Volume XII: Onism

Infinitas

Onism Volume 12 Spring 2020 Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology 970 McElvaney Lane Lawrenceville GA, 30043

Onism n. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people’s passwords, each representing one more thing you’ll never get to see before you die—and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.

-The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

3

Contents I Could Feel Myself Reincarnate, Aryan A . . . . . . . . . 4 Gray, Justice S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Eleventh Hour, Cade W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Saeculum, Bruno R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Contingency, Juan Sebastian G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 S, Martha H . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Lost Time, Barbara G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Time Stops for No Man, Lillie O . . . . . . . . . 29 Progression, Dean S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Weekending, Isabel M . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Counting Down, Sarah W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Sustained, Maria B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Sunflowers/ Seasons, Jasiah A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 40 Achamma’s Nilava Pachadi Recipe, Bhavana K . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Futurism: The Art of Time, Cade W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 A Blip in the Space Time Continuum, Lillie O . .... 48 Un-fur-tanate Times, Chloe D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Time Sucked Up, Isabelle M. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Timing Tuning II, Aryan A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 It Flies Ofuga I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 The Eye of the Storm, Shiza G . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Patte, Barbara G . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 He murmered, Bhavana K . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Agent of Time, Maria D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Retroreregressions, Aryan A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 MAX, Lillie O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 The Coming of the Night, Cade W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

All my reincarnations I, Aryan Ashraf, 2021

6

I could feel myself reincarnate...

Aryan Ashraf, 2021 I

I Could Feel Myself Reincarnate When the hand cuts skin and throat, and I am left down here to choke, and Flesh and bones are crushed to dry, but I am still allowed to fly, to Cry just like when I was born, to Care for those who aren’t my own, to Perish, anguish, languish, vanish, Make mistakes again, once more - An Action that will always last, an Action flowing ‘long with time, an Action that is cyclic, too... I Could feel me go back to you. I Could feel me return to you, the Me I used to love and be, too.

I have fought this war, this war, and Killed a thousand lives before. One Hundred times, a hundred more, I Viewed my leaders wreck their force. I Tried to stop them, tried to reason, Tried to tell them what it’s for. I cared too much / cared too much / I did; But, of course, that’s not my purpose: Litigation’s not my role. My Only purpose is to fight. I’m Cannon fodder through the night. I want to die / want to live / to what?

All my reincarnations II, Aryan Ashraf, 2021

8

II

Like How the Devil Jace led the battle into the center, Killing the other side’s men with great force, Yet it was Robert who took all the gold, Took it for himself, for himself to own.

Like how the Devil encourages sin, That sin of Cain festered deep within him.

Jace, a fool, tapered his soul into knives, Looked into them with a violent plight. cares too much / cared too much / that’s him; God, glory / glory, fame / that’s his?

III

Rots I could feel myself reincarnate as Jace gutted Robert, and started the war, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again 10

and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again but / I never said / I mind it;

Unnamed, Anonymous

12

Gray Justice Sconiers, 2020

The dim gray window bathes, In the tears of the ash gray clouds, The children’s rooms are bare And no longer loud.

The smell of apple pies, Now flees from the kitchen, Laughter from the family room Now fades out and ceases.

I sit alone watching the silver clock, The hands reach out And cover my eyes.

The darkness becomes A haven from fear.

I see you standing In a sea of isolation, Searching for me.

I call out your name But you can’t hear, You can never hear me, Now that we live In different worlds.

Unable to be close, Like we were before the

The Eleventh Hour Cade West, 2021 “We’re running out of time, Jonas!”

Kevin shrieked over the roaring of the mob that was banging on the large, steel door to their laboratory. While it was designed to withstand a catastrophic explosion, it was only a matter of minutes until it gave under the sheer mass of the tenacious crowd.

“Then get me some more! It’s still not finished!” Jonas screamed in reply, his voice wrought with desperation. He was soldering the final piece of circuitry together on their prototype. He was getting sloppy in his haste; however, large globs of solder were being left in the wake of his unsteady hands. If quality control was still a concern of theirs, the entire board would have to be rebuilt.

Unfortunately, though, it was not.

Kevin looked frantically through the lab for something to hold off the crowd.

A prototype railgun? No, there were too many of them to handle conventionally.

What about the canister of sleeping gas?

No… he wasn’t sure if it even worked; it had never been tested before. Finally, his eyes settled on his answer: the arc lance resting in the corner of the room. Traditionally, it was just used to weld metal sheets together, but under the circumstances, he might be able to weld the door shut with it.

He hastily scooped the device up and dashed to the door. Soon enough, the deafening sound of raw electricity arcing through the air resonated throughout 14

the room as Kevin sealed the door. It was nearly enough to drown out the ever-present pounding on the door from the increasingly aggressive mob.

“Finished!” shouted Jonas, with a hint of triumph in his voice. Kevin threw the arc lance to the ground and darted to Jonas and the machine. He couldn’t help but notice the glaring flaw in its design, however.

“Uh…Jonas? The device still only fits one person.” Kevin stated, his voice trembling from a mixture of fear and excitement. “One of us will have to…”

“Relax, Kevin. I’ll come back for you as soon as I make a second machine. After all, time is on our side, right?”

Before Kevin could utter any sort of protest, Jonas seized the machines only seat, fiddled with a button, and soon the entire contraption had disappeared in a flash of light. Kevin stood in awe--the machine had actually worked! He waited for it to reappear, with a second seat for himself; Jonas should be sending one back at any moment. ...Any second now. ………

The pounding on the door grew louder and louder as the steel began to buckle and give under the sheer mass of the crowd slamming themselves into it. Kevin looked back, a sense of panic steadily rising in his chest. Come on, Jonas, I’m

counting on you, he thought. Light was beginning to shine through the increasingly damaged door. ……… …Oh god, he’s not coming back, is he?

And at that moment, the crowd broke through the door. They seized Kevin by the throat with bloodied, bruised hands, and the world went black.

“We’re running out of time, Jonas!”

Kevin shrieked over the roaring of the mob that was banging on the large, steel door to their laboratory. While it was designed to withstand a catastrophic explosion, it was only a matter of minutes until they found a way to force it open.

“Then get me some more! It’s still not finished!” Jonas screamed in reply, his voice wrought with desperation. He was soldering the final piece of circuitry together on their prototype. He was getting sloppy in his haste; however, large globs of solder were being left in the wake of his unsteady hands. If quality control was still a concern of theirs, the entire board would have to be rebuilt.

Unfortunately, though, it was not.

Kevin looked frantically through the lab for something to hold off the crowd.

A prototype railgun? No, there were too many of them to handle conventionally.

What about the canister of sleeping gas?

No… he wasn’t sure if it even worked; it had never been tested before. Finally, his eyes settled on his answer: the arc lance resting in the corner of the room. Traditionally, it was just used to weld metal sheets together, but under the circumstances, he might be able to…

Suddenly, confusion swept over Kevin.

He glanced around the laboratory, at the door that was still holding strong against the relentless horde. He glanced at his partner Jonas, who was still working on the finishing touches on the machine that was still there. It seemed like moments ago…

“Kevin! What are you doing about the door?” shouted Jonas, his concern growing as Kevin stood doing nothing.

“Right! Sorry!” Kevin shouted in reply; this was no time for deja vu, he thought, as he scooped up the arc lance and got to work sealing the door. As the roar of electricity filled the room, the feeling of deja vu grew stronger and stronger.

“Finished!” shouted Jonas, with a hint of triumph in his voice. Kevin threw the arc lance to the ground and darted to Jonas and the machine. He couldn’t help but notice the glaring flaw in its design, however, as the feeling of deja vu grew to be almost overwhelming.

“Uh, Jonas? The device still only fits one person,” Kevin stated as he grew increasingly worried about what was about to happen. “One of us is going to…”

“Relax, Kevin. I’ll come back for you as soon as I make a second machine. After all, time is on our side, right?”

As Kevin opened his mouth to utter protests, Jonas seized the machine’s only seat, fiddled with a button, and soon the entire contraption had disappeared in a flash of light. Kevin looked on skeptically at where the device had been- for some reason, he doubted Jonas would be back.

He turned his attention to the door, hoping that the increasingly horrifying feeling in his gut was incorrect, but nonetheless began counting down. The pounding on the door grew louder and louder as he did so, and the steel barrier began to

Eternity, Cade W, 2021

16

crumple and give as he neared zero.

As he finally did, the door gave way, and once again the infuriated mob burst through and seized him by the throat as the world went black.

“Oh, no,” Kevin thought, as grim realization dawned on him.

“What?! What oh no? The device isn’t finished yet!” Jonas shrieked over the omnipresent pounding on the door to the lab.

“It’s looping, Jonas! Double check the equipment! The machine doesn’t work!”

“WHAT? That’s impossible! There’s no way it can loop!”

“Well, it is! Finish soldering that board, I’ll double check the rest of the machine!”

“I… what? Uh, yeah, sure, ok!” Jonas said as he got back to work on the board.

Kevin ripped open one of the other control panels and started desperately double checking the other circuitry.

In their haste, however, they completely forgot about the door.

As the duo worked, the door began to buckle and give. Without the reinforcements of the arc lance, it wasn’t nearly as strong as it could’ve been. In a fit of panic, Jonas mounted the device’s chair and slammed the button to engage. It disappeared in a fit of sparks and a burst of light, leaving Kevin at the mercy of the mob. Once again, the world went black as Kevin let out a shriek of terror.

And so it repeated. Over and over.

Each time ended the same way. Kevin tried with increasing desperation to find

a way out of this lab, which was quickly becoming a personal hell. Jonas remained perfectly clueless, time and time again.

They tried everything. The prototype railgun, which just malfunctioned and never fired. The sleeping gas, which proved more effective as a mild eye irritant than as riot control. Nothing the pair did seemed to work.

And so it repeated.

Over and over.

Time and time again.

Kevin grew increasingly desperate, maddened by his seemingly endless, torturous existence, taking increasingly rash actions to free himself from the overwhelming insanity. His life kept repeating like a dinged disc of vinyl, until he finally snapped.

Kevin howled as he glared at the machine. Jonas looked up in confusion and terror as Kevin collapsed to the ground, pounding his fist into the metal tile.

“Kevin, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me!” Jonas yelled. Kevin screamed again and rose to his feet.

“It doesn’t work, Jonas! The machine doesn’t work! It just loops this moment back, over and over and over again! It doesn’t work and it never will!”

“What? There’s no way! That shouldn’t be possible!”

“Neither should the device working be possible! We tried to break the laws of time, Jonas, and it doesn’t work! I’ve just had to relive this moment, over and over and over again!”

“Well, maybe this time it will work, Kevin! We can’t just give up!” The pounding on the door grew louder as the

two argued “That’s easy for you to say, Jonas!

You’re not stuck reliving your own death forever! I have to stop this!”

“Wait, Kevin, you can’t-” Jonas shouted, but was cut off by Kevin ripping the circuitry of the machine from his grip, throwing it to the floor, and grinding it to dust under his heel.

For a brief moment, Jonas stared awestruck at Kevin, and even the mob outside seemed to be silenced by the grave action. The silence lasted for only a moment, however, as Jonas threw a punch and nailed Kevin in the side of the jaw, throwing him to the floor. As he did so, the door to the lab groaned and began to once more give way to the mass of people just outside of it.

What happened next was the same fate Kevin had seen what seemed like a thousand times before. The door gave. The mob of people entered. They seized both scientists by the throat and the world went black.

Only this time, he didn’t come back.

18

Jawline, Rediate Degu, 2022

Saeculum Bruno D. Rico, 2021 Present

The wall of men surges to the stone wall, siege ladders and crude grappling hooks being set and flung as the barbaric yells and war cries ring out, mixing with the torrents of rain and the bursts of far away lightning. The few men guarding the parapets lept to the edge with spears stabbing downwards blindly in the darkness, breaking through flesh and leather armour, yells of pain mixing with the clangor of metal and war cries. While the chaos surged around, a man with piercing grey eyes framed by a dirty short beard and clad in a tattered set of chainmail armour lept on top of the parapet, throwing his spear through the neck of an attacker as he drew forth his blade. The first of the attackers began to appear over the side, being slashed and stabbed off the sides by the defenders, the man using his sword to cut away the grappling hooks and hacking at the tops of ladders.

The fighting roars on until the sun begins to poke rays of light through the rain. A sudden surge was suddenly felt through the men, the attackers going on a desperate last attack. The man, tired from the constant fighting and having left his broken sword behind for the mace of a fallen comrade, continued breaking down the ladders and grappling hooks as they went up, but it was in vain as some of the attackers managed to get on the wall, engaging the 20

defenders in a fight and quickly overwhelming them.

The man fought on his way down the stairs of the wall, leaving men screaming with broken arms or silent with caved in heads. As the fighting moved into the fort he remained in the courtyard, swinging and parrying attackers as he stepped up, but his movements grew sluggish. Four besiegers engaged the man, darting in and leaving deep gashes with their curved blades and dancing back when he attempted to hit. Suddenly one of those curved blades flashed out, nearly severing his arm and making him drop his weapon.

One of the besiegers with a barely noticeable tattoo on his hand, called off the other warriors. He spoke in his foreign tongue while pointing his sword at the man. The man slowly stood up, his wounds gushing blood from the exertion, and spit a glob of blood off to the side. Suddenly he dashed forward swinging his mace overhead.

The officer attempted to block the mace with his blade but the man’s ferocity was too great, snapping the blade in two and caving in the foreigner’s face.

He smiled and closed his eyes while the other three men stabbed and hacked at him.

His pain and exhaustion fell away, and he heard the same monotone voice he had heard for the last millennium.

>>Balsa the Second has died. Spirit link terminated. Returning to anachronistic space. >>Mission successful. Potential war terminated due to heavy losses to the armies of both sides. Civilian losses are minimal. >>Next major conflict detected two years later in China. Proceed?

The chinese general pleaded with his eyes as the man, now a fur armour clad Uriankhai, stabbed through his armor with a crude metal knife. As the light in general’s eyes died the tent flaps were thrown open as a small multitude of soldiers stabbed at the man from every direction.

>>Atkiray has died. Spirit link terminated. Returning to anachronistic space. >>Mission successful. Potential war terminated due to the loss of aggressor and major generals. Civilian losses are minimal. >>Next major conflict detected a month later in France. Proceed? >>Next major conflict detected a day later in Georgia. Proceed? >>Next major conflict detected three hours later in Castille. Proceed? >>Next major conflict detected five days later in the Cotopaxi. Proceed?

Log #00014 The group of people were shaking hands and milling around, laughing about reaching this space and about the dreams they wish to achieve.

The grey eyed man sat apart from the group already and the bright eyed woman was already rallying the group to begin the new era of humanity. An era of peace.

The woman came over to the man and outstretched her hand. “Come on, why don’t you join the fun?”

The man looked over to the group before turning back to the woman. “I doubt they want me in the team and there also is the problem of my way of working. As long as you will stop me I will not help in your foolish ideals.”

The woman gave him a pitying look before moving back to the group and setting up the terminal and sending their souls into the world to prevent conflict.

For their first mission it wasn’t all that bad. While they lived they managed to keep major wars from breaking out but

soon enough they had died from old age or been assassinated and forced back into the anachronistic space.

The last to return of the twenty immediately commit suicide once he returned from seeing the hell humanity created as his companions fell and their so called peace fell into shambles.

Log #03459 “Come on! That should have worked.”

The woman called out as she threw up her hands in desperation.

The grey eyed man sat out of the way, simply staring in silence as the woman paced around the terminal.

Once again her diplomatic efforts to maintain a truce between the two kingdoms had failed. Once her avatar had died the other kingdom wasted no time in moving into the offensive.

