Issue 002: Dreams

Cover art: "Lost in a Dreamscape" by Cas @chill_artistry grey Moon Emoji by BadFortuneTeller on Etsy GOLD & YELLOW STAR LAPEL PIN at Jones School Supplies Company, Inc.

March 2023

Dreams are magical. They crawl into your brain when you're in a deep state of relaxation. They float in many hazy shapes and colors, sometimes fleeting from your memory upon waking. And they transport you to familiar places you've never been before.

But most dreams come to us when we're awake. They show up in our minds as repeated thoughts and visualizations, and in our chests as we yearn for a desired outcome. Our dreams don't always come true, and sometimes, that's a good thing, but when they do — my God, when they do — nothing compares to the feeling that washes over you. The permission to exhale. The ability to be present, and positive, and genuinely thankful. I honestly don't even have the words for it... but the contributors in this issue do.

Issue 002 features 18 written pieces and seven works of art that celebrate the imagination. The art you're about to explore transforms the mystery of a dream into a conscious experience. Are you ready for the magic that's to come? Then flip for a trip you won't forget, and dream on.

With good vibes, Stephanie

Note from the Editor

1

Ace in the Sky by SOUM

4

The Visitor by Ben Covey

6

Starcrossed by Nicolas Stewart

7

Dreamy Dragons by Emily Johnson

8

The Last Weekend in July by Zach Murphy

10

Long Night's Drive by John Grey

13

The Shore by Daniel Morford

14

Untitled by Jay Kennedy

17

Laying Beside You... by John Grey

18

Untitled by Elizabeth Corrall

19

Untitled by Elizabeth Corrall

20

Untitled by Elizabeth Corrall

21

What Sleeplessness Brings by Gale Huxley

22

Winter Lies Dreaming by David Nobes

26

The Idea by Alex Price

27

Meant to Be Series: Massiel Alfonso

28

Oh, the Places You'll Dream of by Erin Halligan

34

Another Post-Biblical... by William Doreski

36

Elegy of Unbecoming by Ziqr Peehu

38

Detatched by Ilana Drake

40

Karmic Dreams by Rimi B. Chatterjee

42

I Dream of Cobalt by Ruthenium

48

Distorted Dreams by Katharyne Martina

49

My Beautiful Illusion by Aneeta Sundararaj

50

Sleeping in Different Beds... by Stephanie Holden

63

California Dreamin' by cory joseph

65

Untitled by Sunset Freeway

66

Horoscopes

67

Dreams playlist

70

Contributors

71

Dedication

77

Acknowledgements

78

Ace in t

y k he S

by SOUM

I had the dream again.

The one where your laughter Sticks like an errant dart In the cheap wood paneling, Where your voice flows over and through The kitsch-covered shelves of My mind, where your hands are entwined and Disembodied like a Polaroid Snapshot, a moment stolen From time. The dream that leaves Me trembling there on a bloodstain And where, in the end, your face is For a moment visible Until the sickly snap of Waking sends you back away.

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Dreamy Dragons

by Emily Johnson

It was the summer of 1993 and Keilani and I sat by the crackling fire as the bullfrogs croaked a sonorous symphony, the grass swayed from a whispering breeze, and the stars zipped in different directions across the vast night sky.

“What a weekend,” Keilani said, resting her hands on the back of her jet-black hair.

“Rad like a cat wearing sunglasses,” I said.

“Satisfying like spelling Sriracha right on the first try,” Keilani said.

That was our thing. One of our things. In fact, when you’ve known someone since the age of five, you amass a lot of things.

I leaned in toward the warmth of the fire, took a deep breath, and prepared to tell Keilani something that I hesitated to tell her all summer. “I decided I’m not going to Northwestern.”

“What?” Keilani asked.

“I’ve thought about it a lot and I just don’t think college is for me,” I answered.

“But we had it all planned out,” Keilani said. “Together.”

I’m so terrified of tossing four years away,” I said. “And going into debt forever.”

"Why did you wait until the last minute to tell me?” Keilani asked. “You always do that, and it drives me crazy.”

“It’s not the last minute,” I said.

“That’s another thing you do,” Keilani said. “I know it’s not literally the last minute, but you just have this affinity for suddenly dipping out on plans.”

“Like when?” I asked.

“Remember when you didn’t even show up to your own birthday party? The party that I organized!”

“I had the flu!”

Keilani stood up. “And the time you said you would pick me up from my dentist appointment and didn’t show up?”

“I had a panic attack about driving in downtown traffic,” I said.

“I had just gotten my license!”

“I had to use a pay phone while half of my mouth was numb!”

Keilani tossed another log onto the fire and a flurry of sparks burst into the air.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Keilani sat back down, fanned the smoke away from her eyes, and brushed the ashes off her sweatshirt. “I’m going to miss you.

That’s all.”

“I’m going to miss you too,” I said.

“So what do you plan on doing?” Keilani asked.

“I want to save the world.”

“Like Wonder Woman?”

“No,” I said. “I keep having these dreams about rainforests losing their color and oceans warping into garbage dumps. I want to try and do something. I’m just not sure what yet.”

“Maybe someday there will be an invention that allows us to see each other’s lives from far away,” Keilani said.

“Sure,” I said. “And maybe Blockbuster will go out of business!”

We both laughed until we snorted.

Keilani reached over and grabbed my hand. “We’ll still look up at the same moon,” she said.

I wondered if I’d ever have a moment with Keilani like this again. “What a weekend,” I said.

Keilani sighed. “Over too soon like a Prince song.”

Thinking of how much I want to sleep becomes a kind of sleep.

Chilly wind breathing hard and fast through window crack is a willing enough dream.

So are my headlights on the straight black road and the brief candles I make of tall pines.

So this dream is of a man with his hair blown back.

It's of a tongue, a tonsil, wrapped around a radio song.

The smell of oil is in it.

So is the windshield dirt and insects that flare and die upon the glass.

