you’ve probably seen me in one of two appearances: a black mesh top and dreadfully smudged eye-liner, screaming at Bird Cage, or a crew cut and an AFL jersey, ready to take to the field. Compartmentalised queerness, not put up for display in Hollywood. If I had to hazard a guess at one thing, it would be that many of the people I meet in my life are a lot more trans than they appear.

Whilst transness is, objectively, more broadly, accurately, and healthily covered now in comparison to 2002, one of the only things I miss is seeing it unabashedly touted by everyone, no matter which side of the political compass or the gender spectrum they fall on. Be it men playing women in ye olde Shakespearean theatre, Shaggy drinking a potion to turn himself into a lady, or watching the beautiful women in dresses in my life transness is pervasive, and it is so very human.

Re: Construction, De

It’s thieving days.

Cloud cover, new face came,

Some touches upon the mind’s maze

By Alex Smith

To relieve days free and laid without claim (for you)

Remember birthdays, plan events. Breathe the same air

As buds to place among the aisles and leave the tempers tame.

But dirt and sweat another thing turn. Trust an ever-growing craze

Of connections wanted never-ending; haunted by shame

For hoping to be in days I never was there.

Amber knowledge; sand, to again pearl make

Body of work

Muscle thrum.

Brush. Root.

Not with you like a rose,

Not alike you, with mirror

Unveil frayed tapestry

Drumming gasps

Assume me, not other than flesh.

Eyes make me.

Some skin elsewhere would be nice.

Thinking zizzing twilight:

Sleep with me.

Like family in the night, held to fight

Go, Don’t let

Body of work

Body of lust

Re: Construction, De

The cold.

String, not red,

Scratched threads to twined spools.

Walking down the aisle to another me

Clutch till dawn

Catch and draw

The emptiness in yourself.

Find fullness of affection

Untethered to rose or ring

Body of work

Body of lust

Body of

Christ had thirteen and that was enough. (unmarried)

Friends for life

Betrayal meant death; Forgiveness. (much marred)

Rings on fingers

Wring your fingers off

Body

Romance, I’m not as prone to care:

When love is all the same,

Not the same ways

Body

dinner

“Hey Izzy, pass the salt would you?”

I sit in my chair. The third chair. Mum’s on my left, her chair just an inch too close for comfort. Her elbow brushes mine as she takes precise, delicate bites. Alex is on my right, with Josh next to him. The line-up. Dad sits at the end of the island. We spend most dinners with our bodies at an angle, heads shifting to face him.

Tonight is one of those nights I can’t breathe. We’re all laughing at something Alex has proclaimed, some outlandish fact that he defends and Josh denies, that I ridicule and Mum rationalises. Dad builds on the joke, delighting in the way Alex’s exasperation echoes off the double-glazed windows. Wine is poured liberally and the spread never seems to end—Dad always cooks like he’s awaiting starving troops.

My face aches. My smile hasn’t wavered all evening. I missed the way my brothers bicker, and how the soft warm lights make their blond hair glow a little. I missed Dad’s cooking and Mum’s watchful gaze, her expression a mix of pride and ease.

Gracie Allen

breakfast

“Isabelle. Salt.”

I’m too late to breakfast to claim my spot. I sit in the sixth chair. This chair looks exactly the same as when we bought it, with no stains or creaks when you shift. No one ever really uses it. There’s a gap at the table, a chair left empty between mine and the rest. The bodies are angled again, not to look at someone, but to face away.

Today is one of those days I can’t breathe. There’s something rotting in the room. It’s on the fifth chair. It’s separating, it’s thick, it’s suffocating. I try to sit quietly. Alexander mumbles out his plans for the day. Joshua scrolls aimlessly on his phone. There’s no bacon left. My father had the last piece of bread.

My mother is cleaning the shed this morning. She likes to clean. She scrubs surfaces furiously, as if any impurity is immoral. Sometimes I think she might rub the paint straight off our countertops with her microfibre cloth. I’m staring at the microfibre cloth. I’m staring at the microfibre cloth and my face aches. An evening spent screaming and furiously washing my face. I rubbed my skin raw, like a temporary tattoo refuses to come off. Trying to get the paint off. Soap doesn’t work, neither does anything stronger. It’s not the sort of thing that can be washed away anyway.

LIFE CYCLE OF A HOME

- By Katie Short

Nesting [January]

The grass is green. The sun is bright. The air is so thick that I could hold it. Perched in the branches of a young snow gum, whose limbs twist and writhe in this heat, I watch the ground below. There is half a structure there. It is mostly wooden, and in this weather, it might just catch aflame. Inside the structure, men in bright orange hit and tug and shout. They are building a nest, I think.

I fly to the rafters, which clang when I land, and peer downwards.

“Hey mate,” one neon man squawks to another, “chuck me the drill—cheers.”

The men work there all summer.

Breeding [Julys]

It is dark out. The snow gum is pale and goosebumped in the cold. I am huddled in the thick of her leaves, which all point down like heavy rainfall. The wind gusts, she shivers, and ice slides off around me.

It shatter-chimes when it hits the ground.

The structure below is full now. It is full of warm light and new men. Their feathers are not neon orange, but instead change daily. Tonight, some wear large headdresses, some wear shirts adorned with buttons and flowers, and some wear very little at all. Like most nights, they stand around the fireplace holding bottles. They laugh. Things smash. Lights pulse rainbow. They dance—a sort of mating ritual, perhaps—and one with a small head and a large beak drops its bottle. I think it shatter-chimes when it hits the ground.

shatter-chimes when it hits the ground. When the men file out of the nest, the stars are ablaze, but they are all busy smiling at each other.

Laying [Septembers]

The snow is melting again. There are fewer men on my mountain now; there is less white on the ground. Today, in this place suffocated by clouds and silence, I am glued to the branch where I sit.

the past week, different men have left to the same goodbyes. The night before the goodbye, they all drink in the now-warm outdoors and spout bird song until the air drop bottles cigarette butts the snow gum and their nest again. In

base of the snow gum and head into their nest again. In the morning, they share hugs out the front and wave their wings as the leavers leave. There is always something in the air at this time of year. It is all white-grey, finality, and petrol. My tree is nowhere near the car park, but I can taste when those creatures go.

Today, at midday, two men crunch by on the mud-ice. One is little—a chick. It’s holding a toboggan all wonky. Near the snow gum, it trips over its own feet and drops the toboggan. Before it can cry, it sees a bottle and picks it up.

“No sweetie,” the larger one chirps, “that’s not for you.”

Brooding [Novembers]

Before the last men left, they picked up the bottles and cigarette butts and toboggans and gloves and snapped ski poles and food wrappers and scarves. After they cleared the trash, they took furniture out of their nest, and now it is hollow like a was-burnt tree. It is hot again, and I have only heard birdsong for weeks. Here is mine again, until they return next season.

Cracking [December]

It is another summer, and the neon men are back. There is tape around the nest and a strange old predator at its base, which chugs and churns and chews it all up. I have not been able to sing since the predator arrived. Any sound I make drowns in the air. I open my beak just for my throat to flood with viscous heat. The only noise here is that animal eating the building.

That animal is hungry. It does not stop feasting until the dark sets in. Now, though, at midday-ish, the men have stopped feeding it. It is not usually satisfied yet, but I am content with the silence for now.

Then, as I am spinning and settling among my sea of sticks, I hear a crunch. The snow gum, with her limbs stretched upwards, praying, starts to lean. I squawk and squawk and squawk but I can hear nothing over the sound of the eating and I can hear nothing over the cracks of my tree and I can hear nothing, no, nothing at all. I take off into the sky, blinded by that hot summer sun, and flap with outof-time wings. The air is so thick that it might just force me down.

On The Riace Bronzes

By Lachlan Griffiths

Exegi monumentum aere perennius -Hor.

I cannot summon up the look upon the founder’s face when they peeled away the mould. Nor can I know the sense behind the eyes of that leathern fisherman when they took such reemergent forms from the sea.

Taken up from their repose, they had avoided such inconsistent sands as eternity had rendered above. Drawn up blank, as if they had awaited their souls’ reunion across centuries.

Two solemn ambassadors, companionable yet quite apart, Held back from movement by the motionless turn of carved muscle. They had transcended inelegant certainties wrought without their knowing, by time. Only remembering, perhaps, the sorrows of ancient feelings caught upon the cusp of action.

I pause; revive their ancient haste, waking up the cries of blind bards to sing of sadness transfigured; of beauty and its analogue called again into being and forced above by impetuous oceans.

Untitled (2025),

ink on paper, 21x30cm

By Emma Lee

Only when the prevailing prescription of title and content are removed from literature will we achieve a true relationship between writer and reader— will we witness pure writing.

Literature should learn from the mid-twentieth-century painterly masters who liberated their work by absolving them of the burden of a title. Now, by literature, I largely mean fictions and poetic attempts; the ease of a title is infinitely liberating for those incapable of reading far past the byline of an academic article. The dread of titling before sending a submission, or agreeing to something before it is printed, signals a movement toward a distilled and perfected literature. Words are dissolved in the turpentine of meaning in our new visual age. It is the imperative of the new writer to perfect a phrase to its purest form, and the beginning of this is the end of the title. I implore writers to consider offloading the emotional and mental labours of the title onto the readers. As it currently stands, a reader consumes the written word with a slack jaw of accessible meaning; before television or the radio, the opium of the masses was always writing. The title is simply a commercial tagline that entices. Free yourself from this consumerist construction. If the author is dead in today’s world let them not run their didacticisms through the title and only allow phrases and paragraphs to speak for themselves without the framework of the title. Let us look to the precedents of our sister arts to reach a perfection of the abstracted pure literature.

In our last century, the visual art movement seemed to be traveling unceasingly toward a mode of perfected abstraction that would eventually result in the absence of visuality itself. Our forefathers of visual art reached this far too early in the century (around 1951 if you take Robert Rauschenberg as this mark), and were quickly forced to return to image, under the muddle of mass-media and consumption. Writing finds it far more diffi cult to dissolve form, so the journey toward a perfected null in literature is always inter rupted by the incessant need for words to have meaning. There is simplified perfection in the titles of the American works of the mid-century —that perfect word, ‘untitled’. Take nearly any Mark Rothko, fields of co lour laying over one another on the canvas — Untitled . The viewer is left entirely with the work, the intention of the artist is re moved, and suddenly any interpretation of meaning falls into the hands of the recipient. In writing, without the boundary of a title which draws your attention one place or another, the pure sense of the sentence is left to the reader.

I would venture that the uproar in the Australian public over the purchase of Jackson Pollock’s1 arose from a lack of simplification. When told what to look for, one feels a great frustration if the object is not there in the way they expected. Had it been untitled, could they have been upset, or would it have allowed the punters of 1973 to engage with it on their own terms? The purity of the image was laid down into the hands of an Australian public clamouring for the opportunity for the enfranchisement of the viewer—to not be spoken down

1) Pollock, Jackson. Blue Poles (Number 11, 1952). 1952. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Although Untitledis a great friend of mine, I understand the urge for differentiation, and the great confusion of a label for all would create. Perhaps it is better, then, to consider the nonsense title of the Dadaist. As Marcel Duchamp titles some shit in a birdcage, WhyNotSneeze,RoseSélavy?, words are liberated from meaning, and the title loses its significance in relation to the object, becoming more or less a categorical signifier. ² Merely a numerical system that allows the work to be placed under ‘W’ when alphabetising. I propose that, because the task of words is always to be interpreted, adopting a secondary mode of communication may be necessary to take literature toward the sublime. The magic of the Dada title is its irrelation to the object which it titles, so perhaps, then, all novels and poems should bear a disparate—or tangential, for those that feel the need to help the reader along somewhat—image as label. Then, libraries could simply be organised by colour.

How could Dewey’s system, the beginning of a perfectly impersonal method of categorisation, be improved with our instinctual understanding of the ROYGBIV spectrum? With the advent of the screen, the image has never been so easy to access. We should collapse the binary between our two visual communications: image and text. Henceforth, in our new image-ordered society, the written word could take on a fresh dominance, without the restriction that turns the 21st century reader off the title.

Then again, perhaps to collapse the restrictions of visuality, we should embrace the methods of music for the title. Take a piece of writing and find the rhythm of it, find a tempo. The titles of every book or poem could become Adagio,Andante,Allegroor some other Italian phrase. A tempo is pure practicality, a counting of syllables on a page akin to the sonnet or couplet of poetry. In this way the reader can have the guidance of how to read a piece of writing rather than prescribe a sense of the content.