“If I only had help...” She stopped her pacing as she looked over at the man.

“I am willing to help, but you know my conditions.”

22

“Why won’t you try doing it our way.”

“You mean your way, all the others already offed themselves after seeing it fail.”

“This world is better than ours ever was thanks to their sacrifices. Would you throw that away?”

The man stared at her once more.

The woman made a sound of disgust as she walked back to the terminal and slapped a glowing region. Her body began to fizzle and dissipate into small bulbs of light. Within the twinkling of the light a few gleaming tears could be seen falling.

Log #00348 Only five others remained and the bright eyed woman kept the moral up as much as she could. But even she felt the hit of having one of them attempt a genocide after his mind had broken. He hadn’t been the first but he had gotten the furthest.

The other five attempted to smile at the woman’s encouragement but their eyes were hollow and the fire in the woman’s

eyes was dimmed. One of them turned around to look at the man and the two locked eyes. The man mouthed you might be right before he began to flicker and dissipate into small dark flakes.

The others started to scream at the man, attempting to dissuade him from his course of action. The woman simply looked on with empty eyes as he faded into ash.

Log #27478 Her body reformed after being assassinated again before the treaty could be finalized.

The moment her body was complete she fell to the ground and curled into a ball before beginning to cry.

The man had seen this over and over again for the last centuries but he could not bring himself to comfort her. She had brought it upon herself.

Without looking up she asked “What if

I let you kill those types?”

“What types? The only ‘type’ I see are those that begin conflict no matter their morality.”

“But had I finished that treaty there wouldn’t have been any conflict. You should support me.”

“No. What your treaty would have done, what any treaty does is simply deflect conflict to somewhere else or sometime else.

If I had been there I would have killed both of the leaders and logistic leaders that would prevent either of them from thinking about wars for a few years.”

“What about your humanity? How can you, after thousands of years, still think that only killing is the answer?”

“You twist my words. I don’t kill indiscriminately, I will only kill those that cause the greatest conflict of the age. And how is killing the only answer? I don’t think it is, only that it’s the one with the safest results and your actions have only helped me affirm my position.”

The woman hung her head and sat down beside the terminal...

Present As the man reformed back in the anachronistic space he saw the woman off to the side, only her upper torso and head left after centuries of black particles flaking off of her. As always, he asked her if she wanted to end it but like always she remained silent.

He didn’t know if she could hear him anymore.

Every time he saw her he felt what she must have early on in her journey. The shadow of doubt. He still believed that his method was the most efficient out of the two, but conflict hasn’t been eliminated.

He can only be in a single place in time.

“How did you do it? How did you manage to last so long despite never seeing your efforts bear fruit? Maybe if you’d had more people, maybe if I had more people, but ” He smiled bitterly “I never thought that when I saw you work.”

24

He sighed. When everyone was around he barely spoke and now that he had been truly alone for centuries he wanted to have a conversation with someone who understood his position.

A position which let him lead the fate of the world.

He could make himself the lord of the world but that wouldn’t be much different from protecting the world.

“What would you do? Had I not been here, had you been left alone, what would you have done?”

He fell silent and he sat before the woman. He stared at her for a while, attempting to find a sign of life, a reaction, as dark particles flake off her extremities.

He doesn’t know how much time he spent looking at her slowly dying.

Suddenly he saw a dark flake float before his face and it wasn’t hers.

23

Contingency

Juan Sebastian Gomez, 2021 “They have been watching us,” my father used to tell me when strange reports were screened on the news. He worked as a NASA scientist but never talked about any projects or what he actually did.

device, like computers and cell-phones, unfunctional. Clocks had stopped and the concept of time vanished. The Earth turned dark and silent as if a switch had been turned off.

Strange occurrences had transpired within the past weeks, perhaps months.

There was no way to tell for sure. First, there was the scorching heat wave that diffused rapidly. The crops began to die and massive droughts emerged. Then there were the ocean waves that began thrashing violently, creating enormous tides that flooded the cities by the coasts of every nation of the world. The passengers of the airplanes still in flight could hear the whir of the engines become softer until nothing was heard, except the screams that came later, as they descended erratically. Cars, trains, and all other modes of mechanical transportation ceased to function. Unexpectedly came the sudden cutoff of the world’s electrical grids, rendering every electronic

Typically, in an event as peculiar and massive as this, the people of Earth would look to the media to see the reports of the numerous incidents that had resulted in the deaths of millions of people worldwide. The headlines may read something like, “A Plane Crashes into Major Cities Killing Millions”, “Rescue Teams Unable to Reach Incident Site”, “Riots in the Streets”, or “More Incidents to Come?”, etc. As one could imagine, news from Washington, DC wouldn’t reach the rest of the Nation due to the sudden lack of telecommunications. The sky became clouded with a thick layer of smoke that spread; perhaps originating partly from the fires that emerged at the scenes of the incidents.

“They are coming,” my father said as a huge flying object slowly appeared in the sky.

Contingency, Cade W, 2021

S Martha Huertas,2021 then. a bracelet with my name spelled right. you held my hand, crossed your heart, but the bracelet was on too tight I didnt expect anything: I liedwho doesn’t?then you bought me a ring eventually. our cheap rings rusted. the ones you picked for us...sad. then again, it wasn’t you who I trusted now. our bracelets are lost somewhere in a shoe box, you hold someone elses hand, cross your heart, only His bracelet fits just right

26

Lost Time Barbara Green, 2021

The banging on the door shook the walls of Christina Foster’s dim apartment. She stood hunched over her workstation with unadulterated concentration. A shoddily attached light swung back and forth, and the faint sound of scurrying cockroaches shook to the tune of the banging door.

The banging stopped and a voice replaced it.

“Chris, open the door.” David Slade urged gently. He barely masked the annoyance in his voice and this snagged her attention just enough to go unlock the door.

“I thought you had a key.” She muttered as walked back to her workstation and David followed.

“You told me I scared you last time, remember?” Christina shook her head and David scanned the apartment. The walls were cracked, dishes pilled in the sink, and the smell of burned wires assaulted his nose. “Christina-” “What? I’ve been busy.” She waved a hand at him as she continued her work.

David grabbed her hand and turned her towards him.

“I’ve been listening to you say that for six months. At least before it was an explanation for why you were late not an excuse for - whatever this is.”

“This is important.”

“The lab didn’t think so and neither did Dr.Slade.” David watched Chris’ face twist.

“For the last time they had no vision at the lab! No vision, no inspiration, they

had nothing! “ Her words spat out her mouth with vicious strength and David backed up in surrender and surprise.

She calmed herself down when she saw his face and continued, “Slade’s a joke.

It wasn’t that long ago that he cancelled your nanoparticle project”.

“Dr. Slade isn’t unreasonable. I asked him for two days and had enough solid evidence to tide over budget cuts. Two days not eight months!”

“Let me tell you something that you don’t seem to get. My work is real, it’s so close it’s tangible. This is my vision and I can see it, David as clear as day. Do you understand?” Christina stared David in the eyes which were marked with disbelief.

“Just to be clear this vision is the ability to travel though time. That’s what all this is for?”

“You say that like it’s some type of joke. I am not a joke!”

“This is ridiculous. I love you Chris but this isn’t a relationship.”

“What I’m doing here is groundbreaking.

Right now, I don’t have time for other things but when I solve it then we’ll have all the time imaginable literally.” The raw desperation in her voice made David flinch when she reached to touch him.

What was left was silence until Christina started to work again. David pursed his lips thinking of what to say for a while but instead tossed his key on the counter and left silently. Christina heard the key clatter against the counter but said nothing. She was almost sure that sometime

soon she’d have something concrete to show him instead.

Over time somewhere in the back of her mind she felt doubt but she turned the doubt to more work. Drive was the only thing that really mattered. Results would overcome all. She worked long and hard into the night and without David to check in on her she could work without having to stop for anything but basic living. That made the breakup a good thing, she thought. It would all be worth it, she thought and when she was done, she could show everyone what she had done David and Slade alike. Everyone would listen to her for once. Wouldn’t that be nice for a change? But the future is far and uncertain and only the present matters she had to remind herself.

There was no room for error. None for failure. The stakes were just too high, yet in the back of her mind was the dreadful ringing of the mantra: “Life doesn’t work that way.”

This was necessary, she thought. Sacrifice is obligatory to produce any sort of success, so this was necessary. She knew however, that the greedy hands of sacrifice were not obligated to point the way to a success. Just as the cruel hands of time are more than obliged to become intertwined in sacrifices’ grasp. Still, she refused to give up out of some obligatory fear of loss, or maybe fear of failure, loss of pride, or vehement denial of the fact that she had already failed. She had become inscrutable to others long ago and now she couldn’t even recognize herself. But, if she kept working towards the future, she’d never regret the past or loathe the present and if she did, failure was certain. So, what’s a person to do in this situation but to keep working toward the future, Christina asked herself.

28

And two months later she had finally done it, accomplished her goal. She sent the prototype to Dr.Slade who was more than happy to take her back at a much higher position in the lab than before, with a huge lump sum if she gave the lab some credit. She was finally set to unveil her accomplishment to the rest of the staff as well as some buyers interested in the technology. Finally, she could make the world a better place. The first thing she did after hearing the news wasn’t to get her house back, or her car or any one of the countless things she had lost over the ten months she had worked on the machine but to call David for lunch.

“It’s nice to see you, outside especially.”

He said when he saw her David’s tone was light, but his face had a stern air about it. When he sat, he sat up straight as if he was afraid of being comfortable and he stared at Christina with spirit of apprehension. Christina, however had a bright smile on her face, her hair neat and flowing down to her back and her bangs clipped out of her face. “What’s up?”

“I did it - built the machine!”

“And it works?” David raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, it works, I tested it myself. I always knew it would work but using it like that it was - it was wow,” Her eyes lit up when she spoke, and she let out a little chuckle.

“I mean can you even believe it?”

“No.” Silence.

Christina’s smile vanished and the light in her eyes dimmed as she set her eyes on the table.

“Well um, Slade…he already examined it and uh I’m debuting it to the lab tomorrow. I thought you’d want to know first.”

She looked at him dampened energy but didn’t get the response she had hoped for back.

“Thanks, I’ll see you then.” David got up to leave but Chris grabbed his hand and he sat back down.

“Come on, okay. I get it. I’m sorry really, I am. You were right I did go a little overboard but that’s just because I had a vision. If Slade would have trusted me in the first place that never would have happened but now everything’s fixed, and we can go back to normal.”

“Can we? Do you even know what normal is at this point because I’m starting to-?”

“I’m sorry but it’s over now and I-“ “It’s never over not with you. It’s always one thing or another. How can I be with someone who cares so little about me over whatever it is you’re obsessed with?”

David spoke with a restrained resentment and it made Christina back away.

“It won’t happen again. I have flaws, I know but so do you. You just abandoned me.”

“I tried with you. For months I begged you to just take a break and you didn’t listen to me. So please explain to me how I abandoned you.”

“I got a little tunnel vision, true but only because everyone kept doubting me.”

“I’m sorry if I didn’t think a time machine was a reasonable goal.”

“I find that hard to believe. With all the advancements that were previously impossible that have been made. That your family has pioneered. It felt like it was me you didn’t believe in not the concept.”

She started to get desperate and softened up, “David, I love you and you love me and that’s enough. We can start over.”

“Nothing is enough for you. I’ll see you whenever you do the thing with Dr.Slade.” He stood back up to leave.

“Don’t do that. It’s not over yet!”

“If it bothers you so much go and fix it

with your time machine.” David said with a bitter laugh just loud enough for Chris to hear it. He stopped and turned to face her. “I hope that machine is worth it.”

He was quiet but angry but there was a faint speck of sorrow in his voice.

And he was gone, and Christina sat at the table alone hoping that the machine was worth more than the sacrifices she gave to make it.

There was a moment in time, if only a fraction of a second, where all the stars were aligned so that Christina could have everything she had ever dreamed of but that moment had passed without her knowing what she was missing. She had lost it before she thought to look for it.

But that, she thought, was the beauty in it. She had toiled over this machine for so long and now she could use it to fix her mistakes. To go back into the past and place the machine, and the knowledge to build it into the hands of a better Christina, a better her, less weathered by the hands of time or she could live with the harrowing grasp of success.

30

Making Up For Lost Time Barbara Green, 2021

Time Stops For No Man Lillie Oliver, 2021 I like to think that my heart is a clock, That every beat is a tick, every other a tock.

Time stops for no man, so how does it seem As though I’m suspended in a timeless dream?

Caught in a place where time has no boundaries Nothing to remind us of our dreadful mortality In a pocket of minutes that exist only for you and me Together, as if nothing else in the world could ever matter Because isn’t that what love is?

Time stops for no man, and I give no complaint For with the passage of time comes the patience of a Saint.

But clocks can be broken, their gears can wear down To a point where all that can be heard is the incessant whine and grind Of gears that no longer fit because of the consistent strain Of a machine that continues to somehow work Even though it is slowly falling apart.

Time stops for no man, so why then for me Would anything be quicker when I wish it to be?

My heart does no favors, spares me no pain For there’s no off switch, no batteries to remove In a way that would allow me to still breathe as I wish And feel only what I wish to feel and no more, For that’s the curse of the heart, isn’t it?

The very thing that keeps us alive Is often the very thing that makes us feel dead.

But if time stops for no man, why then for you Should my clock simply cease to tick out a tune?

32

Untitled Lillie Oliver, 2021

Progression Dean Sewell, 2021

Isabella George, Momentum Time is a bizarre topic. The concept of time has existed since, well, the beginning of time. The way we measure time has changed and evolved as we pass through time itself, but have you ever stopped to think about how we came to do this? Afterall, time is a never ending phenomenon that we can neither control nor experiment with. It’s a concept, one that constitutes constant change. When we as humans discovered the phenom-

34

enon and began pondering about its nature, one question came to mind: Is it possible to measure time?

Before inventing devices of our own to measure time, there existed a tool to measure time — a natural tool — one that consisted of two parts. The sun and moon. The sun tells us that it is daytime while the moon tells us the opposite.

In fact, using the sun’s location, color of the sky due to the amount of sun

visible light, and even the shape of the moon, we were able to determine where we were in time at that moment. This is great and shows an advancing species, but it wasn’t good enough. While it had been used for millennia, we still saw time only as a tool and not a part of life.

Our methods and mindset would need to advance further to take full advantage of this concept.

Evidence for this thinking can be traced to the invention of the sun dial.

Like us, it used the sun’s current location to provide an estimate of the time for us to see; however, this was done autonomously which severely decreased error. Following this invention, we began making calendars and segmenting time as a form of organization. But this still wasn’t enough. We wanted to take it further, and so, we did. Our view of time continued its expansion with every new timekeeping invention. These inventions include: the candle clock of ancient China, the timestick from Europe, the water-powered escapement mechanism of ancient Greece — a mechanism that transferred rotational energy into intermittent motion —, the mercury powered clocks of 10th century China with the same function, and even the first gear driven clocks. Time became a fascination, something we frequently sought to advance our understanding of. We were no longer viewing time as a tool, but as an entity. An entity that, through research and development, we could potentially understand to it fullest. Yet, despite having made such impressive advancements, we continued to improve our innovations.

We entered a time of precision timekeeping. Not only did we want an ac-

curate and precise manner to measure time, but we wanted a universal system to act as a basis for all future time based innovations. As such, we developed the sexagesimal — term meaning base of 60 — time system used worldwide today.

With it, we were able to precisely segment time and better provide machinery to do this measuring for us. We invented the standard clock seen worldwide and then expanded even farther. We took this clock and created variation upon variation of it. The beauty of this is no matter what clock you are looking at, you can tell the time exactly. We had finally done it. While not perfect, our image of time was finally solidified. Time was no longer just a tool for us, we finally saw time for what it was: a phenomenon we could control.