No Freud in the rear view mirror, in the lullaby dashboard lights.

I rest my head on a pillow of speed and dreams interpret themselves as a wish for being where I'm going.

Laying Beside You, Listening To The Painter In The Room Next Door Like the mountain on the horizon, he is body enough to wage invisible war on other flesh and bone.

As I breathe in tempo with the trees, so I blend lips and eyes into your face and tempo with the swish of brush on canvas.

Just as your face is made naked by night, it's recreated by art.

What you lose to shadow you gain in punctuated zest, stage-managed body parts.

I lean over to touch you like a hand taking off from a palette.

Color will return thanks to his oils.

Love will dramatize this bed because of all the lovely women in his portfolio.

A mountain is a wall so my dreams don't drift beyond me.

A painter is a late night reminder that creation has no exits, not even sleep.

by John Grey

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by Elizabeth Corrall

zabeth Corr i l E al y l b

The women in my family don’t sleep. This was once an exaggeration I heard from my mother as a child when I placed my fingers under her worn eyes. She had puffs beneath her lashes that reminded me of the plastic sacks containing fish that never survived for long. I wanted to pop the plum-yellow skin to free the goldfish from murky water.

“Your grandma and I can’t sleep. Not really. That’s why we have the bags beneath our eyes,” my mom explained to me.

My grandmother nodded as she darned our socks at the kitchen table. Dying sunlight at its most potent stained each of our faces.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, honey, there’s always work to be done. Night time is our time,” my mom said, cutting her eyes to grandma. “That’s when we have a little fun.”

Grandma smiled as she continued mending our socks.

“Now go have yourself some fun because bedtime is in one hour,” my mom said, removing me from her lap, sending me off to whatever I pleased within the realm of being a good girl.

I struggled to fall asleep that night. Visions of my mother scrubbing dishes and my grandmother assembling subs at the supermarket deli took the place of fantastic dreams. At 4am, I got out of bed to see what they were doing. I crept into my grandma’s bedroom across the hall from me, avoiding the

creaking floorboards beneath the blush carpeting. She was sleeping. Her roving eyeballs indicated dreams.

I returned to my bed and fell asleep before I could pull the cover back over me.

My mother’s voice woke me up the next morning. It was a highpitched shriek that tore me from a deathlike place. 3:00 glared at me in slime green when I looked at the Nickelodeon clock. I jumped out of bed.

“Shhhhh,” I heard my grandma say, “You’re going to wake Leena.”

I slowed my steps, bringing my knees up and down, feet pointed as I took them off of the floor, like I was an old-school burglar. I lowered my body into a kneeling position when I reached the kitchen and peeked around the corner.

Grandma and mom were sitting at the kitchen table playing Monopoly. The table was strewn with candy, chips, sodas, everything I would have liked to eat but my mom rarely let me have. A tantrum started rumbling in my stomach. I was about to stomp into the kitchen when my mom’s laughter turned to tears.

My grandma put her hand over my mom’s and stroked it. With her other hand, she slapped my mom with a Twizzler. A strained laugh rose out of mom. She threw her head back. I thought of a horse. I went back to my room and stared at the ceiling until I fell into a dream about a mermaid in a hot tub.

My sleep became more troubled as the weeks passed. I’d lay in bed listening for the sounds of their muffled voices against the choir of crickets outside my window. I watched them as much as I could, but I feared that I would get caught if I spied too often.

When I watched, I saw their lives diverged from the mundane that thrived beneath natural light.

I peeked into the garage as they built a rocking chair that I never located.

They ran through sprinklers as dawn threatened the sky.

My grandma bounced my mom on the trampoline. I watched my mom do a backflip, illuminated by blue moonlight. She landed in my grandma’s arms.

Mom noticed the purpling under my eyes. She began checking on me each night. I feigned sleep when I felt her presence over me. If she knew how I spied, she never said anything.

The awareness of their change may have crept into my consciousness, but it arrived complete one morning over a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit, and freshly made juice. My mother and grandmother no longer had bags under their eyes. They were typically slow-moving and slow-talking when I saw them in the mornings and evenings. But now, they bounced with vitality. Their hair and nails had noticeably grown overnight.

No matter when I checked on them, they were always awake. I stayed up for two nights to catch them going to bed, but they never did.

My grandmother quit her job. She began to sell small figurines she’d carved from soap.

Hundreds of these intricate sculptures lined shelves in the garage. There were miniature churches with crouching gargoyles and rabbits wearing lace collars. There was even a

sculpture of me, striking in its realism.

My mother, who had worked from her room as a medical transcriptionist, returned home around the same time I did each day. She wore work boots, coveralls, and false eyelashes when she entered the kitchen. Grandma told me she “had gotten into construction.”

Their activity surged during the day. But during the night, it had decreased. They never left the property after I went to bed, though they could have taken turns roaming our hushed town.

Instead, they began to sit at the edge of our driveway, looking down the street. Sometimes, my grandma sat by a window, raising a blind with a finger, peeking out at shadows that shifted with the wind.

I wanted to vanish the invisible fence around us, but I knew that I was what kept them confined. I would become them to release them, though my mother had told me everything they did was so that I wouldn’t have to follow their moonlit path.

I could only see the pleasure in all that extra time, not what was lost to them. Waking up wrapped in body-warmed sheets. The escape of a dream. The awful thrill of a nightmare.

Ultimately, the reprieve from this world, which no matter the hour was never a freer or easier place.

Winter lies fallow — the Earth softly sleeps, dreaming of the warmth of spring. oak leaves brown rattle and spin in the grey cold winter wind.

It came in the night As they often did Not silent but unheard to all But him He stirs from the already uneasy slumber Safe in the comfort of his quilt The temptation to ignore the sound is strong It's probably nothing He rolls over Onto his back To sleep In the morning it's all gone Taken while he slept Not a clue left behind Only the memory of waking And the strong wish That he got out of bed

My body asks me to let her take a break. Take a breath, and instead, I take her breath away and silence her with worries. I tie her hands with ropes of fear, fear to take a leap of faith.

