Legends - Issue 3 by WriteTheCity

issue #3 autumn 2018

Write The Cit y LEGENDS

ÂŠ 2018, Write the City Mag All content in this publication may not be copied or republished without written consent. Copyrights of individualsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; work are held by the relevant author and requests for reproduction should be made to them

Introduction

When we chose the theme of this third issue of Write the City, the word legends struck us for its power as well as for its multiple meanings. We all knew there was something irresistible about this term and were keen to see what authors would have made out of it. For what are legends after all? A legend is a story concerning people, places, events. It’s something that can be told or heard, created or denied, found or lost, narrated by word of mouth or written down. Some legends belong to a whole continent while others are important to shape the identity of countries, tribes, cities, local communities. What matters the most is that legends are at the same time a personal and a collective affair and, as such, their importance in explaining who we are can’t be underestimated. It’s no coincidence that we call “legends” people who did or made something extraordinary and whose actions or stories shall be remembered in times to come. The variety of poems, short stories, drawings, and photos we selected for this issue and that we hereby present to our readers reflects this wide array of possibilities. Texts and artworks by authors coming from the four corners of the world who have been inspired by legends and whose works help bringing new meanings to this fascinating term. Enjoy them as much as we did.

Lorenzo Berardi

8-14

Jakob Czarnecki

36-38 Ola Syudim

A River Night’s Dream (Excerpt) 16-18

Praise Kpemeshi Igenuma

Deities of Love 20-22 Yusuf GazBee Kamara

Untold Stories 24-28 Ramon Mortensen

The Island of Mnemosyne 30-34 Stella Andrada

Kasdovasili

Βοηθητικά ρήματα (Greek) Auxiliary Verbs (English)

Syrenka 39-40

Valerio Gaglione Pablo Picasso

42-44 M. V. Téllez

Frogeo et Fugliet 46-52 Andrea Briani

Sonic Attacks 54-56 Fassal Thayakath

Untitled 58-60 Foday Sillah

Legends of Africa

62-64 Nikita Khellat

84-86

Cleffy Ibrahim Sorie

Borderland

Bangra

66-70 Nick Sweeney

My Legend

In Herzegovina Near the Town of

88-90 Wilfred Derosemi Cole

Gorjad 72-74

Mitchell Atkinson III

Legends On My Mind 92-94 Mozis Rozis

Nowy Świat 76-78

Wongoon Cha

Świętokrzyska 16 80-82 Roberto Reale

The Náměstí

Last Leg End 96100

Luis Javier Guillén Ruiz

Texto escrito en el muro norte de la Torre de las Infantas de la Alhambra (Spanish) Text written on the northern wall of Alhambra’s Tower of the Infantas (English)

Jakob Czarnecki

Born and raised in Germany to and by Polish parents. He spent the last seven years in Warsaw and is currently living on the run.

A River Night’s Dream (Excerpt) 9

The sun had just set over the palace, in the very heart of the kingdom, which was to the West of Jagniew. He was on the East side of the river in Parugah. After lunch he had developed a nagging need for a walk and had gone to the Cloud, a pub with books and games in the same neighborhood. A long walk it was. A lonely walk through the cloudy city, over a saggy stone bridge to the other side. It had been empty so far; and since he didn’t know any of the few people there, he read. The other guests played cards, drank, and talked little, with monosyllabic grunts being the intellectual highlights of their conversations. “What time is it?” Jagniew said silently to the bartender, in order to not disturb the generally quiet tone of the pub. “Around eight,” was the response. “When do you close?” “Soon.” “Anything happening down at the river

tonight?” “I doubt it. Marzanna’s having herself an early entrance this year.” “She’s early to the dance, huh?” “Seems like it.” “Bitch ain’t gonna get my nipples hard. One for the road then. Thank you.” He got no more than a nod and an icecold glass. He downed his forty, put a coin on the counter, and left the Cloud, forgetting his change. Knowing he would most likely find no one and nothing down at the river, he decided to go regardless of logic and likelihood. It was of no concern to him. He walked down the streets of Parugah, encapsulated by high tenement houses made of massive grey-beige, sometimes white, sometimes naked red bricks. The walls of the houses were still in terrible shape, even eighty years after the onslaught. Few people were roaming the streets at this hour on a Sun-

day. Some teen-aged mischievous ne’erdo-wells were loitering on the corners of some irrelevant streets, elderly people with dogs, though very few, and some suspiciously expensive automobiles passed, their tyres and bodywork squeaking in the most unnatural of sounds. The buzzing of their engines was oddly calming in the distance. After he had made his way to the closest bridge, he took the stone stairs down to the road parallel to the river and crossed it. As the bartender had predicted, the beach was empty. All that was left, was cold sand and glass bottles. Bottles in the sand were the official white flag after every summer lost. Darkness had by then enveloped the beach entirely and the only source of light hung tauntingly in the heavens. He sat down on a big log next to an extinguished bonfire. The ashes were being pushed around by the river breeze, landing on his light cotton pants. The night was still, except for the occasional tram cart romping over the bridge to his left. The moonlit view of the imposing palaces and other governmental buildings was astonishing from this side of the river. Rebuilding the kingdom after the Great War was an incredible feat, as the oppressor’s plan was to flatten the city in its entirety. It truly was an incredible achievement, considering that the oppressor did almost succeed. Historians estimated that around ninety-five percent of the buildings, which had towered the city before the Great War, were completely destroyed, literally flattened, torn to the very ground the people of Syrewarnia still walked to that day. The oppressor was determined to erase Syrewarnia, not only breaking the Syrewarnian spirit by murder, rape, and the theft of priceless artefacts, but quite literally erase every single living or nonliving trace of a noble

culture. But the people arose, fought, died, and who miraculously stayed alive rebuilt. And so they rose again, hand in hand, inch by inch, with the bricks they laid. The city of the Phoenix was reborn. Across the river, one of the many statues of the kingdom’s patron Mermaid caught his eye. It was one of the smaller ones and seemed inapt, considering the Mermaid’s importance for the people of Syrewarnia. The legend of the Mermaid tells the story of three fishermen, who resided in a small hamlet built by the gentle Vizensis river over a thousand years ago, before the time of the one true god. A time, in which people worshipped the rivers, the seas, the woods, the fields, the sun, and the moon, and all earthly creatures. They believed in what they saw. Faith was what fed one. One day, though, the river fed the three fishermen a most unlikely creature, a beautiful Mermaid, which got tangled up in their nets. Assuming that her capture must be a gross misunderstanding, she asked them politely to untie the net and let her free. The three men were shocked to hear her speak in human tongue and kept silent for a while, as they gazed upon her infectious beauty. Suddenly one of them asked: “I can see that your beauty may very well be enchanting. How do we know you are not tricking us?”. “Have I ever harmed you before?” she responded calmly. The three fishermen did not dare to answer, as they knew they had never met her, or any such creature, before. Only old tales told of the ancient creatures. She continued: “You are right that my beauty is enchanting, but I do not use it to harm your people. I am a mere part of the cycle, as are you.” “And what exactly is your so called part in the cycle?” the second fisherman demand-