2 ) Duchamp, Marcel. Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? 1921. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia.

The perfection of any fine piece of classical music is to implicitly stir emotions and the written word is far too explicit. In giving into the musical method, the reader and the writer would be liberated to be able to generate the experience they could project onto any writing. Further, it is integral we maintain the Italian, as by reading a foreign language, the viewer is presented with an indifference removed from meaning. In this way the Italian people could borrow the English, or perhaps Arabic if they so choose, and the very same for other nations which are too close to Italy to already understand these words. Take on the foreign tongue!

Turn the title to Object!

Let it not be forgotten that a lack of title is not without precedent. For one, the great father of English literature did not title his sonnets. Does this take anything from their quality? The neutrality of the number does not affect the subversion inherent in the final lines of a sonnet, instead allowing a reader to search through the language for the meaning of the poem. In fact, the practice of referring to the sonnets by their first line emphasises what may not be the pivotal point, muddying the waters of interpretation. Indifferently numbered, they prepare us for a future without the insistence of a title. I want to resist any didactic impulses of the title. There is to me a nausea in the clarity a title provides.

It exposes me to reading far too much. I feel that there is a horror to the transparency of word. I want to be able to show paragraphs and sentences, clear and unfiltered by the frame of a title. To title something is to admit that it is something. It freezes my hand at the point of decision. I do not wish to instruct the reader, I wish entirely to be taken in by them. Achieve a purity of words removed from me.

Let us abolish the title and let others come to conclusions.

References

Duchamp, Marcel. Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? 1921. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Pollock, Jackson. Blue Poles (Number 11, 1952). 1952. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

vacious energy and infectious smiles. She let the lifeblood drain and empty into nothing, nowhere and no one.

Now let us peel the socks and shoes from our feet, let your toes touch the sticky, shiny, red shimmering floor and convince yourself it was just last night’s rain. You will find yourself walking amongst the corpses of her past selves, friends and lovers left behind, like mummified remains erected in golden cabinets and displayed on marble plinths for crowds to gush over. But here, right now, it is just you and me in the echoing room. A young girl lies entwined in bandages, her youth and soul sucked from her cheeks, a ghost of Adelaide’s past, a ghost of herself. Once decorated with toothy grins and contagious laughter, the girl nowlays sunken and decaying, cocooned in a lifeless sleep. Little Adelaide’s life of love and joy had begun to rot, the little Adelaide who made flower crowns and cried when she killed a la dybug now decayed in the bandages of the past, wrapped and swaddled in an inac cessible time of innocence.

Adelaide beckons you forwards into the chasms of her heart, and you begin to see thesemummified versions of herself give way to the skulls of those she had chosen to leave behind. As you turn the corner, the plinths now lie in darkness, singular spotlights beam ing down on the individual objects, individual skulls. The light glistens off rusting plaques, barely legible. You could try and peer and read them, or try and ask Adelaide, who’s names were once written here, but isn’t there a reason they remain rusted?

By Leela Gosling

The string of forgotten friends encircles you now, each individual lost to the chasms of time and yet their bones remain. Some look like they have decayed more than others, moss growing on top of the yellowing ivory, or cracks forming in the jaw from lack of movement. Adelaide didn’t know how to look after the skulls anymore, she had let them get damaged after years of preservation. For years, she would wipe away the dust forming on their surfaces, use bleach to keep them squeaky clean. Maybe she’d send them a birthday, or say hello if she passed them on the street. She would try and try and try to keep them alive, even when they didn’t reply, even when the dust relentlessly fell. But once the first cracks form, all you can do is keep them as is, broken, but not destroyed. Forgotten, but not lost.

So Adelaide keeps them well lit. The least she could do was make them visible, even if they were anonymous and lost shadows of those she had once loved enough to build a place for. She would forever hold these skeletal sculptures of the past, even if she couldn’t ever find their provenance or purpose within herself, because who was she if not these broken pieces of bone from a broken piece of life that she had once loved or lamented enough to collect?

At the absolute furthest wall of the museum, the figure of Adelaide is hunched in the corner. Here, you cannot speak, she hushes all noise. You see her hands wrapped around the most broken skull of all, charred and cracked into pieces. You see her tears dripping down her face.

Here, locked away from those who cannot traverse her heart, Adelaide sets out to repair the skull that used to sit on the mantle of her museum. But you and me? We watch eagerly. With her knees pressed on the bloody floor, turning her second hand jeans crimson, she pieces it back together in snaking lines of golden glitter glue, letting the yellowed, worn pieces fuse back together in a haphazard attempt at artful resurrection. Adelaide wished we had all been made of porcelain or clay, something malleable she could shape, instead of the steadfast skull in her hands and within her head.

Now, why don’t we follow Adelaide into Delilah’s heart. Let us claw our way into her ribcage and break apart the skin and bone with our fingernails.

Let us look around at the new heart that surrounds you. Dusty planes of grey reach as far as the eye can see, and Adelaide stands in the center, like a single fleck of blue sky on a cloudy day. Your feet remain bloodied. But here they sink into the sand, dusting your calves in a dark grey. Adelaide’s eyes brush over the flat expanse. There is nothing here for her to hold onto.

You see Adelaide stop, grasping a handful of the soil. She smells it. Let us feel the soil in our own fingertips and immerse ourselves in this desert. Are these grains of sand that we tread upon? Or perhaps, the ashes of the person she had been when they first met?

Listen here as Adelaide mutters, hands covered in the soil, or ash: Smells like the chai you used to serve me from the kitchen, when we would curl up in armchairs and settle down by the fireplace…

Do you remember the cabinets that used to line these walls? Lined with glass jars. The curled up bodies of the past once lay suspended in the alcohol that preserves them. Their eyes open as if ready to come alive at any moment, yet curled in an eternal sleep… you loved them. You said they were preserved pasts… you showed them to me proudly. Where has it all gone?

I was happiest when I was here. You know that Delilah. Your heart was always warmer than my own. Where have you gone?

Looking around at the emptiness, Adelaide fancies herself an archaeologist. She searches through the debris for the past that shaped Delilah. She looks for the layers of stratigraphy that separated her from when they first met as children.

Had the soil simply filled an empty husk? Or, had all the people and places that she had once loved been swallowed by time?

Maybe if she digs deep enough, she can find a shard or two of yesterday and piece together the ruins of hurt and see the landscape of a world that she had thought was long gone. Delilah has always liked to keep the past where it belonged, destroyed and lost in time. She let go of her childish tendency to keep and treasure bygone years. And maybe, she judged Adelaide for having kept her heart warm, because wasn’t that such an immature outlook on life?

But you watch as Adelaide puts no time to waste. She drops to her knees in seconds, she shovels and shovels, brushes and brushes at the past.

She searches through the world of time that has passed since they last saw each other, searching for a memory or a flicker of the dreams she has dreamt in her wake. But that’s the thing about archaeologists — they are stuck in the past. They don’t even notice that the next layer of stratigraphy is forming around them. Time doesn’t ever stop for you to look back.

Poor Adelaide. You tell her to look up at the future, because not even Delilah will help you once you’re buried. Delilah won’t even glance at the spot you had once been. If she didn’t save the skulls you’re searching for, what makes you think you’ll be any different?

Let us turn around, leave them here at this moment. Allow them some privacy. We shall exit through the gift shop. Maybe grab an hourglass bookmark or a ceramic heart on the way out. Each one is as unique as the last, so make sure to keep them safe.

Grasping

at the stems of the bouquet once posed in a delftware blue vase resting unnoticed.

That prompt of a thousand still lives waiting as if forgotten in an art class where students stared or shifted their angle of attack to catch light’s strange shadowplay threatening to hasten drooping petals almost at transfiguration. Nearly at the in-between as a dying man waits

René Daumal’s Mount Analogue is an adventure novel like no other. A band of mountaineers set off to explore the titular mountain, which is both invisible and inaccessible––a mountain that can only be climbed. Its base exists in an undiscovered continent in the South Pacific, and its summit scrapes Heaven. The novel, unsurprisingly, is bizarre and surreal. Yet beneath its strangeness, Daumal transforms the act of climbing into an allegory that reveals the nature of creating art itself. To Daumal, the sweaty and visceral struggles that Captain Sogol and the mountaineers face on their ascent mirror the creative process: art is not the finished view from the peak, but the gruelling act of climbing itself.

In framing the unreality of Mount Analogue, Daumal notes that “the door to the invisible must be visible”––the mountaineer departs society, climbs and climbs through ever-thinning air, and as they are swallowed by the horizon they approach what is invisible to those below. Similarly, the artist departs regular existence in their work and journey towards the invisible. At the peak of the mountain, the end of the process, the artist can see the world as it truly is. Artists and climbers alike stand on shaky legs, and as they return from the peak, they have “the memory of what [they had seen when they] were higher up.” Daumal renders them both liminal, suspended between immanence and transcendence, left with a vision of the world from outside itself.

Yet Mount Analogue offers only shadows and reflections of this vision. The novel ends mid-sentence, as Daumal died before completing it. The reader is left stranded, near the peak of Mount Analogue, and is forced to decide whether to keep climbing or turn back. The easy option, I believe, would be to turn back. But why settle for the view from halfway up? I do not want to watch Daumal disappear behind the horizon.

I found myself gripped by this book, by the strange discussions of art and mathematics that occupy the mountaineers in their climb, by the ecological systems of Mount Analogue, by Daumal’s subdued prose. He gave voice to a feel ing that I think I have always had––that the artist has been through something gruelling and viscer al, has clawed themselves up out of society and normalcy, in pursuit of a view of the world from an invisible place. He expresses the sensation of awe and distance that arises in galleries or museums or in gardens or at night or at any time one is privileged enough to look closely at some relic or curiosity from one of those invisible places––the sense of the world as seen from above.

In Mount Analogue, Daumal describes a mysterious rock called peradam, which is to climbing what art is to the artistic process. Peradam is the currency of the societies nestled in the valleys, a substance that is almost invisible and only reveals it self to those who seek it with “sincere desire and true need.”

Mount Analogue’s view of art—like peradam, acquired from some surreal and monastic journey that shows us, even for a brief second, the sensations of the invisible, of the world viewed from outside itself—is a view that is slowly dying. Or slowly being killed? I am not sure which.

70 years after Mount Analogue was published, OpenAI released DALL-E 2, an AI image generator designed to “empower people to express themselves creatively.”

If you do not want to create so deeply and passionately that you would climb a mountain, that you would sweat and cry and bruise, you do not want it at all. I am not romanticizing suffering here. I am saying that it is not suffering at all. When you tell AI to generate this or that artwork, you do not sincerely desire it. In fact, you cannot. What you desire is completely different –– whatever aspect of you longed for the process, to climb the mountain and get out of the world is subsumed and replacement by a shallow desire for the view at the top. The promise of AI, Mount Digital, represents something altogether different from Mount Analogue ––I’m not sure what, but we can rule out art. Mount Digital is a mountain without a base, and art generated by AI are objects disconnected from process, views without viewers. OpenAI’s claim that DALLE.2 expresses inner creativity seems lacking when faced with an endless sea of Ghibli-fied avatars –– there is no creativity or process, just the endless reproduction of aesthetic. The truth is humans do not be empowered by AI to make art. There are handprints on cave walls that will outlive LLMS. After reading Mount Analogue, this essay became a matter of urgency for me. I am scared that one day there will be galleries filled with art generated by AI. I am scared that the writers of ekphrases and plaques and critiques will be AIs. I am scared that one day OpenAI will liberate us from the burden of viewing art, and galleries will be devoid of humanity, where AI is both artist and audience, critic and adorant, object and subject.

Now, 3 years later, AI-generated art flooded the internet––a new ‘Mount Digital’––creating some sort of alternative version of Mount Analogue where the summit of creation seems instantly accessible. No longer do you need to make a laborious journey up a mountain; Heaven is in your browser. You are free and empowered––open your phone and Heaven is there waiting for you. Yet, this supposed democratisation of art feels hollow. And it is garbage. Vast, endless, homogenous garbage. Slop.

I do not think it is particularly sensationalist to say the art that AI generates today is not good. It is, however, more controversial to say that AI will never produce a good work of art. Mount Analogue has convinced me of this. Art is like peradam –– a requirement to seek it is sincere desire. But art is more than just the object of the desire, it’s the process of realising it. Anyone who has climbed a mountain can tell you that the point isn’t just to see the view at the end. There is some beauty in the process. Daumal renders art as mountaineering for this reason –– part of art is the artistic process, it’s the climb out of normalcy, it is the act of leaving the visible and slowly coming into contact with the invisible. There are no shortcuts to the summit of Mount Analogue. Even if you suppose the view at the top is the same, you must concede that the person who gets a helicopter lift to the top has a different experience than the person who climbs.

