Here, I sleep for three days. My eyes catch the light that fills the room from the thin curtains. he room without a rug. If I wake up, I play with the strands of hair on the pillow. I get up when I’m cold, and make towers with the books she stuffed on the sofa. … Continue reading Pilgrimage of The Haggard by Nazli Karabiyikoglu
Two nights ago, I heard a radio station play your alien song wrapped in static and enigma. It was of course a dream; no one’s heard a radio in many years. I imagined the haunting melody as I lay beside the river bridge in the valley where I left my father’s body many years ago. … Continue reading When You Sang Back to Us by Chloie Piveral
You all know how life usually begins. First, there is silence. Second, a crescendo. Muffled gurgling, the sounds of something clawing its way out of a steamy, liquid-filled sac. Third, a blast of noise, a symphony of dissonances. Light, all around. Breathe—! Not for this child. First, there was silence. Second, there was silence. And … Continue reading We Were Here by Matthew Bailey
Last night, I dreamt of the spacemen in Fiddler’s Green. I heard them floating outside my house—their suits creaking like branches in the wind, visors tapping against my windowpane—lost forever in the darkness of space. I imagine their bodies, frozen in near zero, or else planted on some distant planet, destined to form part of … Continue reading An Elegy for May in the Forest of the Noble Spacemen by Dafydd McKimm
Ruben never knows who he raises from the dead when he plays the first song, and he still doesn’t know when they leave during the second. Raw bones, flayed with rotting skin, half-recognisable faces: an old man who settles in an old sofa with a rattling sigh; the pale girl leaning back against the crumbling … Continue reading When Bones Sing by K. A. Tutin