Uncanny Vol. 11 No. 1 — Memory

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UNCANNY VOLUME 11 ISSUE 1

MEMORY

WARWICK UNCANNY Undergraduate Literary and Creative Magazine Volume 11 Issue 1 warwickuncanny.wixsite.com/my-site IG: @warwickuncanny Warwick Uncanny Vol. 11 No. 1 © 2024 is licensed under CC BYSA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Team Editor-in-Chief Tom Gray Managing Editor Emma Baker Media Officers Emma Hawes Rhea Panwar Creative Directors Lily Harrington Shazana Shajahan

Editors Elise Canning Amelia Chadwick Maddison Foulke Paige Hornsey Bella Hucknall Ruqaiyah Jarviton Martha Kershaw Amira Neminathan Georgina Orford Nina Pavic Nik Sharma Nefo Yuki-Igbinosa

CONTENTS Editor’s Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The House of Memory, by Amelie Chadwick . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Death of a Cherub, by Jasper Young . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 The Butterfly of Baltinava, by Daniels Dūna . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Bury Me with Pomegranate, by Aanu Akintola . . . . . . . . . . 16 Crumbs, by India Armstrong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 4AM, by Melissa Sheridan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 The Memory Delver, by Klara McMenamin . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Rex Nemorensis, by Margot Hays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Memory on Dreams, by Ana Lelo De Larrea . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Chimp. Mother. Elegy., by Jasper Young . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

EDITOR’S FOREWORD Uncanny has been running for over ten years now. I’ve been at Warwick myself for almost half that time (without realising it, I was actually taught in my second year by Lillian Hingley, the journal’s founder), and have seen over the years that there remains on campus an arresting need for publications like Uncanny.

As a wholly student-run endeavour, Uncanny is a dedicated space of literary invention and creativity on campus.

I do not mean creativity simply in the sense of ‘art’-making, but also to designate the social act of creation at large—that is, to assemble as a creative community of writers, readers, designers, etc. and combine our efforts in a form that far exceeds the sum of its parts: a collective testament to the prevailing weirdness of the Word.

The theme of this issue is memory. I am delighted to present a selection of ten works, in which this broadly construed theme crystallises as a series of phantasmal recollections of people, places, feelings lost to time; hauntings of the present by a plurality of pasts; elegies on futures which seem dying, or already dead 1

A big thank you to: the nine writers collected here, for their wonderful work; the editorial team, for their time and their attentive eye; Lily and Shazana, for doing a brilliant job designing the magazine; Rhea, Emma, and Emma, for their invaluable role helping to get things started at the beginning of the year; and the reader, for supporting this project. I hope, if you have not already, that you choose to get involved somewhere down the line.

Thank you for reading the most recent incarnation of Warwick Uncanny. .

Tom Gray Editor-in-Chief 22 Feb. 2024

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THE HOUSE OF MEMORY BY

AMELIE CHADWICK i. in order to reach the house you must first forget that it exists. this is crucial. memory cannot exist without forgetting. feed the earth oblivion and it will grow a path for you. the path will take you to the house; the house will show you what you shouldn’t know. it will show you many things. after you have forgotten, which is hard, you must misremember, which is easier. the house may only be looked at sideways. the house may only be looked at without eyes. it exists as phosphenes, as purple trees, as things too big to imagine. it exists as a sapphire mirror. to face it directly would be to turn the glass into sand and heat. it would be to unbuild the house altogether. once the house has been made false, it solidifies into truth. owls are its governing body. the house extends beyond its straight lines to the sky papered with words and the garden whose poetry is in full-bloom. the flowers bear teeth dripping ink. you will find it is harder to leave the house than it was to enter it.

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finally: the map was/is the footprint you left in the sand before the tide swept in. the key was/is your femur before you broke it. the compass was/is the beat of your wings (shhh) on an unmade drum. angels sing to the house. it is full of burnt incense, innumerable hours spent in liminal space, and your first two years of life. oh—and her. ii. in the haunted house of memory there is much to overhear. she knows this. she knows many things she shouldn’t. she knows the banister slats look like teeth at twilight. she knows the foxes howl in languages she cannot speak yet sometimes— sometimes, she howls too and knows. she knows the ocean calls to her as it called to ophelia, to virginia—she knows waves are a testament to womanhood. the moon gleams through dirt on glass window panes and she knows its ghost-light to be one of a thousand spectres hiding here. she knows spirits walk the night. she knows she cannot. she knows danger. she knows that shadows lie in wait for her sharpening their claws and she knows the coat cupboard isn’t always where she left it. she can hear it tearing a hole in reality as she sleeps. radiators moan with the dead. she listens to fire alarms and murdered violins and her grandfather’s final words each time the day breaks. she does not mean to eavesdrop but the house shouts it at her and so she shouts back.