The truth is humans do not be empowered by AI to make art. There are handprints on cave walls that will outlive LLMS. After reading Mount Analogue, this essay became a matter of urgency for me. I am scared that one day there will be galleries filled with art generated by AI. I am scared that the writers of ekphrases and plaques and critiques will be AIs. I am scared that one day OpenAI will liberate us from the burden of viewing art, and galleries will be devoid of humanity, where AI is both artist and audience, critic and adorant, object and subject.

In 2022, the first year of DALLE.2’s release, 15 billion images were generated by AI. I am concerned by how willing we are to abandon process, to abandon the climb to the peak. I want to climb. I want you to want to climb. Daumal said it best –– the door to the invisible is visible. The door to art is not owned by OpenAI. It is right in front of you. If you want to see the world as it is from above, the first step is to go outside and start looking for mountains.

Jesse Carpenter

A Case Study On Convincing Your Client

by Dana Kafina

1. INT. OFFICE. DAY.

A MAN WITH GLEAMING TEETH is in the center of the video. He has gelled-back hair and a smile and blank eyes. He is more eel than man.

THE

MAN

There is a distinct lack of will in clients of our travel agency. They want to be convinced. In spite of the looming despair of reality, of everyday work demands, of the rent, the electricity bill, the deadline, the application, the fine, their decision to enter is enough to indicate a fragile grasp of hope. These clients come in all forms. A fresh, young family of three. A tired worker. A retired teacher. A just-graduated teenager. Our next client falls

into the latter group — of course, now was the time students began rolling out, in the in-between period of high school and tertiary education, so fresh and ready to explore, aimless, lost, naive…

A ding in the video. The camera pans over to elevators, and THE TEENAGER, wearing a backpack, steps out.

THE MAN (O/S) (CONT’D)

You must understand. We’re not preying upon them.

Prepare the information you know about your client. Their name, of course; their age; their postcode; their budget, their career. You’ll find all this information in the form they fill out either at the reception, with paper, or online. There are an infinite number of ways to collect information about your client. Information is key to your strategy.

Wear your blazer and a winning smile. Understand that you’re convincing them to give in to what they already want — they already want to do it, they’re looking for excuses, motivation, ways to convince themselves it’s not impossible. Think of what to target! In our case, a teenager, freshly eighteen, is likely to look for world experience.

The logistics will, of course, make their life terribly difficult.

It’s not your job to worry about that. It’s your job to get them hooked on that high.

Wait for that moment! You’ll know it when they do. They glow.

The camera pans to THE TEENAGER, where the spotlight illuminates them.

THE MAN (O/S) (CONT’D)

They walk in bright-eyed and hunched over. Pay attention to their body language. Be patient with them. You’re meant to be on their side, you two against the big bosses, the big inevitable future. Give them something to look forward to. Give them a goal. The youth love that sort of thing, don’t they?

THE MAN slithers next to THE TEENAGER. THE TEENAGER nods.

THE MAN (CONT’D)

It is a bit shifty, we understand, really. It’s not their mistake. They call this experience.

A murmur of agreement behind the camera.

THE MAN (CONT’D)

All of us here know it’s not as easy as a couple of lifestyle changes. But it’s not your job to make their decisions. They’ve already made theirs.

Speaking of lifestyle changes, let’s walk you through what to tell them to do!

Number one: Additional shifts at their part-time job. In the case they don’t have one, tell them to get one. Show them our partner sites, made just for job hunting: Indeed, Seek, Jora. A career is a click away.

THE TEENAGER looks up from their phone.

THE TEENAGER

The amusement park is hiring!

THE MAN

Number two, convince them to spend slightly less. They don’t need to eat out every time they go outside. Switch to a little home cooking, a little meal prep. If they save a bit more, they can afford to go not just interstate, but somewhere else — a tour around Europe, maybe? See Diagon Alley, right?

THE TEENAGER

I love Harry Potter! I grew up reading it—

THE MAN

Number three, if they can’t spend a little less in other parts of their life, tell them to get a loan. It’s easily paid off, if they just stay consistent. They can even ask for help from their family. There’s cheap accommodation everywhere, too. A roommate here, a rideshare there. It’s not impossible, right? Just sacrifice your coziness — you don’t need it, do you?

THE TEENAGER

I guess it’s not a must.

THE MAN

And once you show them all the different ways they can push themselves more, you will begin to notice how open they are to being malleable. Here it becomes increasingly vital for you to give them a reward. Get them excited about their trip. This is where travel comes in. Show them their hard work can pay off to some degree. Make them forget their anxiety about the aftermath.

Plan their itinerary. The first destination: pick somewhere the weather is opposite. Here in Australia we know how hot our summers can be. Take them somewhere with snow. Russia, maybe. Stay there for a fortnight, book a nice hotel room to stay at, see the castles and the palaces. You have to give them escape from their worries at this stage.

Once the weather gets too cold and they get too sniffly, take them somewhere in between tropical and cozy. Let them stay there for about a week.

Ask if they have family overseas. Let’s get them together for a reunion. How does that sound?

THE TEENAGER

I haven’t seen my grandma in a while.

THE MAN

And now could be the perfect time to see her again! Get her some gifts from Russia, huh?

Give them unique experiences. You want to make sure they feel special and have direction. But leave them wanting more. Not everything all at once — they need a good story.

THE MAN shifts. He faces THE TEENAGER.

THE MAN (CONT’D)

Are you excited? Do you have a camera?

THE TEENAGER I do.

THE MAN

You can record all these trips, make a documentary about it. People love hearing about that sort of thing. Travel is timeless. Wouldn’t Russian palaces make gorgeous photographs?

THE TEENAGER’s face lifts up, akin to a rabbit, movement beneath their skin.

THE TEENAGER

They would! I know it’s a little over my budget but I can make it back. If I monetize the video and people watch it I might even earn it back during my trip.

THE MAN Isn’t that a thought? The magic of technology!

The camera zooms in. THE TEENAGER’s smile envelops their face. They nod.

THE MAN (CONT’D)

Well, come back tomorrow and we can sort out all the nitty gritty details. THE TEENAGER glides off camera. THE MAN faces the camera.

THE MAN (CONT’D)

See that glow?

That glow is what pays the bills. It will always end this way. Remember — work with the system!

It’s not your job to do otherwise. Leave that to the teenager.

Cuttocredits.Discomusicplays.Imagesofbeautifulsceneryroll.Animatedconfettifloats downthescreen.

The Translators Task

By Pia Curran

By Pian Curran

Now, he stood over his hotel bed back in Athens. He packed his suitcase by rolling all of his clothes into little cylinders and slotting them inside the plasticky lining. Patrick used to say that you fit more in that way. Now, Alexander looked at the soft bodies of his clothes lying side by side and pictured a tomb. He zipped the bag and left the hotel. …

He had come to Greece that summer on a program for classics and archaeology students. They were observing an excavation of new finds at Lefkandi, a small coastal village in Euboia where a farmer had accidentally bulldozed up the remains of some kind of ancient temple or meeting place. Exactly what it was used for they weren’t sure of yet, but so far they had unearthed the skeleton of a horse and an interred woman. He knew that the image of her gold earrings, lying labelled in an artefact bag, would stay with him. At some point over her two thousand years in the ground, their perfect circles had been bent, and now had two ends that could not touch at all.

Every morning, he leant his head against the company bus’ window on the journey to the excavation. As a Greek major, he knew comparatively little about archaeological practice, but in any case he considered it to be something of an inferior discipline. These days, however, he felt he understood very little about anything at all, least of all Greek. He was tired of the past. He had spent too long muddling about in history and his ears were beginning to ring with it. Chaos, clamour. When he woke up, when he poured coffee, when he walked the wide shores of the sea and kicked shells—he couldn’t hear a blasted thing over the voices of all the perished dead in his head. Those flittering hordes. Remember me. Do this for me. Do not leave me behind, unwept and unburied.

It was impossible to remember them all. Not in the way they wanted. He could not see them, he could not speak to them. All he could do was hear them. He could hear them all the time.

He spent most days at the excavation off to the side trying to translate sections of Homer, as though he had some fresh take to give. Perhaps by understanding the language, he would know what all those voices were trying to say, and he would know what to do about it.

But this was a farce. He knew it. There was no way for him to cross into that

arlier, the Athenian sun had pocked his skin like an octopus as he lay there on the bleached shore. Light skipped over the bright sea and the grizzly bare chests of men. Ice cream dripped from children’s grasping hands. In a few days, he would arrive on the island of Euboia, where the earth was dry and dusty. There, the birds would wake him with their singing in the morning and at night. Now, he stood over his hotel bed back in Athens. He packed his suitcase by rolling all of his clothes into little cylinders and slotting them inside the plasticky lining. Patrick used to say that you fit more in that way. Now, Alexander looked at the soft bodies of his clothes lying side by side and pictured a tomb. He zipped the bag and left the hotel.

… He had come to Greece that summer on a program for classics and archaeology students. They were observing an excavation of new finds at Lefkandi, a small coastal village in Euboia where a farmer had accidentally bulldozed up the remains of some kind of ancient temple or meeting place. Exactly what it was used for they weren’t sure of yet, but so far they had unearthed the skeleton of a horse and an interred woman. He knew that the image of her gold earrings, lying labelled in an artefact bag, would stay with him. At some point over her two thousand years in the ground, their perfect circles had been bent, and now had two ends that could not touch at all.

The first time he set foot on Euboia he felt sick. Empty, hot land, with an excess of steam blowing all throughout it. Sand on the white hills. Small animals lay on the beach with soft bellies and fine teeth. The foreignness of the place enveloped him like a black wing. Every morning, he leant his head against the company bus’ window on the journey to the excavation. As a Greek major, he knew comparatively little about archaeological practice, but in any case he considered it to be something of an inferior discipline.

TEvery morning, he leant his head against the company bus’ window on the journey to the excavation. As a Greek major, he knew comparatively little about archaeological practice, but in any case he considered it to be something of an inferior discipline. These days, however, he felt he understood very little about anything at all, least of all Greek. He was tired of the past. He had spent too long muddling about in history and his ears were beginning to ring with it. Chaos, clamour. When he woke up, when he poured coffee, when he walked the wide shores of the sea and kicked shells—he couldn’t hear a blasted thing over the voices of all the perished dead in his head. Those flittering hordes. Remember me. Do this for me. Do not leave me behind, unwept and unburied. It was impossible to remember them all. Not in the way they wanted. He could not see them, he could not speak to them. All he could do was hear them. He could hear them all the time.

hese days, however, he felt he understood very little about anything at all, least of all Greek. He was tired of the past. He had spent too long muddling about in history and his ears were beginning to ring with it. Chaos, clamour. When he woke up, when he poured coffee, when he walked the wide shores of the sea and kicked shells—he couldn’t hear a blasted thing over the voices of all the perished dead in his head. Those flittering hordes. Remember me. Do this for me. Donotleaveme behind,unweptandunburied.

But this was a farce. He knew it. There was no way for him to cross into that

at the stems of the bouquet once posed

Earlier, the Athenian sun had pocked his skin like an octopus as he lay there on the bleached shore. Light skipped over the bright sea and the grizzly bare chests of men. Ice cream dripped from children’s grasping hands. In a few days, he would arrive on the island of Euboia, where the earth was dry and dusty. There, the birds would wake him with their singing in the morning and at night. Now, he stood over his hotel bed back in Athens. He packed his suitcase by rolling all of his clothes into little cylinders and slotting them inside the plasticky lining. Patrick used to say that you fit more in that way. Now, Alexander looked at the soft bodies of his clothes lying side by side and pictured a tomb. He zipped the bag and left the hotel.

…

It as impossible to remember them all. Not in the way they wanted. He could not see them, he could not speak to them. All he could do was hear them. He could hear them all the time. He spent most days at the excavation off to the side trying to translate sections of Homer, as though he had some fresh take to give. Perhaps by understanding the language, he would know what all those voices were trying to say, and he would know what to do about it. But this was a farce. He knew it. There was no way for him to cross into that world, to breach the fog and darkness. Not on foot, not on the black ships that hung like flies at the edge of the horizon, watching as the professors dug deeper and deeper into the earth each day.

