Vol. 2 No. 2 (Summer Solstice 2024)

In this issue, a dog and a human participate in a group date, and a ceremony is performed at an altar.

Featuring the stories: C.O.A.S.T., Basement Lounge Night, Sidra Kaieem, Reception, and Sin Offering, as well as a few poems.

C.O.A.S.T.: We woke up from a nap that evening, the kind of nap where you have plummeted into your deepest abandoning of consciousness, not a gallop over to sleeping and back without stopping, but sauntering over and staying, sniffing prolongedly at the clovers of dissociation, the saplings of demented all intense dream, and only pulled out back to the waking world as though we were a heavy tree being dragged by chains.

Basement Lounge Night: “She has no idea what she’s doing right now.”

Sidra Kaieem: Its eyes moved again and again between the windshield (which ostensibly showed the empty void of nearby space and the tapestry of stellar bodies far away) and the readouts on its console (which, so far, read that the nearby space being mostly empty was correct: the only nearby body was the scout ship with no power running and no living lifeforms aboard.) The scouting ship was not especially visible to the naked eye, and, so far, the console did not read anything too noteworthy into its being there.

Reception: The receptionist called out to the filled up waiting room, “John Andrews.” Two John Andrewses rose up from their chairs at the same time, made eye contact, and then awkwardly both sat back down increment by increment.

Sin Offering: It was a cool Fall morning: I felt it immediately upon waking up, the way that, coming in through the open window, the lingering chill of the night made the room idyllic for one snuggly wrapped in a blanket, such as I was.

Poems: Said I; Happy Dog; Figurine Man; The Doorway; Remain.