Because faith hasn't been on my side, faith hasn't slept on my side, faith instead stares at me from the other side of the room. Faith hasn't spooned me till I've said goodnight, faith hasn't played with my curls till my eyes said goodbye. I've been

installment 003

series

with

Massiel Alfonso is more than just a writer. She’s also a thinker, a feeler, a dreamer, and healer. When I saw her perform at an open mic in December, she read from her poetry book, “Handful of Poems,” trusting a room full of strangers with her heartbreak and healing. I was mesmerized by her words. The way she took them right out of my mouth and left my jaw open in their absence. The way she cloaked the audience in a fabric of trust and resonation, carefully guiding us from one emotion to the next with her spoken word. After her performance, she took her seat next to me, and naturally, I had to congratulate her for the magic I’d just seen. To my relief, she responded with the same sweetness and vulnerability as I had seen in her performance. And since then, I made it a point to interview her for this series. Now, three months later, I have the privilege of sharing her advice for finding yourself through your art.

SN: “I believe we were put on this Earth to create and evolve, so I believe we are way more than just our 9-5 jobs. Without using your job title, who would you say that you are?”

MA: “That’s a question that I am still trying to figure out. I like to think of myself as a powerful voice. I am someone who turns everything she knows, sees, feels, and experiences into art. I learned to speak through my creativity. It’s like speaking a new language except you exchange emotions with others.

There’s a power in everyone’s voice and when you find that power, when you learn the power in yourself and in your story, that’s when you’re, like, really unstoppable. Like, no one can mess with you, you have the power to write about them, and that scares a lot of people. You also have the power to live in stories forever, like, you can really be immortal in some way, and that blows my mind sometimes.”

SN: “Oh wow, I really resonate with your point about power. It is magic, to me, to be able to immortalize your experiences, and turn abstract thoughts and feelings into tangible ink on a page.

As a published writer, how did you discover the work you were meant to do?”

MA: “I think it was accidental. In a way, I still believe it was destined for me to become a storyteller. I don’t know why I feel like that, but I’ve been writing since I was very young, and at first it just started as a cute thing. I wanted to remix my favorite songs and write poems to my crush (that I never showed of course LOL). But then as I grew older and began feeling stronger emotions that I didn’t really know how to express, I found myself writing more and more. It was the only place I felt safe in, seen, heard, understood. It was a way for me to speak without feeling like, maybe if I spoke out, I would be hurting someone’s feelings, the way they had hurt mine.

My journal was like my best friend; it was the only place that I could write all of my thoughts and felt like no one would judge me. At first, I would write, like, fantasy stories or, like, imagine a situation in my head and write how I would feel if it ever happened. Then it got real. I took a creative writing class in high school and got so much positive feedback from my teachers, friends, and other students in my class that I was like, ‘Hmmm, maybe I am good at this.’ It was the first time I felt like I was

really good at something. Fast forward a few years later, I told myself that one day I was going to write a book. Then the pandemic hit and I was like, ‘Here's your opportunity, Massiel, the universe is giving you the chance, you better take it.’ And here we are.”

SN: “Ahhh, that’s amazing! This magazine is also my pandemic baby! Cheers to us! Besides Karma Comes Before, I also freelance and have another job on the side. Assuming this is not your main source of income, how do you balance your day job with your life’s work?”

MA: “I honestly struggle with this. I wish I had more time to be creative. But I think I am trying my very best and I am a firm

believer that no opportunity will pass me by. If it’s meant for me, it will wait for me. I have been trying this new thing where I have to do something that fulfills or inspires me at least twice a month. Usually by attending writing workshops or just being present in spaces surrounded by creators. That’s always fun, when you find inspiration in places, you’d never thought you would. It has been working so far so I’m definitely going to continue practicing that and welcoming these opportunities into my life.”

SN: “That says so much about how we met! I lead with passion too, that's why I was also inspired to perform the night we met.

That being said, what advice do you have for someone trying to discover their purpose and passion?”

“Uffff. I love this question. It’s a really good one. I think we all know what our spark is. Deep down we all have this thing we are passionate about, or even curious. Giving yourself the time and space to explore that is important. I knew I really enjoyed writing since I was young, and I knew that I wanted to write a book one day, but I never would have thought I would actually be doing this now and really be going after what I love to do. It’s hard to put yourself out there, very scary sometimes. I won’t lie and tell you that I don’t have doubts some days or think like maybe this is just a 'hobby' kind of thing. But then I’m out there sharing my poems with strangers and I see them smile, or laugh, or cry, and we may not have known each other before that day but when I’m on that mic, everyone is vulnerable, everyone’s listening, and they get it; they feel you. They are no longer strangers after that moment. And that’s when I reassure myself that ‘Yes, this is what you are meant to do. This is who you are.’”

My body asks me to let her take a break. Take a breath, and instead, I take her breath away and silence her with worries. I tie her hands with ropes of fear, fear to take a leap of faith.

Because faith hasn't been on my side, faith hasn't slept on my side, faith instead stares at me from the other side of the room. Faith hasn't spooned me till I've said goodnight, faith hasn't played with my curls till my eyes said goodbye. I've been

by Erin Halligan

Another Post-Biblical Ascension The ladder I’ve spent my life building thrusts into the sky and hooks onto a landform that drifted past my childhood and left me tingling with pleasure.

Of course you refuse to climb it, citing biblical warnings.

But you lack the faith to enforce such grim prophecies, so without much ado I begin the long trip.

Because this ladder’s made of flesh and bone I should say that I reared rather than built it. This explains how it outgrew my imagination to reach such impossible length.

It sprouted from a dream-thought and soon dominated long nights of stars whirling in their sockets and planets wearing expressions of grave concern. Saints appeared in nightmares to dissuade me.

