I had the thought, for the first time in months, that life without death is a miserable gift.
page 4, Sebastian
Review: The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan
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Review: Weavingshaw by Heba Al-Wasity
The house was immense, and built like a fortress to withstand violent sieges. More than forty darkened windows watched their insignificant carriage pull up to the front, resembling dilated eyes unblinking in silent judgement. Ivy draped the pale limestone bricks, and wild roses tangled up from the soil. The single turret towered over them, parting the mist. To the left were the burned remnants of a crumbling tower, the walls decaying and blackened. Deathgrips, their still-violet petals a contrast to the dull browns of late autumn, grew like a moat surrounding the house, as if to ward away any wolves that might be growling at the edge of the forest.
page 253
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Review: The Poet Empress by Shen Tao
Let me burn and burn until the whole empire is devoured, along with all its corruption, its villainy, its rot. Let me burn and burn until this night is not remembered, nor this year, nor this dynasty, until even history is buried in ash. And then maybe green things would grow again.
page 267, Maro
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Review: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
She will laugh. The sound is as strange, at Briar, as I imagine it must in a prison or a church. Sometimes, she will sing. Once we talk of dancing. She rises and lifts her skirt, to show me a step. Then she pulls me to my feet, and turns and turns me; and I feel, where she presses against me, the quickening beat of her heart–I feel it pass from her to me and become mine.
page 254
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Review: Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
Waiting for the bus in the darkness, you pull on the hoody. It smells like her: sweet like the torn petal of a flower, sweet like lavender plucked from its stem while in summer bloom. You put your headphones on and load up Kelsey Lu’s EP, Church, an album full of orchestral loops designed to reach towards a quiet ecstasy. You could be anywhere right now, your eyes closed, enveloped in her presence, which is heavier in her absence. But you are home, amongst the melody, slipping into percussive breaks, breathing easy.
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