C-19 zine

C-19

©LITEHOUSE zine for exophonic writers

1ST EDITION

SPRING 2021

Curator / Editor

Danae Spyrou

Illustrator

Nadia Chamorra

Authors

Filipe Prazeres / Diana Dupu / Eduard Schmidt-Zorner / Ioana Cristina

Casapu / Eduard Schmidt-Zorner / Sage E. Magnus / Dimitris Tsirimpas /

Vera Hind / Irini Vlastou / Marta Ramírez Muñoz / Theodora-Andreea

Călin / Miriam Navarro Prieto / Alexandra Krolikowska / Daniela

Nicolaescu / Tettyo Saito / Valentina Hernandez / Lenny Lou

www.tothelitehouse.com

tothelitehouse@gmail.com

16 texts.

Covid-19 has brought a new world order; millions of deaths, countries and their economies on the verge of collapse, health crisis, social and political conflicts, increase of mental illnesses, quarantines, restrictions, self-isolation, fear, insecurity, loneliness. How do people experience it?

What do they find most challenging?

The C-19 zine is a collection of poetry, fiction, and short stories that work as a mnemonic and mental outlet for one of the most challenging times in modern history. People from nine countries with different social and cultural backgrounds write about how the pandemic has impacted their lives, how they cope, what has changed, and how they see the future.

Above all, this zine is an archive of personal stories and confessions from people across the globe and their struggle for survival.

9 countries. A global pandemic.

WITH BOTH HANDS

By Filipe Prazeres

Some words that come out of my brain. Can’t define inspiration.Only waves that appear.

All we embrace, What we took as ou rs Should be held very fiercely with both hands. Whatever we learnt until today Will gain a new meaning

From now on.

PANDEMIC PRODUCTIVITY

By Diana Dupu

I was working a dead end job in a corporation. Ever since we were sent home to work, they micromanaged our every move passive-aggressively. I've since left that toxic environment. I just quit mid-pandemic. I'm happy I could afford to take this step. I realize I'm privilleged in that respect.

Nurturing a database is anything but easy.

I pile on the words and numbers that give fleshy dimension to this SQL code. I endure the very entitled “Who?” and “What?” and “Where?” coming at me in arrogant grumbles from across the ocean in order to arrive at some sort of proven state of truth.

Life has become Pavlovian since slaving away at the database. If the information you enter is accurate, you may, for a fleeting moment, feel safe. Nothing happens. If the information you enter is inaccurate, you get sanctioned. You get shamed. Can’t you see that the database feeds you? You see very well because ever since you started taking care of it you’ve stopped having dreams at night. You’ve stopped touching your lover in bed. Your brain feels like a closed fist that refuses to open anymore. You sleep through the day when you’re not working, as if trying to hide from the database in your unconscious. But it’s in there too, your nightmares are full of quality assessments, pace charts and holy corporate retribution coming down on you. Yes, the database feeds you, but it’s swallowed you whole. You’re swimming in the belly of a 0111001 whale and nibbling away at its insides.

Every day you wake up, turn on your computer and start again. You imagine the database as an olive tree that needs its seasonal shearing, you think of it as an old woman with Alzheimer who wants you to help her remember old street addresses. No matter how hard you try to make the database seem organic, you never truly succeed. It always collects the proof of your productivity or lack thereof. It remembers all your mistakes. It does not show you mercy or kindness.

Whoever does more for the database will supposedly go furthest, which means three rows of cubicles down to the right. Oh glory, oh crown of coded thorns for those of us who fall at the altar of the database. A woman shouts at me. She says I’ve called before, but I haven’t. My voice, all our voices, are simply appendages of the database. They all sound the same. They all ask the same questions.

You cannot be a writer within these glass walls. To speak is to damn yourself. To think is incriminating. The database decides your pay and your livelihood. The database decides whether people will like you. To be in the good graces of the database is to be accepted by those who have promised their lives to it.

I wake up every day and tell the database stories. A couple that owned a small office building in Florida had a pet mountain lion that escaped their top floor unit and caused a panic downtown. This man is in prison because of a ponzi scheme. This billion dollar loan was paid off in less than a year. I imagine the database rumbling with pleasure, chewing out that sum’s every zero. I see headlines about industries that have compromised the water supply of certain small towns for all eternity. I see the wealthy accumulating more wealth as dreaming nobodies get foreclosed on. I spend too much time staring at a website that sells butchering tools.

You must never admit to being tired or sad. You must never cry at your computer. It is far more discreet to do so in the bathroom stalls. There is no scenario in which you’re not trying your absolute best for the database. Take those five psychotherapy sessions and run with them, beautiful.