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each day the house grows larger. she knows this. she knows many things she shouldn’t. iii. this was the house’s warning. if i told you, you’d go mad. augury baked into the sugar atop pear and ginger muffins, torn into wood as claw marks, howled by foxes with more than one body. still she asked, pleaded, insatiable: tell me. but, first—she was new here, once, and did not speak the language of ghosts and sandwich crumbs and dying fires or the crash of a sea never reached. the first days or songs or nights she spread out her limbs on beds of too-thin pillows and blankets that smelled of her grandfather’s house and felt remembering twist its spindly fingers into her milk-blonde hair. she didn’t remember. or she did. but she couldn’t, not possibly. as she slept, it came only in snatches, quicksilver glimpses of verdant skies and graves aching for their headstones and music that moved like waves upon her soul. she begged the house for knowledge, or a net woven from synapses and dreams so that she might catch it. comprehension. she was/is a hungry thing, and does not know why she found herself here, in this haunted house. the unknowing is an itch, a gnawing, a needling. when she wakes each morning, it is the dust in her eye that makes it water. torn between its worry and its desire to oblige her, the house began, slowly, to reveal itself. a floorboard lifted showed a square of spanish sea, a painting knocked aside made a sound like guitar strings ever-so-slightly out of tune. once, she ate a florentine and felt the enormity of her grandmother’s laugh. piece by piece, she came to know the house of memory. one morning on the paint-spattered bathroom mirror, in the steam, the word yours could not be wiped away. this can’t all be mine, 5

she thought, staring through a newly-appeared skylight at the precise pattern of stars that were once the freckles across her nose during a particularly warm summer. a life not even halflived cannot be so large, so myriad. it was/is, said the house as the fold in a tablecloth, you asked for this. it is yours. you built it—me, the it that i am—all of it. the girl stood, brushed story-dust from her dress and reached up to touch a teal origami crane with her fingertips. mine, she wondered, felt a burning sensation, and when she caught her own reflection with two shaking hands, it was hot against her skin.

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DEATH OF A CHERUB BY

JASPER YOUNG By an unmarked roadside, an angel lies face-down on the concrete.

Its wings are bent like wire, crooked bones to the sky.

Its feathers sprinkled across the ground, twitching in the wind.

Its brains are host to a swarm of flies, mating in a mesh of dead muscle, worms from eggs in flesh.

Its corpse is found by two boys— one of them pokes it with a stick.

One of them says it has no arms, the other says it flinched.

They tell each other it’s their secret, their angel on the roadside.

But word gets out and rumour spreads— 7

Some say it was struck by lightning, fell through the clouds to the earth.

Some say it was an animal, a cruel trick of nature, outside of God’s image.

Some say it had an arrow through its chest.

One day, people will muse at a skeleton, by a patch of blood against the rainfall— A mark of question, a mark of memory— A mark of death for the fallen angel.

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BUTTERFLY OF BALTINAVA BY

DANIELS DŪNA The deep tar-black tracks in the palms of my grandmother, softly curving across a vast blistered landscape—that’s how I remember the unpaved roads that lead to my Viensēta in Baltinava. I always envision my homeland through that weather-beaten woman, hunched over a shovel, with her stern yet kind eyes watching us flee on our horse-drawn carriage. In her bitten-pear-shaped birthmark, I saw our pond. In her dark leathery skin, I saw the bark of our endless forests. She was not going anywhere, even as the world fell apart, for she was as much a part of that land as the soil itself.