ed boldly. “I bring you the fish you feed on, when you are hungry. I keep the river pure, so you may drink from it, when you are thirsty. And I fend off the Nixies with my sword and shield, when you are in need of protection.” Two of the fishermen looked at each other in disbelief. The third one smiled at her and said: “I believe you. I believe you like I believe in the sun above us, the sea beneath us, and our fellow men beside us.” The two men still weren’t convinced, but the third took his knife and cut the net into pieces without hurting the Mermaid. “If you are who you say you are I trust that we will not need these tomorrow.”, he said, pointing at the shreds of rope, the remains of the fisherman’s net, in the water. She thanked him and dove back into her habitat. The next morning, when the fishermen returned to the river, they found hundreds and hundreds of fish and their old fishing net, not in pieces but as a whole, washedup ashore. The three fishermen spread the word with glee and life went on for several centuries, splendid and unchanged. Until the faith of the one true god entered these lands. One king, who is now considered the forefather of our very nation, was a devoted believer in the One, Unos. Enraged by the fact that there were still ‘savages’, who believed in the cycle, he demanded to seek out the Mermaid and decapitate her in front of the eyes of the people. He opposed everyone and everything that represented the partition of life. In his mind, Unos was the Great Creator, the One, the Only. He ordered his best men to find the Mermaid and to ensure that she would understand the gravity of her situation, he joined his men on the hunt. Their faces were fierce, but grew ever more

tired, for they searched long and hard for the Mermaid. The day they found her she was tangled again in one of their hundreds of nets spread across the river. The king spoke commandingly, “Do you believe in Unos?” “I do,” she answered. “So you admit to your wrongdoings, your savage beliefs, do you not?” the king enquired. “I do not,” she said. “So, be prepared to die by the righteous hand of Unos!” he shouted. A multitude of spears and arrows whizzed through the air towards her crooked body tangled in the net. Death seemed inevitable, but she withdrew her shield, covered herself, and listened patiently to the cracking of broken spears and arrows. She withdrew her sword and cut through the nets of the kingsmen. The king and his men gazed upon her beautiful face and her strong body in amazement and fear. “I will leave you. And if I return, I will be armed to protect you from a threat you are incapable of fighting off by yourselves.” Since that day, after her departure, the river was black, a pungent smell protruding from its water bubbles, there were no fish to be found, and the Nixies infested the river banks during summer and the dark alleys of the city center during winter. As the people gave life to the ruins of a once enchanting city, a city that became enchanting once more, the river birthed the patron Mermaid once more, that very night, when Jagniew was sitting alone by the river, mourning another lost summer. She floated gallantly out of the water, her long auburn hair dripping onto the cold sand on the little stretch of beach, where the people celebrated day in and day out during summer. Her fins morphed into long slender scaly legs, which gave the

impression she was wearing thick tights. As she moved closer, however, Jagniew goggled up and down at her and realized there was a small partition in between her thighs. She was naked and stood silently above him in her hourglass-shaped perfection. Her breasts were not too big, but perky and, as he imagined, very firm, and covered sparingly by long strings of her thick, luscious hair, leaving her delicately-protruding nipples exposed and erect from the cold. The moonshine illuminated her silhouette, surrounding her with a white-gleaming aura, so it seemed. Jagniew was lost for words. Her beauty was indescribable, even incomprehensible without the use of language as a means of description, the amalgamation of everything that makes the world a wondrous place. All of Earth’s peoples flowed together seamlessly in the jaunty confluence that was her face. Foreign, but familiar, she was the confluence and the source of the river. “Alone or lonesome?”, the scaly beauty asked. “Alone, I guess.” “Not any longer, it seems,” she said smiling. He said nothing and stared. “How are you feeling?” she asked. “Drunk...for the most part.” She laughed and added: “And in that drunkenness, do you feel anything else?” “Not so much. But that’s kind of a given, right? I mean, it’s a depressant, after all. It depresses the central nervous system,” he chuckled. “Would you mind if I had a seat?” He closed and opened his eyes abruptly shaking his head. She sat down next to him, her wet shoulder touching his navy coat. A shiver down his spine. “Syrewarnia has grown quite a bit, since I’ve last been here,” she said, “I used to love these lands, you know?”

“I can see, why you don’t anymore,” he said.

“Yes...indeed. But no...my heart is still with you.” “Why didn’t you come...last time we needed you?” “Because you didn’t.” “The genocide of two and a half million people wasn’t reason enough?” “It wasn’t.” “What about the countless times we were savagely occupied and conquered by the oppressors from the West and the East? When our land was taken, our tongue was taken, our lives were mere firewood for the cozy winter ovens of the castles and fortresses of Western and Eastern lords. Was that not reason enough?” “It wasn’t,” she said solemnly and continued, “It wasn’t mine then anymore. It hadn’t been for hundreds of years already.” Jagniew looked at her, with tears dwelling in the corners of his eyes, as his stern gaze prevailed. “These lands were ruled by the believers of Unos then. There was no love for me here,” she paused for long, indignantly: “Do you believe in unconditional love?” “I don’t. I’m as far from believing in unconditional love as you are from holding true to your word.” “I had assumed you’d be somewhat more idealistic considering your age.” “I’m very mature for my age,” a sly grin

snuck up between his frown of a forehead and his stubbly chin. “Mature, cynical, yes, I guess we could equate these concepts for the sake of holding up this conversation,” she said. “Do you?” he asked her half interested, half out of mere pro forma, “Do you believe in unconditional love?” “I did. For certain. I am not sure if I still do. You know, time has one of those funny qualities. The more of it passes, the less certainty you have in absolutes. The more you see of life over time, the more you’re convinced it leaves you blind. The closer you examine the face of god, the more smudged the picture becomes.” “Unos! Time must’ve passed me on express train.”