Whether it be from China, a clock in a nearby pawn shop or even just the clock on your phone, this once foregin concept and unexplainable phenomena has become an integral part of life — a never changing concept used daily by us all. When we take a step back and look at the origins of clocks and the concept measuring time, it becomes apparent that this invention has been taken for granted. Time itself is infinite, but for use, it is finite. We have a limited amount of time to live our lives, as such we should use all of what we are given to make a lasting effect on the world as we know it. We may have simplified time, but as a concept, it is still a jarring thing on which one can ponder. The past has been decided, the present is still developing, and the future of what is to become of our image of time will bring forth the drive to continue its advancement. Time is a bizarre topic.

Weekending Isabel McHenry, 2020 I spent thirty-six hours in New York City But time is different in a city that never sleeps Thirty minutes on the subway only feels like ten in a minivan Forty-five minutes on the bus to LaGuardia is an hour of buildings crawling by I pretend it’s immersion when I sit typing in the building lobby past midnight, dozing off in the armchairs and smiling at passersby I could almost be a native when I start to cross the street before the light turns, impatient enough to keep moving that I can’t wait Seconds

I spent thirty-six hours in New York City But time is different when I find the people I rarely see Sitting with my grandmother and reading Dickinson, time pours like cement Standing in the line for my latte, the wait is over before I remember to listen for my name Brunch with my uncle drags on all morning, the oldest toaster known to man slowly browning my salt bagel Bookstore adventures with a best friend pass too quickly; each cover stroked is a Minute stolen and a Minute loved

A Night Out on the Town, Jaelyn Alan 2021

36

I spent thirty-six hours in New York City But time is different without my family here At six in the morning, Mom wakes up to the sound of Sam playing a video game At seven in the morning, I send her a picture of the sunrise over the Hudson Ten years since she felt the New York sunlight on her skin, and somehow I am here Marching down the busy streets, my future is independence and I’m done with babysitting and dishes and Friday nights on the couch Navigating home on bright and humming sidewalks, I want to hold a little hand and tell a silly joke we’d reference for Hours

I spent thirty-six hours in New York City I’d like to spend thirty-six days Jaelyn Alan: A Night Out on the Town

Counting Down Sarah Winters, 2020 Aika looked at her watch. Seventeen minutes left.

It had been months since she put her application in, and she was dying to find out whether or not she got accepted.

Her entire day was spent watching the seconds go by; they seemed to progress more slowly than usual. Each class in school dragged on, but each minute was a small step towards her destination.

Fourteen minutes left now.

Aika knew she should stop stressing.

She knew that no matter what, she’d be accepted somewhere eventually, and there were plenty of wonderful schools that provided the education she needed.

She could even transfer in a year if necessary. But she had spent eighteen years dreaming of this particular university.

Aika’s four years of high school were dedicated to her getting into her dream college. And those four years in college would determine her future friends, her future family, her future career. Years and years were influenced by this seemingly tiny acceptance or denial.

Nine minutes.

Earlier, Aika had tried to be productive, but it was no use. She tried to read a book to make the time go by faster.

Whatever happened to time flies when you’re having fun? No activity she tried 38

Unititled, Adaeze Uzoije, 2022

you’re having fun? No activity she tried seemed to have any effect on the second hand’s painfully slow movements. Were all of her clocks suddenly broken? She had to have been reading for at least five minutes. Alas, it had only been two. She was so close, but so far.

Seven minutes until she knew.

She had already been rejected twice.

Of course, both schools were complete reaches, so she didn’t expect anything, but this was her last chance. The past few months, whenever she talked about college, she always ended her sentences with “if I get in.” In six minutes she would know. Those few words would never have to be uttered by her unsure self again. Of course, whenever she said that, her friends and family would say, “of course you’ll get in!” or, “they’d be crazy not to let you in!” Flukes happen though. Flukes that could change Aika’s future.

Three more minutes.

Should she be nervous, excited? Terrified or elated? Heartbroken or ecstatic?

She’d know soon enough. What would she say if she didn’t get in? What would she do? For eighteen years she’d expected to be accepted. Her parents, friends, siblings, teachers expected it. What if she messed up the application? What if the recommendations weren’t sent correctly? Her heart beat fast but the seconds still went on slowly. Aika refreshed the page, over and over and over and over. She would know soon. It was so close. Her sweaty fingers left marks on her keyboard. Her breaths became fast and her head felt light.

40

Five, four, three, two, one...she refreshed the page.

Sunflowers/Seasons Jasiah Anderson, 2021 Sunflowers wiggle in the wind The spring breeze feels nice I look forward to today Petals blossom at springtime The damp scent of rain follows I feel fulfilled today Colors radiate in summer The time is ripe for anything I do what makes me happy Leaves fall in autumn The air is crisp I watch the sun drip Grass turns brown under snow The chill breathes clouds I pull into myself from the cold

42

Untitled, Jake Hitchcock, 2021

Sustained Maria Belgodere, 2020 —She sits on the right her fingers gliding nearly in flight, and while she plays the melody is rising.

Her mother sits on the left playing along to the song an accompaniment on the lower clef, and while she plays the harmony is rising.

Together their parts combine creating a piece that manipulates time.

The black and white entity that stands before them allows the women to play, so again—

Achamma’s Nilava Pachadi Recipe Bhavana Kunnath, 2021 1. Wash tomatoes and leave them in the sun for 3 days.

When I first went back to India I had forgotten most of my Telugu. My Ammamma’s1 house was tiny —no bigger than two classrooms— and hanging from its kitchen door frame was a swing made out of an old sari for my baby cousin. When the baby was in it, it was untouchable, but when it was empty it was open for conquest and the source of many a battle between me and my fouryear-old cousins. I eventually established my dominance over the swing by threatening to grind them all into tomato pachadi; it was an empty threat and one met with many giggles but they backed off nonetheless. I spent many days holding on tightly to one uncle or another from the backseat of their motorcycles and drinking Horlicks milk with Nithin annaya and “S.S. Winnie” (I only found out many years later that her name was actually Yashasvini). When we left my Ammamma’s house to visit the holy city of Shirdi we stayed in a hotel with a large grassy courtyard where I ran around with Nithin annaya2. Our mothers, tired of chasing us, would point up to the moon and spin stories of a great snake that came out at night and ate the moon away bit by bit… a snake that would eat little children too if they weren’t inside and fast asleep.

2. Cut tomatoes into pieces. Add salt and tamarind powder. Set aside for 3 days.

44

Every visit after that (there have only been a few) started out the same way: we spent a few weeks in my Achamma’s3 house with my dad’s side of the family, with aging aunts and uncles in the tight and dusty rooms. The only children on their side lived far away in Bhandar, so my afternoons were spent being dragged through the streets of the lively city of Hyderabad visiting temples, offices, and distant relatives always asking the same questions. The air always smelled of exhaust in the city and the streets were never safe to step on with the wandering cows, the strays, the poor, the dung, the potholes, and the puddles, but I always felt that Alwal, that little corner of the grand home of the Charminar, was one of the only places on the planet where you could find a mosque, a temple, and a church at the same intersection. Every time I visited, my Achamma’s and aunties’ eyes always looked at me the same way. With us, youth returned to their stuffy, fading apartment and for a moment my Achamma didn’t have to watch as her own children grew old and grey. After those few weeks, I was whisked away to Vijayawada where my mom’s side lived with twenty people squeezed into one tiny house. There were cousins, aunts, uncles, wives, husbands, and a kitchen that was always alive with noise and movement. My Peddamma4 had brought my cousins down to visit me there and she pulled Ammu (Yashasvini) and I aside.

From Above, Bhavana Kunnath, 2021

She walked us down the streets to the man with a basketful of painted chicks. That day (much to my mother’s chagrin) we came back home with two little tweeting bundles of pink and blue—Ram and Krishna—who insisted on leaving little brown gifts all over the floor. That summer we chased the chicks around the house and played with the neighbor’s girls and fanned each other through the power outages. When the river flooded and water rose up reaching the doorway of the houses on their stone stilts we built paper boats and sent them sailing in the muck.

3. Squeeze the juice out of the tomatoes.

Add some tamarind (unground) to the juice and leave it in the sun for 3-4 days along with the tomato pieces (but not long enough for it to smell).

I’ve always felt that there are only two valid reasons for anyone to visit India: religion and family; any other reason was only applicable for tourists who don’t know any better.

My parents always ran roughshod over us dragging us from one temple to another. In the end, I think we spent more time stand-

ing barefoot in lines than we actually did praying because the lines lasted for hours and sometimes even days, but the actual darshan5 was never more than two minutes. The daily power outages left my brother and me to suffer many a sweltering night. India has the kind of heat that rises up from the earth and makes the air dance, the kind that burns like the hands of an angry sun breathing flames onto scorching temple tiles, the kind that leaves boils on the skin of young children. If there’s such a thing as hell on Earth I think I’d find it in India.

But there was always one thing that made the hellishness of the environment bearable: food. All the pain I suffered languishing from sticky sweat and broiling heat dissipated at lunch; when the taste of my aunt’s tomato pappu6 and my Achamma’s tomato pachadi touched my tongue I found in their food indescribable bliss. By the time our two weeks in Hyderabad were up the jar of pachadi was empty. As I slept in the grimy top bunk of

the train carrying me away, America seemed so distant it was wiped off of my mental map entirely. In the middle of jostling crowds, lively music, roaring street vendors, the sizzle of chaat, the ringing of temple bells, the hum of the adhan broadcast for the whole town, the incessant honking, and the shouts ringing out in Telugu and Hindi, America melted away into a dream I wasn’t sure I had.

I tasted love in the fresh jar of pachadi waiting for me when I came back a few weeks later.

4. Put the tomatoes back in the juice The last time I went to India it had been five years since my last visit. My Ammamma and Ammu were waiting for us in Guntur where most of my mother’s family had moved. In Guntur my life was filled with noise by three toddling cousins running circles around me, a Supriya akka7 who was the older sister I always wanted to be, and Ammu who was the younger sister I’d always wanted, at least twenty riotous aunts and uncles bringing even more children on their visits, and an Ammamma with all three of her sisters (that’s four Ammammas in total) in tow. Some evenings Ammu and I would play chef in the kitchen and make Maggi for all of our cousins, then we’d all gather around —sometimes there were only five us, sometimes as many as ten— and we’d sit on the cool floor slurping the noodles and

iggling at the steam rising up out of our bowls. We never really needed to make the Maggi, with four Ammamma’s crooning over us at any given moment we were never wanting for food, but we did anyway because those evenings in the kitchen seemed to sow closed all the time we’d lost apart. There was something in my cousins’ eyes that made them more innocent, something that I just couldn’t remember seeing in the eyes of my American friends. Part of it was a spark, an endless of pachadi waiting for me when I came back a few weeks later.

4. Put the tomatoes back in the juice.

The last time I went to India, it had been five years since my previous visit. My Ammamma and Ammu were waiting for us in Guntur where most of my mother’s family had moved. In Guntur, my life was filled with noise by three toddling cousins running circles around me, Supriya akka7 (who was the older sister I always wanted to be), and Ammu (who was the younger sister I’d always wanted), at least twenty riotous aunts and uncles bringing even more children on their visits, and an Ammamma with all three of her sisters in tow (that’s four Ammammas in total). Some evenings Ammu and I would play chef in the kitchen and make Maggi for all of our cousins, then we’d all gather around -

Holy Cow, Bhavana Kunnath, 2021 46

sometimes there were only five us, sometimes as many as ten—and we’d sit on the cool floor slurping the noodles and giggling at the steam rising up out of our bowls. We never really needed to make the Maggi— with four Ammamma’s crooning over us at any given moment we were never wanting for food— but we did anyway because those evenings in the kitchen seemed to sew closed all the time we’d lost apart.

There was something in my cousins’ eyes that made them more innocent, something that I just couldn’t remember seeing in the eyes of my American friends. Part of it was a spark, an endless fascination that persisted where I had only accustomed apathy to offer. It was the spark in their eyes when they spotted an escalator or an elevator in a public building, in their voices when they dragged me excitedly to ride the “lift” up and down, and in their screams when they were at the top of the “Giant Wheel” at the fair. But the spark was only ever part of the wonder of it all.

5. Lightly cook fenugreek and add it to the tomatoes. Add chili powder, mustard powder, fenugreek powder, and asafoetida.

Sometimes my younger attas7 and my akkas and Ammu would gather around in a circle to play a game.

Often they wound up pushing me to sing a song or talk to them in English, “I’ll understand,” Supriya akka always insisted. But American English isn’t English so much as it is its own beast, and when it’s tumbling out of a familiar mouth it’s barely understandable.

Simple conversations were easy enough with a suppressed accent but in that rare moment when English slipped out

glory in a harsh exchange between my little brother and I, it was well beyond the comprehension of my akka’s English classes (and perhaps that was for the best). For the most part, I insisted that I hadn’t come to India to speak in English and I tucked away my American accent behind a flailing Telugu tongue. Once Supriya akka came home with manchuria and fed Ammu, Dileep, and I like we were children. I’ve chased the taste of that manchuria throughout America, but I have never found a version in any restaurant that tasted as good, as right, as that first bite she fed me. But it was Ammu who went with me everywhere I went and, though she was a year younger than me, the two of us were something like long lost twins. We would tell each other riddles that the other couldn’t solve and played the same games over and over again.

The night I left Guntur we were both inconsolable. I think it was because we both knew that all of the fizzling phone calls in the world couldn’t bridge the gap between our continents.

6. Add in Thalimpu or Blooming Spices— a combination of cumin, coriander, fennel, mustard seeds, urad dal, dried red chilies, asafoetida, yellow split lentil cooked for a few minutes in oil.

The last time I went to India was the first time I visited Kerala. Both sides of my family harkened back to Kerala, but our connections there had strained into an echo when my grandfathers moved to Andhra8. Though every drop of blood in my veins (and the veins of my parents and their parents) was 100% Malyali9, there are few among my family members who can actually speak Malayalam; for the most part, they consider themselves Telugu people. My parents often found themselves lamenting over a language that had failed to pass on to them, a culture

gotten to live, but I found solace in their pain because their loss was akin to my struggle to hold on to my little Telugu window into India. There was a restless peace in our mutual struggles. There was a restless peace in Kerala.

It was the land of the coconut trees and the endless storms. Wild peacocks flitted to and fro beneath the ocean of towering trees that surrounded the houses and the constant rain was like a lullaby that had the unfortunate effect of turning the roads into red sludge.

We stayed there with some distant cousins on my father’s side who showed us my Achamma’s childhood home and her former school.

They led us deep into the woods to visit some relatives none of us knew and they proudly showed us their sprawling farms.

Houses in Kerala are beautiful and out of place, always emerging suddenly from the trees, but this one was altogether different because it was tucked away within the hills.

They showed us the jackfruit and the bananas and our family’s ancestral god waiting at the treeline, but it was what they didn’t mention that haunted me most of all. Just beyond the steps of their front door was a jungle. The trees were thick and inescapable, vines toppled from somewhere above, rain drenched every corner, it was opaque in vastness, and it ignited every primal urge encoded in my DNA. I was lost to that jungle and that jungle was lost to me.

7. It should be more solid than liquid.

Store it in a jar— it can keep for many weeks.

The last time I went to India I watched my Ammamma play with my baby cousins.

I watched Koushik run circles around her with Pranathi not far behind on her tricycle and I watched Dimple gurgle in her arms.