I was told she went past the sun not too long after our exile, a relative of hers having found her slumped over, clutching an old Bible. Alone. Although, we never really knew for ourselves. It could have been that as craters scarred our country, a bullet burrowed through her harsh surface. This vividly grim vision of her passing feels much like the prayer of ‘god, your land is burning!’, a cantata that was the final performance of a marble-white church that would soon be scorched and turned to rubble. Fateful that a work born of an abyss of deep grief would be the last sound such a sacred place 9

would make. I’d like to think that—in the quiet before death— she whispered something just as beautiful. Her stories, her wisdom, and her love stayed with those she came close to. Fate can rip apart lives, stamping out all love and beauty in furious hate, but memory will let those trampled pieces cling to life longer; memory is the last refuge of our most beloved.

I am now nearly as old as she was then, though I’m not the woman she was. I do not mean this in a sad way; for me, it is merely funny. Instead of tending to cows and surveying vast acres of land, I scatter breadcrumbs to pigeons and watch the cars drive by below my apartment window. Instead of rereading the words of the Apostles, I re-read the pages of tabloid magazines about disgraced politicians. I’ve lived my life as best I could; I raised two sons and made a home for myself. As much of a home as I could make it. The threads that tie me to my deep past have long faded. I have not seen my homeland in thirteen years. The last letter I’ve had from a family member was five years ago, and my sister passed away two months ago. Soon, I'll be the last string to snap. My faint, small chord will be heard no more, and the song will end. There will be nothing left of that time and place—no resounding notes to remind the world of that spiralling series of events, no trace of sentiment or feeling. Rubble and smoke or silence and faith—either way I’ll have to depart one final time.

I say I lived, but that’s not exactly true; time is different for me. I've only ever peddled against time for pasts and people I can no longer hold on to, pining for a feeling that will never come again. Even now, with nervous, swollen feet shaking six miles above ground, I’m not sure if the place I call home will accept me. When I first came, after travel was finally permitted, it seemed so alien to what I remembered from my youth.

Sombre grey apartments moved from town to town, copied over and over as my ears were filled with a language I could 10

hardly understand. In the wake of war, our land was rebuilt into something entirely strange: traditions were deformed into totalitarian spectacles, native languages were cast aside, and cults of personality seeped into everyday books and calendars.

In my soul, I felt an emptiness, an entire generation that had gone into dusk—swallowed by wars, deportations, genocides, and hunger. It was as if I had entered a place of mourning, with those tall grey apartments looming over us as sad reminders that everyone felt in some way. ***** “Marija! Marija!” Her call rang through the field just as a gust of wind bent the tall grass blades, startling the little girl into running back home. “There you are; come quick. Food is ready. Go, go, before I have to tell you again.”

The sudden warmth of the living room air forced her cheeks into a blush. Already, the chime of knives on plates echoed into her soft red ears as she hurriedly took a free seat.

“Mamma, she didn’t even wipe her feet. That isn’t fair,” Anastasija spoke out in defiance.

“Well, Marija. What were you doing out there?” Mother ignored the complaint. She clearly had a favourite.

She remained silent before quietly saying, “I was looking after a butterfly. It couldn’t fly much; it just rested.”

“Rested in the grass?”

“In my palms.”

“Maybe it didn’t want to leave them.”

“But it must’ve felt bad; they’re scared of people. That must be the reason it didn’t want to leave.”

“Maybe it just needed a small rest... Flying from place to place with this wind is tiring for those little wings. It’ll be good; don’t worry,” Mamma explained with such soothing 11

reassurance that Marija completely forgot to trouble herself over the small creature's plight. Somehow, it was all alright.

The slow creaking of the floorboards signalled that Grandma was coming; her small, bent shadow entered the room before her. She took her seat while playfully teasing Anastasija about some silly mistake that she had made a couple days ago.

“Where is your husband? I thought he’d be coming back by now—all smart with that new officer's uniform.” Grandma quickly changed her focus to more adult matters.

“I don’t know what’s happening; they’ve extended, I think. He wrote to me a week ago about it taking longer.

Apparently, they're all worried, but that’s not an issue; he’ll come next Saturday. I am sure.”

She took a sudden, heavy exhale: “O’ Saint Nicholas, help us sleep. Not again. All this news, they can’t leave it be. On the radio, it’s every day, more bloodthirst from those devil worshippers—and who pays with their blood?”

“Mother, stop it. Please, not now.”

“Stop it? Your dad gave everything to them; I’m left alone. I told him he was too old, but no. He had to go be a sergeant. His name wasn’t even printed in any newspapers, and I couldn’t even afford a headstone. I know where this is all going; I’ve seen it.”