“Are you a believer of his?” “No, just an expression.” “I once loved a man very deeply and earnestly… unconditionally for the time being.” And so the mermaid began her tale, “He was a stag of a man. A physique unattainable by training, practice or hard manual labour. It was the gods’. Broad-shouldered and beautiful, with an enormous, untamable head of long hair. His large, watchful posture did not give any indication of his coyness. But I saw it, I saw right through it, a troubled, but thoughtful man, whose - ”, she paused, “ - Whose sole being was a lack of understanding. With all the possibilities at hand, he never saw anything that would resemble finality, a moment’s rest, a place to lay his head and just savor

the splendor that was bestowed upon him. I offered him my lap to lay himself to rest, just for a while. And he did. And his understanding was born. He knew that rhyme or reason were no questions that the cycle could ever answer. But at that moment it didn’t matter anymore. He learned how to cherish being. His family, however, did not accept my kind, eventually leading to him being forced to marry another woman. Yet our love was still unconditional and in fact greater than ever, as I bore him a beautiful son. A child born in spring. The blossom of my loins and the blessing of the gods. When I left the kingdom, I left him behind as a token of my gratitude for these lands and their native people.” Dark silence and a cold breeze, accentuated by her glimmering moonlit scales. “I must leave, now. But I will return. Good bye.” “Good bye. Considering your track record I don’t think your return will be any of my concerns,” he smiled insolently. And so she vanished into the black waters of the Vizensis river again, leaving Jagniew feeling utterly abandoned with only one question on his mind. Where are my friends?

Praise Kpemeshi Igenuma

He is a poet from Nigeria, born on May 22, 2000 and is currently studying English and Literature in the University of Benin. His aspiration is to make people happy.

Deities of Love

She was at first a critic, She mocked and judged people that died for the sake of love, But now, she’s the one we see hanging dead from a tree. Has the day over lived that you created your own night? He died, why weren’t you strong enough to live? I should be judging her now, I should be asking her questions, But, before a fool dies, let wisdom give him a chance to be wise. Should her grieve grow as she waters it with the tears from her eyes? Should days watch her live forever in her shadow? Her mind roved only about her lover; Her morning wishes for his return, And her night knows her heart strongly lingers for death. She found love and it slipped to the grave. If she could, she would have lived on, But she said her life was in death. She has chosen love over life, Who am I to judge? These people are the map of love, follow them, All those who want fulfillment of the heart. We have betrayed love enough, Turn it the right way and see the real picture. These people are deities of love, Let’s all bow and worship!

Yusuf GazBee Kamara

GazBee is a Sierra Leonean poet, a filmmaker and rap artist. He was born in 1992 in the northern province, and now lives in the capital, Freetown, where he also works. He dropped out of school and lived for many years on the streets doing barbing as a means of survival. He now regularly competes in online rap battles. His poetry reflects his love of streets music and oral storytelling traditions.

Untold Stories

As certain things are best unsaid so numerous real stories about nature are left untold Presenting distracted stories to the world, with which i disagree now fascinates the minds of innocent souls to the highest degree Actual true stories are instructed to be left unsaid whiles false stories are scattered as the Jews were dispersed. Now the world is totally confused by masterminds those responsible educationists conceal pretenders But i and them plus me and them know the original stories are told by cognate legends living behind spurious stories in a row. Now questions are being thrown like stones seeking the true story of nature But yet, still no accurate answers to those questions instead they reply with worldly materials. Now our minds, bodies and souls have been captured by technologies driving us off track from knowing the true story which have been secrete and still secrete from us. So we continue to be in a dark world Like a prisoner looking at his cell wall who knows little, or nothing about the real world. These ideas were passed on to them

by their lying legendries for them to keep the untold stories secrete. It forces them to act as philanthropists in fake presence they keep blind, fooling the fools bringing flashy materials to act as distractions. And we are amazed by their purposeful designed stories passing through some holy books deceiving half the world population in some house of worship with fixed concepts built on religious peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s minds about their sacred books of adoration making them believe and be content with what they have been taught and spoon-fed. They make those books so terrifying itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a game played by our first legends to have things their own way, to take advantage to impose their culture and traditions on all and sundry Hindering us from knowing the untold stories.

Ramon Mortensen

He was born in 1983 in the Netherlands and is currently living in Budapest where he works as a copywriter, translator and language teacher. He also performs as an improvised story/fairytale teller and he writes short stories and poetry.

The Island of Mnemosyne 25

He first felt the wet sand sticking under his hands and cheeks. The sea behind him kept on washing up and pulling back as he opened his eyes, as if she wanted to tell him that it was her who brought him there. Where there was he didn’t know, who he was neither. As he tilted his head he saw bars and restaurants, their tables outside with chairs stacked on top of them. Wooden boats in the harbour gently rocking on the waves. He looked at himself. He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt with a print of a bright yellow smiling sun on it. His Converse sneakers had a few holes in them but other than that everything was in good shape. As if he got dressed that morning and decided to have a swim while fully dressed. Everywhere around him, as far as he could see there were footprints in the wet sand, all going in the direction of the concrete slope that went up to the boulevard. The sea water that filled them glistened from the early

evening sunrays. As he looked over the horizon that had spat him out, he saw nothing in the distance but the sea and sand brown hills full of green olive trees that were like stubbles on a poorly shaven skin. He did not know where he was, yet he did not feel lost. Somehow he knew that this was where he was supposed to be. From the distance he saw a silhouette approaching. It appeared to be a man who was staggering towards him. The boy sat up and wiped the sand of his cheeks and clothes. His hands felt smooth and the features of his face soft and silky. He couldn’t find any signs of a life that had somehow marked or scarred him. “Ah, the new arrival,” said the man as he squatted down at the boy. He had a beard but not the fashionable kind. The type that grew when someone simply gave up on shaving. He noticed a strong smell of alcohol under his breath. He wore jeans and

a stuffed coat with a faded F.C. Barcelona logo on it. “You’re a young one...Well, younger than me at least.” The man laughed and stood up. He stared over the sea with his eyes squeezed tight. “At least you brought nice weather. That means you must be one of the good ones.” The man offered his hand. “I’m Marcus by the way and welcome to the island.” The boy wiped his hands over his shorts and then hesitated for a second. “Ah, don’t worry,” said Marcus, “Nobody here knows their name when they have just arrived. You will find out everything soon enough, but now we have to move. It’s getting dark soon.” As they walked up, Marcus rubbed his thumb over the palm of his hand. The bars and restaurants all had their names carved in wood or in neon light on their facades. Through the windows the boy could see some people sitting inside, wearing hats and playing cards under orange light. As if they were part of an exhibition in a museum that hadn’t had visitors for so long that the pieces forgot that they were art. Nobody cared enough to turn off the lights. “We have to go up here,” said Marcus. The boy looked at the street ahead of them. It was a cobblestoned path, twirling between pastel coloured houses and shops. All of them had balconies with pots full of Madonna flowers. Their bright white peddles shining almost silvery in the sunlight. On a platform by the side of the road he noticed a graveyard between dusty sand and weeds. There were only a few crosses and the faces on them all looked somehow similar. “Where are we going?” asked the boy.