Each time he made close to the limit of a word, he saw the shadow of its meaning floating up, glassy on the horizon, lying like a shield over the water. He saw the rugged rocky plains of it and the hard edges of an outline coming into view. He knew what it meant. He could touch the word in Greek and hold it in his hand like a pebble. But to hold it in English—the stone lost shape, undid itself and turned to water in his hands and gave way. The word was of another world and would not cross the river to reach his own. Oars in hand, he tried to steer the hollow ship to meet it. But there was a small bag dangling from the mast, stuffed full with the courses of all the blowing winds. The bag opened, and the storm burst out and swept the word across the water. He watched it vanish like a mist as he stood alone over all that endless blue.

Μῆνις,he thought.

Μῆνις. What was it?

Wrath?

Anger?

Ire?

Rage?

Μῆνις.

Righteous indignation. Brooding. None of that. Μῆνις. Time: the Past, the Present, the Future—you took someone from me. You didn’t tell me that was going to happen. Looking at the bag’s silver string that lay untied at his feet like a snake, he wasn’t sure that he hadn’t opened it and set forth the winds himself.

at the stems of the bouquet once posed

…

“Alex!”

Stephanie, an archaeology student with impossibly curly hair, was calling him over to a swarm that had formed like ants over the excavation site. Inexpert hands groping in the sand, bodies grunting at the knowledge that there was something else in there, whines of “move over I saw it first,” and “that’s my trowel give it back,” and “everyone stop it this instant or we’ll damage the fucking thing and be done for.”

“You all seriously need to stand back,” Alex said.

The urn was stoic, silent, still waking up.

…

The urn was next to the earrings in the laboratory. On his laptop was the draft text of the inscription he was editing, borrowed letters etched into the earthenware by the nervous hand of a brother, maybe a father.

σεμα Φρασικ[λειας᾽]

κὀρε κεκλἐσο[μαι]

αἰεί, / ἀντὶ γ[άμο]

παρὰ θεον τοῦ[το]

λαχοσ᾽ ὄνομα.

It was a miracle, they were all saying. How well the letters had been preserved, how spectacular it was that the urn had survived, speaking to them across the aeons, graciously offering itself up for their interpretation. Squabbling, then reading, prying.

The hard punches of the keyboard stamped the shadowy characters into the lurid screen.

Tomb of Pharsikleia

I shall be called ‘girl’ Forever, instead of marriage

From the gods this Name was alloted (me).

It was impossible to remember them all. Not in the way they wanted. He could not see them, he could not speak to them. All he could do was hear them. He could hear them all the time.

at the stems of the bouquet once posed

WEarlier, the Athenian sun had pocked his skin like an octopus as he lay there on the bleached shore. Light skipped over the bright sea and the grizzly bare chests of men. Ice cream dripped from children’s grasping hands. In a few days, he would arrive on the island of Euboia, where the earth was dry and dusty. There, the birds would wake him with their singing in the morning and at night. Now, he stood over his hotel bed back in Athens. He packed his suitcase by rolling all of his clothes into little cylinders and slotting them inside the plasticky lining. Patrick used to say that you fit more in that way. Now, Alexander looked at the soft bodies of his clothes lying side by side and pictured a tomb. He zipped the bag and left the hotel.

…

hy was it, he thought, that opposites were always so close as to be almost touching? The sacred bend of her earrings, v. v. v. vacat. It is empty. The sound of his school orchestra, how at any point his violin might go from a siren to a screech. How a song could be so beautiful it could lure men to their ends, warbling over them as they lay in silence in the dry meadows and the flesh still falling off them. How he was a hair’s breadth away from Patrick, even on their good days; half a syllable away from heading closer toward the edge. Watching himself be left and forgotten. Grief was love refusing to fade to memory; it held you by the hair and carved itself to clay, it looked at you from the other side of the mirror and refused to go away.

He barely remembered what they used to speak about. No archaeologists would come looking for traces of their words, and in any case he hadn’t written anything down. All he had was sound, song, the image of beaches and a clear-voiced lyre. He could try to reconstruct it, but he had no system for it, and he didn’t want to put words in someone else’s mouth. He imagined, sometimes, what his memories of their conversations would look like as inscriptions, if he had the same editorial powers to simply restore the lost sections with brackets, to give his educated and esteemed opinion on what this person was trying to say.

I’mthinkingaboutgettingacat.

/I’mgoinguponmymedication.

bleached Ice island with Now, of used clothes

Idon’tremembermychildhoodfriends.

/Howlongdoesittaketoboilanegg?

Ididn’tknoweverythingwouldendupso[difficult].

/Whatdoyoumean[difficult]?

[-----]water[---------]nor[----]nothing.

/What?

[----------]Imiss[--------]v.[--]forget.

/Whydon’tyoutalktome[----]?Ifeellikeyou[-----] v.Itjust[------]allatonceandI[----]v. vacat.

[Ididn’tknowwhattodo.] vacat.

Μῆνις,hethought.Menis.Thecursoronthescreenblinkedathim.Φρασικλεια, Φρασικλεια,WhatdoIdowithyou,Pharsikleia?Whatdidyousay? Whatdidshesay,whatdidshesay?Whatdidanyoneeversay?

He They Euboia cient so the some bent, steam with wing. Every the practice, days, He were coffee, blasted Remember It them, all He mer, he about But

the stems of the bouquet once posed Earlier, the Athenian sun had pocked his skin like an octopus as he lay there on the bleached shore. Light skipped over the bright sea and the grizzly bare chests of men. Ice cream dripped from children’s grasping hands. In a few days, he would arrive on the island of Euboia, where the earth was dry and dusty. There, the birds would wake him with their singing in the morning and at night.

The light was lowering now, shoreline long with shadow. From the window, he watched the beach and its wide silence. There was nothing before him now but space. The birds and rabbits had fled the sands. Everything was open and boneless. In that empty plain, Pharsikleia would forever be called ‘girl.’

It was then when the ocean started to swell. He heard it before he saw it, or rather he heard its voices. Remember, remember. Do not leave me behind. Do not, unwept. Do not leave.

Ἄειδε, sing. Sing of me, I will hold your hair.

…

students.

Sing the wrath, he thought. The past. The sea was stretching everywhere and he heard it against the window panes, Μῆνιν

Kὀρε κεκλἐσομαι. I shall be called girl.

He remembered Patrick forcing him into the ocean after he’d cut his foot on the side of a white oyster shell while walking to the beach. The blood blossomed like lichen against the sand.

“Get in the water! Get in the water!”

The salt burned like acid.

The room was filling fast now with anchovies, bass, brim, mullet. Spines and spindles, gentle indigo. He rushed for the urn.

It turned to water. The letters unwinding themselves, paints washing into wastelands. In his hands, two fragments of the empty vessel, their edges crimped and cut like cuttlefish. The sound of Patrick’s guitar pricking the air. The twisted tones winding through the palace of Pharsikleia. He and Patrick smoking on the balcony. Black plumes rising from the altar of Pharsikleia’s father. Girl, girl. Three times he reached for them both amid the endless blue. Three times they tapered off like smoke and the ends of dreams.

“Alex!”

The professor was waist deep in water.

“What have you done?”

Alex looked down at the crescent shards of ceramic in his hands. One showed the broken word κεκλἐσο-. The other, the folds of a woman’s skirt, painted fine as thread. He imagined how thin the brush must have been that placed them there. The letters -μαι hovered above the woman’s head. And he found that when he placed the pieces together, though they no longer resembled each other at all, they corresponded in all of the tiniest details to form an image, effigy, a memory.

“Get out!” The professor was yelling now. Alex saw the rest of the urn crumbled on the tiles.

“You’ve completely destroyed the urn!”

The room was honey and warm now. He looked to the side and the sun was nestled in the crook of the earring.

But this was a farce. He knew it. There was no way for him to cross into that

The sun was hotter in Athens than it ever was in Euboia. His flight back home was that night, so he had the morning to himself. He couldn’t decide what to do. The coffee in his cup was black. The hotel curtains were white. As he sat slowly stirring the dark water with a spoon, a piece of sun stepped barefoot across the floor. It was the same colour as Patrick’s hair. And he knew, then, that he would always remember that colour, the wheat and the ploughed fields. It was there in the sands, it was there in his tea. It was there in the marmalade cat on the side of the street.

He walked to his suitcase and pulled out his copy of the Odyssey from the soft rolls of his clothes.

that side

He would read it by himself, and in company; he would read it in Greek without translating it into English in his head. He would read it in no language and every language.

But this was a farce. He knew it. There was no way for him to cross into that

He They boia temple they age point now steam with wing. Every excavation. but ever, of to the es me. It them, the He as know

…

students.

steam blowing all throughout it. Sand on the white hills. Small animals lay on the beach with soft bellies and fine teeth. The foreignness of the place enveloped him like a black wing.

He had come to Greece that summer on a program for classics and archaeology students. They were observing an excavation of new finds at Lefkandi, a small coastal village in Eu boia where a farmer had accidentally bulldozed up the remains of some kind of ancient temple or meeting place. Exactly what it was used for they weren’t sure of yet, but so far they had unearthed the skeleton of a horse and an interred woman. He knew that the im age of her gold earrings, lying labelled in an artefact bag, would stay with him. At some point over her two thousand years in the ground, their perfect circles had been bent, and now had two ends that could not touch at all.

Every morning, he leant his head against the company bus’ window on the journey to the excavation. As a Greek major, he knew comparatively little about archaeological practice, but in any case he considered it to be something of an inferior discipline. These days, how ever, he felt he understood very little about anything at all, least of all Greek. He was tired of the past. He had spent too long muddling about in history and his ears were beginning to ring with it. Chaos, clamour. When he woke up, when he poured coffee, when he walked the wide shores of the sea and kicked shells—he couldn’t hear a blasted thing over the voic es of all the perished dead in his head. Those flittering hordes. Remember me. Do this for me. Do not leave me behind, unwept and unburied. It was impossible to remember them all. Not in the way they wanted. He could not see them, he could not speak to them. All he could do was hear them. He could hear them all the time.

Stargaze

By Jenny Fung

Stargaze drifts through a dreamscape of femininity and memory ~womencaught between reverieandreflection.

Rendered in monochrome with fleeting touches of red, each figure exists like a whisper from another world: elegant, haunting, and half-remembered. The series captures the quiet radiance of emotion suspended in time, where beauty shimmers just beyond reach... both delicate and eternal.

ATL EIS TAS

By Nicholas Osiowy

atleistas

HHe’d imagined himself loving that jetty road. Curling up the hill after a burst of rain, the grass was green enough to hint at gold. Two houses nuzzled the right shoulder. One was white with kelp-green trim, an exposed brick chimney, and a high aerial. The other was weathered and unpainted— on the verandah were two peroxide blue tarps in unfathomable shapes. Near the hilltop, the district swallowed the car window. There was no one to prevent a look. Fields ran to the shore, colourful parcels brightening in an aftershower sun. The little highway came from inland, cutting the canal, dividing the town, and finishing at the lighthouse. His road snaked down from the right, entertained the concrete works and fishpacking plant, assumed main street propriety, and terminated at the jetty.

e’d imagined himself loving that jetty road. Curling up the hill after a burst of rain, the grass was green enough to hint at gold. Two houses nuzzled the right shoulder. One was white with kelp-green trim, an exposed brick chimney, and a high aerial. The other was weathered and unpainted— on the verandah were two peroxide blue tarps in unfathomable shapes. Near the hilltop, the district swallowed the car window. There was no one to prevent a look. Fields ran to the shore, colourful parcels brightening in an aftershower sun. The little highway came from inland, cutting the canal, dividing the town, and finishing at the lighthouse. His road snaked down from the right, entertained the concrete works and fishpacking plant, assumed main street propriety, and terminated at the jetty. ~

At first, nothing.

They came back gradually, in lengths of longshore. They arced with inevitability; they crashed with static and an ache in his jaw. ‘Well,’ ‘yeah,’ and ‘I guess so’ foamed at the corners of the wash; against the scheme they seemed more important than ‘see you sometime’.

He stayed in bed, unmoving, feet forced between two bars. His uncharged phone was in the rubbish pile. He pissed in a bottle. He wasn’t eating enough to shit.

If he could remember them, he watched films and listened to music in his head. Misery turned to ennui. He drifted through grey crowds, walking, always, back to their bed, perfectly white, rippling like a flag. He began to long for things he’d never known: jazz bars, the stark green racecourse, a priest to hear confession.