Tomorrow is a new day to pray for robots that could do this job in your stead.

TO BRIGHTEN CORONA DAYS

By Eduard-Schmidt Zorner

I want to take readers on a journey.

There are thyme and rosemary to chase the fear away and a sprig of sage, to spice things up.

Maybe on my menu is monkfish with rice to endure remoteness, sprinkle a pinch of turmeric to add a touch of colour to it;

Then after several bottles of wine to gather favourite authors of mine around me, deceased or still alive, in my mind’s eye. . .

Houellebecq, Neruda, Troller, Grass, Maarten t’Hart, Kempowski and Bukowski to chant and bawl in unison

Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ before I fall into Morpheus’ arms to forget the misery.

HEARTSPACES

(AN EXPLORATION OF THE HUMAN CORE IN LONELINESS)

By Ioana-Cristina Casapu

What happens in one’s heart as one tries to bridge the gaps between me and we?

Loneliness is a marker of plummeting mental health and quality of life across societies.

Significant relationships are central to our growth and well-being. As a species, we are not designed for long periods of loneliness and social isolation, even though we have developed coping mechanisms in order to live through it. Too much of a thing can turn harmful. This is why solitary confinement is regarded as one of the gravest forms of imprisonment.

It is not commendable that as humankind we needed a shaking world event like COVID-19 in order to deem loneliness a socially acceptable conversation topic and revisit the fundamental benefits of belonging to communities.

Loneliness is having no one to turn to in the wake of a big personal celebration or a harsh life event.

It’s stressing about who you’ll be spending holidays with, three months earlier, because you already know everyone will be with their families, and you have none.

It’s being unable to fly home and spend time with your aging parents. It’s wholeheartedly wishing to be heard when you say there is grief around living a highly solitary life, in a capital known for its transitional quality, like Berlin.

I created this story from both a place of loneliness and an ever present desire to compassionately connect with the world spreading outside of myself. Inside, there’s a whole other world still beating. This is where they meet.

It’s falling in love with emotionally distant people, or understanding you have fallen out of love, in the wake of a Sunday, as your long-time partner has grown into more of a flat mate.

It’s aggressively working out, day drinking, binge-eating, or smoking, to take the edge of a difficult day.

It’s going on dates with people you met via apps, and realizing they lied about their age, relationship status or name.

It’s burying your parents.

It’s having no one to hold your hand on the day of your abortion.

It’s discovering your PHD program coordinator was primarily interested in your body, not in your body of work.

It’s losing your visa and having nowhere to go, because returning to your home country is worse than being on the streets.

It’s finding out your partner has cheated.

It’s being told the level of abuse you experienced cannot be real.

It’s not hearing I love you, Thank you and I’m sorry for as long as you can remember.

It’s quarantine with homophobic parents.

It’s actively, long time searching for a partner, struggling with finding commitment, and being told Stop looking, they will come when you don’t expect them! or You are too picky, that’s why you haven’t found anyone or You’re not putting yourself out there enough!

It’s missing a former partner, a friend, a parent, a pet or an experience that is currently inaccessible to you.

It’s missing oneself and having no one to laugh with.

Some of us constantly gravitate around or enmesh with other people: partners, flatmates, parents, siblings, kids. Even if we are very much alone, we all know someone who sometimes feels equally overburdened with so much company. And even if we are surrounded by people, we can often feel deeply alone in our own hearts.

LIFE AFTER LIFE

By Sage E. Magnus

Life-in-death means the maggots crawling through the stray dog’s corpse, the trees taking root between the ribs of the dead stag

The soil taking, taking back what came from it, taking and then giving, always giving; growing, always growing,

The deer still breathes when it’s in the crosshairs

It still bends down to feast on the sweet green grass, the fresh green grass breaking through dry earth cracks like the quick wings of the robin singing in the sky, like the way the heart flutters in the chest of the deer, reaffirming with every beat:

Death is near but so is life

Death is near but so is life

Being in isolation, with the presence of death so near and around us, but then the fact that life still goes on, for better or worse.

GREATEST COMMON DIVISOR

By Dimitris Tsirimpas

This particular piece of writing, along with others, was created during the recent quarantine. I am of the opinion that the structure of the contextual frame affects the structure of its content; the macrocosm affects, and is reflected in, the microcosm. Thus, in that piece of writing, I attempted a discourse and causal explanation of my structure of thinking, via imagery at first unwelcome. I make an effort to identify those various images created in my brain, and to pick the one that tries to escape first, to find the one I'm hiding. I use no punctuation, in order not to dictate to the reader how to roam through my writing.