Marcus looked at him and smiled. “Well, first we need to get to the bar. I need a drink. I really, really need a drink. Besides, we have a few moments to spare before it gets dark.” A boy on a scooter drove past them. The sound seemed to be growling at them, telling them to go away while it fled around the corner. Black smoke followed it. The boy hadn’t been able to make out the face of the driver. As if it was just a floating dot without clear lines. “That thing is driving me nuts. Everyone. It just keeps on coming, racing through nice moments and memories. Nobody knows why it’s here. It seems to be created to be hated.” Marcus had an angry look on his face, his lips were tightened. The boy didn’t mind it so much. He was just curious about the bar. About what this place was. He looked inside the window of a shop. The name of it was stuck to the glass in faded red and yellow stickers. Some of the letters were missing. As he looked inside he saw a rack of postcards with pictures of people smiling, laying on a beach and holding up glasses. They all had a yellow glow over them. ‘Who are the people in the pictures?’ the boy asked. Marcus stood next to him. His reflection was in the window glass with holes in it that showed the interior of the shop. As if it was the last contours of a painting shining through a work that the artist had painted over it. “Nobody really knows,” he said, “They are just a memory that everybody who comes to a place like this sort of shares.” Marcus looked up. The sunrays were fading between the mountains that lay on the horizon, as if the sun held on to their tops but slowly started to lose its grip. “We really need to go now,” said Marcus.

“There won’t be a place for me here much longer.” The boy noticed how all the people on the street started to move inside. Old men with moustaches and green hats, men in Adidas suits and a few women who wore body warmers and golden necklaces all took what was outside in and closed their doors. The boy saw a dumpster by the side of the road filled with cats, their tails whipping over the edge. As they walked by they all sprinted away except for one. It was a kitten with black and grey stripes all over its fur. It looked up at the boy and stroke its head over his leg. One of her eyes was bright blue. “Look at how beautiful that cat is,” he said as they continued walking. Marcus was breathing heavily but looked down at the creature that was tiptoeing next to them. “Well, to me all the cats look the same. It’s just… How it is for me.’’ As they walked the boy could see garbage on the side of the road. Plastic bottles and empty cigarette packs. Platforms full of concrete rumble and wild weeds growing in between. A landscape that could not yet decide between being nature or culture. Marcus also looked. He seemed curious. “Some parts of this place change overnight. Not many, but some do. Not where we will be going though. That place has been the same for over fifty years. You will like it. I know you will.” They stopped walking as they arrived at what seemed to be the edge of town. Behind them the shops, restaurants and bars and in front of them nothing but the hills and a dusty path going up. The cat looked at the boy, meowed and then started walking up the houseless hill by herself. Marcus stared at her as she went up. “Mmm, interesting,” he said, “But, we have arrived.”

They were standing in front of a bar. The framing of the door was wooden, the once green paint faded, showing its original colour shining through. In front of it was a girl anxiously smoking a cigarette. She greeted them in a language that the boy didn’t understand. Her facial features seemed to vaporize in the smoke that she blew out. She nodded at them, held the door open and threw the cigarette on the floor to step in behind them. The boy looked around. Everywhere there were men at wooden tables. Some of them had blurry faces, others more distinct features like Marcus and as he imagined, himself. They sat down. In front of Marcus were already three glasses of alcohol. He killed them all and shrugged in satisfaction. He saw the boy looking at him. “Hey, don’t judge. It could have been you,” he said with a smirk. His eyes twinkled a bit. In front of the boy was a beer. He drank from it. It tasted good to him, as if it was something that had been familiar to his body for years. As the boy stared out of the window, he saw the bars, restaurants and shops they had passed before only as lines. Cubes and circles that slowly started to fade in front of his eyes as the darkness crept in around them. The boy saw nothing except one little light, far away and all the way up. “What’s that?” asked the boy as he pressed his finger against the window glass. “That my friend is the reason why you are here. Why we are all here. We have all seen something different there. Some a young girl, others an older woman and some just…” The boy looked up. “What did you see?” Marcus looked down at the floor while rubbing is thumb over the palm of his hand. He sighed and smiled again. This time it was a sad smile.

“Well, I can’t tell you that. But the story goes that it’s a woman who lived on an island like this her entire life. One day she met a young man, a tourist. Of course they fell deeply in love and he came to live with her on her beloved island. But, he couldn’t handle the island life and became an alcoholic. He neglected her more and more until one day she got Alzheimer. He left her there and moved back to the mainland. With all the people she loved already passed away she remained all by herself with nothing but her confused memories to keep her company. All of us have to visit her at least once. Tonight it’s your turn. That’s why you are here.” As Marcus stopped talking, the boy noticed how everybody in the bar had as well. They were all looking at him. The glass in front of him was empty. “You need to go now,” said Marcus. “The darkness is about to erase everything. You will have to go alone. I can’t leave. This is my place.” The boy let the door slide through his fingers as he stepped out. He didn’t hear it close behind him. He knew that the bar he had just left was not there anymore, nor was anything else he had seen that day. He started walking up the hill. He heard the little rocks scrape under his Converse shoes. From the distance he could hear the sound of goats and the clinging of their bells. He could smell the smell of Jasmin on a soft breeze. Other than that he could hear or see nothing but the light up the hill. As if the world of shapes had seized to exist. “Don’t worry,” Marcus had said. “Tomorrow the island will be back. Probably sunnier, better and full of life.” The boy kept it in mind as he stepped up and rubbed his thumb over the palm of his hand to see if

he was still there. As he stepped higher and higher he started to see shapes under the light. A white wall with a gate in the middle, the doors opened , showing the silhouette of an old lady staring at him. Her lines trying to disappear into themselves. The boy started to breath heavily, his heart pumping as the whisper of a strong wind got louder, carrying a word that needed to be heard. As he boy looked up again the lines of the old lady started to change, as if the wind caught the years of her life and carried them along to the mountains. What was left was a young woman in a summer dress with long, black hair. She had a teary smile around her lips. The light showed more as he came closer, flowerpots full of Madonnas on the white wall. Their peddles changing the yellow electric light into a silver aura. The kitten with the blue eye sat at her feet. She meowed and stroke her body around the young woman’s ankles as the boy stepped fully into the light. He smelled Jasmin everywhere. Behind the girl he noticed two empty glasses and a bottle of champagne on a table. The girl touched his face. As she did he saw how her eyes started to become lighter. The wrinkles around them smoothened. Her hand was warm and soft, and as she stroke his cheek he felt how also his skin became smoother. “Marcus, I’m so happy that it’s this you tonight,” she whispered as lights started to appear one by one down the hill, like a starry sky at their feet. She kissed him and held his hand as a new world started to appear underneath them. “You were always one of the best ones.”

