By Brooklyn Porter -- Based on Crime and Punishment By Fyodor Dostoevsky What Have You Done? “Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone may be looking.” — H. L. Mencken Swirling blackness, All engulfing Struggling for air, To breathe Deepest darkness, Drowning me Overcome and Sinking down Never to rise Ever again But the spell Is broken I am free, awake, And alive I lay still, Eyes wide I draw in air, So sweet Everything so normal, And unchanged Yet a nagging,

By Omar Jarkas -- Far from their thoughts was the concept of a silent assimilation. That Actors could slip into their lives, into their hearts, and play the role of humanity better than they could. It began on the set of an independent film showcasing the journey of a man who lost control over an artificial intelligence; the director sought to make history with the film and to supplement his refined  piece of art, as a last second decision he chose to employ an entirely inhum

By Soquel Medina -- Once upon a time, a long time ago lived a young girl named Xilabela.  She was the only daughter of an Aztec king and the baby sister to his two heirs. She was wise beyond her years. The princess of a savage warrior who had ruled for many years and that made her extra special. She had hair the color of milk chocolate and eyes to match. Her face was full and although she didn’t wear much makeup, her cheeks still honed a pinkish tint. Her lips were small but

By Ethan Le -- I wander empty rooms, mourning my beloved . I carry a glass mannequin, her fragile limbs trembling in my arms. I hug her tight, craving warmth, craving presence. I dropped her. I lost her again. Oh, Selene, why ?  I plead. I do not care. I grab the shards, hugging them once more. They pierce my chest, embedding in my lungs, slicing through a heart still stubbornly beating. Blood mixes with sorrow, but I do not let go. I whisper apologies to no one. The glass we

By Ethan Le -- The century teaches us to rely on robotics, playing friendly with an artificial being. We celebrate machines that string words together, while children in Gaza string empty water bottles across scorched courtyards, praying for a drop of rain in the barren wasteland. Knowledge once asked us to sweat, to wrestle with silence, to carve meaning by hand. Now we drift, weightless, our thoughts prefabricated, our days dissolving into the hum of servers. These machine

By DS Maolalai -- what will they do without you there tomorrow? likely the same things they'd do if you'd stayed. if the whole place were going to fall into pieces it would fall down then on you as well. go to athens – why not? they have reasonable fish at what I've heard are reasonable prices. go to italy too. we won't miss you because I know that you'll call. there is more in this world than a cleanly typed personnel document. I can't count the amount of times I've thought

By DS Maolalai -- what's that – that a italian greyhound? he was bent down already giving margot a scratch on her chin. a whippet I told him. just small for her size – immediately felt like an idiot. a whippet he said not even noticing. she'd come right up to him. my dog has an instinct for people which I've never shared. it would be much easier saying yes to whatever they ask me. who really cares what a dog is?

By DS Maolalai -- overhead wires are detailed in thin lines of snow. on the ground nothing's detailed. ice thick as a dinnerplate, brittle as over- cooked steaks and the plates which they sit on and snow lies on that. I kick through the 5am closed lights of chinatown restaurants, over toward saint patrick station, university ave and the edge of the sky- scraper neighbourhoods. stop for a coffee and plastic- wrapped bagel in corner cafe chain, hunched under high weights of off

By DS Maolalai -- it's a good fatty fish bake. the skin clinging orange  and tight. it'll crackle  when bitten – I know it. and cut up potatoes in butter on a tray under- neath and some glasses of urine-clear beer. all of this  makes a friday night, sometimes with salt. and I don't know anyone out every night anymore.  I could have dinner each night like this easily. a couple smoked mackerel, fresh fried potatoes, a beer and a couple more beers. we smile as you slide them to

By DS Maolalai -- for Chrysty and Sam   next month her mother is coming to Dublin again. I've had some instruction to tidy things up at my place. vacuum the carpets and mop out the toilet, throw out our aging potatoes. I’ll do it,   eventually, honestly. I’m on the sofa, paying the dog some attention. she's happy, and I am now eating an apple, looking out the window toward a view which shows nothing with birds. last time she saw us   was over a year now – my friends say she m