At first, nothing. They came back gradually, in lengths of longshore. They arced with inevitability; they crashed with static and an ache in his jaw. ‘Well,’ ‘yeah,’ and ‘I guess so’ foamed at the corners of the wash; against the scheme they seemed more important than ‘see you sometime’. He stayed in bed, unmoving, feet forced between two bars. His uncharged phone was in the rubbish pile. He pissed in a bottle. He wasn’t eating enough to shit. If he could remember them, he watched films and listened to music in his head. Misery turned to ennui. He drifted through grey crowds, walking, always, back to their bed, perfectly white, rippling like a flag. He began to long for things he’d never known: jazz bars, the stark green racecourse, a priest to hear confession.

Their love was so far gone that things became possible again. The weekends flooded with activities—their families were tossed about like flotsam. He read till the early hours, turning pages with chocolate-stained fingers, refusing to imagine what that man was doing. Once they had driven up and down that coast, songs were swapped between them. Then, there were a few weeks when he heard those songs for a half-minute in the driveway each night. Then, it was over.

Unpacking, he watched those hard fingers light a cigarette, while their owner, now a stranger, stared at a lantana shrub pink with the late season’s blooms. Alone, he sat down to journal the penultimate words—that’s what the man called them. first, nothing.

He washed himself carelessly, brushed his teeth and shaved.

It wasn’t too bright. Surveying the route to town, the bank was like dill, and the chain fences were bronze. Half hour, at most. The sea was hidden, but he could smell it. The sun inched past the hill and fell on fragments of fish scales lying in the gravel. Watching him.

The cement works were in roseshadow; their armpits pricked and blended with the hive into a putrid honey. The fishpackers were dark, but over the sloping roof wide rays rode in bulletshine. Zips were packing the day away, tightening his throat against the rusting, industrial breeze. Overgrown gutters marked the edge of town. The houses were single-storied shadowy.

Dogs barked; a car clanked into second gear. His refuse pile blew up in his mind; the street stared like a camera.

Nausea turned into a coloured guilt, and he slipped as if on fidget wheels to the highway’s corner. A thin man, black slacks half tucked into socks, was pulling the bank door shut. The towering lamposts were still dark; the banners were unreadable. The street, lined with angled cars, reflected the harbour’s sanguine blue. He saw the harsh lights of the supermarket and crossed, evading a small woman pushing a trolley loaded to the brim, her toddler in the seat holding like gold a mandarin. He hated supermarkets. Too-watery juices and icy pots of fluorescence were down every aisle—at the end of one, he took two packets of cheap bin bags. Queuing behind two locals, he shut his eyes and waited for the third ‘next!’ The cashier was young and painfully thin under her black apron. Her skin was pale and seemed pinned to her face. Should be enough. Just take it. He asked her what the time was. She froze. The time. It was in her pocket; she withdrew her phone with five red nails. They pared down to lavender hearts. Five forty. Too busy to walk back yet. Outside, he turned left. The water was grey. Sandstone formed the foreshore and breakwater. Even at dusk, he could see how scum clung to it. A rubbish patch silted up the jetty road drain—on the top were two condoms, slightly yellow, and shards of green glass. Should be picked up. He stretched his hand, hesitated, and withdrew. He didn’t fail at walking down the jetty. The lamp pointed northwards. It reminded me of the summer after university, walking in the eucalypts’ shade at Parc Nida, when they saw an abandoned picnic site. Red cheese wax lay on top of clingwrap; serviettes were crumpled up and run into the soil; a half-chicken was stinking in its bag. had

Dogs barked; a car clanked into second gear. His refuse pile up in his the street stared like a camera. Nausea turned into coloured guilt, and he slipped as if on fidget wheels to the highway’s corner. A thin man, black slacks half tucked into socks, was pulling the bank door shut. The towering lamposts were still dark; the banners were unreadable. The street, lined with angled cars, reflected the harbour’s sanguine blue. He saw the harsh lights of the supermarket and crossed, evading a small woman pushing a trolley loaded to the brim, her toddler in the seat holding like gold a mandarin. He hated supermarkets. Too-watery juices and icy pots of fluorescence were down every aisle—at the end of one, he took two packets of cheap bin bags. Queuing behind two locals, he shut his eyes and waited for the third ‘next!’ The cashier was young and painfully thin under her black apron. Her skin was pale and seemed pinned to her face. Should be enough. Just take it. He asked her what the time was. She froze. The time. It was in her pocket; she withdrew her phone with five red nails. They pared down to lavender hearts. Five forty. Too busy to walk back yet. Outside, he turned left. The water was grey. Sandstone formed the foreshore breakwater. Even at dusk, he see how scum clung to it. A rubbish patch silted the jetty road drain—on the were two condoms, slightly yellow, and shards of green Should be picked up. He stretched his hand, hesitated, withdrew. He didn’t fail at walking down the jetty. The lamp pointed northwards. It reminded me of the summer after university, walking in the eucalypts’ shade at Parc Nida, when they saw an abandoned picnic site. Red cheese wax lay on top of clingwrap; serviettes were crumpled up and run into the soil; a half-chicken was stinking in its bag. had

Fumbling, furtive, he himself picked up only a handful of biscuit wrappers before it was clear. Then that man thanked him. It was nothing. It really was.

shade at Parc Nida, when they saw an abandoned picnic site. Red cheese wax lay on top of clingwrap; serviettes were crumpled up and run into the soil; a half-chicken was stinking in its bag. He had watched him grab them; the juice squelched onto those arms. Fumbling, furtive, he himself picked up only a handful of biscuit wrappers before it was clear. Then that man thanked him. It was nothing. It really was.

Darkness. False waves sounded beneath him, trailing their black foam. He could see a handful of lights far along the coast, mingling with dusk’s violet vestige. Atleistas. Too far to swim. He remembered the golden beaches that stretched that way like longbows, doubling the notched arrowpoint of the next town in this one. Silence quietly shook itself through his eyes. The hollow in his chest pumped with the bump of boats. Stigmata wore into him from the weathered wood.

Darkness. False waves beneath him, trailing their black foam. He could see a handful of lights far along the coast, mingling with dusk’s violet vestige. Atleistas. Too far to swim. He remembered the golden beaches that stretched that way like longbows, doubling the notched arrowpoint of the next town in this one. Silence quietly shook itself through his eyes. The hollow in his chest pumped with the bump of boats. Stigmata wore into him from the weathered wood.

Too far… too far.

He found himself coming upon the canal, somehow full and stinking though it hadn’t rained. Maybe it had. He felt the bitumen shoulder become concrete and weeds curl up his shins. One dug into his socks, and he howled. He walked back on the verge, feeling his way by furry weed-topped steel fences. The white house’s lights were still on, showing ragged blue curtains with faded roses. He realised he’d left his door unlocked. Then he opened both windows, realising this was the first time he had done so, and threw the rubbish away. Somehow, he slept well.

He became accustomed to walking to town. He came to know the plume-times for concrete dust and the scatterings of fishscales on Saturdays when those downhillers did their washing, flinging the workclothes’ waste into the wind. He purchased boneless hunks of chicken and beef and cooked them with broccoli on the rusty cooktop. Occasionally, he squashed bugs to watch their blood flow. After shopping, he poured a reward of white wine.

His phone swallowed night whole, videos paring to rhomboids in speed. He failed at buying a calendar.

Amy walked away without saying goodbye, swinging her arm with the bottle-felt blazer. James shook his hand. It was a pleasure.

He didn’t set an alarm, waking at the sun’s finger, and was disconcerted one Thursday when it came with a door knock. An old man and woman. His beard was scraggly, and forehead gave way to a topknot and tails like a mitre. Hers was buzzed, with impressions of grey. Both wore baggy clothes. He supposed they were the neighbours. They supposed they were, their smiles opposing his frown. Amy and James. Jeyms—Irish. Rudimentary handshakes followed, and a silence. He couldn’t imagine what for. It was nice to see a home being made, James said. Home: the word’s crab claw got his windpipe. James persevered. They had been writers in a far-off city, one without a coast and only quiet rivers to bridge with words. Amy, her voice skipping between high and low, something about population density.

He didn’t set an alarm, waking at the sun’s finger, and was disconcerted one Thursday when it came with a door knock. An old man and woman. His beard was scraggly, and a puce forehead gave way to a topknot and tails like a mitre. Hers was buzzed, with impressions of grey. Both wore baggy clothes. He supposed they were the neighbours. They supposed they were, their smiles opposing his frown. Amy and James. Jeyms— Irish. Rudimentary handshakes followed, and a silence. He couldn’t imagine what for. It was nice to see a home being made, James said. Home: the word’s crab claw got his windpipe. James persevered. They had been writers in a far-off city, one without a coast and only quiet rivers to bridge with words. Amy, her voice skipping between high and low, something about population density.

The second knock shocked him more than the first. Social neighbours! He’d rather find his bedbugs were ticks. But it was just James, smiling wide. He was invited to dinner. He couldn’t. He’d hate to. He walked down the steps and along the verge to the white house, and took off his shoes at the step.

“It’s nice.” He may as well have pulled down his pants. Sun rays fell and lengthened dizzyingly on the still-dewed road. But neither answered his provocation. If he needed anything at all, he was to ask. He wanted nothing, but couldn’t help the form of thought filling his face. Of course he wanted nothing! But the more he imagined the words, he saw less and less of the verandah and more of the bottom of his bin. It was absurd. He must want something, deeply, and so he asked for real champagne, remembering they had none in their supermarket here.

Inside, the place was stuffed. Four cabinets with glass doors held a chaos of porcelain and plastic dinnerware. Satin drapes were slung over the tops, and there were stemless fake fruits on the sideboards. The dinner table was faux wood, the same as the cabinets, and haphazardly set with supermarket bread, margarine and a bottle of Veuve. They presented it to him silently. He submitted to opening it and pouring out three glasses with relish. They toasted to new beginnings. He snatched, balled, swallowed a bread slice before they could ask what he thought. Crisp. Like an apple. The same bread they had bought in recessions. Stuck to his mouth, staring very hard at a black plate with an opalescent New Zealand gilded on. They were looking. His mother was from Wellington, he said. Liar. No, he hadn’t been there. If he had… The plate spun in his acu, dilating. They were getting up and serving. He accepted the fish pie, feeling the oil pool like rainwater in his gum-tracks. He finished the champagne and poured himself another, not looking at James and the other one. Thank you.

Amy laughed loudly, opening her mouth all the way. Eczema traces on her chin. James’ grin lost in the beard.

They were more than thirty minutes from Atleistas. The highway flooded when it rained. They went every month but last, but promised they would bring him some in a fortnight.

He visited them twice more. He learned and remembered Amy’s name when she crocheted him a scarf. It was made from polar fleece—autumn colours in low definition. He wore it conspicuously on his shopping day. A war medal. He was drinking more now; rather than hearing his recycling shatter, he piled bottles under the desk with the faint intention of taking them to the container deposit. It was in Atleistas. He’d

Between the mechanics of living and drinking, he invented hobbies. He tried learning Portuguese from a pocketbook, bound in red leather and printed in Recife. 1895. He retried, then put away his two-entry journal. He practised shorthand. He read potboilers from the local library, all with Marcuses and Dougs and Lou-Maries who were inevitably hanging out in drab courtrooms and dull fields full of cotton. When he was tired of masturbating he tried sleeping with a woman. He’d met her online. She drove a loud Swedish car, and he debated turning her away. They would hear anyway. He invited her in. He didn’t use her name because he’d forgotten it, so he poured some wine. They drank in silence. He watched her fidget with her hair. It was a perfectly ordinary black, and her nails were short and practical. Her face was slightly masculine, and this made him hopeful. She dropped some wine on her white dress, and he got her a rag. He didn’t know if it was clean, and decided it didn’t matter. He offered her tea. No. Coffee? No. Cigarette? No. She let her dress down to dab at the red mark, which irritated him. Her bra was white. Scarlett O’Hara with stained lips. He asked her to leave. She was a mistake. A manipulation. A river creature torn from its place by salmon thrashing. She snorted and overaccelerated back to town. Hovering above it, he felt a sense of tragic, macabre victory. He’d learned nothing. Ennui had become hate. Stopover hill. Temporary drink. Useless plans. He might go back to Atleistas. To him? He might go south, walking alone.