I believe I was thinking of something and it just slipped away

and it just slipped away amidst those seconds when I was gritting my teeth in a compulsorily perfectly accurate timing over the rhythm of a lightbulb which was turning on and off functioning strictly binarily and not more intricately as I thought at first in the background of which there was nothing and I know because I searched to find anything

like palaces on fire someone stopping in the middle of a rope ladder still diving in a lake a thumb’s and ring finger's hesitant union so not to think if someone is behind me but now I can make him kiss me on the cheek as easily as I can—I guess—get up and leave.

I believe something slipped away during all my years of thinking.

ON MELANCHOLY

By Vera Hind

I think, I sink. Estranged to the past, recoiled to the present, and in spurn of the future — my tense is lost. Maybe it’s a matter of satiation, maybe it’s a matter of emptiness. The two are very much alike. Satiation is about capacity and content, what the shroud can hold without breaking; emptiness is about infertility and absence, what the broken cannot hold. So it seems they overlap in a sort of destructive superfluous state,: one as bursting excess and the other as starved barrenness. One suffers a coronary, from being filled to the brim with days, pains and nourishments: all becoming more and more dull and heavy as they quantify into burdens, into weight to be carried on weary legs towards a destination which is never to be reached. The other dwindles by the hand of famine, from the exhaustion of clawing at every door, scavenging for anything palpable or consumable—memory, nutrition, emotion—only for the distance to the world to grow greater and greater, and the loss to become comfortable, an enveloping casket in which to rest. One falls heavy, one wanes lightly. Both can perhaps be regarded as opposites on the spectrum of nourishment: the melancholy of harrowing lacking and the melancholy of bursting at the seams. It seems then, that melancholy is a disease of nourishment, above all.

My piece 'On Melancholy 'is a reflection on the dual nature of melancholy in these times in which it is a state that is more palpable and enfolding than usual: a sort of hidden outbreak amidst the outbreak.

By Irini Vlastou

Whenever I looked at a clock it — somehow — always showed 11:11. I found it odd and in a way comforting knowing that time never changed, that it was always 11:11 o’clock, be it night or day. It came with a sense of harmony, of the impression that I had all the time in the world. And it was funny, a game; trying to calculate the minutes and look at my phone at the right moment. I moved but time stood still. I was running faster.

I avoided the clock on the house wall, I avoided asking what time it was, I avoided the time on my computer screen and on my phone screen. I woke up in the morning, got dressed, cleaned my face and went about my day not wanting to know the time. Because I had time. I avoided the clock at the pharmacy store, I avoided the clock at the metro station, I avoided listening what other people said about time, when they would meet friends, when they would be off work, when they would go shopping, when they had meetings, when that favorite store of theirs would close and if they had time to drink one last coffee there, any indication or information that’d make me lose the game. I was playing with my own time, as if it was touchable, a small cube in my hands and I had to avoid touching one of its sides. On the bus I always sat with my back facing backwards to avoid the clock at the front panel.Once inside, instead of worrying whether I’d be late or early to my destination, I liked to observe what people carried around for food. Shopping for groceries and getting down to cooking meant you had dedicated time to prepare a meal. Another way for people to beat time. Not only you had put time and effort into preparing a meal but you had time afterwards to enjoy it with others. In the bus people carry all sorts of colourful bags full of food.

During quarantine I read a lot of stuff online. That's how I came across the concept of angel numbers. I read more about it and that alongside my already weird understanding of time during lockdown resulted in that story and the difference of "time" before Covid and "after" Covid.

Bags with super markets’ names on them, orange plastic bags, red, yellow, blue, white ones with littles fruits on them and colorful letters, a plastic rainbow parading in and out of the bus. There were old ladies returning from the flea market and their trolleys stocked with shiny apples, juicy oranges, leafy greens, all kinds of peppers and maybe a creased newspaper crammed in there. The old men carried bread under their armpits, young people munched on puff pastries, a girl eating tangerines and spitting the pips in her palm. And once in a while a person with a bakery box with a red ribbon around it carrying it off somewhere to celebrate. All this food, all these hands, a vibrant world of people who had time to cook and time to spare eating. And then I remember you. All the times I invited you over and I prepared something to eat and we sat down and we ate and chatted and laughed for hours and you said that the food had too much salt or not enough pepper or it was too spicy or it had pickles and you don’t like them and we shouted with our mouths full and time couldn’t catch up with us.