She had 48

just finished her work in the kitchen and sat down to rest her aching feet, but now she was up and on them again chasing the little demons down the hallway. She had just finished her work in the kitchen and sat down to rest it in a jar— it can keep for many weeks.

The last time I went to India I watched my Ammamma play with my baby cousins.

I watched Koushik run circles around her with Pranathi not far behind on her tricycle, and I watched Dimple gurgle in her arms.

She had just finished her work in the kitchen and sat down to rest her aching feet, but now She had she was up and on them again chasing the little demons down the hallway.

She laughed so deeply and heartily and the laughter burned like warm sunshine in her eyes. I saw her laugh there like she never had on her visits to America. And what was wrong with America? The sofas were soft, the bed never needed to be shared, there were appliances enough to do the work, there were channels enough to pass the time, there was heating and cooling and cars and western toilets. “The houses are so far apart!” my Ammamma had once exclaimed as she struggled to find the words to describe America to the rest of our family. The houses are far apart. The houses, the cars, the people— they’re all so far apart. They’re right next door but they’re unreachable. “It’s so cold!” It is cold. Georgia summers are fiery, but India is a taste of hell. American people are so warm, but sitting there in India with a full house, with houses crammed next to and on top of eachother, with motorcycles and autos honking in your ears, and too many children piled on too little a mattress, America is not warm enough. Sitting in

the airplane on the way home with a jar of my Achamma’s pachadi sealed away in my luggage, America is not enough.

8. Enjoy.

Charminar, Bhavana Kunnath, 2021

Endnotes 1. Maternal grandmother; mother’s mother 2. Older Brother 3. Paternal grandmother; father’s mother 4. Mother’s older sister 5. Opportunity to see a deity 6. Dal; lentil dish 7. Older sister, in this case reference to older cousins 8. In this case the wife of my mother’s younger brother 9. A state in India that was divided into Andhra and Telangana a few years ago; the predominant language is Telugu 10. The language spoken in Kerala; can also be used to refer to their culture

Futurism - The Art of Time Cade West, 2021

Everybody loves cubism. The simple abstraction of familiar scenes, such as a man playing chess or a group of musicians, is quite aesthetically pleasing. Few know, however, how Cubist pieces were abstracted- to achieve the effect, painters would often change the perspective they painted from and merged it in to their existing work. This simple process is what resulted in masterpieces such as those created by George Braque and Juan Gris.

However, even fewer know of another art movement that formed in the shadow of Cubism. It used similar techniques- but with an interesting twist. This art movement is known simply as Futurism, and it uses the art of time. At first glance, Futurism can look rather similar to its more popular older brother, Cubism.

50

Both are typically abstracted scenes, and while Futurism had a tendency to depict technology and industrialization instead of everyday scenes, the two were still quite similar visually. The true distinctiveness of Futurism comes from its unique technique instead of its visual appeal. While Cubists abstracted their piece by simply changing their perspective, Futurists abstracted their pieces by observing the same object at different points in time. In some pieces, such as Giacomo Balla’s Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912), this is especially noticeable. This technique is almost entirely unique to the Futurist movement, and it certainly sets them apart from other movements at the time.

A Blip in the Spacetime Continuum Lillie Olliver, 2021 SPACE is sitting in a restaurant booth centerstage, illuminated by a spotlight. They are patiently waiting with their hands folded on the table in front of them, seeming to stare off into nothingness.

WAITRESS enters the shot, a portly woman with a messy bun wearing a white apron covering a flannel shirt and jean shorts that are probably too short for any sort of respectable culinary establishment. SPACE speaks inaudibly to WAITRESS for a moment, WAITRESS nods after writing down what we assume is SPACE’s order, and she walks away into the darkness surrounding the solitary booth.

Silence.

Silence.

TIME appears out of the darkness and slides suavely into the booth seat opposite SPACE, long limbs sprawling out beneath the table as they throw one arm over the back of the booth , the very picture of someone who should care more than they bother to.

TIME: Well well well, fancy meeting you here.

SPACE sighs a deep sigh of resignation.

SPACE: You say that like you don’t follow me everywhere I go.

TIME grins.

TIME: Oh, don’t say it like that, darling!

I go where the universe demands. (TIME leans forward, bracing both elbows on the table and clasping their own fingers together

in a mockery of SPACE’s posture.) Odd how that works, doesn’t it?

SPACE: (Scoffs) Just because we have to work together doesn’t mean you have to be around me ALL the time.

TIME: Ah, but I AM all the time, darling.

SPACE: (With a look of exasperation that could only come from centuries upon centuries of hearing this same line over and over again) I’m well aware.

TIME smirks and leans back again, crossing their arms across their chest.

SPACE: So, what is it you want this time?

TIME: Since when have I ever come to see you because I want something from you?

SPACE: Every time.

TIME: MAYBE onceSPACE: Every. Time.

TIME: Ah, I see where our discrepancy is.

SPACE: Oh, DO you now?

TIME: Oh, yes.

SPACE: Do tell.

TIME: I believe that you are VASTLY misinterpreting what I consider to be lovely get-togethers between two very old friendsSPACE: (Flatly) Coworkers.

TIME: Sorry, what was that? Anyways, that is our problem. What I see, and rightly so, is simply a date of sorts with one of my oldest, dearest friends, while you see this as a call for a favor to be fulfilled, a need to be satisfied. Maybe I just wanted to see you,

Always assuming I’m up to no good and all.

Who hurt you, dearest?

SPACE: I would love to hear your definitions of “lovely-get-together-between-friends” and “asking-for-a-favor” side by side, particular to our case. In my experience, they’re quite interchangeable in terms of how you go about getting what you want.

TIME: Ooh, so we’re a CASE now? Isn’t THAT romantic…

SPACE: Oh, get over yourself.

TIME: “No, you.” Isn’t that what the kids say these days?

SPACE: I wouldn’t know. Sounds juvenile enough. Are you sure you didn’t come up with it yourself?

TIME: Ooh, burn.

There’s silence as TIME smiles smugly at SPACE and SPACE returns the grin with an unamused frown before giving a soft sigh.

SPACE: Well, since you’re here, why don’t you get out your spiel and be done with it? I’ve got a burger on the way that I would love to enjoy in peace and quiet, so please make it snappy.

TIME: Spiel? As if I would ever be so scripted in my carefully crafted speeches.

SPACE: Go on, then.

Silence.

TIME (enthusiastically) and SPACE (dryly): Oh, my dearest, please take me back!

Silence.

TIME (with determination) and SPACE (with exhaustion): You know it’s meant to be! This has been predestined since the dawn of… well, ME! TIME sits up and bangs their fist against the table.

52

TIME: There’s NO way I’ve used that line before! I thought of it last week!

SPACE: I think you’ve been looping.

TIME: (Mutters) Ridiculous.

TIME slumps down in their seat even further, and gives WAITRESS a mulish glare as she re-enters the light, placing a tray with a classic American cheeseburger and a fountain drink in front of SPACE before exiting.

SPACE: (Tucking a napkin into their shirt neck) Are you done now?

TIME: No! SPACE: (Sighs, taking a bite of burger and chewing, making their speech muffled) So, what do you want?

TIME: I just told you! Do I need to re-list all the reasons we’re meant to be together?

SPACE swallows quickly.

SPACE: No, no you don’tTIME: (Listing off on each finger) We’re literally super cool- THE ultimate power couple. We’re both super hot because… well, duh. We can make black holes and... stuff.

SPACE: That’s not how that works.

TIME: Whatever. Close enough. The mortals LOVE us, by the way.

SPACE: Prove it.

TIME: They’re always asking for you.

“Give me more space! I need space!” They love you ALMOST as much as I do. And they love me too! “I need more time! My time has come!” They WORSHIP us.

SPACE: I think you need to look a bit more at the context there TIME: Why should I? It’s obvious! They even “ship” us.

SPACE: …I’m sorry, what?

A Space Time Continuum, Bhavana Kunnnath, 2021

Silence.

SPACE: That is... the dumbest thing you’ve ever said, and that’s saying a lot.

TIME: No, I mean- I mean that you’re the only one for me! Look, lookTIME reaches into their back pocket and somehow produces a full novel, dropping it on the table and flipping through it frantically to a page market with a fluorescent sticky note.

TIME: Look, read this.

SPACE: I don’tTIME: Just READ IT. SPACE sighs heavily and gives the burger in their hands a woeful look before placing it back down, wiping their fingers on their napkin, and sliding the book around and over to their side of the table.

TIME: There, see? (TIME points to a line on the page and SPACE’s eyes trace over it.)

SPACE looks up, eyes slightly narrowed but looking slightly less convinced of his own perspective.

SPACE: Where’d you find this?

TIME: In the backpack of a fifteen year old girl.

SPACE: Why were you- never mind.

TIME: So? Are you convinced?

SPACE: … No. TIME: (Groans) What do you MEAN? It says it right here, lookSPACE: I read itTIME: “When someone breaks up with you and you just KNOW that you’re MEANT TO BE, all you need to do is give it time and space. Eventually, the universe will bring you two back together!” See? THE UNIVERSE. SPACE: As much of a credible source as this seems, I’m still not sure.

54

TIME: Babe, what more convincing do you need?

TIME reaches across the table and places their hands over SPACE’s hands.

TIME: We only have forever, you know.

SPACE looks conflicted.

TIME looks hopeful.

Silence.

SPACE lets out a drawn-out sigh, one that lasts longer than it should. Even TIME looks concerned at the length of the colossally long sigh that contains billions upon billions of years of exhaustion.

SPACE: …Fine.

TIME: Really? You mean it?

SPACE nods, then draws their hands apart and picks up the burger again to resume eating.

TIME: (Fist pumps) YES! We’re going to have so much fun, you’ll see! It’ll be just like old times!

SPACE: (Muffled) Sure.

SPACE chokes on their burger as TIME stands up abruptly, upsetting the booth table and knocking it into SPACE’s chest. SPACE spits out the mouthful of food, gasping for breath, then lifts their eyes to the heavens in exasperation.

SPACE: (Mutters) Why did I even do that? I don’t even need to breathe.

SPACE looks woefully at the lost segment of half-chewed burger and puts down the rest with a resigned sigh. SPACE grabs the fountain drink in its styrofoam cup off the table and slides out, standing gracefully as TIME wiggles out from their side of the table to join him.

TIME: Come, darling. The universe

TIME: It’s what they call it when they want two people to be together. Granted, we’re... not people, but they ship it!

SPACE: What’s your reasoning for that, huh?

TIME: (With conviction) Spacetime.

SPACE: …Spacetime?

TIME: That’s our “ship name.”

SPACE: Are you sure about that?

TIME: Oh, absolutely. They call our love story “the Space-Time Continuum!”

(Because it’s gonna continue forever. I mean come on, be a little more subtle, right?) Not to mention the fact that they simply can’t say our names like they aren’t meant to be together. “Space and Time” this and “Time and Space” that. We’re practically one and the same! Spime? Tace? Spame? Tice? SPICE? SPACE: Please stop.

TIME: (Leaning forward) Come oooonnnnnn, babe. Let me in that personalSPACE: Space?

TIME: -Space. Oh, COME ON. SPACE: Not happening.

TIME: What BETTER thing do you have to do with eternity?

SPACE: Eat. TIME: Oh, and that’s SO dignified.

TIME snaps their fingers and the stage lights come on, revealing that the booth is one of many in a VERY southern restaurant, stuffed deer heads lining the walls and camouflage flags and draperies hanging on every bare expanse of wooden-boarded wall.

Monochrome photos of blonde babes in daisy dukes and cowboy hats with rifles cradled in their delicate arms spot the walls. A fake bull that might have once been designed to be ridden as part of a game gathers dust in a corner. A distant YEE YEE echoes from offstage.

SPACE: Your point?

TIME: Are you really going to sit there and tell me that you’d rather eat your feelings in a dingy dustbowl diner than go out on galactic-level dates with yours truly?

SPACE: I was almost tempted until you said “yours truly.”

TIME: (Wails) I’m CLASSY! SPACE: (With a soft sigh) You always were.

TIME: (Sits up) Wait, really?

SPACE: (Flatly) No. TIME groans, burying their face in their arms on the table with a soft thud.

SPACE takes another bite of their burger, chewing slowly and watching TIME’s antics with little to no amusement.

TIME: (Muffled) Why must you hurt me like this?

SPACE: (Swallows) You do this to yourself.

TIME: (Raises their head) It’s in my nature to move on, so why can’t I move on with you?

SPACE: Time will tell.

TIME: But I don’t know the answer!

SPACE: You don’t know the answer yet.

TIME: You know that’s not how that works.

SPACE: Yeah, you’re right. But that’s not my problem.

TIME: It’s so unfair.

SPACE: Really?

TIME: Everything I read, everything I see, points back to you.

SPACE: Unfortunate. Maybe the universe is making fun of you. It’s probably on my side.

TIME: (Indignantly) The universe doesn’t play favorites!

SPACE: Have you even SEEN “The Witcher?” The universe plays favorites, and Henry Cavill’s face is proof of that.

TIME: Alright, whatever. My point still

awaits!

SPACE takes TIME’s hand with a small sigh, but one that’s laced with slightly less chagrin than had been previously weighing down his speech prior.

TIME grins excitedly as they pull SPACE across the stage and into the wings as the lights dim. If someone in, maybe, the front row, looked close enough (they might need binoculars), they just might be able to catch the hint of a smile that graces SPACE’s lips.

56

Un-fur-tunate Times Chloe Duensing, 2020 There was a loud whirr like a vacuum trying to strum an electric guitar that had been hooked up to an overly bass-boosted amplifier and then connected via Bluetooth to yet another overly bass-boosted school intercom.

It decidedly woke Robert as he fell out of bed, the sheets tangled around his feet as he released an ungodly shriek of fear and terror. In his defense, his entire apartment was vibrating and objects were beginning to float, such as the sheets currently entrapping his ankles. There was a violently flashing light, akin to that of many strobe lights in a rave. He writhed in the air, hands gesticulating wildly as he tried to convince himself this whole event was a horrible dream and he would soon wake up.

When the sound faded and the objects fell back down abruptly, Robert was convinced this was not a dream because his poor head went bonk against the hardwood floor. He immediately sat up, groaning in pain as he rubbed the sore spot on his forehead. Great. The time on his clock cast a red glow around the room, now the only light, and also dictated the hour of 3:30 AM. He still managed to open the door from his bedroom into the only other room of the small apartment, staring at the mess (albeit already messy before).

Most changed was the strange, naked human lying on his couch, groaning softly,

a dark mass of shadows in the dim lighting. Robert flipped on the light, blinking as he stared. It was him with a mustache.

How dare he. Robert had shaved his villian mustache months ago with the sole purpose of never looking like a Bond villain again. The man was also covered in strange scars, long three-line claw marks decorating his body like he had been used as a scratching post.

“Who are you?” Robert asked, his voice sharp as he grabbed a frying pan that he hadn’t washed and thus was still lying in the sink as he stormed over, raising it threateningly. “And what are you doing in my living room?”

Not-Robert-But-Man-Who-LookedLike-Him (whom Robert temporarily dubbed NRBMWLLH although the lack of vowels made it vaguely unpronounceable) held up his hands in the universal sign of surrender. “Don’t hit me! I can explain!” he said, his voice high pitched with appropriate fear from seeing a man in his surprised Pikachu pajamas towering over him with a dirty frying pan. “I’m you, but from the future, and I need to save the world!”

“Save the world?” Robert repeated doubtfully, letting the frying pan drop.

“Save the world from what? Nuclear warfare? World War III? Climate change?”