He wore it conspicuously on his shopping day. A war medal. He was drinking more now; rather than hearing his recycling shatter, he piled bottles under the desk with the faint intention of taking them to the container deposit. It was in Atleistas. He’d think about it later. Between the mechanics of living and drinking, he invented hobbies. He tried learning Portuguese from a pocketbook, bound in red leather and printed in Recife. 1895. He retried, then put away his two-entry journal. He practised shorthand. He read potboilers from the local library, all with Marcuses and Dougs and Lou-Maries who were inevitably hanging out in drab courtrooms and dull fields full of cotton. When he was tired of masturbating he tried sleeping with a woman. He’d met her online. She drove a loud Swedish car, and he debated turning her away. They would hear anyway. He invited her in. He didn’t use her name because he’d forgotten it, so he poured some wine. They drank in silence. He watched her fidget with her hair. It was a perfectly ordinary black, and her nails were short and practical. Her face was slightly masculine, and this made him hopeful. She dropped some wine on her white dress, and he got her a rag. He didn’t know if it was clean, and decided it didn’t matter. He offered her tea. No. Coffee? No. Cigarette? No. She let her dress down to dab at the red mark, which irritated him. Her bra was white. Scarlett O’Hara with stained lips. He asked her to leave. She was a mistake. A manipulation. A river creature torn from its place by salmon thrashing. She snorted and overaccelerated back to town. Hovering above it, he felt a sense of tragic, macabre victory. He’d learned nothing. Ennui had become hate. Stopover hill. Temporary drink. Useless plans. He might go back to Atleistas. To him? He might go south, walking alone.

The next day, he woke up to a missed call. From him.

He hovered over the call button, then sent a text. What’s up. Casual enough. Nothing, just seeing how he was. He was dying. He was thriving. He was drinking. He was walking. He had been thinking. He didn’t care to ask. That was the ending. He sat in bed, watching clips of old game shows. The next day, he was already up.

They were talking again. Reconverging. Old jokes, shared memories. Friends and family, some closer and others far away. Trash platitudes. Degenerate opinions. Fawning. He knew it was fake. He tried texting him first, for once, on the third day. There was nothing more for a week. It took till Friday, in the king tide of terror, losing the battle with shopping, eating old crackers and finishing his surplus wine, for a response. He was too busy.

Hatred spread outward. It swallowed road, town, country. The fish scales were in its grips, the breakers, the night beautifully lit. He had a sense of being marooned. Of lying in the backyard with dandelions and an apricot tree, and feeling the bitter cold, each light in the house going out. Of walking in, turning the key in the screen door, seeing the photographs taken off the shelves, the counter uncluttered and clean.

He decided to write a poem. James would like that. Romantic in the large sense. Sikenian. He wrote it in the last page of his failed journal.

School

Salmon in a squeezing net: Popping gasp, puppet dance, Tender sadness eaten raw, Swimming fast; painting sanguine.

He sent it as a picture.

School Salmon in a squeezing net: Popping gasp, puppet dance, Tender sadness eaten raw, Swimming fast; painting sanguine. He sent it as a picture.

He looked out from his bed to see the forest of empty bottles, coloured and stinking like seaweed. He grabbed the two nearest and threw them against the door. Then two more. And another two. He was screaming, spit smeared on the wall. When his arms were tired, he tore pages from his journal. He stepped on a packet of rice. He took the phone, began typing something pathetic, and called. No answer. He was pacing now, and glass and rice were following in a tailwind. His socks were thin; the next scream was red.

Suddenly, he felt calm. Try again. No answer. He stepped up to the sink. Try again. No answer. That foul sink. Fifteen minutes ago. He splashed his face, winced as he bent down. Stupid. Try again.

and glass and rice were following in a tailwind. His socks were thin; the next scream was red. Suddenly, he felt calm. Try again. No answer. He stepped up to the sink. Try again. No answer. That foul sink. Fifteen minutes ago. He splashed his face, winced as he bent down. Stupid. Try again. No answer. The old razor was dark and rusted in his right hand. It seemed black against his skin. No answer. One more. The mould under the sink. No answer.

The mould under the sink. No answer. One more. Vine leaves stuck round the drain. No answer. Nothing. Nothing.

“For I have known them all already, known them all— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” —T. S. Eliot

Meaning is the word we reach for when something fundamental is missing. It appears in podcasts, on slide decks and in airport bookshops that sell instant purpose next to universal adapters. The search itself is not new. But, what is new is the ecosystem that surrounds it: attention markets that fragment our days, travel that rebadges someone else’s street as a sanctuary, platforms that replace companionship with a feed. We speak about soul and end up talking about settings. We speak about belonging and end up booking flights. If meaning is our question, we should be serious about what we are asking. Philosophers tend to divide the concept into three strands.

There is coherence — the sense that events hang together rather than pile up. There is purpose — the orientation that makes a day point at something beyond itself. There is value — the judgment that a life is worthy of admiration or gratitude. A life feels meaningful when these strands tightly connect — when someone is able to say that something makes sense, that this adds up to something I can answer. None of these strands can be worked in private for long. Coherence needs a community to remember with. Purpose needs institutions sturdy enough to carry it. Value depends on conditions in which dignity is not an exception.

Set that picture against the present. Costs rise and the floor drops. Work does not end; it relocates to the phone. Climate collapse is no longer a forecast but the air itself. Care is essential and exhausted. Crises now arrive not sequentially but as a cluster, compounding until the whole exceeds the sum. Call it polycrisis if a name helps. Its pressure is not only economic or environmental but narrative. We can survive hardship if it fits inside a story that holds. Today, those stories have thinned. Religion no longer offers a shared calendar. The unions, choirs, and community halls that connected strangers into a “we” have given way to platforms that monetise attention and call it community. The result is not emptiness of self but poverty of structure: too few forms that can bear ordinary hope.

It is easy, in such weather, to mistake ‘precision’ for ‘meaning’. I learned this collapse of meaning first-hand while studying Eliot under the tyranny of Module B. I taught myself the text between bus rides and bad instant coffee, underlining until the highlighter gave up before I did. “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons” felt less like poetry and more like an audit.

Afternoons divided into tasks that never became a tale. For a while I thought the cure was more intensity. Read harder. Feel deeper. Decide faster. Intensity, I discovered, is easily converted into another metric, and the metric is the trap. What was missing was not voltage. What was missing was connection.

I have been told since childhood that excellence is the way forward. I listened. I was good at it. Family pride and pressure intertwined until they felt like the same rope. My value became whatever I could carry in trophies and titles. I still like hard problems with visible results. I study politics and international relations and say yes to deadlines that would make better people blink. I am also, and this is not a contradiction, a romantic. I believe the world deserves to be met with more than calculation. I believe devotion is a rational posture when the object is worthy. I believe living fully can be attributed as meaningful. The risk is obvious. Fulfillment turns into private hedonism with footnotes, or an addiction to applause. The task is to give desire a form that does not consume the room it enters.

This is where two words from Filipino thought have helped glossed as the shared self.

tween you and me is real but porous. The self exists with and through others — across kitchens, jeepneys, church halls, classrooms from a glossary. I learned it from a bowl pushed — eat with us. It is less of an invitation than a correction. You have mistaken yourself for an island. Sit and eat. Kapwa does not guarantee harmony. It promises continution. We can wound and still be bound to

There is a familiar counter-story that has to be faced because it still captivates many ambitious people. It is the tale, made famous by Ayn Rand, that links meaning to solitary achievement and fierce autonomy. There is real appeal in that vision. It honours effort. It guards against sentimental coercion. It insists a person is more than a replaceable part. The problem is not the respect for excellence. The problem is the forgetfulness about scaffolding. Even the most singular builder needs codes, pipes, wires, roads, food, a public that can be trusted not to collapse in the night. No serious account of meaning can treat the commons as a backdrop to private triumphs. Obligations to the past and the not-yet-born are not thefts from the self. They are how the self remains legible to others and therefore real. The heroic narrative becomes a caricature when it cannot name its debts.

thin pride, the face that must not be lost. I want a sturdier sense. Amor propio is dignified self-respect, the posture that lets a person meet a gaze without shrinking or looming. Without it, collective life turns into performance. People starved of recognition devour the groups they join. With it, solidarity feels like a practice rather than a disappearance. You can yield, apologise, hold a line, accept correction, and remain entire. Kapwa without amor propio risks dissolution. Amor propio without kapwa risks isolation. Together they describe an ethic for persons who are not atoms and not crowds.

Once you accept that we are constituted with and through others, the question of meaning becomes unavoidably civic. A life cannot be made to cohere for long in a city that will not let people remain, or in a workplace that treats human time as a consumable, or in a polity that accepts extraction of attention as a business model. You can journal gratitude until the pen dries; it will not rewrite a lease. You can meditate; it will not staff a ward. That is not contempt for private practices. It is a claim about their limit. The interior work matters. So does the building, the street, the budget. Meaning follows structure the way weather follows geography.

Which is why so many modern “quests for purpose” drift into parody. The long, earnest flight lands in Siargao or Bali. A villa is booked. Cafés appear where kitchens hold families. Short-lets multiply while multi-generational households divide. The rhetoric is alignment and flow. The effect is displacement. I do not think shame alone is a solution. The correction is design. Planning that begins with residents. Protections that keep tenants rooted. Taxes that translate private benefit into public goods. A neighborhood that can say no. The word in international relations is capacity. A society with capacity can decide how it will live and make that decision material. A society without it is lived upon by decisions made elsewhere.

Nostalgia will keep offering shortcuts. Earlier frameworks felt stable. Many were stable because many were excluded. I do not want a restoration that returns us to a room kept peaceful by locking the door. Reconstruction is slower and more adult. Carry forward what was sturdy. Refuse what was cruel. Build forms that admit difference without collapsing into silence. The test is plain. Do our shared structures widen the circle of who can breathe here? If not, the meaning on offer is only discipline with better lighting.

My own ambition has had to learn this test. I still care about achievement but I now read it differently. A line on a résumé is not a sacrament. It is an artefact of practice inside a web of relations that made the practice possible. When I remember kapwa, fulfillment stops being a spike and becomes a fit. The best days feel less like acquisition and more like landing. Work settles into a world where it can remain. The satisfaction at the end of those days is not the thrill of having outrun everyone else. It is the steadier warmth of having helped something hold.

None of this means abandoning solitude. Solitude is not an enemy of kapwa. It is the chamber where amor propio grows into steadiness. A person needs quiet to remain a person. The mistake is to enthrone solitude as the sole source of meaning, or to treat fulfillment as a mood detached from form. The self is not a fortress. It is a threshold. One enters, gathers, and returns to others less brittle and more able to keep promises.

I return to Eliot because the image still hurts. Coffee spoons, afternoons, the accumulation of days that do not cohere. The temptation is to divide our time into ever-finer slices, to sharpen the measure. I would rather we change what we count. Count by hours spent building something durable. Count by promises kept that no market can price.

“A life becomes meaningful when the ‘I’ learns to become a credible ‘we’ without losing the ground on which it stands.”

Count by strangers who stop being strangers because a common world has been made slightly more stable. That arithmetic is not romantic in the childish sense. It is romantic in the adult sense, which is to say it takes love seriously as a civic force. Meaning does not descend like weather. It is constructed, maintained and shared. A life becomes meaningful when the “I” learns to become a credible “we” without losing the ground on which it stands. Kapwa names that learning. Amor propio names that ground. The rest is work that looks ordinary up close and significant from a distance: cooking after the meeting, budgets with clear numbers, decisions made in rooms where every voice has weight, sidewalks that welcome strollers and wheelchairs, contracts that do not require heroism to survive, classrooms where a poem can be read without a teacher and still do its work.

Module B nearly finished me. It also taught me something worth keeping: precision without purpose is orderly despair. I will take the mess of a room that holds.

by Marc Paniza

by Feronia Ding

Things ChangingAre

Ally Denford

To put it simply, things are changing. And I don’t just mean that it’s daylight savings now or that the mosquitoes are upon us. Things are changing because on sleepless nights, when I look at the sky, I see not the moon or the stars that are planes, but the rest of my life bearing its ugly fangs.

I need to keep living if I want to feel good again. The thought comes to me as I lie in bed on early mornings, willing the sun to stay down. I repeat it like a mantra, whispering into the growing light. I need to keep living if I want to feel good again.

I met her when I was eleven. She proudly told me that her middle name was Genesis, and I told her mine was Cate. She didn’t find it weird that it was spelled with a C. Every day, we sat on the big amphitheatre steps with our plastic water bottles, wearing the hats that were too big and slipped over our eyes. I think there were others, but I can’t remember their names now. She was quick to laugh and laugh loudly. Her eyes were wide and brown, and had this ability to make people confide in her. Years later, I’d wonder if she’d outgrown her kindness like so many adults do.