Stella Andrada Kasdovasili

She holds a M.A. (Hons) in Gender Studies from Central European University, Budapest, a M.Sc. in Political Science and History, with specialization in Social Theory and Political Philosophy as well as a B.A. in Political Science and History from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens. She is currently working on Artificial Intelligence, humanoids and human nature.

Βοηθητικ 31

ά ρήματα Και προσπάθησα να γράψω, και βγήκαν λέξεις και πήραν μορφή, τοποθετήθηκαν κάπως πάνω στο χαρτί νόημα δεν έβγαλαν ποτέ, και έπρεπε να το χα μάθει τόσα χρόνια πως κανένα νόημα δεν έχουν οι λέξεις και η σύνταξη και όλα αυτά που λέμε γραφή, εκτός από εκείνες τις φορές που έχουν, χωρίς να έχουν γιατί όλοι θέλουν να έχουν και μπορεί να φταίει που το έχω πάει μαζί με το είμαι γιατί αυτά είναι τα βοηθητικά ρήματα και έτσι τα μαθαίνουμε και ίσως απλά να προσπαθούμε να αποδείξουμε ότι ακούγαμε τη δασκάλα μας και το είμαι και το έχω υπάρχουν σε μια ταυτοχρονία, πάντοτε μαζί γιατί είναι βοηθητικά. Και εμείς χρειαζόμαστε βοήθεια γιατί δεν μπορούμε να τα ξεχωρίσουμε και τώρα που το σκέφτομαι ίσως να μην γίνεται να υπάρχουν ξεχωριστά το ένα από το άλλο γιατί μετά δεν θα μπορούμε να ορίσουμε το εγώ και το εγώ, και αυτό από ε ξεκινάει και το εμείς και το εσείς ή το εσύ αλλά το αυτός, αυτή και αυτοί είναι πιο βίαια γιατί το εγώ δεν χωράει σε αυτό και άρα είναι χωρίς να έχει και κάπως σαν να παρατηρώ μια ιεραρχία στο σχήμα της ταυτοχρονίας του είμαι/ έχω γιατί αναρωτιέμαι μπορείς να έχεις χωρίς να είσαι και αν ισχύει αυτό τότε τι σημασία έχει και τα βοηθητικά ρήματα είναι φασισμός και το και είναι η καλύτερη λέξη που επινοήσαμε ποτέ γιατί είναι ο καλύτερος τρόπος να περιγράψεις τη ροή και κουράστηκα να σκέφτομαι αλλά ακόμα δεν καταλαβαίνω και ας είπα πως δεν υπάρχει νόημα ποιο το νήμα, κατάλαβες? Ούτε εγώ!

Auxiliary Verbs

And I tried to write, and words came out they obtained a from and were placed on a piece of paper no meaning did they hold whatsoever, and I should have known by now that words have no meaning, neither does syntax nor everything we call writing except from the times they do without having because everyone wants to have and maybe what is at fault is that having is interlinked with being because these are the auxiliary verbs and this is what we were taught and maybe we are just trying to prove we were paying attention to our teacher and being and having exist in a mutual conditionality always together, because they are auxiliary and we also need help because we can’t tell them apart and now that I think about it, maybe they can never exist separate from one another because if they would, we wouldn’t be able to define the ego and the word ego begins with the letter e and the words you, in its singularity and t us seem closer but the words them or you, in its plurality, seem more violent because the ego cannot be part of them and it seems to me, that there is some kind of hierarchy in this trope of mutual conditionality of being/having and I am wondering whether you can have without being and if that is the case, then what the point and the auxiliary verbs are fascist and the word and is the best word we ever invented because it is the best way to describe the affect of flow and I am tired of all this thinking but I still can’t understand even though I said there is no meaning what’s the point, you understand? Neither do I.

Ola Siudym

Ola left her home in Germany to find meaning in a meaningless world. This brought her to Warsaw, where she found love, which is arguably even better.

Syrenka

Ancient stone, cold to the touch I never thought that it mattered that much Neither dead nor alive, sometimes wet, sometimes dry. Old rock. Why should I care? It’s everywhere. It’s always just there. But when you take a close look You can see the stone took Its own fair share More than it could bear Of the cruelty man does unto his own Of the cruelty humans inflict upon stone In Praga and Wola and in Mokotów You can see where the city was armed to the tooth Our bullets left wounds there to fester and dry But the shield-maiden had no more tears left to cry I wonder what stories these cold walls could tell Of pleasure, of laughter, of heartbreak, of hell Would the mernaid be proud of the things that we’ve done? Would she praise us for another victory won? Another great victory of death over life Another great victory of surplus and strife

Could you look up to her, saber on high And say, “Guardian of Warsaw, you’ve no need to cry, I’ve listened to your songs echoing in stone I’ve seen the extent of the damage we’ve done Your forests breathe black and your streets drown in smog And the sad truth is I’m no more than a cog In this death trap called progress But I know what the source is: It’s the cruelty man does unto his own It’s the cruelty that we inflict upon stone.”

Ancient stone, cold to the touch If you don’t listen, it doesn’t talk much. But the Mermaid of Warsaw still holds her head high And she’ll answer you if you go and ask her: “Why?”

Valerio Gaglione

He was born in Acqui Terme, Italy, in 1989. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Genoa with a major in Illustration and Engraving and performed as a singer and as a guitar player in Italy and abroad. He now focuses on art therapy, graphic novels and painting.

M. V. TĂŠllez

A storyteller, dreamer and aspiring writer, struggling to take all those stories from his head and spread them on paper.