One day I woke up and time was ahead of me. Time ran faster and I stayed in the same place. Time dragged me forward and I didn’t move. Now I must stay inside but what does now mean? It means for now or is it continuous? I cannot go outside, I cannot get on the bus, I cannot go grocery shopping, I sit in front of my computer screen compulsorily. Time is all there is, yet I have no use of it. I look at the clock constantly, the numbers are so many that merge together. I want time to pass faster, to fast forward. I wake up in the morning, 10:36 am, 11:52 am. Sometimes morning means 14:27 pm. It doesn’t make a difference. I skip breakfast because who gets hungry after a 9-hour sleep. I eat lunch 2 hours after I have woken up and my next thought is what to eat in the afternoon.

The only thing left to do as a pass-time is go grocery shopping. But it’s not the same.

There are not hands squeezing tomatoes to test them, there are gloves picking cucumbers from their tip up like they are disgusting. There’s an old man sniffing a ginger root through his mask. A young woman asks where she can find antiseptic gel. She doesn’t have much time to cook apparently. There are three people who carry toilet paper around the store. A woman dropped a banana on the floor and the employee threw it away. There’s a tissue between my hand and every fruit, every packaging I touch. 17:38 pm, bored. I decide to cook the stuff I bought but there’s none to eat with. When you cook and there’s no purpose to it, no hunger behind it, it’s in vain. Food sits on the kitchen table and time passes over it.

I don’t hear what people have to say on the bus now. I get the news from tv or the internet: “Unprecedented times of uncertainty”, uncertainty . . ., “Lots of people face anxiety and fear”, fear . . ., “The next two weeks will be of importance for public health”, health . . . Where did I hear all these? Where did I read all these? And when? “The quarantine will last two more weeks”, weeks . . . weeks . . . what does that mean?

How long are they? How many days are in a week? How many hours? How many minutes? How many seconds? 7 days, 168 hours, 10.080 minutes, 604.800 seconds. Now multiply that by 2. 14 days, 336 hours, 20.160 minutes, 1.209.600 seconds.

Now multiply that by 2 again . . .

The cube that is time closed on me. I was inside four walls and there was no way out. I lost the game.

And then I remember you. You are still there. Out there in your own four walls but against everything you bake bread and make fluffy pancakes and send me photos and we are sharing this meal and this bread. The day is not different than the others: it has 24 hours, a little sunshine, a photograph of you smiling, eggs sitting on a plate sprinkled with paprika, your bread. We actually don’t have much time together. Please take longer to eat your loaf of bread when we sit together. And don’t chew too fast.

I looked at the clock. It showed 11:11. I have time. We have time.

FRUSTRATIONS (I)

By Marta Ramírez Muñoz

Frustrations (I) was written during the lockdown. I was so frustrated with the situation in a very selfish way at that moment, thinking about how I wasn't going to be able to do what I had in mind for 2020. The phrase "it was not supposed to go like this" kept popping up in my head, and I decided to write about it in a stream of consciousness style. The first verses talk about my personal situation. The second stanza is a reflection of how I see COVID has affected the world.

This was not supposed to go like this with such fear with my hands trembling as I dream, as I wipe the old tears from my face, the crippled hopes.

This was not supposed to go like this and the blackbird cries the broken note that sets this dawn as the saddest history will remember —if history does not get beheaded.

NOT YET OPEN

By Miriam Navarro Prieto

To open my eyes when the day is not yet open to open my eyes in the dream when I should outside truly I opened myself to the day the bed changed inside another home truly I opened myself to the dawn with a different face I had a fake I think dawn before after during dawn truly fake eyes closed fake head liquefied to the light babbling of my mouth more brighten up than my eyelids whipping valves reversed of rheum and at dawn do I wake up? And I wake up.

WILLOW’S WHISPER

By Alexandra Krolikowska

I was wondering about the mythology of willow tree, which corresponded with my personal experience under the willow’s branches. Willow tree became a symbol of blissful calmness to me, a state when any worries are dissolved and I feel some kind of power on my side.

Here is my warmth

Wrapped in a willow’s greetings

Whispers to treat you

There is my heart’s beat

Evoked a high-frequency heat

Which is burning me through

Still, I am watching you In the shadows of the night

Dissolving all that I knew

Then, shall we dance?

Just feeding space by ourselves

In impossible ways.

4 POEMS

By Theodora-Andreea Călin

The poems I submitted are the thoughts that kept me awake during the night, the daydreaming moments while having classes, the thoughts that were wandering while cooking. They came and went and came again and in the end I just felt the urge to write them down in order to free them.

AMOR FATI

They say

"Love your fate" without asking how it feels. And this hurts like an open wound

Because they don't seem to care

About the misery

And messiness

And fatigue

About the too short breaths

And tensed muscles.

But I guess

That's the point,

Nor should I care.

