Like a Cat on a Tinfoil Ball, the Spring Issue Has Sprung

Window Girl Alone

One theme that leaps out in Issue 112 is vision, both in the literal sense of sight and in the deeper sense of perception and an artist’s imagination. There are people gazing inward and peering outward, people regarding the traumas of the past and the possibilities of the future without blinking, people looking in the wrong places and seeing too much or not enough.

With this in mind, we invite you to ogle at the wonders on display. But watch out, because some of them might be staring back at you with their smokey violet eyes.

Cover art by Lucija Rasonja; poems by Ian Goh, Ashley Crout, Jane-Rebecca Cannarella, and Dante Novario; stories by Marc Tweed and Davis MacMillan.

Take a gander online or goose the .pdf.

To the person who stabbed me while I was sitting on my fire escape

Jane-Rebecca Cannarella

Freckled scars
are imprints of dears or deer—
exit wounds over my body:
abstract art, spatters of color
patterned like lace and the feeling
of raised grapefruit-colored kisses
—and just as tart. I run my fingertips
over the stitched pieces held
together by hasty needlework—
a framed magic-eye 
needlepoint; home
decorations that greet friends’
fingers with welcoming artwork
that they can touch. 

 

JANE-REBECCA CANNARELLA is a writer and editor living in Philadelphia. She is the editor of HOOT Review and Meow Meow Pow Pow Lit, and a former genre editor at Lunch Ticket. Jane-Rebecca is the author of Better Bones and Marrow, both published by Thirty West Publishing House, The Guessing Game published by BA Press, and Thirst and Frost forthcoming from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press.

Futuristic Funerals

Dante Novario

Gold Package

The inherent romanticism of an untouched grave, of a private
Little palm of dirt carved lovingly just for you. Imagine centuries
Of ghostly rest nestled in the quiet Earth, decomposing in peace
And a guarantee that your skeleton will be enviously spotless
When eventually excavated.


Diamond Package

A straight shot into the constellation
Or black hole of your choice. Every time Alpha Centauri twinkles
It’ll be your corpse showered by meteorites, exploring new galaxies.
Every time a star collapses you’ll be there to personally greet it.


Silver Package

Your soul will be pressed and digitally converted
Into code, then downloaded onto one of our signature hard drives.
The precision of the transfer for both your thoughts and personality
Is not contractually obligated. We promise the transformation
Will be indescribable, profoundly different from your experience
As a human. This is the closest offer to everlasting life
That we currently provide.


Sponsored Package 

Ground into delicious coffee beans
Sprinkled throughout only the best Guatemalan blends, light or dark
Roast to your preference, if selected your family will enjoy
A 10% discount on all of our select java products. 


Multi-Dimensional Package

We throw your body through the portal
And honestly we’re hoping you’ll somehow let us know
What’s happening on the other side.


Flung into the Ocean to be Eaten by Sea Monsters Package

This one is self-explanatory.


Soul’s Gonna Burn in Hell Anyway Package

Our hottest seller
Gingerly dropped down our signature shaft directly into the equator, a semi-
Reincarnation, you’ll never be chilly again and rest easy 
As fuel for our wondrous world, all of its bountiful goodness.


Standard Package

Our professional team will claim you faked your death
And escaped dastardly, living a double life as a wealthy eccentric
On a private island cooking up another wild scheme.
We then dump your body in a randomly selected hole.


Transcendental Package

Toss the flesh and emerge
As a force of the forever, unbound by the tediousness of time, thrive
Pure as a breath of the universe, as a myth of mortality, the lessons
Of your humanity transcending into something delectably
Divine, as a culmination of the wonderful 
You secretly hoped was always possible.

 

DANTE NOVARIO currently lives in Louisville, KY, where he studied writing at Bellarmine University and works as a behavior analyst with special needs individuals. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Firewords Quarterly, Strange Horizons, Thin Air Magazine, Still: The Journal, Ghost City, The River Magazine, and others.