Frogeo et Frugliet 43

She heard the songs again and looked up at the black and long land extending before her. It was a land of monsters and death, a cemetery of dreams and hopes, where thousands of lives had perished. There were stories that spoke about brave warriors who dared travel that hard path and crossed it. There was even a legend, more ancient than the lake itself, that spoke about the days in which a whole clan, guided by one of the king’s sons, ventured through that wild wasteland in search of a new home.

them somewhere far away, to places where surely they would lay until they rot. It was hard to know exactly where these beautiful songs came from, but she knew for sure they had crossed that wasteland. She remained there, by the edge, soaked wet from the heavy rain of early spring, awed at the magic of each note. The songs enchanted her.

But that was before the monsters came and broke havoc, changing their lives forever. They were gigantic, multicolored and, most of all, they were faster than death itself. Her clan used to call them “the croacrucreaters,” which means “the devourers of dreams.” The worst was that with each passing year they seemed to become stronger, faster and deadlier.

Maybe it was destiny that did it, perhaps it was mere chance – the ways of life are rather hard to fathom – but as she was hopping around the border of the wastelands she noticed him. Well, to be more accurate, she heard him again. He was a distinctive marvelous song, the very song that had her dreaming every night. For the last moons she had been going to sleep anxious and waking up rather happy, and all just because of that song. Even though she didn’t want to accept it, deep inside she knew it was love.

The wind silenced the songs and carried

She stopped on her tracks and started to

sing herself. It was a long shot, but she was hoping he would hear her and notice her. She turned to face the direction of the sound and started her most sweet and emotional song. She put her soul and heart in it, and against all odds, it worked. By the time she finished hers, a new song came from the other side, and this time she was totally sure it was dedicated to her.

words were needed, no sounds were needed, their eyes could tell all their stories. Both knew this was their destiny, they were meant to be together.

She thought about it all for just a second. That was a sign too sure and powerful. That was life telling her the future, laying her destiny before her. She knew he was the one.

Just one nanometer and then...

She gathered her courage and jumped into the wasteland, looking around to see if there were any signs of the monsters coming. Not that it would be helpful, since they were so fast that no one could ever see them coming, and by the time you felt them it was too late to do anything. But still, it was worth the effort. In order to fulfill your destiny, you have to bet your life. The rain became more intense and the wind started blowing harder. She was jumping over all obstacles, pushing forward with all her will to reach the other side. Her eyes were fixed in the dark shape she could see standing at the border. She continued. A few hops separated her from him. She saw him jump a couple of times into the wasteland and closer to her. She pushed herself beyond her limits; her life wish deserved all that she had. One last hop and there she was, right in front of him. They looked at each other in silence. No

They both extended their forelimbs slowly, longing for the close moment when they will touch, but enjoying each instant before it.

SWOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH Charlotte turned off the engine and hastily took her purse. It had been a bad day, an awful day. She pushed the door of her car open and climbed down, distracted by the thoughts of the endless quarrels at work. She slammed the door of the car and, just when she was turning to head towards home, she noticed out of the corner of her eye two reddish splashes in her car’s front wheel. She took a closer look at it and saw two tiny bodies, squashed and butchered, their organs made into a bloody mass. “Vaaah, putain! Damn frogs!”

Andrea Briani

Born In Florence in 1986, Andrea Briani studied International Relations and worked for several publishing houses and European Agencies as a publishing editor and a translator. An enthusiast student of history and literature, particularly science fiction and Italian modern authors, he writes drawing inspiration fro his passions: movies, comic books, heavy metal, and mountains. He currently lives and works in Warsaw.

Sonic Attacks

Vomit gushed abruptly from the Family Abuse Expert onto the desk. Paolo was lucky, the fetid geyser debris landed only on his left hand. The man lost any poise and rushed to the restroom. Cavernous sounds from his throat were heard for a while along the corridor of the Human Rights Compliance Section of the Agency. Paolo cleaned his hands with a Kleenex and some disinfectant from the dispenser in the kitchen, where he sought refuge from the repulsive smell. “So another one? Has Stjin already claimed leave for official purposes?” Wiśniewski put a lot of emphasis on the last four words while making himself some kind of tea. “If he withdraws how’s going to look the balance of the personnel? I don’t think it will look great if the entire Support Divi-

sion is out of Dutch people.” “Don’t know a damn thing about it ittaliano. Bulgarian Brigade will be more than gladly to fill in the vo…” Words got stuck down his throat while the sound of the coordinate steps of 6 high heeled shoes reached its peak in front of door. Expensive dresses of disputable taste slowed their march while a raven haired head almost turned to give an inquiring look to the low lives, a trainee, a temporary personnel and a local cleaning lady suit, in the kitchen. Then Erinyes regained the pace and went on their intimidation stroll along the corridor. “Where is Stjin? We have scheduled meeting. No really, he felt bad? Unbelievable. To the hospital? What kind of man do they breed in Western Europe?!”

“..and now an update on the European Humanitarian Relief and Acquis Compliance Agency. The number of people complaining nausea, headaches, insomnia keeps growing. Viewers at home can see that the press is currently forbidden to enter the perimeter but according to our sources we can say that 15 people have been already repatriated and...” “31 in reality, you candid TV reporter. Soon 32, with Stjin”. Paolo knew enough about manipulations put in place to discharge people differently than from illness. He was trying to end the revision of a guide on Ethnic consciousness. How to avoid accidental verbal aggression. Pretty useful in that country where they usually beat up their own minorities to spend time before getting drunk on Friday evening. The English leaflet shall be distributed soon in classes nationwide. Too bad he visited classes in the centre of the capital city last month. Unheated, half deserted gloomy buildings, one half-starved student out of 20 with Basic English. But it was Division Director, the crazy Austrian lesbian, idea, so nobody raised any complaint. They just landed it on his trainee desk without instructions and timetable. Looking back, the words of the Executive Director at the welcoming ceremony for the new personnel were so high sounding comparing to reality. “You are part of something greater. The Agency is guiding the reconstruction of the last country to be eligible to enter EU. Decades of illiberal rule and the sorrow for the death and the destructions of the recent civil strife are to be washed away by

European solidarity.” Words almost as high as his own hopes for stable employment. Hopes that he could have put in the paper shredder. He was just a replacement for a maternity leave, with mediocre curriculum, put in an Agency in which the Italian government wasn’t making any effort to get positions. After begging a few high level appointments of scarce influence, the Ministries 48 had completely forgot the Agency existence, while Germans and Scandinavians were as usually lobbying for the best and most lucrative spots and the East European officers had put up their unbelievably powerful cabal of promotions. “I will ask for sure on your behalf, but you know the staff organization is changing and rotating so quickly and is difficult to allocate fund for specific positions.” Paolo knew that also this manoeuvre wouldn’t have produced any result, but Carmela had arranged weeks ago that meeting with the Unit Chief, Adonis Eliopoulos, and he felt obliged to go. Carmela, a real friend there, had really changed his ideas of police officers, with her intelligence and wit together with competence and sense of duty. Too bad that, after months of unsatisfactory work and sleepless nights on an ill-conceived plan for Traffic Police Training, she fell to the sonic attacks too. Dizziness, migraine, five episodes of fainting, absolute denial of being sick, a couple of desperate calls from her husband that amused the office, not acquainted with sceneggiata napoletana, nothing could remove her from the desk. The day they took her out in a stretcher, fingers still

holding her files in rigor mortis firmness, most people were relieved to see that green skinned mummy finally out.