THE WORLD IS SPINNING

The world is spinning way too fast,

It feels like it is spinning at 100 kms/hour,

It feels like my own head is spinning.

I think my muscles have too much energy

and this is why they are too tensed.

I think I have a world inside myself that is about to break.

POST-QUARANTINE SOUL

You left inside me a thread of water that eroded my soul the way rivers erode rocks. But my soul isn't a rock. Months passed and I can say it eroded me every day, every minute.

I quarantined with it and continously felt how it bit every cell of my spirit. Months passed and they helped me grow another layer of soul, but this one is stronger than the rocks. I know that it is strong enough for you

A BED AND A STARRY NIGHT

It is a big bed and a starry night. I think it's weird how even though I stay in the middle of it, I know that I fill every corner, every fold. It is now my own Universe, this big bed during this starry night.

SONDER

By Daniela Nicolaescu

For me, self-isolation was very inspiring. It gave me the feeling of complicity with every individual living during these painful and strange times. In this sense, sonder expresses the feeling that every stranger has a complex, effervescent life just as yours. We see people around us—in a train, a a building, but usually we ignore them, as from our perspective they are 'extras', they belong to the background while we play the main role of our lives. This poem is about this solidarity and connection, about unconditional love. I feel that despite the social distance, there are bridges that we build inside and outside our worlds through poetry and compassion.

I spent thirty years of my life, Waking up in different beds, she said Every morning tasted like French wines and caramel

My breast in all hands. I wore t-shirts of all sizes.

Sometimes they fit me, sometimes they don't Only my heart a-one-size-fits-all dressing gown

Covering their fears. nightmares

Abandonment. cruel, ecstatic desires

Hens’ wings are never too large or too small For their chicks. they are the right size

I spent thirty years taming love

An unearthly beast with eerie eyes

Gripping my nipples into its jaws

Sucking white clots blood

Sometimes it hurt, sometimes it didn’t Only my heart- a blade of grass and dandelion’s latex Did not protest when it dried, turtles all the way down Hay to feed and shelter when winter came

Sonder. Dreams are the only place where I can fuck all lovers lumped together in a unique and fuzzy body

I spent thirty years scanning versions of yourself And every new YOU smelled like cloves and felt like anaesthesia On a sore tooth. I rummaged as an archaeologist. The fossils of your scattered Self—such a dump

Sometimes I madly loved, sometimes I feared My heart—delusional glitch in the matrix, who Am I— A blonde and sneaky girl in your bed, wearing your t-shirt a dye ink you shape your world with

You crossed the bridge and beckoned to me. I tried to reach it But it cracked in millions of others. Since then, sparks of you—penetrating angrily aghast My dreams. My Sonder

FLY LIKE A DUCK

By Tettyo Saito

Kozue Naeka decided to have a drink while she was working. Of course, that wouldn’t be possible if she was in the office, but now she was working from home because of the Coronavirus. She could drink while working. She sat in front of her computer and took a sip of her beer. The refreshing bitterness bursted in her throat like rainbow sparks. It was a great feeling. A small sense of immorality was present, but it dissipated like a ghost the moment she started drinking. At this very moment, Kozue felt that that beer was the most magnificent thing in the world.

To her surprise, her productivity was increased. The alcohol brought clarity to her thoughts and improved her work focus. With explosive enjoyment, Kozue completed a large amount of work in a few hours and felt a sense of accomplishment. She couldn’t find a reason to work without drinking. The thought that she could be productive, gently hugged her heart.

After work, Kozue watched a movie called “Supple Fiction,” starring an actor named Paul Rooney. In this film, Paul plays a gay young man who finds himself in trouble after his mother’s death, when he goes back to his parents’ house for the funeral and his father and grandmother disparage him for being homosexual. He has his sweetheart by his side, but the inability to be accepted by his family is too hard for him to bear.

The film was about discrimination, so it was heartbreaking to watch. But Kozue thought that Paul Rooney was the most beautiful man she’d seen. She saw Paul toss his fork, Paul put his lips on his lover’s, Paul embrace his grandmother. In all those scenes, he was as beautiful as a Greek sculpture, and it was impossible to describe his beauty in words. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.

When my favorite celebrity got arrested for domestic violence which increased under Coronavirus, I felt sad ,so I thought I should transform this feeling into some kind of work as catharsis.

After “The Supple Fiction”, she began watching the drama series “The Architect”. This time, Paul is an architect who has a dark secret: he’s a murderer. One day, he witnesses a murder, but he falls in love with the killer, who is a Mossad assassin, so Paul becomes embroiled in a global conspiracy. In this drama, Paul displays his wildest and most sensual charm. She couldn’t help but be titillated by the way he moved. It had been just aired in the UK, so she watched the illegally uploaded version without English subtitles, but just seeing Paul made Kozue happy.