Angels sparkled like fireflies and offered cautious advice.

Now the ladder has attached itself to a world above this one, and sure of myself I’m climbing miles of living matter to reach a place that may not bear human weight.

If I fall such an awful distance I’ll smash like a famous pumpkin.

You can leave the ladder in place for police to examine. They’ll sigh and scrape up my remainder, dismayed by lack of evidence, by unproven criminal intent.

by William Doreski

It was happening again. She was standing in a huge empty darkness. All around her were tall thin shapes. Trees? People?

They swayed in the emptiness. She felt the fear of strangeness, that frozen clutch at the heart. And then the colors began. Small at first, sparks of pink and purple in the void, then red edged with green, orange cocooning yellow, white shot through with violet and indigo and a soothing blue. Tears carried rainbows down her cheeks. It felt like home.

She opened her eyes in the darkness. In absolute silence, she stared at the wall. She had woken to this wall for five years now.

And to the silence. No one around her could speak, and neither could she. In hanyo town, silence is the prize for being smart.

When they give you the freedom to think, they take your voice away.

The buzz of the locks uncoupling roused her from her planklike bed. All the other people in the room got up too. No one looked at anyone: it was forbidden. It was time to go to work.

Seven levels up, the great plasma cannon would be priming itself like a dragon filling its stomach with flame.

Here in the middle of the Qaidam Basin, Central China, lay Satellite City, the tech township that serviced the four Launch Bases of Lionfist Corporation. Every five days, a payload was shot into space from here, helping to build the giant orbital hotels of the world’s corporations. The cameras watched as the RanDees lined up for the washrooms.

She kept her eyes lowered, savouring the last sweet juice of her dream. This had been an unusual one: usually she dreamed of other worlds. Other planets rich in life, washed by sweet waters, shaded by tall phototrophs, circling a generous sun. Other planets uninfected by insidious diseases, unscarred by rabid despoilers, lacking a master race, dreaming under clouds unsmudged by apocalypse. She had very mixed feelings about them.

On the one hand, she hoped one day she would see them, or at least suspect their location. But on the other, she knew that the only way she could ever collect data on them was through the instruments of her masters. And she knew the hanyos would be watching over her shoulder, ready to grab anything good she found. So she put her dreams away and suited up.

Half a Buddha-face looked down on her as she joined the queue for outside access, her abrader unit cradled in her arms.

The Launch Bases had once been sacred mountains, in the old days before the Helios Fail. Lionfist had bored through the hearts of the holy mountains and filled the holes with magnetic accelerators, sensors, control systems and guiderails, but they hadn’t bothered to rejig the ancient galleries and rock-cut temples of the people who had once lived here. The hanyos had only ripped out whatever stood in the way of their tech. The other half of the Buddha-head was the airlock.

The huge stone eye looked down at her with an expression of sweet forebearance as she waited her turn to brave the radiopoisoned desert. Today she would be cleaning the outer rim of the launch tube at the summit of the mountain.

The airlock opened on a vista of yellow dunes and crumbled rock. She was standing halfway up the mountain on a narrow

maintenance platform. She could hear her own breathing harsh in the rebreather tubes. She turned and got into a small car on funicular tracks. Sitting stiffly in her radiation suit, she rose to the lip of the launch tube.

The geiger counter on her wrist chattered. Here, the blowback from the plasma plumes irradiated the dust that blew in from the desert, sometimes fusing it into tiny glass globules that stuck to the rock. She hefted her abrader into her lap and held it like a child.

The mountain grumbled. The magnetic accelerators were charging up. There was no guardrail around the mouth: if she wished, she could look straight down into the core, where the payload waited for its trip to the stars. It would begin slowly, a stately ascent, each laserpoint clocking the speed. The acceleration would grow on a steep curve. When the payload reached the mouth a kilometer above, it would shoot upwards on a spinning tornado of flame with a roar that would shake the desert to the horizon and strike the dust into demon-shapes before adding a layer of hell-beads to the poisons that already tainted the ground.

She drew her mind away from that thought, and bent her head to the abrading. *** Sleep. It was the only comfort she had left. As a RanDee, a member of an elite corps of voiceless technicians, she merited eight hours a night, unlike the ordinary working slags who were lucky to get four. Sleep was her passageway to the stars. She lay on her plank-like bed straight as a statue and closed her eyes.

“Hello, Bostan.”

She jumped, and looked around her. It was night still, but the mountain had turned green. No, it was covered in forests, with little houses peeping through the leaves. How had this happened? Her gaze rose up the green slopes, seeing one tree laden with purple flowers, another heavy with clusters of blushing fruit, and yet another filled with delicate birds’ nests and loud with song. The summit was encircled by pink ramparts that looked like they were crafted out of rose petals.

And at the very top, a luminous white dome stood, and from its summit shot a beam of white light straight up into the sky, circled with shimmering rainbows.

Who is Bostan?

She let her gaze trace the course of the river that ran down from the ramparts. It fell in cataracts spanned by seven bridges, and collected in a satiny blue bay at the foot of the mountain, before meandering on over the plateau.

This is a dream.

“This isn’t a dream, Bostan, although you are asleep,” said the voice. “This is Ashqabad, capital of unisense. Some call it Shambhala, others the City of Love. I’m Zigsa, by the way.”

She turned to the voice and saw a young girl sitting beside her on the glowing sands. Her skin looked as if it sweated light. Why do you call me Bostan? It means garden. I am a desert. How to ask the question? But she could only reach out and touch the girl’s luminous cheek, wonderingly.

“I’m not born yet,’ Zigsa said softly, ‘that’s why I don’t look like you. I can only speak to you in dreams.”

“What could you possibly have to say to me?” Her hands flew in shock to her lips, and her fingers felt the syllables fluttering between them. Magic.

“Only that I love you, and that you mustn’t fear.’ Zigsa smiled sweetly, her lips full of sparkles. ‘Bad things will happen to you, down there in the world of matter, but they will lead you to me.