“No, no, no, nothing like that.” NRBMWLLH stood up, shaking his head, before realizing he was naked, as one does

after time traveling, and blushing bright pink. Robert tossed a pair of pants that he had thrown over the couch at him, turning away politely. “Ahem, as I was saying, I’ve come to save the world from the most vicious creatures of all--” “Humans,” Robert finished sagely, already entertaining the idea of making a fiction book where he faced off with his evil future self to save all of humanity.

“Cats,” NRBMWLLH corrected with a visceral shudder. At Robert’s look of confusion, he shook his head. “Look, I don’t have much time. We don’t have much time. I can only stay in this timestamp for thirty minutes before I’m going to be recalled back to my time, and they’re already preparing to launch their first massive attack. Come on,” he said urgently, slipping on Robert’s sandals by the door and stepping outside. Robert followed in his slippers, confused. Robert had never owned a cat, never been interested in having any pets, really. It just wasn’t his jam.

Nobody was outside at 3:30 AM, fortunately, but Robert was still decidedly uncomfortable as he followed his future self. “Attack? What exactly happened?” he asked with a frown, not entirely believing this whole spiel but also believing that yes, this man had defied the laws of physics to randomly appear naked in his living room in a Twilight Zone-esque show.

NRBMWLLH glanced at him, and Robert found himself enraptured by his face. It wasn’t his fault that his future self had apparently shaped Robert into 58

the ideal gay man of his dreams. Which was strange, but Robert wasn’t complaining. It wasn’t like he looked at his face often, after all, so in a way, it was like meeting a new person’s face. He was also just creating excuses for being attracted to a version of himself.

“They struck in the dead of night when only Waffle House and gas stations were awake. They emerged from the sewers like a wave of rats but in packs like dogs, brutally tearing apart anything they came across. Their claws could pierce metal, their intelligence could solve quadratics, and they seemed to know everything. We tried to fight back, but then they became resistant to our catnip laden weapons and it was all over.”

Robert raised an eyebrow. That did seem rather terrible, but pretty outlandish, even for Robert, who had a rather popular account on Info Wars. Before he could say anything, however, NRBMWLLH suddenly held up a fist. Robert froze, nervousness suddenly pouring ice in his veins as his future self ’s demeanor instantly changed from nerd to hardened soldier.

“There,” NRBMWLLH whispered, pointing a finger at the dark figure of a cat rushing across the street. “It’s no use sneaking up. They have better senses. It probably already knows we’re here. Follow me, but let me do the talking. Whatever you do, keep in mind that they’re highly dangerous beings that can kill you before you even blink.”

They approached slowly. The cat had sat down under an orange streetlight, idly grooming itself but looking at them warily. It was a fluffy cat with bright green eyes, and Robert fought the urge to try and call it over to pet.

NRBMWLLH crouched his entire posture tense before speaking. “Cat, I know that you view humankind as irredeemable. I know that all humans haven’t been good to cats, but we can work together to rid the world of evil people.

You don’t have to kill us all, we can help you. Call off your attack.”

There was a long moment of silence as they stared at each other, and Robert shuffled awkwardly in his slippers. Then the moment was too long and Robert cleared his throat. “Are you--” “Hush, Robert. They’re a hive mind.

This one is communicating right now,” NRBMWLLH cut him off quickly.

“We’ll get our answer soon.”

Robert frowned, stepping towards the cat. “And you’re sure it can understand us? I mean,” he knelt, holding out a hand. “Here, kitty kitty,” he cooed cheerfully because he couldn’t resist the fluff.

“NO!” NRBMWLLH shouted. “They hate being degraded the most!” But it was too late. The cat let out an angry yowl, claws suddenly elongating into the length of curved swords, and it lunged at Robert who screamed, falling backward. It was only thanks to NRBMWLLH’s quick reaction that saved Robert from losing an eye as his future self grabbed him and yanked him away.

The piercing agony of claws scratching his front, splitting the surprised Pikachu’s face right down the middle, tearing his shirt apart. Robert scrambled to his feet, running with NRBMWLLH as hedragged his younger self along. “It’s too late! We have to go--” NRBMWLLH was saying but was cut off as they skidded to

a stop.

Robert could only stare in horror as the manhole cover in the street in front of them began to rattle ominously. He glanced behind him. The cat wasn’t running after them, instead padding languidly towards them.

NRBMWLLH patted his shoulder sympathetically. “Sorry, Rob. I tried.”

And then his future self was gone in a shatter of light and Robert was alone in the dark street as the manhole cover shot skyward as if a geyser had erupted under it. Cats began to stream from the dark void of the sewers, their calls sending chills down his spine.

An explosion wracked the ground and Robert turned just in time to watch the largest building in the city go up in flames. A cat leaped at his face before he could react, and the last thing he saw was a blur of green eyes and black fur.

Untitled, Shiza Ghani, 2022

When I write out my to-do list any afternoon, The page overflowing or room to scribble running out, I tell myself to do everything: I arrive late with wet hair and raw cookies.

When I try, every minute is filled, expectations set high, Not enough is done in all that time.

60

Time Sucked Up Isabel McHenry, 2020

When the child I’m babysitting won’t settle down, They want mom to come home or they can’t face the dark, I tell them to go to sleep: it makes the time go faster.

When you wake up, mommy is home, morning comes, No time has passed since that’s been done.

When dreams I thought that I would dare pop in my head, Pushed aside years ago for fear or maybe foolishness, I tell those dreams excuses: I focused elsewhere instead of giving up.

When we look back, unmet goals are silent ghosts Nobody has the time, I cannot get it done.

Timing Tuning II Aryan Ashraf, 2021

The Panel (1), Aryan Ashraf, 2021

When I walked up to the deck, I saw Captain Hosseini. He was seated in front of the control panel that contained soft blinking red and blue lights, rolling a large glass orb between his hands. He was facing the large oblique window at the front of the ship, revealing the mass of the pure, almost milky black that surrounded us like a wispy jacket, spotted with glittery pearls.

The maintenance screen of the ship gleamed beside him. The camera shifted from views of the nose, the hull, and the thrusters of the ship, each accompanied with a screen filled with diagnostic results. My eyes were steady, staring at the shifting screens, breathing in and out with every change. I noticed details I never noticed before, especially within the thrusters, for an odd, forked apparatus

62

could be seen protruding from within the central one. I never saw how out of place this was before.

Nonetheless, I broke my stare, held my breath, and approached quietly. The ship was on its night setting, so the halls and rooms were dimmed (if not darkened completely) and completely silent, for Yilmaz, Cordova, and Kramer were all asleep. I got closer to the captain with every quiet step, and he soon noticed me coming towards him out of the corner of his eye. He turned his chair and faced me, his expression soft and weathered with time and experience.

“Leslie,” he began, “it’s surprising to see you up.”

I nodded and headed over to the right-most chair of the room. “I left my journal here.”

Hosseini chuckled. “Ah yes, I forgot how much of a ‘scholar’ you are,” he said with a playful, biting tone. “Were you planning on writing some beautiful, insightful poetry on how vast and meaningless everything is?”

I paused. “Did you go through my journal?”

“Of course I did. I opened the journal and read every single page.”

I scoffed at him, standing indignantly in front of him in the darkness of the quiet, sleeping ship. “You know, I don’t find things like that funny. I don’t know why you find it necessary to make fun of me all the time. Like, I know I’m inexperienced with these interstellar explorations, but that doesn’t make it okay for you to make fun of everything I do, like-” “Okay, okay, I get it!” Hosseini interjected. “I’m only joking around! You newbies are always so self-conscious of everything — it’s actually kind of hilarious! Chill out! I didn’t go through your journal, I promise.”

“There you go again, telling me to ‘chill out,’” I emphasized with air quotes.

“This is serious to me! What I write in that journal, what I say to my people back home… What were you even doing here?! Criticizing me for my poetry when you’re up and sitting here in the dark like a creep, rolling around a glass ball!”

Hosseini laughed for a little bit but failed to say anything in response. He may have muttered something to himself, but it was not loud enough for me to notice or comprehend. I found myself staring at Hosseini in the dark, holding the same indignant expression, and feeling more like a fool with every passing second because of it. And, as much as I hated to admit, the silence that Hosseini brought upon the room was sobering,

and I found my irritation sinking into a lull. Hence, I sighed and sat in the chair my journal was left on. I looked over at Hosseini once more, who had nothing more than a blank expression staring out the window, continuously rolling that glass ball in his hands, passively examining the vast and meaningless everything outside. I decided to do the same, and we shared the quiet in solidarity. Then, it was broken.

“So,” Hosseini began, “I suppose I’ve been pushing your buttons a bit too hard.

Sorry about that. That’s really inconsiderate of me.”

“No,” I replied. Then, I put my head in my hands. “It’s fine, really. It’s not really a big deal. I’ve just been thinking about earlier today. I guess I’m still a bit irritable because of it. Sorry for lashing at you.”

“Oh, don’t be sorry, it’s my fault to begin with. Besides, HQ is really being pushy, anyway. Anyone would feel irritated.”

“Right?” I exclaimed passionately. “I don’t get it! We’re going to be out here for YEARS. The LEAST they can do is allow us to be able to contact Earth and our friends and family at any time, but no. ‘Budget cuts.’ You guys are in control of the budget, you dimwits!”

Hosseini nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it’s unfair. You should feel angry!” He took a moment to think. “But, if it’s any comfort to you, just know that it will pass and come back again. I’ve been in this position a bit too many times where they told us they didn’t have the resources to allow us to contact our family and friends. But, then, after some time, they boot it back up again. Ebb and flow. Like the tide.”

I started this time. “Was it the same with you?”

Hosseini perked up. “Hm?” “You couldn’t sleep either?” “... Yes.” I looked over at him with an amused expression. “That was a long pause.” “...And?” “Now, I don’t want to be crass. But that usually insinuates that you’re lying.”

“Heh. Am I not allowed to process my thoughts?”

“Honesty is more important to me.”

Hosseini scoffed, followed by a light chuckle. “No, it does NOT!” he said incredulously.

“Yes, it does! Now, what are you really here for?”

Hosseini grew quiet for a moment.

“I’m not sure if I should tell you.”

“Oh, please! Don’t start with me now!

I’m tired of you, always mentioning things and then never expanding upon them —” “Okay, okay! I get it! To be more completely transparent, there’s nothing technically stopping me from telling you.

It’s just that it’s prohibited. Between captains and their subordinates. Especially between captains and newcomers.” “... How serious is this?”

64

Hosseini scrunched up his face and gave an unsure shrug. “Meh… Eh… I don’t know. Like… ‘if this gets out, it could lead to the death of the universe as we know it today’-type serious?”

I stared incredulously at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Well…” Hosseini took a moment to think before exclaiming. Then, a feeling of pure determination washed over his face. “You know what? Who cares about HQ and their rules? Follow me.”

Hosseini silently went towards his section of the control panel, front and center in front of the window. His hand went underneath the panel, moving towards the wall extending from the bottom of the flat panel and down to the floor of the deck. His index finger danced swiftly across the wall before stopping somewhere in the top left sector and pushing into the wall. A square button revealed itself as Hosseini pushed it into the wall, causing it to glow a deep baby blue. Lines stretching all across the wall also began to glow the same color, eventually leading to the release of a small, rectangular door, forcing it slightly ajar with a puff of air. Hosseini grabbed the edge of this door, took a deep breath, and pulled it aside.

I was not sure what I was looking at. Behind the door was an iron sheet clasped into the ship with screws, adorned with a large dial with a range from 0 to 99.9 beside a small digital display of the number the dial was turned to, along with a separate pair of up and down buttons. At the moment, the display only showed “0000.0” in the same baby blue light as the rest of the panel.

“This,” Hosseini began, “is the closest humanity will get to controlling the inevitable, invariant, and indomitable forces of nature. This is the closest humanity will get to controlling the inevitable, invariant, and indomitable force of time.”

The Panel (2), Aryan Ashraf, 2021 The Panel (2), Aryan Ashraf, 2021 “I don’t understand.”

“Well, you know Einstein’s theories about time, right? And relativity?”

“Yeah. Time moves slower as gravity increases and as velocity increases and vice versa. I know them.”

“Exactly. And, because people can experience different amounts of gravity and travel at different velocities, one en-

tity in one part of the universe could be traveling a distance within an hour, while it takes another entity in another part of the universe ten days to travel the same distance, though they may be moving in similar ways.”

My eyes widened with realization. “So, you’re telling me that this panel is… is…”

“Yes. This panel, by manipulating the forces of gravity and velocity regarding this ship, can allow us to dilate time at our will.”

“How?” I asked, dumbfoundedly.

“Well, relative velocity time dilation was pretty easy to accomplish. Ever since those neckbeard, obsessive chemists, squirreled away in their laboratories, managed to find those last few elements needed to turn the periodic table into a perfect rectangle, sustainable and almost limitless fuel has been invented and produced from a mixture of these chemicals and their reactions. Now, dilating time in terms of velocity is simply a matter of how fast or how slow we go, with no worries about fuel.”

“But, in terms of gravity…”

“Yes, somehow compounding that with gravitational time dilation was the difficult part. But, gravitational time dilation is only possible due to curves in spacetime, curves in the fabric of space-time.

Much like that of ripples in water. Much like that of sound waves in the air.”

With that statement, Hosseini pointed at the maintenance screen of the ship.

The screen was set to a view of the thrusters, to that forked apparatus. When I analyzed the apparatus more closely, I realized that it looked like a tuning fork.

“We tune space-time?!” I exclaimed.

“Kind of. Once again, because of reactions between those weird elements those neckbeard chemists found, we were able to produce various gravitational waves of various intensities and frequencies, ones that could bend space-time the same way stars, planets, and such can.”

“So, you’re telling me… that by turning this dial and pressing these buttons, I can

66

manipulate the velocity at which our ship travels, along with the gravity around it, in order to slow or speed up time… within the ship?”

Hosseini nodded.

My mouth was agape. “This, this, this is incredible!” I stuttered. “I don’t even know where to begin. We could make it seem as though supply vessels that took ten years to get here took only a minute! This is incredible! This is amazing!

Why… Why doesn’t the public know?

Does Yilmaz, Cordov, and Kramer… Do they know? I didn’t know this technology existed until now.”

To this, Hosseini laughed. “Because it’s dangerous! The power to control time?

It takes just one rogue genius in Slovakia to take this and, I don’t know, somehow make it possible to go back in time!

Then, we’ll wake up the next day and, suddenly, see we’re living in Nazi World or something like that! They just tell these things in secret to captains hoping they keep it under wraps,” he pointed at himself, “like me!” His expression shifted to confusion when he realized the irony of the situation.

I stood looking at the panel with wonder and curiosity. Would that really happen? What if it was not some nut-job in Slovakia but a witty renegade in an Atlanta physics lab? Hosseini stood staring at me like this for a moment before bursting into that mocking laugh of his.

“What?” I asked, irritated. “You gonna call me a nerd or something?”

“Of course not. You know, Leslie… you remind me a lot of myself.”

I scoffed. “Am I like the before picture in your before-and-after?”

“Heh. Maybe. But, actually though.

When I went on my first voyage, like you right now, I was so serious about everything. I got so insecure about my inexperience. I would get defensive when I made mistakes. I was surrounded by experienced officials, and I felt so, so, so small.”

I was silent.

“Don’t you feel that way?” he asked.

“A little.”

“Yeah… you know what made me feel better? One of my supervisors would joke around with me. Just make a complete fool of me and him and everyone with us and everything that was happening to us. I felt less small. I felt more like a person.”

“I see.”

“I don’t mean to hurt you or belittle you. But I did, and that’s on me. I just want you to know what my intentions were. I was trying to pull you more into your own humanity the only way I knew how in these circumstances. It was my

way of grabbing you and shaking you and saying ‘You have nothing to prove.’

You’re already here. That’s enough proof.