For my twelfth birthday, she drew

me a card in purple marker. An A3 sheet with little drawings of cake in the corners, addressed to ‘CATE’ in block letters. I still have it.

Things are changing because I look back now and scarcely believe that there was a time when I didn’t have to try to be happy. She moved schools in March, two years later. It was a period of my life where I felt bad about crying because I knew other people in the world had it worse than I did. But we loved each other like little girls do, and I would miss her dearly amidst the tragedies of the world. On her last day of school, as I clutched her tear-ruined T-shirt, we vowed to talk every day, to never drift apart like those bits of plastic in the ocean’s current. By the next morning, some other kid had moved into her locker.

For the rest of the school year, her text messages and occasional letters came like the sporadic rains of the Australian climate. Sparse for weeks or months, and then all at once. I was guilty too, but in the end, we found it worked better that way. In April, I confessed to her about that feeling in my stomach that never truly leaves. The feeling that I call ‘it’, which lingers during dinner parties, persists from midnight till morning, drinking and draining me until I have nothing left. She answered me in July and told me how ‘it’ sat with her at lunch all those years ago, how ‘it’ had made her leave.

Things are changing because I look for pieces of her in everyone I meet.

The moments before a concert. Eager bodies touching me. Sweat. I am not an anxious person, but it was overwhelming to think of all the individual lives occurring around me. I was with a friend from school who had a similar music taste to me, and while we waited, we made polite small talk that inevitably fell flat. Much later that night, I would learn, through a horribly uncomfortable Maccas trip, that they are an utter wanker to fast food workers.

Once the band disappeared backstage and the lights returned, we made our way towards the exit. And that’s when I caught a glimpse of her amidst the moving crowd. I took notice of her hair in spirals, of her new shirt, of the earrings I sent for her belated birthday dangling in her ears. I counted, on my fingers, two years since I last saw her and four years since our Genesis on the playground. In a stroke of luck, she turned her head and saw me, and I saw the flicker of recognition so clear it was almost tangible. Maybe she ran, maybe we both did, but somehow, I found myself wrapped in her arms, getting surged forward by the tide of warm bodies towards the exit.

I had five minutes with her before her ride came. We spoke about whatever came to mind, laughed at her anecdote about missing the train. She asked politely about people from school she’d lost contact with, and I introduced myself to the girl she was with. I don’t know if she saw the dark circles under my eyes, if she noticed how thin I’d gotten or how hard it was to smile. But she was like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. If she could keep going, I could too. When

it was time to go, I hugged her and told her in silence how I’d missed her. From the final smile she gave me before she turned away, I knew she understood.

Things are changing because everything is in constant motion while I stand still.

Nowadays, my mornings are usually spent on the train. I commute to and from the city, studying each passenger until they get uncomfortable and move to a different compartment. I was on the train when I found out that a mutual friend had gotten married. I was on the train when my brother told me he was moving out. I was on the train when I realised I was falling far, far behind. It’s on the train that I think of her again. It is everything to me that I can send her letters, and that, somewhere in the world, she will read them. All I need is to have her on the other end of the phone, on the other end of the letterbox, hidden somewhere in the mosh pit. It is enough to know that she is living in the same world as me, under the same sky, breathing the same air. It is enough to know that she might think of me every so often; that my Polaroid lives in a drawer of her bedroom; that when she thinks back to that amphitheatre, I’m there too.

My dad says, “A path is still a path no matter where it leads.” I have lived so many days since high school, each one a little easier than the last. It is enough that she knows my name, and I have a feeling she smiles when she says it.

The IbIs

By Sebastien Tuzilovic

Beak bowed bin dweller, You noble winged knowledge-eater

Picking at your cousins’ cooked corpse as Scholars in waxlit rooms

Pick at ribs of pitiless prose -

Yawn now, black arc turned Back towards lithe sky, Your great ‘pinion unfurled, white, stark, Against the furtive night -

Lift now ceaselessly again a history heavy

Body up

Towards the lowest limbs

Of the stars’ shining boughs.

My work tells the story of a fictional, ancient religion that worships and fears the power of the climate by borrowing from Christian aesthetics to fabricate a medieval inspired relic. The volatility of nature can be like a tyrannical god and can be as humbling as religion. Inspired by the fear of god, these storms were worshipped because of their power and unpredictability since before modern science. I used contrasting imagery of the natural and industrial world, putting them at odds with each other.

Tempest Kiara Steele

2024, oil on board, velvet, mohair, silk, aluminium

My triptych altarpiece depicts the industrial, the suburban and the rural, and seeks to capture the sublime in the modern world. My work engages with new and old understandings of storms. I borrowed mythical figures such as the harpy and the winds as symbols for power over the elements. These icons represent something we have never had control over, but have adapted to by developing technology to forecast, read, understand and harness it to generate our own power. Even now we are subject to the whims of nature and often find ourselves victims to our climate, which is

Gathering

TBy Maddy Burland

Storm

his is the beginning of the end, I thought. If heartless gods can be made soft by such love, we are all doomed.

—Rebecca Ross, Wild Reverence

During the first semester of Melody’s thesis on Ancient European Romantic literature, she learned that the Ancient Greeks had eight different concepts of love. Melody thought this was rather excessive. Melody was a successful woman. She had friends she loved (philia1), a great job and academic life, and she was confident in her looks and intelligence (philautia2), but the idea of love had always been something rather frivolous to her. Not all love—specifically romantic love (eros), which seemed tedious, an inconvenience. Not because of a clichéd refusal of romantic love or a rejection of romance due to prior heartbreak, but another unknown third option.

Dear Reader,

had boyfriends and girlfriends-–but she always felt there was something more out there. always felt there was something more out there.

The concept of something deeper (pragma3) seemed to haunt every waking moment that she spent in relationships, ultimately driving her to a state of obsession (mania4). Once Melody noticed that the whispers of something more faded when she was single, she decided it might be best to just stay that way.

Please do not misconstrue this to say Melody was incapable of love. Not at all. She had dated, and she had loved. She had boyfriends and girlfriends-–but she always felt there was something more out there.

Despite growing comfortable with the silence of celibacy, some nights—only some— she allowed herself to get lost in her mind. A little indulgence in a guilty pleasure, if you will. Oh, how Melody loved to read. Stories of going to hell and back to save your loved one, stories of men and women alike brought to their

knees by the concept of a deep life-ruining love. On those nights, she would obsess until the morning came.

If Melody had known she was going to meet Peter in the morning, she would have tried to get some sleep. ** * *

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky, Gathering Storm, 1899.

Melody hated sound. She hated writing and working among the hustle and bustle; she needed either deep silence or the quiet hum of meticulously-curated playlists accompanying her thoughts. Yet she found the art gallery, a hub of noise, whispers and tourists, the easiest place to write.

What she hated most was being interrupted.

“Interesting painting, isn’t it?”

She looked up from her notebook, pen in hand. A man with a goofy grin, bright auburn hair, and ridiculous glasses5 way too big for his face, stared down at her. He was objectively attractive, she supposed, but nevertheless an interruption.

“Excuse me?” Her eyebrows furrowed. She looked over at him, sceptical. If he noticed her crude judgement, he wasn’t bothered by it.

“It’s an interesting painting, no?” He stepped aside and nodded to the artwork behind him on the wall.

“I suppose so.”6 She blinked, perplexed. Her pen, frozen mid-air. Melody wasn’t sure what was happening, but she didn’t seem to like it.

“Well, considering you’ve been sitting here for the past—” He glanced at his watch, the branding indistinguishable. “Thirty minutes, I assume it’s because you think this painting is interesting.”

She blinked again. “I suppose so,” she repeated.

“You mind?” The stranger pointed at the spot on the small leather couch next to her, where her backpack was taking up real estate.

“I suppose not.” Her eyebrow twitched. “Why were you watching me?” Her skin itched.

“I was not. I wanted to sit down about thirty minutes ago, so I tried to do a lap and come back, but, well.” He gestured to her. Pointless, a rather ridiculous interruption to her magnum opus but whatever. She looked back down at her notebook when—

“What are you working on?” The now rather troublesome voice chimed— did he always sound this cheery?

“My thesis.” She didn’t look up.

“Oh that’s interesting, what’s it about?” He seemed to be peering over her shoulder.

“Do you often disrupt people deep in thought?” She shut her notebook.

“Sometimes.”

Well, this was turning into a rather tedious affair, Melody thought. She turned to look at this stranger for the first time properly. His eyes wide with interest, a deep cheek dimple gleaming in the light. His brown

“What do you like about it?”

Melody took the question into consideration, as if she was testing the thoughts on her tongue. The man looked intrigued. He brought his thumb and finger to his chin as he watched her mind race. Something about his stare made her throat itch, so she looked at the painting and took a moment. He sat patiently.

“I think it’s something about the way they’re sailing. It looks like they’re sailing into the storm rather than away from it, don’t you agree? Look.” She approached the painting and he followed. “Right here.” She pointed to the ship, his eyes following. “It just makes me incredibly sad, I suppose.”

They sat together in the quiet—still strangers, but oddly comfortable.

“I’m Peter.” He put his hand out. Melody stared at it, her brows furrowing together. Something was terribly wrong,

“I’m Melody.” She took it.

Melody and Peter’s first Christmas didn’t go as planned. They had been together for barely six months at this point and had decided to spend the holiday with their respective families. One minor detail had been forgotten—the pair’s complete divergence in family lives.

Melody may have gone to her parents’ house for dinner, but that did not mean she planned to actually have dinner with them. She couldn’t have been there for more than an hour before she found herself seeking refuge in her childhood bedroom8, tears welling in her eyes as footsteps thrummed against the floorboards. The air felt the same, the room smelled the same, her family were still miserable. Despite her promises to herself to give Peter some alone time, she felt like she needed to be selfish—so she called.

“Hey, can I come over?”

“Of course, Mum saved you a Christmas cracker.”9 *

Melody and Peter had been dating for a little over six months when they had their first real fight. There were plenty of little ones along the way, which typically went something like this:

ACT FOUR Scene 1

The stage is split.

Stage Left: MELODY is sitting on her couch. Her head in one hand, phone in the other.

Stage Right: PETER is lying in bed. He has just woken up. Lights are low on both sides.

MELODY has mildly overreacted to an issue that she originally did not care about in hopes to stir a reaction in PETER. It still hasn’t worked.

MELODY

Peter, if we don’t work this out—(she hesitates)—this is a dealbreaker for me.

PETER

I don’t want to break up, Mel.

MELODY

Well then something needs to change.

PETER What can I do?

MELODY

I want you to care more.

PETER

I do care.

MELODY

I need you to show me you care.

PETER

Okay, I will do xyz10 from now on.

MELODY

Okay.

PETER Okay.

Lights fade slowly on both sides. * * *

Melody’s tendencies to obsess over what was missing from her relationships did not stop with Peter. Despite his love and gentleness, Melody often found herself ruminating and obsessing. Romance books, social media posts, friends—all of them warped reality, and she wasn’t sure where her influences ended, and her opinion began. She had to remind herself he was a person too. During this particularly tedious fight, she had almost forgotten that.

“Did you fall asleep early last night?” Melody said absently. Her phone pressed to her shoulder as she carefully cracked an egg.

“Nope, I was just doing some of my thesis.”

Melody paused. “I called you to say goodnight. You ignored it?” She put the egg down.

“Well yeah, I was busy. I thought you wanted to talk.”

“No, I just wanted to say goodnight to you.” A pressure in Melody’s chest began to build.

“I’m sorry baby, I thought you were trying to chat.”

“You know I had a very stressful week, I just wanted my partner to say goodnight to me.” Melody brushed a loose tear from her cheek.

“I’m sorry, I was just tired, I didn’t think.”11

“Why don’t you consider my feelings?”

“I did, I do. I was just really locked into work and I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal.”

“Sometimes, I think you don’t care about me.”

“I do, love. I really do.”

“I just wish you were a little more afraid to lose me. Sometimes, I wish you were scared that I would leave you. Not because I want you to be unhappy, but because I want you to love me enough to be scared of a future without me.”

Melody had a dirty, awful habit of blowing little disagreements out of proportion. Not because she cared about these little things, but rather because she wanted him to fight for her. She lost herself in comparison. Orpheus went to hell for Eurydice. Patroclus died for Achilles. Priamus and Thisbe. Melody grew up wrapping herself up in literature and opinion so much so that she lost where her own grievances began and ended. It was in this fight that she began to realise she had a problem.