To the survivarium, which will be the City of Love on earth.

We’re going to build it, you and I. And all the Survivors.”

“But I’m a prisoner. A tool. The hanyos use me for their work. In the world I cannot speak: they took that from me when I was hired. They called it (she laughed bitterly) the Non Disclosure Agreement.”

“You don’t need a voice to speak, only a brain and a heart. You have both. You will find a way to make your thoughts manifest in the world. And we’ll help, all of us who love you.”

“No one loves me.”

“You haven’t met them yet,” she smiled in rainbows. “I just wanted to say, don’t lose hope. You think you have nothing, but you are a weaver of karma. You can see the colors of human happiness. Follow them, and you won’t drown in the River of Tears.”

“But how will I—” The locks buzzed, and she opened her eyes to the wall. The River of Tears was waiting for her with its riptides. Choking, trying not to drown, she began her day.

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I DREAM OF COBALT

by ruthenium

Distorted Dreams The silence of the wind as the night breaks The white rose slowly losing its petals as the temperature decreases Miracle tones fills the room with waterfall, rain and sounds of birds Transcending in the world we call an escape Falling 2,400ft from high skyscrapers While bouncing on clouds Beyond the consciousness Impossibility being the possibility of all you could ever imagine Dreams and nightmares intertwined on days of sleep but they are the highest mountains we’ve climbed The strongest swimmers in the deepest oceans Heaven has been reached Having conversations with God Breaking a sweat Tossing and turning to the adventures in the mind as life is created Helping human kind restore The earth with more fruits, more animals, more love We fly high or go home The night skies say goodbye and sunrise says hello Spread your wings Land on the Eiffel Tower, explore Santorini And reach the euphoric heights of our destiny These are the dreams we dare to wake for.

by Katharyne Martina

CW: Death “Salomé.”

It was barely above a whisper and useless; Salomé was never going to hear Maya.

Maya herself couldn’t hear Maya.

The mornings were the hardest.

Thank God for the remote control which she’d left by the bedside table. Curling her gnarly fingers around it, Maya used the forefinger of the opposite hand to press a button. She sighed deeply, relieved she’d succeeded in switching off the ceiling fan.

God how she hated this windowless room.

Don’t complain, Maya. At least this was a whole room.

Nowadays, people have no joy. So many have lost everything and are living under a bridge.

There was a time when she had a whole house to call her own.

A garden. And friends.

“Get better and you can go home to Penang." That’s the mantra Maya recited every so often to make herself feel better.”

The door opened then and Salomé, her domestic helper, entered the room. Holding a vintage mahogany serving tray in one hand, she closed the door with the other.

Something wasn’t right. Her eyes were puffy and her cheeks were red. She must have been crying all night. Turns out she

received a phone call from the Philippines the night before saying that the patriarch of the family, Salomé’s father, had contracted pneumonia. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.

With clinical precision, Salomé put the tray down on the bedside table, bent to pick up the bedpan, and walked into the en suite bathroom.

Maya closed her eyes, praying that she could pierce the invisible veil and travel to the astral plane. *** Towards the end of the 1960s, a couple were about to board the P&O liner, The Chusan, in Madras, India. The then eighteenyear-old Maya looked at the intricate bridal henna design on her hands. Was she doing the right thing, following this almost stranger she’d married to seek out a new life on the western coast of the Malay peninsula? With their two suitcases in either hand, Ram was ahead of Maya. About to step onto the gangway, he turned to look at her. In those gold flecks of his irises, she recognized his tenderness and knew that all would be well.

“Maya-Maya,” he called out to her.

How her elders had giggled at her husband’s peculiar habit of calling everyone twice. Still, she couldn’t help but blush when she reached his side and he said, “Maya-Maya, you’re too beautiful. An illusion. My dream.”

Maya needed a week to find the word to describe the singlestorey house assigned to them in Hargreaves Circus on the island of Penang. In her considered opinion, it was the perfect time — one that allowed her to meditate upon it because the

word had to express the serenity that came with having a stunning backdrop of a hill which she could see from the windows of her bedroom; yet, it needed to promote the busy activity of the many birds and insects in their garden at dawn and dusk. Ram called it a swamp, but in the end, she came up with the simplest one of all: home. And here, in 1972, she gave birth to their only child.

“What do we name her?”

“Swarnalata,” Ram replied. When Maya blinked, surprised at how certain he was, he said, “I thought about it for a long-long time.”

“I love it.” Maya smiled bright and happy.

With ‘swarna’ meaning gold, Ram gave his darling baby the nickname, Goldie-Goldie. It was only a matter of time before she became Gigi.

Having inherited Maya’s grace and Ram’s love for the outdoors, the carefree child basked in her father’s love. Her ferocious temper was placated whenever Ram told her one of his fanciful tales. In them, the protagonist traversed huge plains and deserts. Sometimes, he was trapped in dark and lonely caves with nothing more than a candle to light his path. Always, he struck bargains with Malayan Tigers, tapirs, pygmy elephants or the odd proboscis monkey to let him go so that he could fulfil a promise made to a little girl with golden hair to be home for her dinner.

Dinner proper with Gigi, however, was often fraught with tension.

“Eat, don’t waste,” Maya pleaded daily. “Think of the millions

in India starving,” she would add, knowing it made absolutely no dent in her child’s deliberate resolve not to finish her meal.

Maya was aware that when she turned her back, her husband and daughter rolled their eyes in solidarity.

Nonetheless, through the years, there were surprise parties to celebrate birthdays, holidays, ceremonies, and all events associated with joy. The happiest one, by far, was the day Gigi married her sweetheart from law school in Singapore. By then, Ram and Maya, having saved enough money, owned the only home they had ever known outright. Preparing for the traditional Tamil wedding, Maya had old saris draped over the branches of the full-grown angsana tree to temper the glare from the spotlight directed at the marriage dais. Cooks they hired were taught to use yogurt as a meat tenderizer before adding the cuts of mutton and chicken to the biryani. “You wait and see how the meat falls off the bone,” she told the head cook.