But now, it was the age of the coronavirus, and if one wanted to watch something, they could watch tons of their favorite movies and dramas on Netflix. However, due to the general insecurity, Kozue wasn’t really feeling like it. Even if it was a silly comedy, she would lose focus and stop watching it. Nevertheless, it was comforting to watch something with her favorite actor. If he was there, she would be okay.

Kozue continued to drink while working. Normally, a little bit of alcohol could make her more productive and boost her performance. This time, however, she had to visit the bathroom frequently, but it seemed like a minor problem to her. It was only a small price to pay for the comforting feeling alcohol gave her. After work, she watched Paul Rooney, this time in the stage play “The Age of Great Nothingness,” which was available for free from Ebullient Theatre. It is an ensemble drama in which the lives of people with various secrets intersect in London. Paul, who is a pedophile, leads a lonely life for years because of his sexual preference so as not to hurt anyone, but he finds himself lusting after his sister’s son, with whom he had recently reunited. As a result, he tries to commit suicide. That scene, which was accompanied by five minutes of silence, was so divine that brought tears in Kozue’s eyes. And, while many of the characters meet a tragic end, Paul overcomes his despair by keeping on living. “It was a really great play,” thought Kozue. She still had tears in her eyes.

When the play was over, she indifferently checked her Twitter. She didn’t expect what she read: Paul Rooney was arrested on domestic violence charges. At first, the shock didn’t allow her to grasp the gravity of those words, but as she kept reading the same news from more sources, she saw the ugly truth:

He had been abusing his wife of many years, Maja Zivkovic, but the abuse had intensified as a result of her being on lockdown due to Covid-19. Maja finally found the courage to call the police, and Paul was arrested. Then, Kozue saw a photograph. It was a photo of Paul and Maja, dressed in elegant clothes during the premiere of “Supple Fiction”. They looked so happy she couldn’t believe there could be violence and pain behind that photo.

But it was true. Kozue just stared at the LCD of her smartphone in disbelief. Suddenly, she felt a stabbing pain in her heart.

She may not see Paul Rooney again.

The moment she realized it, she couldn’t stop crying. And she cried and cried, until she fell asleep from exhaustion.

The morning after, she couldn’t work. She called in sick. When she got up, Kozue turned on her smartphone. “Supple Fiction” appeared on the screen. She mindlessly continued to stare at Paul. He was in tears, with bitter anguish on his face, genuinely suffering from the discrimination that existed in this world. She couldn’t help but think that the whole thing seemed like an outright lie. At the end of the film, Paul reconciled with his family and they all went to the beach his mother loved. There, with an angelic, innocent grin, he enjoyed himself with his father and his lover. Seeing that grin, Kozue felt nauseous. She couldn’t stop thinking of him beating his wife, and felt more sick.

She felt she had no choice but to die. Her heart was already on the verge of exploding. She ran to the refrigerator and drank three beer cans in one go. Normally, that would make her dizzy, but she felt numb. All the negative feelings were gone. She felt as happy as a sparrow flying through a blue sky. At this moment, Kozue learned that drunkenness could soothe her grief.

The next day, she continued to work and drink. Her mind was so unstable that she couldn’t function without alcohol. During a work meeting, Kozue looked at the faces of her colleagues for the first time. There wasn’t a single person she could call a friend. Their faces seemed disturbingly contorted.

“Naeka-san, are you okay? Your face seems flushed.”

There was only one woman who asked how she was. After pondering for a while, it occurred to Kozue that her name was Serina Tokigawa.

“I’m fine.”

Kozue was still drinking during the meeting, but no one noticed. She was even praised by his superiors for making sharp statements. She scratched the back of her neck as she repeated the compliments she just received.

She had a dream. She was on the couch and Paul Rooney was beside her. They ended up drinking wine together in good spirits. Strangely enough, Kozue could barely speak English. Paul spoke Japanese, but it wasn’t his voice. It was the voice of the dubbed actor, Shinzai Gotou.

“I’m glad to see you, Kozue.”

He whispered those words in sweet Japanese. In a near-death joy, Kozue continued to talk and drink wine. Paul sipped his wine gracefully as he listened attentively to Kozue’s words. Suddenly, Paul’s face started to turn red, and his attitude slowly became bizarre.

“You’re really ugly, aren’t you? It’s terrible.”

“I . . . I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. Are you an idiot?” said while kicking the table.

“Aaah!”

“Awful scream. I want more.”

He tried to ride her, but Kozue pushed him away.