“Please, not at the table and not in front of the children.”

“Mamma, is dad coming home?” Anastasija asks sadly.

“Yes dear, of course he is. We're just talking boring politics, nothing to worry about. Dear, please don’t worry,” she states in a firm gentle voice.

Her palm pressed into her wrinkled forehead, and her grandmother silently shook. Her thoughts clearly of her late husband, whose black and white vestige lay on the mantle right behind her like some pale ghost.

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“Mother, I also forgot to say, but I called my brother when I was in town. He’s coping well, and he sent his greetings.”

“And his work? He said he had lots to do?” she asks with a shaky breath.

“Still does, says there's lots to write about in Rīga.”

“There’s a boy who kept his head.”

The evening passed, nestling Marija on top of the large limestone-coated oven—a traditional design that jutted out into the small room. It accommodated a large gap below the ceiling and a flat surface, a place to pile on blankets and duck-feather pillows that were kept warm from the embers of dinner. She could only lay awake, eyes peeled to the many ragged brownblack carpets spread on the floor, remembering the shy, slow flutters of the butterfly and how they looked the same in shade and design. Those slow movements, as if about to kick off in magnificent flight... Far, far away...

But it never happens.

The butterfly beats and beats; it’s thrashing against the wind as loudly as the throb of a dry drum, yet it goes nowhere.

Another and another, one after the other, yet its light jumps come to nothing. Darkness falls upon it. Nothing. Deep frost arrives alongside the twinkling beam of the stars, and all turns still in the deep night. All turns still. ***** I snap out of my half-slumber with dampness around my eyes. There are certain things that have haunted me, like spectres—sorrowful things. After so many years, it almost becomes too heavy to bear, like dragging yourself through the rain with soaked, ragged clothes. I knew they would become stronger as I came back; these things never leave. The same way that the sweetness of our gooseberries returns to my 13

tongue, it is so overwhelming that I can almost taste it. I can see them withering once more.

It began when the letters from my father stopped coming.

He had just disappeared, and he remained erased for many decades. We didn’t know if he had fled into the forest to be a partisan or had become a hardened prisoner in one of the many Siberian gulags, fighting against giants. We’d often imagine stories of all the heroic deeds he was doing. Maybe he was hunting, setting up ambushes, or even performing great heists.

He was so alive for me and my sister; we were certain of it. We could almost see it—him returning to us with his bushy brows and gentle smile. Hugging us like he did after months of training. There was no doubt he’d come marching through our cramped living room door to carry us home on his broad shoulders. A marguerite daisy on his lapel—plucked from the wide rolling hills of Latgale that we missed so much. Our dear mamma would’ve been so happy to see him—so very happy.

Life turned out differently.

After the fall of the regime, his name was listed among the many victims of the Litene massacre. There was no heroic fight, no great deed, or struggle for humanity for my dad that fateful summer. He was simply taken into the forest and shot. I cannot bring myself to imagine the short silence after the bullet fired, or how the rustle of leaves or chirp of birds could even continue echoing amongst the vast evergreen. The space where a father should be in my life was forever gone, forcing me to conjure up a distant character that taught me heroism and bravery. As for my uncle, it is obvious what had happened: the workers of ‘bourgeoise anti-revolutionary’ publishers didn’t have a long shelf life. His fate was sealed when the first cattle waggons departed, packed with their shivering mothers and frightened children, for the Siberian gulags.

I feel the aeroplane finally descend.

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Checkouts, border guards giving me polite nods, and a circling conveyor belt of suitcases. I arrive without much hassle, my stiff, weary legs taking a respite on the chairs of the waiting lounge. I see all manner of people around me. Reunited families embracing one another, businessmen hurrying with phones in hand, lovers exchanging soft kisses, and elderly drifters like me. How wonderful to see so much life and humanity survive even amongst all that has been thrown against it, even if it’s so extraordinarily ordinary.

I gently lift my face to the televisions mounted on the walls. News. In electric light, I see a new horizon before me: entire cities hollowed out into rubble, grey dusty lands littered with dead trees, thousands of children stolen from families, artists tortured in their apartments, butchered civilians on village streets, and a celebration of the eradication of an entire nation. All these news shots—all those morbid men with their Russian flag-pins speaking so smoothly, has all happened before. It has happened everywhere. It is happening now. It will happen again. A never-ending meatgrinder, a culling of all of those that value human kindness and love above capital and cruelty, by bitter parasites who cling to their past atrocities with pride...