Ram leaned on his many contacts to ensure that there was a steady supply of thani so that his friends were suitably sloshed throughout the celebrations.

There were no celebrations four years later, though, when Gigi filed for a divorce. She had chanced upon her husband and his secretary trading sexual favors in his swanky office in Singapore’s Central Business District.

Maya traveled to Singapore to help Gigi pack her things. In those thirty days together, during quiet moments when they accidentally made eye contact and their collective sadness threatened to spill over, both hurried to the kitchen to prepare something to eat or drink. By the time Maya returned to her husband’s side a month later, she was an expert on the kind of boxes, glue, and bubble wrap removal companies used. And

Gigi was well on her way to becoming one of the foremost corporate lawyers in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur.

“Maya-Maya, why have you refused so many invitations for parties in these last few years?” Relaxing on their bed for the siesta, Maya turned her head, ever so slightly, away from him.

“What’s the use? I’ll look at all those babies and know that I’ll never be a grandmother. Everyone will blame me.”

“Blame?” Ram whispered the word.

“I failed as a mother. My daughter inherited this failure.”

Unable to meet her husband’s gaze, Maya did not see the look on his face. *** A year later, Maya stepped out onto the veranda expecting to see Ram. He’d gone to buy some Hokkien Mee because it was her lazy day when she didn’t cook and allowed food from outside to be brought home. Instead, two policemen — one lanky and the other squat — stood in front of her. Officious and clinical, they seemingly focused on their shoes when they said that Ram was hit by a taxi and died on the spot. The accident happened on the main road. The squat one handed over two packets of noodles and they left.

In the kitchen, Maya blanched the noodles in boiling water, tossed them into a ceramic bowl, and stirred in the condiments and sauce. She carried the bowl back to the veranda, sat in Ram’s planter’s chair and ate every morsel.

It was bad to waste food. Think of the millions starving in India.

Three months after Ram’s death, when Maya arranged to prune the branches of the angsana tree, Gigi picked up a big

fuss halfway because Maya was “getting rid of Papa’s tree.”

Maya relented and, henceforth, the house was identified as the one with a tree that had branches growing only on one side. A month later, Gigi abandoned a meeting and flew back to Penang, as though she’d been summoned for a medical emergency. Instead, she spent three days rearranging a bundle of ‘Crocodile’ brand long-sleeved shirts, cotton undershirts, and new sarongs in Ram’s almirah. Maya had made the mistake of telling her that she wanted to donate them to an orphanage. A year later, Maya said a prayer before she ventured to discuss the arrangements to commemorate the first anniversary of Ram’s death. Maya wanted it to be postponed by three days to a weekend so that relatives could attend.

“Who cares if they come or not?” Gigi commented in a frosty tone “They never came when he was alive. You think they will come now? No need.” The ceremony was held on a Thursday with only Maya, Gigi, the priest and his little helper in attendance.

“You’re so far, Mama. Who’s going to look after you if anything happens?” Gigi asked Maya two years later, during one of her fleeting trips to Penang.

What was this? A show of concern?

Maya couldn’t believe it. Perhaps, this could be the start of a new kind of relationship between them.

“You can’t expect me to leave everything and come running each time, you know.”

Then again, maybe not.

A week later, Maya opened her front door to welcome

Salomé. Gigi had arranged for the rotund woman to stay with her, as though Maya was incapable of managing her own home.

Could it be an indirect slight at how little money Maya now had, with having to organize her finances around a governmentfunded widow’s pension? No. Instead, it was her daughter’s way of showing she cared for her. At least that’s what Maya told herself for her own peace of mind. Still, it was a task to remember to say, “Thank you,” each time Salomé completed a task to her satisfaction. That was, until the Gods (for Maya was sure they alone were responsible) conspired to show her that the one whose presence she saw as an unnecessary extravagance, became a necessity for the preservation of her increasingly solitary life. *** “Help me!”

Maya wanted to reach out her hand to Salomé’s, but couldn’t lift it. No words came out of her mouth, either. Instead, she felt her world becoming darker.

Thud!

Maya heard the shuffle of feet and saw Salomé’s feet before everything went completely black.

When she opened her eyes, she was looking up at a fluorescent tube light.

“Mama. You’re awake.”

Maya turned her head to look into Gigi’s eyes. In her daughter’s voice, she’d heard something other than the usual

irritation. In her daughter’s eyes, she couldn’t decide if what she saw was fear, desperation, or concern. It could have even been love.

“How long has it been?” Maya whispered.

“Ah! You’ve been asleep for three days,” Gigi said. She then explained that when Maya collapsed from her stroke, Salomé had telephoned her at once. Gigi immediately arranged for an ambulance to be despatched. Mercifully, Maya had responded to treatment and was now well on the road to recovery.

Upon her discharge from hospital, Maya was transferred to a new, state-of-the-art rehabilitation facility in Kuala Lumpur whereupon her every need was seen to. Meanwhile, it was three months before Maya understood the gravity of all the ‘arrangements’ that Gigi promised she was making for her. On a sunny morning, the ambulance dropped off Maya at Gigi’s condominium complex.

“Mama, this is the best option,” Gigi said when she entered Maya’s windowless room to say goodnight after the temporary night nurse left. “And I’ll be close. My condo is next door. I bought this one specially for you. Renovated it also. This room is supposed to be the best according to feng shui. Problem solved. Don’t you think so?”

Maya’s silence was misunderstood as acquiescence of Gigi’s unilateral decision. “Great!” Gigi said and kissed her mother on her forehead before leaving the room.

Maya tugged at the ends of the pillow case in sheer frustration until there was a small rip in one corner.

A problem solved?

Maya had to get better.