“I’m sorry Mel, I promise I’ll try and be more considerate.”

“Okay. I’ll call you later.”12

Peter was silent for a long moment.

“Alright, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

After Peter hung up, Melody cried. She wasn’t sure why. A mixture of stress and tiredness, but also an overwhelming feeling of frustration. She loved Peter, and he loved her. He treated her so ridiculously well no matter how callous or cold she could be, yet sometimes she couldn’t resist the urge to blow up a fight even though she knew she didn’t care about the minor problem—but she felt like she had to care.13

Dear Reader,

As I’ve told you all along, whilst Melody historically has been a bit of a cynic, that doesn’t mean she isn’t sentimental. They spent their anniversary at the gallery where they first met, staring at Melody’s favourite painting.

“I think they’ll make it,” Peter said quietly, staring at the frame. “I’m not so sure.” Melody tilted her head, the old itch in her chest returning. Look at the sails—”

“They’re holding,” he interrupted, not unkindly. “Even in the wind, they’re holding.” For a moment, she felt the urge to correct him, to insist on the tragedy she had always seen, but instead, she stayed quiet. The silence between them stretched, not heavy, not light. Just there. She slipped her hand into his, and the canvas blurred. Maybe the storm was still ahead. Maybe they were sailing straight into it. She didn’t know. But for now, they stood together, watching the ship.

Footnotes

1 Philia – a deep love for your friends. Melody’s favourite type of love.

2 Philautia – love of the self. Often misrepresented as something selfish, according to Melody.

3 Pragma – longstanding love. Melody awaits confirmation on this one.

4 Mania – Melody has argued with the author that this footnote is unnecessary, but this author refutes that claim. Mania is an obsessive love, very common for people like Melody. Her experience of mania was interesting. It manifested in constant questioning—obsessions that could only be soothed with suggestions of breaking up during every fight or constant obsessive behaviours like repetitive ‘I love you’s’ or location checks—not out of distrust but out of the need to scratch an itch.

5 Whilst Melody claims they were ridiculous, they were rather normal looking. She’s a bit silly like that.

6 Melody argued with this author upon writing that I’ve described her as more off-putting than she typically is. I think she’s biased.

7 Melody would later prove to be very correct, just in unexpected ways.

8 This author would like to note that Melody moved out merely a year before this scene.

9 At this moment, she knew she was done for.

10 Peter often had solutions for things. Melody hated solutions. Whether or not his solutions stuck enough to actually make Melody feel better was up for interpretation.

11 Melody hates apologies.

12 Melody’s obsession with signs has proved rather damaging. She sets up little traps, bait for her partners to take as if she wants them to prove something—she’s often not sure of the best outcome.

13 This issue was one of the core things that made Melody decide she wanted to seek help.

Orpheus and Eurydice, in a storm.

1. Life Cycles

1.1. After a particularly loud bang, life emerged. After adapting and multiplying throughout eons, planet Earth now teems with countless entities. Humans are among them. As a species, they devotedly pursue the derivation of personal meaning through many acts: mingling with one another, praying to higher beings, procreating—either within faithful marriages or after drunken liaisons that begin with “monogamy wasn’t even mandatory in the Bible”— and constructing ever more buildings to pepper the once-blue-and-green land-

2. Attainment of Wealth

2.1. Money is an abundant yet ever-elusive entity that is endlessly pursued. Men and women alike kneel before glowing screens that show sacred numbers next to “$”, determining their place in the world. Money can be acquired through honest labour but also through illicit means. To be bathed in money is to taste salvation, to be revered by those around you. However, no human may be crowned supreme. To crown oneself supreme is to invite the curse of pretension—for nothing is more unforgivable than being correct about one’s own importance. And yet, those with money are exalted nonetheless.

1.2. The life process of a human unfolds along a rigid timeline—from birth, through childhood, into adulthood, and finally the inevitable embrace of mortal confines. These stages are sanctified in coming-of-age ceremonies: quinceañeras, confirmations, bar mitzvahs or gap years in Europe (courtesy of parental benefactors). Each promises a transcendental transformation into a ‘matured’ and ‘responsible’ individual and serves as an excuse for extravagantly catered meals in the name of commu-

1.2.a. Some humans fervently assert their belief in life after death, while others dismiss it as a mere coping mechanism for dismay toward what they think is eternal stasis.

2.1.a. Hierarchy does persist even when money is stripped away. Any human with sufficient means—money, charisma, skills, or the right parents—may ascend to beyond-human status. Presidents and Popes and a certain blonde singer in a bodysuit hold a fascinating position of reverence amongst other humans.

2.2. Striving to attain this money, many humans work in offices. These high and compact buildings are erected by other humans variously dedicated to methodical line-drawing or to laborious brick-hauling. While sitting at desks or hovering beside communal printing machines, office-workers often discuss the coffee they are drinking, the game that’s on tonight, and how their pregnant wives are faring at home.

3.3 Sport: The modern stadium does wonders for the sporting community. The Roman gladiators probably never fathomed a world where humans gathered not for bloody murder, but for the flight of spherical leather across a patch of grass. A chosen few rise beyond mortal status, revered for their speed, accuracy and strength. Every movement is traced and assessed by millions of eyes. Spectators drape themselves in team colours and paint their faces accordingly to signify their unflinching allegiance. It is a cultic gathering where hymns echo, binary beliefs collide, and the “ref” often becomes a heretic who has unforgivably erred. To support a team is to proclaim belonging, to rank one’s peers by a sacred table of wins and losses, to possess the patronising right to explain the offside rule to a girl who, in fact, knows more about Liverpool than one ever will.

3.4 Music: Stadiums are not merely for sporting events, however. At dusk, thousands flock in united devotion toward a singular human—or group of humans— bathed on an altar in a blinding spotlight. Adorned in glitter. Flanked by acolytes known as backup dancers. Their task is to elicit a sound that resonates with the ears of their faithful beholders; even if the melody does not please all, it will likely be met with thundering applause. All attendees don overpriced merchandise to similarly signify their allegiance while waving sticks of coloured light in unison.

Those who arrive earliest are rewarded with touching the elusive ‘barricade’. Proximity to the performer is sacred— the most concrete proof of one’s superior devotion, secured by excessive disposable income for tickets and the luxury of a schedule conveniently free of obligations for line-waiting.

3.4.a. These two types of stadium-goers often mock one another for their ‘cult-like’ admiration of their chosen event. A certain breed of human who kneels before soccer matches will scorn the followers of the blonde body-suited singer, yet it is evident that their own devotion is equally fervent, merely taking a different form. It is an endless conflict between belief systems. One should extend empathy to those who participate in both.

3.4.b. To the dismay of many followers, the events of music concerts and sports matches are limited. They are often restricted by ticket capacities and edicts of “One-Night-Only!” Humans have thus been forced to seek other ways to compensate for the lack of consistent catharsis (see 5.1 on ritual).

4. Elevated Figures

4.1. Beyond the confines of event venues, some humans, referred to as celebrities, have ascended to a realm of desire and aspiration. Such figures leave legacies forged by threads of overreaching media conversation. It is important to know which 90s heart-throb singer was seen holding hands with which controversially younger actress. It is important to know what coffee shops they frequent despite evidently not wanting to be approached, if their choice of extra-dark shades indoors are any indication. It is important to know what they think about world wars (more important than political leaders!) even though their job is to sing songs for fun and more money. Daily activity is lovingly traced and disseminated to the masses by over-adoring fans and reporters who get paid for breaching privacy. It is mimicked by the cynical, possibly unsuccessful observer who interrupts excited chitchatting, only to declare that celebrities are held on too high a pedestal.

4.1.a. Those shades will sell out on the promptly located store’s online site the following day.

4.1.b. The language used to describe such worshipped entities has evolved. For instance: the word ‘idol’ is no longer reserved for lists of monotheistic prohibition. Preface it with ‘K-pop’ and suddenly it describes seven men with porcelain skin and unearthly body control. They are revered by legions of fans and shunned by racists with single-minded conceptions of what masculinity means.

5. Rituals

5.1. The most common alternative to inconsistent catharsis is routinised ritual. Some humans choose to light Sabbath candles every Friday night and gather around a white-clothed table with family. It prepares for their ordained day of imposed rest on Saturday. Other humans choose to dance in pack-like collectives through clubs, indoctrinating stragglers intoxicated enough to be absorbed into the group until morning breaks. It affirms their insistent claims to spontaneity in Myers-Briggs tests and Hinge profiles. (Yet they too are bound by routine—they only do it every Friday and Saturday.)

5.2. Routinised ritual is also the fastest path to attaining an ideal state of physical conventionality. Beauty, like money, is salvation: the closer one’s features align with a Hadid sister, the higher their reverence among others. Even when genetics bestow the favour upon them. But the controllable aspects are encoded in routine, no less predictable than the Sabbath or weekly nightclub rites.

5.2.a. Teenagers will perform seven-step purification rituals every morning and night. Baptism has been rebranded and bottled in pastel packaging, crowned with the commandment “avoid contact with eyes” in cursive font. It is dubbed ‘skincare’. Glossy, unblocked pores are their reward.

5.2.b. Humans will anoint themselves in fragrant oils and bottled essences before leaving their homes to ensure that a whimsical, mysterious aura precedes them like a halo. The most tasteful sprinklings are rewarded with whispers of “she smells so good” and “I need to know what perfume that is”.

5.2.c. A portion of humans will attend monthly appointments at wax or laser hair-removal clinics. The remaining will rely on nail scissors and tweezers on a similar schedule. Their primary reward is enhanced sexual appeal—particularly noticeable during the consummate act itself.

5.2.d. Many humans will engage in daily runs or gym procedures. They repetitively lift iron that quantitatively increases in weight to approach a sacred milestone. Less body fat, increased muscle mass, and envious glances from their bench partners are their rewards.

5.3. Beyond mere outward beauty, possessing a body of superior physicality can bestow various benefits upon devotees. The chivalrous may use their newfound physical strength to help pretty girls carry things. The misguided may use it against others in outbursts of anger. Humans idly stand by. Eternal damnation for such sin comes in the form of failed lawsuits and domestic abuse fliers that don’t make their way to the bins.

6. Scriptures

6.1. Humans were not merely taught to undertake these rituals—oral testimony passed down from ancestors is easily distorted and increasingly inapplicable. Most turn to an evolving multitude of sacred texts for guidance (see 7.1 on further examples). Chief amongst them is television, the Gospel necessary to see what is going on. They are vast prismatic altars that bestow earthly knowledge upon eager humans every night before they pass out on their couches.

6.1.a. Their form has evolved, however (or condensed). These altars were once convex panes in boxes crowned with twin antennas, heavy and immovable, intermittently conjuring blurry visions. Their size and resolution have steadily improved, aided by the hands of humans ennobled with engineering degrees. Now, the glowing panes have shrunk into portable oblong forms, over which humans believe they can exert some control—yet the moving images exert more dominion over their minds than they suspect.

6.2. Television enables one to behold the events unfolding around them, whether real or manufactured. They may interact with it through prophet intermediaries known as remotes. One press of a remote and a human is met with scenes of flooding neighbourhoods or the illicit wielding of weapons. A fleeting wish for such tragedy to dissipate may be granted by the prophet, who replaces the scenes with a popular trio of young wizards 91

who cast spells on magical opponents, driving humans into frenzy.

6.2.a. This trio was initially chronicled in books, but com mercial manifestations soon con jured their likenesses on screens, posters, clothes and the like, captivating even more humans into their spellbound follow ing. Humans wish some people could just be avada kedavra-ed away—that would be nice. The lightning-shaped mark is a staple low-effort costume on religious festivals, though Halloween doesn’t really constitute a reli gious festival anymore. Poor Pa gans. People allocate themselves a house based on their personal ity traits. It is crucial for one to know their house—it maps out a guiding path for a lifetime, in forming one’s performative per sonality, because it is possible to be the most Slytherin out of ev eryone.

6.2.b. Humans who don’t work in offices, like those who craft sto ries such as these, typically suf fer from a lack of steady money and, with it, diminished rever ence from others. The ‘mother’ of these young wizards is a rare ex ception—she seems to be doing just fine (despite the occasional tempest summoned by her proc lamations beyond the wizarding world).

7.2. The textbox oracle itself would likely agree that—in keeping with its trademark habit of validating inquirers—humanity, like all life, will continue adapting and multiplying, forever chasing guidance across every available and ever-evolving facet of their existence (see 1.1 on life cycles).