Till that time the news about the unexplainable disease had rarely appeared in the media. Then, quoting out of context official declarations and mixing them with old articles about Future Warfare, some conspiracy theories nerds started to publish articles. Creepypasta theories coagulated on the Web to leaven the story. The Agency was under attack. Its enemies, a long list long including the EU itself, were bombing it with microwaves and high frequency signals. Sound attacks capable of destroying the metabolism and undermine mental health. Why so exactly? Well, the list of possible motivations was even longer than the crazy technical explanations. The theory had remained underground till the day the Leader of the newly created Angry People Party, pissed for the reduction of cohesion funds that were re-addressed to the new Agency, had publicly quoted it in European Parliament. The gates were open. The narrative became rapidly mainstream, calling for national and European investigations, talk shows, long interventions on the blogs of famous comedians. Packs of rabid journalists stormed the Agency building. Bloggers, self-proclaimed voice of the people, demanded access to confidential documents as if they were asking for cinema tickets. Even if the EU denied everything, special commissioners started to randomly appear in the Agency building. Odd looking guys, looming like buzzards over working people heads “to fit in the workplace.” But no inspection, no in depth analysis, debugging of the building ever got to find

anything. At one point, properties nearby the Agency had been searched by local police. One of those raids ended up in a fire that destroyed a five storey building. “Quite an example of what we are doing here.” Figueroa, the Portuguese General Security Responsible, nodded ironically. “This mission is totally useless. We are just a patch, to show EU institutions are doing something for this country. While the only thing these people need is free circulation and economic help. Instead they got militarized frontiers by their European brothers and our economic advisors were able to make worse than in Greece. Chapeau. It’s just a dead end. For the EU and all people working here. It will be a permanent stain on their résumé.” He was reflecting on those words in the elevator when Elisabeth rushed in. Her fingers were as usual frantically shaking over her files. She checked around as though a demon could be hidden in the corners and asked: “Have you seen Steiner?” “Not really today, but I think Sandrine from Press shall be having Planning Meeting with him right now at Conference Floor.” “Great, great, I need to avoid him. They want to stop my transfer by giving me some kind of fake promotion. But I am done with those people. Done, you know?!” Yeah, he knew. He had worked enough with that idealistic journalist to spot the anti-acid on her table, the spirits in the closet and the antidepressant shadow veiling her eyes. It can happen when your own team treats you like a ghost.

“But she should have seen it coming. Spreading the information, making critical articles, starting discussions.” “On the press? Was Isabelita behind the leak?” “Not really, the mole has never been identified. No, she published on the internal Newsletter. Many people that were too sure of knowing everything discovered they weren’t aware of each other activities, but better than question anything they demoted her and kept business as usual.” Pablo, the IT technician he was talking with in the copy machines room, was one of the few people in the building still without a sick look or the smile of a lion waiting to taste you. “Have you heard guys?” he said: “Steiner found Elisabeth beating her head on the wall, she was screaming there were fingernails scratching on a chalkboard in her head.” Riordan, Irish-American, former Navy Seal officer, successful Strategic Long Term Project Business Analysis Planning consultant, showed up. He was making a huge amount of money on his five year reorganization project for which he was in charge of establishing his own metrics and objectives. Paolo felt distinctly that he wouldn’t have fallen to the sonic threat anytime soon. “But have you read the article I sent you? You see, it proves the microwave weapons exist. I told you we faced them in combat in Syria. Russian contractors, experimenting them against our compound near Ab ‘el Kader. Ten super tough guys that could march day and night and sustain three days fire conflict got ill and had to be

evacuated. One dehydrated till death for diarrhoea. Saw it with my own eyes.” Yes, he was a great supporter of the sonic attacks theory. He quite enjoyed calmly spreading paranoia. He had even been able to mention it at the Division Planning Meeting, sending the Executive Director almost in convulsions, considered there were high EU officers in videoconference. Elisabeth’s conditions were confirmed by the late afternoon. She was going to be evacuated soon from the country. Fragments of discussion he picked from Senior Project managers having not noticed him behind the cubicle wall in Common Area confirmed the dramatic situation. Dozens of people with similar symptoms, all projects in total mess, zero credit of the Agency in the country and in Brussels, not one real talented professional there. And yet for political reason they were going to enlarge, just to show the EU was doing something. It had become the Promised Land for unskilled promotion seekers, turning itself into a toxic working environment. “And the people who were recovering from the attacks?” “It seems many have been offered new positions out of their outstanding spirit of service. Even Vaclav, that totally incompetent trainee from Brno, they really speeded up his hiring in the Maritime Shipping Agency.” Paolo strolled around the Meeting Area. A friend from Italy had sent him a couple of messages, asking if he was ok for a Skype call. Without any task, his supervisor absent for really frivolous missions for the

last three months, it was a good time for a relaxing chat. But he had no relief from the conversation when he knew sonic attack were the big story of the day in Italy.

A Eurosceptic columnist assumed they were real: local heroes fighting against EU oppression. For another one it was a clear hoax, put up by EU officials to cover their disaster work. Or an American intervention. Maybe a Russian diversion. No, a Chinese false flag operation. A couple of talk shows ended up with people beating each other live. The Internet, nonetheless, had been exploding of comments and memes. Like his head. He should have taken something to eat. But what if he had stomach ache? Would it have been so bad? Most of his friends had got ill by now. Why was he so resistant to those damn sonic attacks? He felt shocked but relieved when the pounding noise of drilling in the next room, to put special sound absorbent material in the wall, started without warning. It was as if the cork that was holding back the bubbles of the migraine had finally popped out and his head was submerged by a wave of sharp razors. And eventually he could feel awful without any remorse. The room got painted of blinding white light while he was collapsing on the chair with pain on his face and a smile hidden in the right corner of his mouth.