Still, she was powerless to stop that gossamer blanket covering her being. It was a feeling replete with ensuing detachment from all she’d known for decades. It was unlikely that she’d go back to her life in Penang. *** Why was her astral plane never dark, dingy, cold and miserable?

Instead, Maya always walked into a sun-drenched garden.

Drawn to the small pond in the middle of the garden, she studied her reflection in the clear water. Her hair was thick, unbound and silky, and the hands on her skin smooth.

Suddenly, a mob of men in white kurta-pyjamas crowded around her. Each had gold flecks in his irises. “Go back!” they would say in unison. Whenever they lifted their hands, as though to hit her, she fled.

Maya rubbed the grit in the corner of her eyes before opening them.

The shrill ringing of the telephone startled her. It rang another five times before she was able to answer the call.

“Where are you, Mama? Why no answer? I thought something happened to you.”

There it was — that concern in her daughter’s voice. It was that husky tone, the same one she inherited from Ram.

“Don’t forget, Mama. Today is the day for the vaccine, yes?”

Maya’s eyes widened in disbelief. She’d forgotten.

“I can’t come. The government only allows two passengers in the car. Salomé will follow. Okay?”

“Yes, yes,” Maya said, a little breathless, pushing her elbows into the mattress and raising her body a little.

“I have to go. My assistants are in front of me, waiting,” Gigi responded and Maya exhaled deeply, releasing some tension in her body. Then, she heard the words her daughter said, seemingly to someone else: “She’s such a burden. Like she’s got dementia, I tell you.”

Maya held her breath. She wanted to say, “Go away, child. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Only, Gigi had already ended the call.

Maya threw the phone’s receiver aside. She closed her eyes.

The words reverberated in her mind: Get better and you can go home to Penang.

An hour later, having stood under the hot shower for what seemed like ages, her body felt supple. She secured her hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck and lined her eyes with a charcoal face mask.

“Salomé?” Maya called out once she heard her footsteps in the hallway.

When there was no answer, she walked into the kitchen and saw that the woman was hunched over the table. When she looked up, Maya said, “Salomé, I called the taxi. I’m going to get the vaccine. I’ll wait outside, OK?”

Salomé’s eyes widened. As comprehension dawned, she started to apologize, but Maya interrupted, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s OK. You don’t need to worry. Just rest.”

“OK, Madame…sorry again,” Salomé replied, sitting down.

There was hardly anyone at the taxi stand outside the condominium complex. Maya lifted her head to the sky and felt the heat of the mid-morning sun on her face. She inhaled deeply, placed a palm on her chest and whispered, “Please dear God, forgive my baby. I know her. She works to hide her pain and that awful thing she said was from a place of pain. Please bring her someone who will make her happy again. I want to hear her laugh just one more time…”

Suddenly, she heard a voice that sounded familiar. Softly at first, then becoming louder by the second. Maya lowered her face and opened her eyes. He was there, on the opposite side of the road. Dressed in a white kurta-pyjama, Ram’s smile was as dazzling as the dancing flecks of gold in his eyes. The only thing she heard him say over and over again when he opened his arms was, “Come home, Maya-Maya my illusion. Come home.”

Maya ran to her husband and right into the path of a speeding taxi.

"My Beautiful Illusion" won first prize for the 2022 H. E. Bates Short Story Prize organized by the Northampton Writers’ Group

in one breath I am in old California beside the train I am tired of taking between flowers that grow in undeserving places and the smell of ground coffee beans, this is all a dance inside of me; the dream is no longer filling what is lacking, but sitting with everything being given freely in the lightness of being restored.

Each song on this playlist was carefully selected to represent a different part of dreams. See if you can fill in each blank using the hints provided. The first person to email the correct answers to kcbthemag@gmail.com with a paragraph about what they liked about this issue will win a prize in the mail!

Malibu Sleep by Col3trane

d_z_ / __f

Born Tired by Jhené Aiko

s_e___

Dreams by Fleetwood Mac

_r__m / _n

Turn Off the Light by Nelly Furtado

l___t_ / o__

In My Dreams by Kali Uchis

_re__ms___e

Day 'n' Nite by Kid Cudi

l_n__

Sweet Dreams be Beyoncé

n___t___e

Aquel Nap ZzZz by Rauw Alejandro Moonlight by Trippie Redd Love to Dream by Doja Cat Imagine by John Lennon

s_e__a _oo___g__ __z_ _m___n_

Elizabeth Corrall is a self-taught artist specializing in self-portraiture and collage. Within her work, Elizabeth strives to create strong, yet beautifully eye-catching works, by allowing the strange and unusual to combine with aesthetics of traditional beauty and storytelling. As a sufferer of Crohn’s disease, they strive to create work that is an escape from reality and the anxieties that come with it. Her love of color and bold perspective on creating provides a clean and joyful middle ground between the garish and the beautiful.

Ben Covey is a prose writer, poet, and aspiring game developer currently based in Illinois. His work has appeared in The Dawn Review, Chinchilla Lit, JAKE, and in print in Open Field and a variety of small-press anthologies. When he is not writing, he is rooting around in the soil for grub like a feral hog. More from him is available at DigitalMudscape.com or at @Mudscape on Twitter.

Rimi is the author of three novels: Signal Red (Penguin India 2005), The City of Love (Penguin India 2007) nominated for the Crossword Book Award 2006 (India’s Booker) in 2006, and Black Light (Harper Collins India 2010). The first two are free to read on https://jadavpur.academia.edu/RimiBChatterjee. She is currently working on a utopian project called the Antisense Universe.

William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. He has taught at several colleges and universities. His most recent book of poetry is Dogs Don’t Care(2022). His essays, poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared in various journals.

Ilana Drake is 19 years old and is a sophomore at Vanderbilt University. She is a student activist and writer, and she was appointed to be a 2022-2023 Global Goals Ambassador by the United Nations. Ilana's work has appeared in Ms. Magazine, PBS NewsHour, and The Tennessean. Her poetry has been seen in multiple magazines including Bright Lite, Flare Journal, and Same Faces Collective among others (https://ilanadrake.wixsite.com/mysite/projects). When she is not writing, she can be found listening to '90s country songs, researching used book shops, and promoting inclusion.