The sun will set soon, that’s no problem; there’s a free seat waiting for me a long way away. One that I know I’ll be welcomed to, where the cold shadows of this world won’t hurt me anymore. I slowly get up from the chair, ready for one last visit to my beloved Baltinava.

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BURY ME WITH POMEGRANATE BY

AANU AKINTOLA I want to put pomegranate seeds in my water, and slurp them with a childlike carelessness of what you think of me.

I’ll struggle to catch my breath until my eyes run with their juice, and look as though I’m choking on something else, Of yours.

And if fate will for once be on my side, I will die.

With you grabbing my hair, patting my back.

But life as ever, did preserve, In the bruise you left behind my breast.

I took a photo so the allure of my naivety could linger in clouds forever, And not abandon me the way men did when I turned eighteen.

I eat them in hopes I will be clairvoyant again, In some sense And have eyes that can grasp the lapse in your judgment.

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In mine.

Eyes that can hear morality flicker behind stubbled faces, Eyes that can smell rotting in this pomegranate, Eyes that can taste both the sweet and the sour, My eyes have all the senses but sight, see?

My brain is lost in this epoch, not quite here with me.

For there seems no power in my aged wisdom.

Or my inquisitive furrowed brow.

I am not curious now, I expect to know what pomegranate tastes like.

Still, I pray.

To your god, never mine.

I pray the forbidden fruit stains my teeth.

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CRUMBS BY

INDIA ARMSTRONG 02.24.06 I’m trying to write things down more, I know you said it would help me and I know it might be too late, but I’m trying.

It’s freezing this morning, a lot colder than home, but I don’t mind so much. I needed to feel something different, I think.

Most days I’ve just been keeping busy getting to know the woodland, walking miles of it, getting lost and then figuring out where I am again. There’s not much daylight between waking and sleeping, and it goes by a lot faster than you think.

If I’m not walking, I’m messing around with my guitar a bit, trying to do something with that again.

It’s strange not hearing from you, I know I might not again, but I Grocery List • • • • •

Milk x2 Coffee Butter?

Bread Eggs 18

• •

Digestives Honey

•

03.01.06 Today marks one month out. The days are getting longer—I think we might be over the worst of the cold, and there could be some blue skies from now on.

A herd of deer walked past the decking yesterday when I was sat with my coffee, bobbed right past me, little white tails and all. I would’ve thought they’d stay pretty clear of the cabin. Bill always made a habit of keeping the heads and showing them off any time he had guests over. I still remember being about seven and staring up at a big one above the dinner table, black eyes looking down at me, both of us afraid. The deer I saw yesterday weren’t afraid though. Nothing really seems to be out here. Earlier I spotted another one of the little badger fellows snooping around. This one was friendlier than the last, no fanged greeting when I got closer. I keep hearing that woodpecker too, but I’ve walked circles around the woods trying to track it down to no luck. Sometimes I wake up to the sound and I could swear it’s coming from the roof; I jump out of bed half-naked and climb up ladders looking for the damn thing.

I feel like this notepad has become more of a wildlife diary.

There’s not really much else to write, but I feel like such a fool writing this down.

Am I a fool? I know you used to tell me to write, but I feel like such an idiot. God. – Bm, E, G – A cabin in Wis- consin, Be better in the long run, 19

Get back what once was lost.

Won’t use the hunting ri- fle, I’ll lay by lakes so idle, And weather whether through the frost.

Scenery straight from heaven, Biscuits at eleven, Wipe crumbs off the bed.

Work harder just to find it, My rough, familiar diamond, On scattered crumbs I tread.

A letter in the ma- il, Your voice: a wind that wa- ils, Pretend it’s just the breeze.

03.03.06 I’ve been pacing around for over a month and every single thing I do I imagine you watching me doing it. I can’t eat breakfast without hearing you telling me to go easy on the dairy. When I’m walking, I’m thinking about picking up my feet. When I go to the shop, I feel this urge to ask you what you need. I’m not even going for myself half the time. I’m just buying things for you.

Maybe what we had wasn’t worth saving, maybe you were right to call it when you did. Maybe I should have handled things differently, should have been more mature. But I was hurt. I wasn’t ready. And now everything I do is still for you, even though it all feels like forever ago.