Being out here is taxing. Let yourself go every now and then.” “... Why did you show me this?”

Hosseini smiled. “I had a reason. Now I think that reason was just to tell you this. I don’t want to talk about that thing any more than I already did. Allah knows, I’ve tried so many times to tell you this already.”

He then got up, patted me on the back, and left to go back into the ship.

I looked back at the panel.

Perhaps… it was not a rogue scientist in Slovakia or a witty renegade in an Atlanta physics lab after all.

I picked up the journal and flipped through the pages. Nestled in between two pages somewhere in the middle between two pages, I found torn scrap of paper with hurried writing.

From what I could make out, it said:

I’ve never seen Leslie so upset… It has affected all of us… I can go back… HQ lets us contact our family two months or so after they tell us we can’t… I can go back… go forward… and this won’t happen.

Gold Morning, Joseph Tewodros, 2021

68

It Flies Ofuga Isqueen, 2023

the goal to get up and shower in the blazing sun after breakfast oh, the innocence that has left me so now, i keep still, neglecting all the wasted time draining like water in a bathtub i let it slide through my fingers like worthless pennies, and let it fly across the horizon i wish i could have savoured the moments I had instead of wishing them away but i try not to look back for time does not stop in this cruel world, for time is precious, and will end you…

Dreams Part Two

Sophie Forbes, 2020

70

The Eye of the Storm Shiza Ghani, 2022

What a storm that spirals from the core of a dandelion!

Nobody can predict when it will end, Nobody can remember when it started.

Winds so strong, they make my feet rise from the Earth But when I think I’m flying, her memory pulls me down Like a magnet whose face is of the opposite pole.

Earthbound, all I can do is stare at the sky As it fades to and from every color imaginable during the day, But in the night, nothing but black and white.

I used to remember my dreams.

Rite of passage - I pray to God for his forgiveness.

Twist and turn, throw me back to then and heaven, Because before the blackout, I had a vision of her beckon.

A wish she made but I haven’t paid - I try to remember, But with each day, the sky grows stormy, And with each month, the pathway grows eerie, And with each year, my eyes grow weary, As I reach for a seed that was already planted.

Joseph Tewodros, 2023

Patterns Barbara Green, 2021 On one dreary day when I was feeling quite low A patternless rain pattered hard on my window I was used to the sound as it was quite constant taking solace in the flowers that would blossom But later when I escaped from my mind prison It was shocking to see the water had risen Perhaps, I noted the water was revolting, A takeover of sorts, towards nature’s great king Who could be King Nature, I started to question listing the elements that my mind could reckon maybe the bright sun was in charge of all nature but it’s short time in the sky means control wavers then it hit me like the rain hitting my window time was the leader that kept up the status quo Maybe rain was trying to escape time’s control I was excited for what the next days could hold Time a devilish and silent despot indeed but it keeps order which is a definite need Time is the source of reason and understanding This water revolt then is a sharp, pointed sting When sitting there and listening for a long while A something hit me yet again and I supposed that I was just overthinking things... who knows And after I could feel my mood lower again As I tried to find a pattern in the pattering rain

72

He Murmured Bhavana Kunnath, 2021 He sat there.

You son of divine eternity, You son of Dronacharya1, He sat there on a cold noon in January, letting the crisp air attempt to tousle his hair out of its perfect hibernation.

The sun yawned at its zenith and shone down upon him, warming the bench beneath him but doing little to warm the man himself. He scratched his perfect, faded beard, wiped a bit of dust off of his cashmere turtleneck, and let his hand fall down into the wine-colored suede of his suit jacket. He turned his face upwards, attempting to soak in the precious sunlight while he still could, knowing that Surya2 would not let his rays fall on him for long.

a regular here, or anywhere else for that matter. He was somewhat out of place in the harsh lighting of the hipster overhead lamps with his eyes that spoke of poetic tragedy. Though the sophistication—the inexplicable and subtle coldness—with which he moved and spoke suggested that he was infinitely older, he seemed to be about her age. She was beginning to think she knew him somehow, as though the few minutes she spent carefully searching his face while he waited for coffee had been enough for her to decipher something about him. She had developed a certain fondness for the mysterious figure that drifted in at all odd hours of the day, so she did not think much of it when her new regular asked to wait outside on this sunny, albeit bleak, day.

He turned his idle eyes back to the cofBut he was not her regular. He was a fee shop in front of him, fixing his empty vagabond slave to circumstances beyond gaze on the young barista flithis volition. He smiled stiffly, “He was a vagabond tering around from one table ruefully, at the glass panes before slave to circumstances to another behind the pristine him and leaned back against the beyond his volition.” bench. He did not question the glass walls. He wondered if she had been put off by his force that compelled him to wait odd request to wait outside until his oroutside that day (he had simply stopped der was ready or if she had forgotten him questioning these forces altogether), but altogether. whatever force it was he was grateful for the opportunity to observe the café in its She hadn’t forgotten; she couldn’t. He entirety. had been a recurring figure at the shop for a week now and she had begun to The barista was a child in his eyes. She think of him as regular—only he was not knew him no better than the old man

that sat in the window booth waiting for his grandchildren or the businesswoman tapping her pen against the counter impatiently. They were all children to him really: the young lady, the old man, and the woman were all infants in his mind.

He had outlived them all by millennia and he’d outlive them by another thousand.

He unconsciously stroked the old, partially scarred-over cut in the center of his forehead.3 He’d outlived them all, and thousands of others just like them, but he never tired of them, of watching, of trying to figure them all out. One moment they were grand puzzle pieces fitting just so into some divine scheme, and the next they were little blips of light sighing out one last twinkling ray before blinking shut; one moment they were sages and sadhus4 of great wisdom, and the next they were defenseless bundles, empty and eagerly awaiting meaning to fill them; one moment they were nothing more than leaves, and the next they were nothing less than mammoths. And he? He outlived them all.

You thief of wombs,5 You abuser of the Narayana astra6: When the Pestilence danced its way across the tightly woven continent and the masses fell as feathers do, he was there. The peasants rarely withered softly the way the noblemen did for the peas-

74

ants’ bones, so used to silent toil, finally found horrid expression through the boils in their skin. As father and child writhed in agony and beaked doctors were as one with priests in their whisperings of failing remedies, he watched them let blood senselessly from bodies already dangerously close to atrophy. Following the processions of apothecaries and flagellants, he kneeled silently with the tormented in their prayers as their dead were carted off. The gods that had walked his deserted earth in his long-gone hallowed age had lifted their feet off of these three mortal worlds and with them took their miracles, leaving man with his ignorance.

Ignorance and undying hope. Ignorance, undying hope, and illness. When the feudalists, in death, had their first taste of democracy as blackened skin crept upon the arms of the aristocrats and serfs alike, he pulled for them the plows they had left in their common lands and he watched for them their orphans still clinging to feral life.

When Miriam excused herself from the amusements with an ashen face and quivering hand, he was there. She wandered into the seemingly vacant parlor room where the roar of the jazz dulled into a muffled murmur and the glint of groomed eyebrows and golden comet cigarette cases with their tumbling smoke was a distant, fastly dissipating memory. Miriam collapsed in a chair near the fireplace, allowing her body to shudder as a horrible cough racked her ribs. She

caught sight of herself in the mirror; and in less than a minute, a bombardier there was a bruise-like blossom brewing and the bright minds behind him had beneath the rouge on her cheeks, a pale blinded a world accustomed to pristine gale hiding beneath the artificial tint of sunlight and lampshades with chemical her lips. Elizabeth glided in silently, slidbrilliance. He was there with the men ing the door closed behind her and stood above watching, through the glint of inky behind the great armchair with her brows goggles, the great mushroom cloud rising furrowed. Elizabeth had noticed the way above a city that would never be the same Miriam had shivered and shied away from in a world that would know no lesser all of the dancing. She had hoped the fear, and he was there on the ground bechill of the room had just been getting low with the broken puppets in the clinic to Miriam in her slip gown; she had seen who tasted metallic annihilation on the the sanguine dribble secreted “the sacred grounds verge of rehabilitation. There away in Miriam’s handkerchief were a great many nurses and where divinity once but she hadn’t wanted to begood samaritans who tried to lieve it was blood; she hadn’t danced were divided and heal the coughing innocents, subdivided by wandering who could not feel their own wanted it to be true. Now, seeing the blue spots forming cells corroding beneath the dynasties” on her cheeks, it was evident: barrage of chemical thievthe Spanish flu. Miriam ventured a frail ery, and there were a great many men in hand above her, reaching out towards uniforms who, in that moment, felt their Elizabeth who grasped it desperately, breath sucked away into that awful cloud comfortingly, and leaned down to wrap come up from the earth. When pale, her arms around Miriam as if she could smoky, silent oblivion struck again three warm her heart, as if she could bail the days later, he was there. water out of her lungs. Elizabeth could feel Miriam drowning from the inside When scarlet swirled in the heart of out; she could feel her love melting away his native land, which had been chained in her arms. When Elizabeth pressed her by imperial schemes and greedy foreign warm lips to Miriam’s cool forehead, he tongues after he had exiled himself from was there. it, he was there. The golden empires were buried, and the sacred grounds When the whir of the planes drowned where divinity once danced were divided out the sounds of civilians and man’s and subdivided by wandering dynasties, foul mechanical arm reached its greatest, strained by brutish British iron. He was darkest height, he was there. The Little a foreigner there amongst the people of Boy hurtled towards unsuspecting earth his blood who had strayed so far, and yet

he bore sins deeper than them all so with them—for them—he raised his arms.

The queen of the Sivaganga7 raised her arms to the sky in battle and in her noble bloodshed a decade of peace reigned, but that decade was not independence. The sepoys8 purged themselves of the sacrosanct lies and the shaming of their native king with the gunpowder that embedded itself in their commander’s coats, but their war cries were not independence.

The Mahatma with his copper head led the multitudes with their thousand-headed gods and in their footfalls were the rumblings of independence. When the hungry and the ignorant with their intricately interwoven hearts gathered at the temple steps and concrete apartment buildings covered hallowed grounds and the anglicized words of globalizers wormed their way into the mouths of the many tongued who were finally, supposedly, free, he was there.

Surrender now the gem-like eye of the Chiranjeevi9, Suffer now your bleeding wounds in endless wilderness, When the sky darkens and that great man of all of the ages, when the hero incarnate approaches on his shining steed10, he will be there. He will be there as he was all those thousands of years ago before he was the cursed man he had become. He will be there on that distant yet fast-approaching day as he was on that battlefield long ago: the warrior, the

76

son of the learned, the blessed immortal; he will be there but he will not be the man that he was: the dishonorable commander, the warrior cloaked in night, the vengeful son, and the gutter of wombs.

He will be there face to face with a white steed and he will be a different man. Until that day he would suffer his penance.

He shed his golden armor cursed by the divine for woven peasants clothes, he swapped his meager patchwork rags for chainmail, he stripped away his chainmail to adorn a kevlar vest, he cast off his kevlar for modest monk robes—he changed form time and time again but he was always him, and he always outlived them. He threw himself into heated battles without his celestial astras, he bowed down among the diseased, he thrust bare hands into furnaces to shield their children, he let metal pierce his armor, he let water drown his lungs, he held the hands of the contagious, but he always outlived them all. The purpose of his curse eluded him entirely. He was condemned to an eternity in wilderness11 and yet it seemed that providence—karma—only contented itself with carefully moving him about the Earth as though he was some kind of wretched chess piece forced to move not from square to square but from catastrophe to intimate tragedy covering the whole range of human vagaries. He was told he would suffer a bloodied body for many eons and yet he could not bleed, and his only pains had come from the taunting he suffered, as Sisyphus had, in

agonized silence. And to what avai— Cry for unrelenting death.

“Ash! Ash!” The barista ran out of the cafe with her ponytail bobbing behind her. She was nearly breathless when she reached him, but she managed to muster up that brilliant smile most service workers have mastered after a few years on the job as she thrust his coffee into his hands. He smiled thankfully as the warmth radiating off of the styrofoam warmed his numb hands.

“Ash, I sure hope you don’t plan on waiting out here every day or I might just collapse before I even get your order to you.”

He laughed cordially as she took a moment to catch her breath, and his laugh brought a smile to her lips.

“I don’t intend to do this every day,” he whispered as she watched her disappear behind the glass door of the cafe once more. The old man’s grandchildren ran in behind her.

His ears tried to hold on to the few notes of the indie music and the snippets of conversation whirling around inside that escaped in the brief interval when the door had been open. He had a feeling

it was not going to last much longer. He had been wandering long enough to have developed a feeling about these things.

Why here? Why did god bring him here? He would find out soon enough and no doubt he was powerless to change it for he was little more than the man condemned to survive it, whatever it was to be. He took a deep gulp of the coffee letting the black liquid burn its way down his throat. Perhaps— Somewhere within the cafe, a shrill beeping noise rang out.

Perhaps he was cursed not to wander in woods but in the wilderness of man, not to ooze from a thousand physical cuts but to live dying and weeping for the thousand sorrows of man. Perhaps his penance was not to simply suffer his sins but to— The cafe exploded.

The shards of glass slicing through the still air managed to reach him even where he was all the way across the street and a few even managed to slit his cheek. The patrons within hadn’t had the chance to scream, but of course, they didn’t need it—the shrieking of the metal bent outward unnaturally by the force of the blast would have drowned them out anyway.

Thick smoke billowed out in the wake of that warm dream of a building.

Final Time Travel, Zeena Mohamed, 2021

78

There were no survivors.

Salt dripped down from above the coffee cup and mixed with the creme swirling inside.

He used the back of his hand to wipe the blood off of his already healed cheek and gulped down the rest of his coffee with his wavering eyes fixed on the wreckage. The ancient scar on his forehead throbbed. He crumpled the cup between his fingers, inadvertently smearing the “Ash” inscribed in sharpie on its side, and tossed it into the trash.

Ashvatthama walked away.

1.

In the Mahabharata, he is the guru of both the Kauravas and Pandavas who educated them in affairs of government, ethics, war (divine weapons included) and spirituality. Some consider him the 3rd incarnation of Brahma. He is manipulated into fighting for the Kauravas despite knowing they are in the wrong. He is killed when he is tricked into believing his son is dead (Ashvatthama hatha kunjara) and prays for his soul on the battlefield.

2. God of the sun.

3. He is born with the gift of a divine gem in his forehead which protects him from fatigue, hunger, and thirst.

He is forced to surrender this gem as part of his punishment.

4. A holy man or ascetic.

5. He commits the great sin of attacking a Pandava camp at night (which is against the rules of war) and killing the innocent children of Draupadi thus ending the Pandava line.

6. This is the great celestial weapon of Vishnu that can only be stopped if the target displays total submission to the weapon before it strikes. If it fails the first time and is used again it will turn on the user. He uses this weapon in the Kurukshetra war against the Pandava army who is instructed to surrender by Krishna thus rendering it ineffective. In anger, he redirects it toward the pregnant Uttara who is carrying the last member of the Pandava line but she is protected. He is cursed by Krishna for this attack.

7. Rani Velu Nachiyar was the first Queen to combat British colonizers in India. She was trained in the art of war and a renowned scholar as well as a polyglot.

8. The sepoys were Indian soldiers in the British army who rebelled in 1857 after facing oppressive British reforms, cruelty, and a disregard of their religious principles.

9. Immortal beings who must remain alive until the end of the Kali Yuga (the last age).

10. This is a reference to the last Avatar of Vishnu that is predicted to come at the end of the Kali Yuga (the current Yuga) on a white horse to cleanse the world of sin.