Sunset Freeway (Madi ARTeaga) is a female artist, Master’s student, and a SPED teacher aide. The artwork she creates demonstrates individual empowerment, mindfulness, and the beauty of the universe. You may purchase prints on her Etsy shop, one Etsy customer gets picked each week to receive a free gift. Stay up to date on Instagram if you feel called to, @sunsetfreeway.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Washington Square Review and Floyd County Moonshine. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are

available on Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings.

Erin Halligan is a nineteen year old visual artist & writer based in Chicago. She often spends her time with her dog, exploring new hobbies or consuming as much art as humanly possible. She hopes to travel the world one day and write all about it.

Stephanie Holden (she/they) is a Halloween-loving queer living in New Orleans, Louisiana. She writes about love, trauma, gore, and the self. Her interests are fantasy books, body modification, and the South. Find her work at or forthcoming in Martello Journal, Cloves, Soft Star Magazine, Diet Water, The B’K, Hearth & Coffin, Bullshit Lit, Colossus, The Journal of the Wooden O, The Kennesaw Tower, and BEST SERVED COLD, or her narcissistic tweets at @smhxlden.

Gale is a writer from Atlanta, Georgia where she lives with herhusband, Fred, and chihuahua, Berwyn. She graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2016 with a BFA in writing, and has since been published in 805 Lit + Art Magazine.

cory joseph is a California native currently residing in Oakland, California. He explores the vastness of human experience through multiple forms of the written craft, in hopes for a deeper understanding. His poetry has been featured in community zines and he has

written and self-released an EP Winter's Season (2014) and LP Tepid Dreams (2016) under the moniker Flowers on the Fence, with two songs appearing in the film One of the Good Ones (2019).

Jay Kennedy is a New Zealand born illustrator who enjoys creating cartoony, stylized drawings that often have a central character focus. His art takes inspiration from the people around him while incorporating elements of cartoon to make the design more fun and fantasy-driven.

Most of his art is created digitally on an iPad, which allows for greater freedom in adjusting the composition and colors used in each piece. You might recognize his work from Issue 000: Genesis or the front and back covers of Issue 001: Finding Joy. Follow him on Instagram @jk_inc to enjoy the rest of his creations.

Kathryne is a writer from New York City. She's been published in Harness Magazine and on Medium. You can follow her writing on Instagram at @katharynepoetry.

Born and raised in the mountains of Northern California by his “back to the land” parents. Daniel is a regenerative farmer, author, and father of three. You can follow him on Twitter @theheartrockpoet or Instagram @heartrocks_for_peace.

Zach Murphy is a Hawaii-born writer with a background in cinema. His stories appear in Reed Magazine, Still Point Arts Quarterly, The Coachella Review, B O D Y, MoonPark Review, and Flash: The International Short-Short Story

Magazine. His chapbooks, Tiny Universes (Selcouth Station Press, 2021) and If We Keep Moving (Ghost City Press, 2022), are available in paperback and ebook. He lives with his wonderful wife, Kelly, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

D.C. Nobes is a scientist who spent the first half of his life in or near Toronto, Canada, then 23 years based in Christchurch, New Zealand, four years in China, and has now retired to Bali. He used to enjoy winter, but admits that he doesn’t miss the snow or the cold.

Ziqr is in high school and getting through life — one em dash at a time. They are the designated text drafter of their friend group. Their works have appeared in places like 3ofCups, VFM and others.

Alex Price is a Primary Teacher and father of two, living in St Helens, England. He has a degree in creative writing from LJMU and writes poetry and short stories inspired by the world around him.

Ruthenium (they/them) is a nonbinary artist currently living in the state of uncertainty. They believe creativity is real-life magic, and are obsessed with texture, context, light, and the question “what if?...”

Their art has been published in Rabble Review, Celestite Poetry, Vulnerary Magazine, Messy Misfits Magazine, and Warning Lines Literary, among other magical places. Their various presences and publications can be found at https://linktr.ee/Ruthenium.

A collaboration of three women, SOUM (Screams of Unfettered Minds) prefer their art and poetry to speak or them. This newly-formed trio describe their style as raw, unfiltered, unpolished, tongue-in-cheek, funapologetic, born from years of shadow-work. They are currently riding high on the acceptance of their work with @Heroin_Chick_Mag and @coalitionworks.

Nick Stew is a Houston-based Buffalo-native. He earned a B.A. in Architecture from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and pursued his interest in theatre arts through an MFA in acting. He utilizes his discipline in studio art and design to inspire his love for film, movement, and the stage. You can keep up with him @ickstizzy on Instagram.

Once upon a time, Aneeta Sundararaj created a website and called it ‘How to Tell a Great Story’. She has contributed feature articles to a national newspaper and also various journals, magazines and ezines. Aneeta’s bestselling novel, ‘The Age of Smiling Secrets’ was shortlisted for the Book Award 2020 organised by the National Library of Malaysia. Throughout, Aneeta continued to pursue her academic interests and, in 2021, successfully completed a doctoral thesis entitled ‘Management of Prosperity Among Artistes in Malaysia’. Her Twitter handle is: https://twitter.com/httags.

I can't believe we did it again, and it's all thanks to God. From crafting a submission, to reading every one, to designing and promoting them — our creativity is divinely guided, and for that I will never leave Your side.

But while I'm honored to have curated this marvelous issue, it wouldn't exist without my loyal contributors and readers; you keep this community going and I am so grateful for y'all. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Now who's ready for Issue 003?

Want your work in the next issue?

Read more about writing, creating, or working with KCB the mag at www.kcbthemag.com and stay tuned for Issue 003 updates on Instagram and Twitter:

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