“Bullshit!”

He began punching Kozue in the face as she fell to the floor.

“Don’t, don’t, don’t!” screamed Kozue.

But he was unstoppable. Gradually, however, his appearance started changing, and at the end, he was a young man in a school uniform.

As soon as she woke up, Kozue poured another drink and began watching another Paul Rooney’s movie. “The Golden Coast” is a film about him failing as a dancer and his attempt to establish himself as a talented man. In fact, Paul himself was also a former dancer, and the role is said to reflect his own life. He performs a dance in front of a young man after he had his wine. His dance resembled those of swans, and Kozue had never seen a more exquisite performance. The wonderful landscape of the setup only added more beauty to Paul’s grace.

And, while watching this, Kozue began to dance by herself. She had never danced before and her movements were like a broken doll’s. She felt her head spinning, and then Kozue collapsed, hitting her head on the floor. She noticed she lay on the bed in the hospital room. On her side was Serina Tokigawa. According to her, Serina, who lives nearby, was asked to check on Kozue because the company hadn’t heard from her. When Serina unlocked the door, she found Kozue lying there covered in vomit. Kozue was so embarrassed she wanted to die, but she couldn’t move at all, perhaps from exhaustion.

“Thank you for your help,” Kozue said with tears in her eyes. “No problem, it’s fine.”

Serina’s lips were very dry.

“We don’t get along particularly well, but . . .,” Serina said. “If there’s something bothering you, just let me know and we’ll have a drink on Google Remote.”

“I’ve only used Zoom.”

Serina frowned and then smiled broadly.

Before Kozue’s eyes, there was a young man in a school uniform. He smiled awkwardly as he blabbered about. He wasn’t particularly funny, but Kozue laughed once in a while. Suddenly, the young man came closer to her with a giggle. His body odor was strong and unpleasant. It felt so uncomfortable as if some muddy meat approached her. Still, Kozue kissed him. The young man’s lips were sticky with spit, and she wanted to get away from him as soon as possible. But once they stopped kissing, the young man tried to undress Kozue. Feeling discomfort, she pushed him away. He had a look of despair on his face, as if his whole existence was annulled.

“Why not?” he squeaked.

“I’m sorry, I can’t right now.”

Anger crept into the young man’s face. Then, with all his might, he pushed her onto the bed and stripped her of all her clothes.

Kozue woke up on the train. She looked out and saw the wide open sea. It looked ugly and ominous. This train was on its way to Kozue’s hometown. But she had no intention of seeing her family or friends. She only came to see one man.

As she stepped off the train, the sun shone down on her. The heat already betokened summer. Kozue scratched her flushed ears.

After walking for a while, she arrived at her destination. At first, she just loitered in front of that apartment. She didn’t have the courage to meet him. Her stomach started to hurt, so she went to a store nearby to defecate. She felt strangely brave when all the excretion was swept away from herself.

A dozen seconds after, a stubble-bearded young man emerged from the building. He stared at Kozue for a moment, then looked down with horror, as if he had been discovered by ghosts of the past.

“Hey, you don’t have to say anything,” Kozue said. “Let me fucking punch you in the face.”

The young man was surprised, but he eventually closed his eyes.

After this encounter, Kozue went to the sea. The sea still shone with its ominous colors. She walked barefoot and then sat down. No one was there, probably because of the Coronavirus. The world was spreading wide open out there. She let her gaze wander around. Then, a strange apparition appeared: Paul Rooney. He ran towards the waves like an innocent angel, laughing and shouting. It was so comforting to watch it.

Kozue took her smartphone out. She loved watching movies on her little smartphone instead her computer or tablet. It felt more intimate. With a rapid movement, Kozue threw her smartphone into the sea. It sank in in an instance. Simultaneously, Paul’s illusion disappeared. Kozue let out a deep sigh of relief. But deep down, she felt her anxiety rising up. She wanted a beer to make this go away. Kozue bit her lip as she stared at the sand, which seemingly depicted a bird. A duck. Ducks fly higher than any other bird. Higher and anywhere.

AGAINST ALL ODDS

By Valentina Hernandez

Writing saved me from despair during lockdown. Writing and connecting. By exploring my recent memories, I wondered if I've lived well enough or just lived. During this process of remembering, I came in contact with a guy a met in a bar a few years ago—we even Facetimed—and felt the magic again, right away. I needed to take our story into paper. This was my main inspiration.

Was I forgetting what it felt like to feel? What it felt to be human at all?

I saw you dancing. You saw me dancing. We were dancing. Often times we think that extraordinary things only happen in movies, but we were there. In the midst of experiencing something more than extraordinary.