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I might need some more time out here. I’m probably going to stop pretending that you’ll ever read these entries, so from now on they’ll just be for me.

05.03.06 I found the woodpecker today. Might not be the same one I always hear, but I saw one at least.

I miss you.

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4AM BY

MELISSA SHERIDAN i know four am so well because of you. the way the birds chirp in winter's darkness, the hope of the crisp morning. i know the sound of the moon chasing after the sun and the songs of the stars and the hymns of the night only to be heard in a dusky dreamscape. and the sound of the moon chasing after the sun and the songs of the stars and the hymns of the night sound like you. your whispers and your silence. your songs and your hymns, that you chirp in the early morning, and i, lady of the dreamscape, will listen. and i know what it's like to sleepwalk through the day and come alive at night, i open my eyes for the first time at four am. so i, then, command time to stop, with all my hazy power, 'father time', i say, 'will you not stop for me, in the early hours of dusky seas, 22

because if i am the moon and he is the sun, there is a song to be sung, a song that cannot last in the daylight that soon comes.' but time waits for no one, not even muted memories, and so i wait for four am to come this time—by myself. but still i wait, i wait, and i listen, for the sound of the moon and the sun and the stars and the night and then i hear you once again.

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MEMORY DELVER BY

KLARA McMENAMIN “What is the price?”

“Not a price,” she corrects you. “What is the cost?”

You take her suggestion and echo her question.

“Your memories. Each of them that falls into the water becomes unravelled—faded and lost.”

You pause and glance away from her strange iridescent eyes.

They are the compound eyes of an insect, upon a vaguely human face, sunken into the rounded skull which protrudes at the forehead like a cassowary's crest. Her skeletal structure is elongated and fragile. Eyes flash like black fire opals held out to the pale moonlight. She has fine canine teeth and mandibles. She speaks with the shrill voice of a songbird.

“They sink to the bottom of that lake, Deeper than you can ever hope to swim. Whatever you leave there you cannot recover, and it is free for me to take.”

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Your gaze turns to the inky mire that swallows the light of the cavern. Its still surface carries a stagnant odour. The cold air feels haunted by spores of miasma. “How does it work?”

“Submerge, And think of the memories you wish to purge, But beware, the water has an alluring current, that draws you deeper and unravels your mind, Sometimes people emerge as shells of themselves, with all of their thoughts and memories left behind.

Many say that is what they are here to do, but they are often burdened by regret, Because they chose a fundamental part of themselves to cast aside and to forget.”

She reaches into an ornate stone commode and picks out what looks like a small gemstone. It casts its own dim light. It is not enough to illuminate the cavern, but its radiance still captures your attention. “This is the fragment of an ordinary recollection,” She claims, before returning it to its place. “Meanwhile, this is one of the prize jewels of my collection.”

The next piece she displays is a dazzling star, its radiance casts a blinding glow that stings your eyes and brings you to tears of emotion.

“This memory is of a child’s first step, it was unintentionally lost by its owner when the current dragged him in, I wanted to let you know that something like this is what you risk losing before you begin.

You need to understand what you are dealing with. This is not a simple matter at hand.”

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The warning she gives is dire, but it falls upon deaf ears.

“What do you care what happens to the people whose memories you trade for?”

She seems to be offended. Her tone darkens and she puts away the beautiful gem of a memory she displayed. Despite her anger, she tucks it gently into its case.

“Make no mistake, I do not take For taking’s sake.

I take what you leave behind. I am a scavenger of thoughts and emotions. I live vicariously through the treasures of experiences people sacrifice.

Often people find that the cost they agreed to isn’t worth the price.”

You meet her eyes with adamance. “That doesn’t matter to me.”

She frowns. “Are you sure?

Once your memories leave your head, they can’t be returned.

It is not within my power and for the loss there is no cure.”

You can’t help but be perplexed by her concern. She seems to judge you with shame and pity for coming to bargain with her.

“Why do you do this? Trade memories?”

“I cannot forge memories of my own, That is the curse of my immortal existence.

No matter what I do, I cannot know what it is like to feel time pass from my infancy to when I am grown, Instead I reside in this hollow cave outside reality, suffering the curse of the banality 26

of my half-life’s stale persistence. Memories are my treasures, They soothe me and grant me mortal pleasures.”