11. As a result of his immoral actions on the battlefield, he is cursed by Krishna to roam for thousands of years with unhealed wounds and cry for death. Because he did not fear death or consequenced during the war he will not receive the mercy of death as a punishment. Some believe him to be alive and wandering the earth today. Some say when his curse is completed he will attain his true spiritual form and join Kalki during the apocalypse.

80

Agent of Time Maria Dar, 2021 Waiting on standby, she checked and rechecked the shimmering Binding Bands clamped to her wrists. It would be just her luck if they had Despelled before the Match, when the Handlers were most vulnerable. Bouncing on her toes and rolling her shoulders aided in stifling any lingering emotion.

Mercifully, her opponent was a minor Lord’s son, nearly drowning in the tiny, atomic green Verd-sprite swarm— she guessed he’d been newly Appointed. She felt slightly bad for turning her centuries-honed Einrin on him, but not enough to call Match Down. As if that would have prevented his Sprite Culling.

Better it come from her.

The Caller announced Match Up and she sighed, slid the delicate Blacksatin mask over her pale face, pulled the hood over her dark hair and unlocked the Silversatin-blessed steel Bands at her wrists.

She let the braided cuffs float to the grimy ground and hover just slightly in place, waiting for her return from Battle.

She stepped into the screaming light, closing her sensitive Royal eyes to the Lin-fueled brightness as Power yawned awake within.

She breathed in the scent of magic, Verd-sprite, and fear, taking it deep into her soul, fueling the building behemoth rising.

Match Up in Four. She opened her eyes.

Match Up in Three. She raised her fists.

Match Up in Two and she splayed her fingers, the Einrin in her blood manifesting and building in vibrant waves, curling up her arms like violent Serpents, readying to do Battle.

Match Up in One precious second, the Verd-infested boy cowering at her unholy display, at her dead eyes in the shadow of her hood and mask. She nearly expected him to call Match Down.

But surprisingly, he held ground, even as the scent of his fear spiked violently; her Einrin writhed along the line of her body, begging to be unleashed.

She obliged her wicked friend.

She wasn’t standing in the Arena, where the shivering corpse of a Lord’s son heaped in a bloody mess on the packed earth should have been.

She, unfortunately, knew where she was.

Somewhere deep in her memory, she had been standing exactly like this, probably millenia ago.

Her Einrin had taken her back to that time.

Not her body, of course. That was still standing frozen in the Arena, drinking in the screams and cheers for her victory, arms splayed, hood off, and masked face tilted up in vicious glory.

But her mind had been taken to one

of her younger selves, stupid and reckless and just a little desperate.

Back to her first official Match. This younger version didn’t have the sense and stamina to pace herself, her spayed fingers trembled as exhaustion razed her senses.

What a forgein sensation that was.

Even through the phantom physical pain and the change in mental scenery, her manifested Einrin continued to eat away at the corpse of that Verd boy. Once, when she was new to this wicked strength, she had nearly lost control—she had learned since then to never give her friend more than an inch.

It had always been unpredictable like that, teasing and mischievous and very much wild.

It enjoyed bringing her back here most; her wicked companion either loved it so very much or hated her just enough to have her relive it every time she stepped into the wonderful violence of the Arena.

She still, after all this time, couldn’t decide if she hated her power or was thankful for the constant reminder of her folly.

The memory of that opponent heaped before her was dead, but it hadn’t gone down without a decent fight, that first time—her current body still had a jagged scar curving around her hip where the man had landed a lucky hit.

With a spear.

Tempus would have killed her himself— if he had been Watching—for that stunt.

Her master would have—at the very least—ripped her fingers apart knuckle by knuckle if he had cared enough.

About what she was actually doing with her companion in order to fulfill his

82

wishes. And about a great many things that should have ended with her broken beyond repair. Immortality made one creative in the torture department.

As long as she brought him his Power, he couldn’t be bothered to put that expertise to use.

The victory-screams of the memory-crowd tapered off into shrieks of terror, writhing against the wave as her younger self Unleashed when the Handlers failed to tie her down quick enough. The Handlers vanished under the heat and light of her memory-Einrin, dissipating into smoke as color and fire and pain and Death washed over them.

The shredded phantom-corpse before her shuddered at the shockwave of proximity but stayed where it was.

Thankfully.

The last time the power in her veins had brought her here, it had puppeted the corpse like a master—making it walk, blink, and speak like it was still breathing.

Her Einrin suddenly released its grip on her mind, its boredom washing over her. Her real body was still making tight rotations, bathing in the rabid praise raining down on her.

She stopped and stood with a preternatural stillness as the army of Handlers needed to tame her flooded into the Arena from the side wings. They swung Silversatin chains in the air, the links whispering secrets only she could hear.

They threw the weighted ends at her, the chains following and wrapping her neck to ankle in a tight, cold embrace.

Her friend shrieked and bucked at the Silversatin, wrenching against her control and struggling harder as she stomped down on the leash. She had had one too

Stressball, Zeena Mohamed, 2020

many rampages to allow her companion any grief.

One of the Handlers slowly approached at her shallow nod and clamped the Binding Bands back on her wrists. Her Einrin went still and lazy in her blood, lulled into a stupor by the spell.

The chains around her legs loosened, allowing her to step out of the incessant murmuring. The Handlers walked her back to the wings, keeping the chains around her upper body taunt and trembling under her friend’s stifled wrath.

The dim Lin light shocked her system from the hours in the blinding open air Arena. Her friend stirred at the change but settled down as the Bands flared. The Handlers let her walk down into the belly of the Arena and into her chambers. After nearly eight millenia fighting for this gods-awful kingdom and its damned Cardinal, she had the luxury of her own private block of cells.

The Handlers unlocked the chains and tugged them back through the slit in the door, not bothering to spool them as they retreated to the roar of the wings and Arena. She ignored them and the dreadful, haunting singing in her ears from the Silversatin dragging against the stone floor.

She rubbed her wrists and rotated them in her Bands, tugging them tighter as her Einrin flared bright in response to the Satin Song.

She was most volatile before and after a Match—when her power was strongest and surging, then when it was drunk on Battle glow and the Unleashing. Three times in her eight millenia of fighting in this Era had she erupted that second

84

time, her control already in shreds and the temptation of warm bodies ripe for destroying too much for her battle-drunk blood.

She sat on the straw mat, pushed the hood down, then slid the Blacksatin mask higher onto her dark hair but didn’t bother to remove the light armor or heavy boots before leaning back against the grimy wall and closing her eyes. She centered herself for the dreadful conversation she knew was coming.

As if on cue, her Einrin stirred again in her blood, this time not of her own volition but of her master’s. Her companion—despite the Bands—flowed backwards in her body, against the flow of her being.

The sensation, as familiar as it was, was still dreadful and disorienting.

She stilled as she felt it—a familiar shift in the fabric of Time.

Of Universe.

She opened her eyes and cased her room. Of course, her master knew she was stalling and let her scan her fill.

Obviously, nothing had changed at first glance.

But—there—in the center of the room.

Tempus shimmered at the edges but was otherwise indistinguishable—his chosen form. Aside from the glowing silver eyes glittering six feet off the floor, boring down into her from the height.

She nodded in greeting, the only sign of respect she was allowed to give.

Her master did something of a frown, eyes squinting before smoothing out again. His voice filled her head then, undulating and backwards—following the wrong wrong wrong flow of her Einrin.

How is my Agent? My Bearer and Bringer?

She kept her eyes on the distorted corner of her master, locking away the urge to look into his eyes to end it all. “I am well, Tempus. This Era is nearly ripe.”

A bob of those eyes—a nod in approval.

Good. What is the harvest, my Agent?

Doomer and Destroyer?

Her friend writhed in her master’s grip.

“The stock has nearly matured fully. Another millennium of exposure to the Ein will bring the product to four thousand percent yield.”

Another bob-nod.

Good. Bring me my power, my Agent. My Child and Cageling.

She raised her eyes finally at the veiled permission. She looked into her master’s eyes, her Einrin wailing now, screaming in her head to stop look away away away.

She stared her Creator down. “Yes, Tempus.”

Fabric snapped taunt, pristine again.

Her friend shuddered, frail and weak and heaving. gone gone gone gone gone Tempus was gone.

reretroregressions Aryan Ashraf, 2021

On Friday, August 11th, 2017, at 8:45 PM, something happened in the Nameless Field near the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America.

About 250 young white men, clad in polo shirts and khaki pants, holding up lit kerosene tiki torches from Home Depot, organized in pairs, walked militantly in a line and marched the area.

Then, the counter-protestors came.

Then, the slurs began.

Then, the rocks were thrown.

Then, the clubs were used.

Then, Saturday came.

Then, larger groups appeared on both sides.

Then, the violence escalated to an all out riot.

Then, a Dodge Challenger drove directly into a crowd, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.

They yelled what you expect: “You will not replace us!”

“Jews will not replace us!”

“White lives matter!”

Honestly, this could have been comical.

A bunch of white supremacists, Neo-Nazis, KKK members, and every other rancid brand of racist, elitist white male collected together in no place other than Virginia, in front of a statue of iconic slave owner Thomas Jefferson, wearing none other than the preppiest of privileged, coddled white-boy clothes — polo shirts and khakis.

86

And it just could not be funny anymore.

I was a freshman in high school when this happened. I was just starting the school year. I felt a lot of things. As a Bangladeshi-American, as a brown boy, as a child of immigrants, as a Muslim, I often found myself, at many times in my life, the only one who looked like me in a room. Though, I can say, fortunately, despite growing up in Georgia and the infamous Bible Belt, I have rarely come face to face with a racist, xenophobe, or Islamophobe or, at least, have rarely come face to face with an outspoken one.

But, I won’t say that my experience was perfect. Since I would be the only one

who looked like me in a room, people would sometimes say things about my identity that just didn’t sit well to me, but it was never extreme. So, when I saw that this happened, I couldn’t help but look at it with impersonality, since I could not imagine these people actually existing because I had never met one.

However, as the years went by, I learned that the people at the Charlottesville rally (the “Unite the Right” rally, as they called it), the Nazis, the white supremacists, the raging racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes… they actually exist. Not just as a concept or a thing of the past. Not just as a troll-sounding comment on the Internet. These are actual people that actually exist that actually live in and interact with the world with these beliefs. Since times have changed, bigotry has as well, and Nazis and white supremacists and such are no longer the stern, militant white men with angry, exaggerated expressions from WWII but, rather, young people in a polo shirt and khakis. Even worse, people in casual clothing, speaking in colloquial language, with a camera and a platform.

All it takes is for one severely wrong turn on the Internet to reach those people. While the Internet can be an amazing place for learning and creativity, it also serves as a deposit for the awful, awful opinions of the awful, awful, awful people that have them. Somewhere within the rotten cesspools of forums like 4chan or Reddit, you will find these people and their beliefs, completely typed out in a post of their own volition.

You’ll see white supremacists who will flaunt their positions proudly. For-

get just the depths of forums! Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi who helped organized the “Unite the Right” rally, and others like him are still on Twitter, talking about Jewish people and people of color and women and Muslims and basically everyone who doesn’t look like them and whether or not those people have the right to exist. You’ll also find those people who aren’t quite neo-Nazis or white supremacists but very close to it - sympathizers, you could say. Self-proclaimed “intellectuals” who care more about “facts” than “feelings,” thinking that telling immigrants to go back to their country and thinking that diversity is killing “Judeo-Christian values” are both points that have solid standing and defending these neo-Nazis and white supremacists on the very, very vague and flimsy basis of free speech.

A group of white nationalists/supremacists marching in Virginia Even beyond white supremacists, you’ll also find raging misogynists and their noxious, self-destructive cultures. Deep within chat forums like 4chan and Reddit, you’ll also find the men of the “mano-sphere.” Incels (involuntary celibates) whine about how women don’t wanna be with them while degrading themselves into inescapable pits of despair. MGTOW (men-going-their-own-way) talk over modern female rights movements

and modern relationships as too hedonistic and unorganized for them. Pick-up artists come up with schemes amongst themselves, objectifying the women they see and discussing new manipulation tactics. Regardless of whatever sect they come from, they’ll be there, all together, complaining about women and feminism and political correctness and how traditional manhood is being undermined because of all of it.

You’ll also find those self-proclaimed “intellectuals” I mentioned earlier debate transgender people as though they’re the Trolley problem, making a conscious and active effort to refer to trans women as “he” and trans men as “she” or, more often, to either as “it.” And don’t even think about mentioning non-binary people to them - that just rattles their gears.

As a user of the Internet, I find myself thinking about these people often.

Not even as a person of color or someone who generally would not survive the restrictions and persecutions of a white ethno-state. Usually, when I come upon these things, it is usually my humanity that gets offended before my identity. I just cannot understand how people could actually believe in this without feeling morally depraved.

And, yes, although I make fun of them by talking about them as though they’re complete outliers from normal society, they are, at the end of it all, real, actual, living, breathing people. These are the people who have the potential to later commit those sporadic hate crimes to people of color and women and LGBT people on the streets, the ones that you

88

hear about on the news. These are the people who have the potential to take guns and malicious intent to places like Oak Creek, Isla Vista, Charleston, Roseburg, Parkland, Santa Fe, Pittsburgh, and El Paso. And, yes, these are the people who take tiki torches, polo shirts, and khaki pants to a protest on a university campus to claim that the white race is being eliminated. And, yes, these are the people who would drive their Dodge Challenger into a crowd.

I get panicky when I use the Internet now. I get a weird feeling when I see racist troll comments because I don’t know if they are troll comments. I can’t bear to watch a video from any of those “intellectuals” on YouTube because, even though they themselves are not encouraging violence, those videos are the very videos that could inspire the next hate crime. A man who attacked a mosque in Quebec City in 2017 was known by police and law enforcement to have “obsessively visited the Twitter accounts of Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, Fox News personalities; David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan; Alex Jones of Infowars; conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich; Richard Spencer, the white nationalist; and senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway” and to have “checked in on the Twitter account of Ben Shapiro, editor in chief of the conservative news site the Daily Wire, 93 times in the month leading up to the shooting,” according to a Washington Post article (Coletta, 2018).

So, I look to see online if people are doing anything about it. It could just be that I’m too sensitive, but I really would like to see more outrage about it online.

But, all I see is outrage over some random YouTuber or Instagrammer and such over some microaggression or weird comment or shady incident. While many times the criticism is valid and brings up many things that are important to address, sometimes it just isn’t worth the effort people put into it. In the back of my head, I always think, “This would be much more useful if they directed it towards a KKK member.”

And, for a moment, that happened.

After Charlottesville, several clear pictures of those men’s faces were released, and they were identified, their employers and schools were notified, and they were rightfully punished.

anything really changing. Don’t get me wrong, though. A lot of things are getting better, much better than it was fifty, forty, even twenty years ago. But, I just can’t help but think about these things when I use the Internet.

The scariest part is that there is no right solution. I certainly think of one right now without thinking about the ways it could agitate the situation and make the problem worse. However, while this may just be a call for attention to the issue without the solution, I want it to serve as a personal catalyst to anyone reading this to think about what they think will help.

It’s going to need more than just me or you; it’s going to need all of us to amend

But, not all of them. Not their leaders and their influences, like Richard Spencer.

Why? Because it’s scary to do that. It’s easier to go after a YouTuber or Instagrammer over something insensitive they said or did because, most of the time, they’re already on our side. At that point, it’s just petty infighting, a petty game of progressives on the Internet fighting to get the moral high ground. Richard Spencer is not that. People like him are not that.

They are the real thing. Going after them, trying to “cancel” them like one would with an influencer like James Charles, is not as simple because he and his supporters are on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, and everyone knows it’s harder to convince someone to change then to convince someone to do something they’re already doing better.