What were the chances that you and I met exactly that night? What were the chances that our very own eyes looked at each other at the same exact moment? What were the chances that we smiled and felt that immediate connection?

I actually looked up on the internet what were the exact chances of meeting someone, but those complicated formulas were way too much for me. I really don’t care about the numbers, I’d rather imagine that we went against all the odds by meeting each other. You smiled at me. I smiled back at you. We were smiling. You wouldn’t know that I was thirdwheeling that night, I didn’t know that was your last night in town.

You came close. Really close. I went even closer. We were dancing. Together this time. With all the noise I couldn’t even hear your voice, but it felt like we were speaking beyond words.

We danced to the loud music, we were smiling, they were all watching. Was it even possible to be so comfortable and silly with a mere stranger? For us, apparently, it was.

You wanted to talk, like, really talk. Who the hell wants to talk in the middle of a bar? Just you and me. We sat down, we shared our music playlists on Spotify, just to confirm that, even if we were from completely different places and had lived completely different lives, we were listening to the same artists and even thinking the same thoughts.

We asked each other how would our dream life, our dream jobs look life if money wasn’t an issue. Again, what the hell.

WHAT KIND OF STRANGERS

ask each other that kind of stuff? We weren’t strangers, we were meeting again. It felt like a sure thing that we’d met before. And that it would’ve kept happening again and again. Just like in that episode of Black Mirror: Hang the Dj. I wouldn’t mind if it kept happening again and again. We never met again. But that night was truly something. We both felt it and I’m sure of it.

Oceans, pandemics, universities, careers, people, relationships, lives between us. The only thing that’s still ours is the night, those words, those dance moves, those eyes that were mutually interested in finding what was behind them. Life’s all about connecting with others, but sometimes it feels so hard to find genuine ways to do so. Social media make it feel even farther from the truth, everyone is trying to build their own internet personas, trying to impress you, acting according to what they want or expect from you. But you didn’t. You reminded me what it felt like to feel again, to be human after all.

MOONDRUNK

By Lenny Lou

When I exist in the nothingness, there is kindness and sensitivity that crawls like a memory around my neck, around my eyes, around my head like a halo. And I strip away in the most devastatingly cruel and real dance I can think of, the kind of dance I’d perform at the funeral of my non-existing brother, next to this see-through coffin. I meant to forgive you for what you did to me in my dream last night, but I will not. Moon drunk, waiting for the present tense of the verb “to love”. But you are in a hurry and it destroys me, breaks down every cell I have, freeing every death row prisoner. When the hurry for everything destroys me, I have just enough time not to destroy anyone else. Not destroying anyone else, I am even incapable of hurting. Incapable of hurting, incapable of a simple smile, I am no longer human, and then I become mad. Did someone say milky thighs? I wonder if mine are what they mean. I think they mean long pleated skirts, no men, no moon drinking. Anne said I should not masturbate that much. I get depressed as I praise loneliness like a junkie (honestly though). By praising loneliness, I am a liar as I am always more alone than my words can say. My mother told me I should not feel so much, that a man should know the real me from the waist down. She said men should never ever know what is going on in your head and heart.

I have a deep love for lighthouses and grammatical mistakes. Thus my love for Litehouse. Litehouse is a bacon of hope and art and who doesn't love a good bacon and some delicate grammatical mistakes?

You must not feel, others must feel for you. But when others feel, I perceive but a superficial reality in moments. If I am restricted to a breathing or caressing distance, I think of myself hanging, and I smirk. Remember when we were so mad at each other we would not wait for the light to turn green at the crosswalk? Remember when we would rather get hit by a car than stand next to each other? Remember when we were alive and we would exchange saliva and dirty molecules, with no fear of some global epidemic swinging the guillotine blade above our heads? I was thinking of going to the supermarket tomorrow and practicing not wanting anything. I was thinking of meeting with my friends for a walk and practicing speaking as little as possible. I was thinking of only kissing you if my magic 8 ball said I should. I was thinking of creating a new super virus that would beat the new one and I would be the only one having the cure, but then would I really give it away, or would I choose to die as patient zero? A truly heroic death. I am still in the bargaining stage of grief. I always hear the lyrics wrong. Say that you will never never never never never never leave me or I will swallow myself. Mother Anne, each time I talk to God, you interfere. Please stop it. I know you want me to say something romantic. That I would recognise your pinky toe on a flyer. That if you open me I will be full of earth. That I am still a lover lapping rainwater. I am sorry to be the architect of my doom, the landlord of my shame. I am sorry to look at you, looking at me, waiting with your hands open from across the crosswalk. I am sorry for flinching.