“How about the painful ones?”

“The ones people came here willingly to forget?

They are hard to endure and confront, but I feel that if I were in most peoples’ situations, even they would not be worth sacrificing without a sense of regret.”

“Why?” “Because of what they teach, Often life’s wisdoms are far out of reach, They lie in a crucible of pain, And to willingly reach in is something from which most people refrain.

There cannot be colour without shade, We cannot denounce the experiences upon which we are made.

Otherwise, existence is hollow.

Hiding from the light as we flinch from our sorrow.

A book of blank pages, because we would rather hide from bitter experiences than take them for what they are.

Once you learn to leave them behind in peace, you will find that the strength you gained gave you the capacity to go far.”

“Bullshit!”

She pays your outburst no regard.

“You are as stubborn as most,

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But I discovered that the ones who would return from the water broken were the ones who were certain, were headstrong and of their determination would boast.

No matter which way you inevitably feel, A bargain is a bargain, and a deal is a deal.”

Her argument seems to be over. You breathe out a sigh of relief. She has done what she wanted and issued her warning.

Yet you know that at the end of the line, there is no way for her to stop you. Regardless of what she claims, she wants the memories that haunt your mind. Her feigned concern is to salve her conscience. She is frustratingly persistent.

“The question remains the same. Will you regret Casting aside the memories—even the ones you chose to forget?”

“I have made up my mind to lose it. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have come to you.”

She pauses and blinks before letting you pass. “I suppose that is true.”

You take a few steps forward towards the beckoning depths of the shadowed mire.

“Dive into the water and emerge anew.”

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REX NEMORENSIS BY

MARGOT HAYS for my future assassin In the wideness of night, when cataractous light falls as pillars between black trunks.

Or on a true winter’s day, when everything feels grey, and you can’t find the energy to rhyme…

The lake may murmur on the rocks —slow and gentle— and the sky and land may seem as one seamless mass; and you may wait until 4pm (at the earliest) to come apart piece by moonlit piece, or take shelter in a patchwork defence of apathy and even more apathy.

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You may find the moon more often blotted out, its numb light thinner the deeper you tread —somnolent, nude— seeing your opponent run through, probably still warm.

The world may be increasingly unthinkable.

And you may search for beauty in the inarticulable.

And you may not find it.

It may seem you are confronted with your future assassin —your father’s father’s affliction— and you may run through the widening night, the rocks, the light, the rhyme you wouldn’t write, the apathy, the apathy, and the night…

These things are just reminders of what might come to be.

You may find some beauty in that.

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MEMORY ON DREAMS BY

ANA LELO DE LARREA you know I keep trying to hold on to the theme maybe there was a lick I remember. something I won't mention but beyond that the concept is too fuzzy a specific architect i wish I could tell you their name but then again it was all only a dream probably isn't there there's mistakes all over, I don't remember thinking them, but it's obvious that thoughts aren't relative to actions. memory is relevant to thoughts but that's as far as that goes, for then thoughts become a new, distinct, alive instance. oh god you're back. or well not you you, a new you, but you're rarely here aren't you so I'd still take this as eventful you've now caught me out, or were in the process of having someone do that for you when I allowed it to be known.

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CHIMP. MOTHER. ELEGY. BY

JASPER YOUNG Gentle love, dream of trees that touch the starlight brimming in your marble eyes.

A fuzzy stone in the palm of my hand, head against the lulling drumbeats of my heart, tuned to the rhythm of your wheezing breath.

I wish I could tell you, you will fly like a hummingbird through the jungle, a flash of colour and song, plentiful, sweet nectar; that one day, you will climb higher than the branches themselves reach; that the ground doesn’t exist; that your cage was the horizon, bleeding through the leaves; a life behind bars of green sunlight. A life where butterflies land on the soft tips of your outstretched fingers, 32

your paws un-grazed by the concrete.

A dream where you are mine forever.

Where your eyes are shining globes, looking into space, into me.

I would tell you, don’t be frightened of the wind, or the vastness of the sky.

They are nothing to my delight for you.

A dream that’s awoken by desperate clutching at my empty chest.

By silent screams and muscle hitting metal. By electric shocks and deep sighs and vacant eyes, wondering if you were ever really mine.

Were you ever really mine?

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