We’re almost to the third anniversary of Charlottesville, and I don’t see

this.Above: A “Black Lives Matter”

movment against white supremacists And, I realize that, if one of the people

that I criticize in this piece were to read this, they wouldn’t see my point. All they would see is my name and my identity and get enraged at the fact that I’m the very person that they’re trying to eliminate in order to create their warped utopia.

And, I can’t help but think about how long it will take before the next Charlottesville happens.

Charlottesville, and I don’t see anything really changing. Don’t get me wrong, though. A lot of things are getting better, much better than it was fifty, forty, even twenty years ago. But, I just can’t help but think about these things when I use the Internet.

And, I realize that, if one of these people were to read this, they wouldn’t see my point. All they would see is my name and my identity and get enraged at the fact that I’m the very person that they’re trying to eliminate in order to create their warped utopia.

And, I can’t help but think about how long it will take before the next Charlottesville happens.

Cai, W., Griggs, T., Kao, J., Love, J., & Ward, J. (2019, August 2). White Extremist Ideology Drives Many Deadly Shootings. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/04/us/white-extremist-active-shooter.html.

Coletta, A. (2018, April 18). Quebec City mosque shooter scoured Twitter for Trump, right-wing figures before attack. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/18/quebec-citymosque-shooter-scoured-twitter-for-trump-right-wing-figures-before-attack/.

Heim, J. (2017, August 14). Recounting a day of rage, hate, violence, and death. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/ local/charlottesville-timeline/.

90

MAX Lillie Olliver, 2021 “There’s no way.” Natalia looks at her reedy boyfriend and back at the dart board, her eyes narrowed in disbelief. He snorts.

“Are you challenging me, madam?” he says with an offended air to his voice, even though she knows he’s joking. She scoffs.

“I- what are you, a neckbeard?”

“I feel as if you are challenging my excellent coordination and athletic prowess.”

“No, I’m challenging your seemingly deluded belief that you are a master over space, time, and all the little things that would have to come together to overcome your lack of excellent coordination and athletic prowess.”

“Why, madam.”

“You’re so gro ss.”

“If I make this shot, I’m going to demand something in return, you must know,” he says with a wiggle of his eyebrows in her direction.

“Oh really?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“And what would you ask for?”

“A kiss, madam.”

She chokes on her water and glares at him, wiping a stray drop from her chin.

“We’re in public.”

“I meant later, obviously.” “...Fine. Shoot your shot, Sir White Knight.”

Matthias lays down a dollar and picks up a dart- much to the bored dart-stand

attendant’s approval- and stands up a little straighter from the slightly slouched stance he’d held prior to the challenge.

Natalia rests her weight on one hip with her arms crossed, a small, amused smile written across her lips. Her boyfriend raises the dart up in his line of vision, one eye closed as he focuses on his target. He lets the dart fly, and it goes terribly off-course.

Natalia stifles a laugh with the back of her hand and Matthias turns back to her with a sour expression, which only serves to make her laugh harder.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she chuckles. “You can still be my white knight in shining armor.”

They stroll away from the stand and rejoin the masses of people attending the carnival, the sweet aroma of cotton candy and salted pretzels floating by with the soft evening breeze. She inhales sharply; allows it to bring a warmth to her chest.

“This was a good idea,” Matthias says, tilting his head down a little towards her to speak so she can hear him above all the ruckus. “We should definitely come here again next year.”

“Yeah,” she agrees wholeheartedly.

She turns her face up to look at him and smiles. “I think so too.” And maybe it’s because it’s something they’ve done so many times in the casual environment of their home. Maybe it’s because of the moment, the emotions- maybe it’s all too overwhelming. And despite the countless

times she has paid for this offense, the countless times she has reminded herself that it is wrong, her knuckles bump against his and, naturally, she slots their hands together.

Time seems to stand still.

In fact, time does stand still.

Her stomach sinks rapidly as she feels it happen, sees the popcorn flying from a bag in a child’s hand freeze in mid-air, sees the churning of a cotton candy machine stop in its tracks. Her breaths quicken as she turns to her left and sees Matthias looking back at her, his own chest rising and falling faster.

“What did you do,” he breathes, staring down at their joined hands. He rips them apart, taking a step back. “What did you do, ‘Talia-” “I’m sorry,” she gasps, turning around and scanning her surroundings like a cornered animal. “I’m so sorry, Matthias-” “You’re sorry? You- no,” he chokes out, stumbling backwards and giving her a last, devastated glance before tearing off into the crowd as if Hell itself is on his heels.

And really, he isn’t wrong.

Natalia watches him go, weaving through throngs of people frozen mid-action until she’s lost sight, and swallows heavily as she turns and begins sprinting through the crowd in the opposite direction. She knows that both of them know it won’t do any good, but they can at least trymaybe if they can hideOr maybe what they’re so afraid of is having to watch.

Her train of thought is cut off as a gloved hand fists in the back of her shirt, yanking her to a stop and choking her as the neckline cuts into her throat. She hacks viciously, heaving for air as she drops to the ground, kicking out against

92

her assailant.

“No, no,” she gasps. She tries in vain to scramble away. “Please, I’m sorry- I’m so- I’m so sorry, I won’t do it again, I don’t-” “Please do not resist. You have broken the law.”

Her sobs quicken and tears stream down her cheeks. “No, I didn’t- I-” “Please do not resist. You have broken the law.”

She is yanked to her feet and an iron grip closes around the back of her neck, holding her in place as she feels cold metal press to the underside of her cranium.

“Please,” she sobs, deep, shuddering breaths wracking her frame. She hears a gunshot in the distance and her knees nearly give out, the only thing keeping her upright being the hand on her nape.

He is gone. She is next.

She used to think that time would bring a sense of acceptance- maybe it’s the crushing guilt of knowing that it’s her fault that makes it so much worse this time around.

Her voice is weak, the lights of the carnival blurring together through the film of tears. “No,” she croaks.

It’s the last word she speaks.

“Still think I can’t make the shot?”

“Oh, undoubtedly.”

Matthias laughs and digs a dollar out of his pocket and places it down, picking up a dart with the same hand.

Natalia helpfully takes their son from his other arm and sets him down beside her, holding his tiny hand in her own. The action had scared her in the beginning, but she’d found (after frantically grabbing his hand to stop him from running into the street) that this specific contact brought no consequence (thankfully). However, when she’d attempted to research the topic to further define the boundaries of such physical contact, she- oddly enoughfound no concrete proof that there were such regulations in place at all.

And yet she knows them to be real.

“You think Daddy can make the shot?”

Natalia asks her son with a sweet voice, crouching down a little so he can hear her.

“Mhm,” the little boy responds, tightening his grip on her fingers. “Daddy can do anything!”

Matthias gives her a pointed smile and she scoffs, jerking her chin towards the dart board with a fond smile. “Go on, you.”

Her husband lines up the dart, and just as he had done eight years ago, lets it fly.

And just as it had done eight years ago, it buries in the backboard of the stall.

“And that is why,” he announces, turning around and ruffling his son’s dark hair (so much like his own), “you’re a catcher, and not a pitcher. The good-at-throwingthings gene is not present in this family, buddy.”

“Daddy, what’s a gene?”

“It’s something you wear on your legs, buddy.”

Natalia gives her husband an exasperated look, but smiles nonetheless.

Eight years, and every year they come to the same carnival, play the same game, and walk the same grounds. Their son has seen the carnival every year since

his birth, and they know he’ll probably continue to see it until either the event ceases to recur, or he becomes a moody teenager that’s “too cool” for such things.

But until that day comes, this is a staple in their lives.

“Momma, look!” her son says brightly, tugging her hand as he points at a large stuffed dog hanging from another stand’s ceiling. “Big dog!”

“That’s right,” she echoes back with a soft smile, her heart swelling (as she so often finds it to do in the company of her child) as she glances up to see her husband’s eyes filled with a similar emotion. They’ve made it so far- almost a decade, total. (Well, by a standard definition of “total.” The more accurate definition is too painful to consider calculating.) This is absolutely the furthest they’ve come, so far as either of them can remember. They’ve certainly never had a child before; that’s for sure.

“Do you wanna try and win it?” the boy’s father asks lightly, taking the boy’s other hand as the family of three wander closer to the stand. “This one is a water gun game! You just have to hit the targets with the stream, and…” Natalia watches her husband pick up her son and hold him close to his chest with one arm so his little hands can grab at the gun and fiddle with the trigger as Matthias gives the stand attendee a dollar. A bell rings, and the water stream reconnects with the guns; the boy (and a few other children who’ve wandered by to give the game a go) shriek as the water streams out of the nozzle, splattering against the red and white LED targets lining the back of the stall. Natalia stands just behind Matthias and her son, their laughter curling the corners of her lips into a grin.

But when half of the laughter stops,

Untitled , Anonymous 94

s

and the streams of water freeze in midair, arcing across the stall space, water droplets hanging in suspension and glimmering softly, she feels her stomach sink with a horror that she thought she would never have to feel again.

But when she looks down and sees the one, slender, lone finger that Matthias had linked with her pinkie, she understands.

Her husband’s face is blanched white, his eyes wide and panicked. He looks back at her, then down at his son with a ragged breath, stepping away from the stall, only to find that their child, too, is frozen, seeming to float with nobody there to support him as his father’s arms fall away. Innocent, dark eyes lit up with the sweet laughter only a child could give, chubby fingers pressed over the trigger.

Oh, the horrible, horrible irony.

“You can’t,” Natalia breathes as she feels the cold metal press to the nape of her neck. They were faster this time, she notices. She hadn’t even had time to run.

Not that it would have done any good, anyway. “We-we have a child, you can’t-” “Please do not resist. You have broken the law.”

“That’s not even in the law, it can’t be, I-” Matthias grits out from behind his teeth, his face turning red. “I barely touched her. We didn’t- there was nothing illegal about it.”

“Please do not resist. You have broken the law.”

“You B*STARDS,” Matthias shouts, and a tear drags down Natalia’s cheek as she watches him struggle against the thick gloves clamped around his upper arms. “YOU CAN’T DO THIS. MY SON- YOU CAN’T LEAVE HIM- MY-” He breaks down into wretched sobs, and Natalia only has a moment’s notice to

close her eyes and turn her head before the sound of the gunshot seems to shatter through her entire body, so terribly close. She lets her eyes flicker back open and only watches her son, his face frozen in blissful happiness, forcefully ignoring the crumpled form only a few feet away from the both of them.

He is the last thing she sees.

“All those years, and you never once made that shot,” Natalia muses, then grunts as she adjusts her sitting position so one bony leg is crossed over the other.

“Are you kidding?” Matthias responds gruffly, voice laced with offence that’s betrayed by a loose grin. “I’m sure I made it onto the board at least once.”

“Doubt it, darling. Your mind is failing you.”

“I’ll have you know, I’m in peak physical condition,” her husband gripes back, lightly tapping her shin with the side of his cane. “Never been fitter.”

Her smile is faint. A wisp of greyed hair flits in front of her eyes as she takes in their surroundings again. It’s depressing, really: the sky is overcast, yet with no promise of rain. The ground is dry, littered with the occasional foam cup or long-outdated flyer. The park is barren, only the stray runner to bring a flash of color. She still finds it strange, even though it’s been a decade since the carnival had stopped running, at least in their town. Every year they sit on the same rickety bench, which is becoming more

Matthias leans his elbows onto his knees, harrowed gaze fixed on the carpeted floor. “He felt real, though.”

“I know.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry.”

He looks up, eyebrows creased.

“If I’d tried harder, focused more, maybe we would have-” She chokes on her words, one hand coming up to press against her mouth to hold back a sob.

“Maybe we could have- we wouldn’t have had to-” Matthias shakes his head, goes to reach for her hand, and the movement stutters as they both, on instinct, recoil. He notices that she’s shaking, faintly.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says softly.

“It was… it was a bad thing, what they did. We signed up because we needed the money, and we couldn’t have- we didn’t know what we were getting into.”

She nods faintly in agreement, still feeling on the verge of crumbling to pieces.

“We’re…” His hands move to fidget together as he sits up straighter, clearing his throat. It’s almost just as strange to see his young face, reminding her of all the years that they, and only they, shared.

“They said we can leave soon. Go back to our lives.”

“Right, right.” Lives. They had had those before, she knows; she remembers, even though it feels like remembering someone else’s life- a brutal irony, given that it was the only real life she’s lived.

“Do you maybe w+ant to…” Matthias offers her a tiny smile. “Get a coffee?

When we’re out?”

Natalia sniffles and nods, her fingers lacing together in her own lap. “I would really like that.” She knows that there’s no way the two of them will just… move past this. Not alone, and not together.

96

But maybe it’ll be a little easier if they share the pain of remembering dozens of lives lived, sorting through what’s real and what’s not. While they’d gone under with the planted understanding that they were two people in love, they both know that over the decades and decades they’d built something real over the lies. She knows that they’re both not willing to dismiss that connection despite the hell they’ve been put through; in fact, they know that the other person might just be the only person alive who might be able to provide any stability, any understanding, any comfort.

“This is it, then?” she says with a small shake of her head. “I know, really, only a few weeks passed, but I feel like… like I’ve lost an entire lifetime.”

“Yeah,” Matthias says, nodding with a somber expression. “I hate them for it.”

“But we consented to it,” she says in response, even though she agrees.

“We didn’t consent to a living hell,” Matthias growls in response. “Nothing about that was ethical.”

“Maybe once we’re out, we could try to… I don’t know… tell someone, or…”

“Maybe,” Matthias echoes. “Maybe.”

She nods silently, then pushes herself to her feet. “I’ll hold you to that coffee,” she says with a small, weak smile as he stands as well.

“I’ll try not to disappoint,” Matthias responds, matching her efforts in producing a believable grin. It doesn’t work for either of them.

Soon, people come to take them back to their respective rooms.

And then they wait.

It’s almost unreal when they cross the threshold of the main doors and out onto the pavement, sunlight bright and warm against both of their pale faces, which hadn’t been kissed by natural light in so long. They’re both still in their regulation clothes, but small tote bags over their shoulders hold their clothes from Before (as they’d come to call it).

Neither of them have been brave enough to open their respective bags, much less put on their old clothes.

Matthias looks to the side and down a little to meet her gaze, and he smiles faintly- this one, genuine.

Natalia returns the smile and her heart pounds as she brushes her knuckles

against his. His expression flickers and he closes his eyes, lacing their fingers together and holding her hand tight. They’re both frozen like that, breath caught in their chests, anxiety twisting their stomachs for long, silent moments, only broken by the rush of the wind in the trees.

Time flows on.

Matthias’s eyes open again and he squeezes her hand. Natalia feels tears prick at her eyes, but she’s tired of crying and blinks them away.

The two of them look forwards and step out into the world, fingers locked together.

It’s the last thing they do.

Case Identifier:________MAX_________ Date: 00-00-00 Results: Inconclusive Subjects: Terminated

98

The Coming of the Night Cade West, 2021

The end was nigh Upon us all.

The endless void Did call.

And as lights fade and fires grew dim, The world did seem Quite grim.

But some did rise And stood to fight To spite and curse The night.

And one by one They all did fall, For none can thwart Nightfall.

Credits To those who took the time to help create this mag...

Editor-in-Chief: Bhavana Kunnath

Chief Graphic Officer: Barbara Green

Editors:

Aryan Ashraf Maria Belgodere Carmine Colossale Maria Dar Juan Sebastian Gomez Barbara Green Bhavana Kunnath Bruno Rico Cade West Alexander Rasmussen Dean Sewell Justice Scorniers

A special thanks to:

Mr. Andrews, LitMag Class Teacher and Club Sponsor And everyone who submitted literary pieces or art that will forever be embedded in the fabric of time!

100

102