By John Grey -- Can my heart be a guide to old kisses, a trip-tik through time, first names and nights, a stash of intimacy so potent, it takes a memory to hold it in?   Why keep a moment in mothballs, a sigh in a suitcase, a moan in a decades-old moon? Must it single out this dawn or that one? Can only the survivor claim it all?   I've been with you forever it seems but everlasting has a starting point. And before then? To you, the abyss. To me, moments of extraordinary blis

By John Grey -- I am sorry, son for the hours you spent with Mrs. Campbell, practicing your scales, playing the simplest of melodies over and over and over until your fingers near bled and your young back ached like an old man’s.   Three years, you were under her musical thumb – not just in her presence, but even alone, tinkering with the keys while her shadow loomed over your hands and shoulders.   Three years, and still you were as far from the concert stage, as far from ma

By Salvatore Difalco -- Time Is Not Fundamental       I don’t think walking backwards would change anything. I don’t wear a watch. I mean, I stopped wearing one long before smartphones made watches unnecessary. My friend Ira, who inherited some money from a rich uncle, collects watches—Rolex, Patek Philipe, Omega, and then rarer watch brands like Urwerk, Enicar and Sinn. My father wore an old Omega his father had given to him back in Sicily. My father died of lung cancer when

By Ethan Le -- In a field dimly lit by floodlights, the community gathered to kill the cane toads, creatures branded invasive, disruptive, corruptive. Traps were set, aerosol sprays hissed, and each strike was celebrated as a victory for “balance,” as though justice itself were being pioneered in the wetlands. Hours into the marsh, the last toad was caught. Its final croak was drowned beneath the roar of applause. “We finally got it, that pest !” someone shouted. Ivy clapped

By Matthew Wherttam -- This year, I should see the Southern Stars. I would have to travel below the equator to do that, but wouldn't it be worth the trip? The light from those stars has taken hundreds, thousands, and, in some cases, millions and billions of years to reach us, and those stars have been moving to other places all those years. Some of them have even blown themselves to bits in gigantic bursts that will also take many years to get to Earth. So don't the Southern

By Matthew Wherttam -- Its ceiling lights are bright, the books on its highest shelves are unreachable, and I am alone and seated at a dark-brown wooden table in a padded chair. A chair covered with cloth printed with white, black, brown, and dull-blue streaks. Not clearly outlined streaks but raggedy streaks which, in places, even dribble into dots. And the carpet here is also a mess—a mess of dirty blobs; gray, brown, and black blobs. There are many books here, but one sh

By Matthew Wherttam -- The morning after an oversized blizzard on Long Island, my brothers and I stuffed ourselves into our heaviest winter clothing and then tried and failed to open our front door, which was piled high with snow. And so was our back door. The windows on our first floor were frosted over, and upstairs, where we got our first good view of all of it, we found that the snow had arranged itself around our neighborhood in swells and dips and furrows and ridges. S

By Jehan Z Bano -- Opening scene: Act 1:G:Gary’ss yard  in his house patio    As the sun set, Gary retreated to his hammock in the garden to unwind for the evening. He snuggled in and pulled out his writing pad, slowly sipping on his warm chamomile. He had just barely started brainstorming for an updated resume when he began feeling strangely drowsy. One yawn led to another, and before he knew it, a profound slumber had completely overtaken him. Within minutes, he found himse

By John Grey -- The down-city park is ripe for strolling. On a hot cloudless day, the scenery is as expected: bare-chested pretty boys laze on concrete, women tan their legs, and some guy with his hat low to hide half his face, hawks knock-off handbags.   The fountain gushes while locals bathe in its gentler reaches of its spray.   My eye’s a camera, Fellini’s maybe, scouting for a scene: a chorus line of Puerto Rican dancers, an artist who draws in chalk on pavement, peeling

By Corey A.D. -- Bulldagger, staring daggers, at the sludge upon the ground. Her lez has their legs covered in it's slurry. The dirt stains and drowns calves covered by their gown. It's less like they let it happen and more like they don't share her fury. Fury-filled dyke has her dyad but what graces her lips is a frown. Since mud leers but never learns That they are taken and a lezzy.