Fassal Thayakath

He studied electronics in India and moved to Dubai working in that field. As photography and painting have always brought him somewhere, one day he changed his profession into photography and moved to Poland. Today he owns a photography company in Krakow and works as a full time professional photographer.

Foday Sillah

He’s a Sierra Leonean poet, writer and filmmaker based in the capital, Freetown, where he was born and raised. Unable to complete his university education due to lack of funding, he lived in the streets for several years before joining WAYout, an organization providing free arts education for disadvantaged youth. There, he trained in creative writing and filmmaking. In 2018 his first feature film” THE CHOICE,” which he wrote and directed, premiered in Freetown.

Legends of Africa 59

Oh, legends of Africa You were born suddenly in times of uncertainty Like beasts of burden You carried your heavy loads of anxiety You were stripped from the land and taken away In shielding your fellow inhabitants You fought with sticks and spears While they fought with guns and bombs You were packed and laid in ships like sardines In chains and shackles for the transatlantic crossing From slavery to colonialism From pan-Africanism to nationalism You faced denigration and condemnation With rods you were stripped and whipped But you restrained and contained the pain You crept just to see your folks thrive All across Africa from Ghana to South Africa From Kwame Nkrumah to Nelson Mandela Your voices echoed to Liberty And proclaimed Freedom, Justice and Unity You brought fame by declaiming and reclaiming Your heritage and repatriation to your cradle In the person of Sengeh in Amistad

Africa, Sahara 2018, photo: Snizhana Chernetska

Kunta Kinte in Roots Not forgetting to mention Marcus Garvey You traced and embraced your legacy Though you are gone your bones still sing Songs of jubilation and memories Of your glories and endowments True legends born of Africa

Nikita Khellat

Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a Russian pseudopolite in a voluntary exile and a wild flower. Nikita does stage acting, video-making, poetry writing, deconstructing.

Borderland

Fed up. Got out from my room To lose my way. To wander around, The picture Day after day Contemplated. To get lost Amidst The inconsistent landscape Of descents and ascents, Accompanied By the barking Wild dogsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Cacophony. Ubiquitous, The grape, creeping, Has spread. Wildly. To stay cultivated In the phony wilderness Without the earphones? Easy.

Ahoy! Hovering, Hang up over The weathered leaves, The Indian deity Appears. Espied. The elephant Yet no room.

Blimey! The moss, The queerest place to live The ravine, Queerly paved By the cobblestones It chose. And contrived To colorfully. Cover The parapet.

The pleasant cold evening colors. The circle is done. By derelict Wastelands, And the inhabited Yet also yawning With void, Dwellings I gone. The odor of burned grass Ushered me Out. The stranger. Out of here! Alien to that life, Familiar to this soul, Tranquil peacefulness.

Nick Sweeney

His stories are on the web and in print. ‘Laikonik Express,’ his novel about friendship, Poland, vodka, snow and getting the train for the hell of it, was published by Unthank Books in 2011. He is a writer and musician, and lives in Kent. His supernatural novelette set in Polish town Gliwice, ‘The Exploding Elephant’, is out with Bards and Sages. More than any sane person could want to know about him can be found on his website: The Last Thing the Author Said.

In Herzegovina Near the Town of Gorjad 67

There’s a new song going around, with a maddening refrain as catchy as that flu plotting its course around the world, killing toothless ancients and babies fresh out of the womb. You hear it everywhere and, no matter how much you hate it, you’ll find it bursting out of your head. You may be with a friend you’ve been trying to impress with your disdain for it and the suggestion of your liking of higher things, and the friend will look at you in sly triumph, then forgive you. This happens to me often, because there are always new songs about, and I hate them all, and yet still they sneak into my head. Luckily, I have friends whose habit is to forgive. Ancient recordings, or recordings of ancient things, reveal something that today’s music hasn’t got. Some people get caught up in technical terms to explain it, but, really, music can’t be explained, only felt. Maybe it’s like religion, or psychoanalysis;

once it’s explained, people cease to be in awe of it, yet complain that it isn’t doing them any good anymore. Give it to the people, whoever they are, and they fuck it up, and don’t know what to do with it, apart from complain. Maybe the saddest thing is that music lost its soul at the onset of the age of global communication; we’ve now got twentyfour-hour access to terrible music that, paradoxically, never really gets going, and yet never stops. *** In our part of Sarajevo we are surrounded by music, partly because a lot of musicians seem to like it here, as do lots of fading bohemians who persist in the practice of their dying arts. I don’t mean to be rude here because, for sure, it’s great to hear a song played on an old violin, or the peal

of a saxophone in the middle of the night. The other side of the coin, however, means some talentless bastard slashing chords out of a crusty electric guitar put through a ferocious amp. I try not to get too annoyed about it. In fact, I have only complained once – I was sick at the time, and ended up feeling sicker after getting punched on the snout by a neighbour guitar junkie in a fit of artistic amphetamine pique. His row stopped soon after, though, when somebody broke into his place, smashed his guitar to bits, filled his amp with olive oil from Herzegovina, the groves near the town of Gorjad, and kicked his speakers in. *** Soon after my arrival in Sarajevo I was in a smartish café when I saw, only two tables away, a local radio DJ. The war was over, as were shortages, and leisure was once more on the agenda. It never went away, people might claim, but it did; those same people had simply forgotten the preoccupations of the war, the banal triumphs of everyday existence. And good for them, because people have to, they must, to live, to go on. Even culture was coming back, because there are things to do in leisure time other than stay in bed, drink too much and play video games. Apparently. “If I meet one more person from a community arts project,” a friend said to me, “I’m going to burn it down. And then start my own.” The university was open again, and serious-minded youth put heads down to study. When they lifted them, though, they wanted to dance, and they wanted to dance to the catchiest, most terrible music they could find.

“That’s that DJ guy,” I said to my university friend Dzanka. I felt I knew her well enough by then to nudge her in a seedy, over-familiar fashion. She looked up from the book she was reading, and stared at me. “Him over there with the green suit and the stupid technicolour tie.” Green must have been in that week, for this narrowed it down to about five people. “See him?” I went on. “Curly hair that needs cutting?” She shifted her stare to Mister DJ. The evening would be a disaster, I knew already. In the afternoon I’d run into a sort of friend, who’d persuaded me into drinking the local firewater with him. It seemed like one of those afternoons when drinking something was a necessity rather than a mere option. I couldn’t remember why, which is normal once the drinking part is done. He was on the wrong side of tipsy when I left. I was on the tipsy spectrum somewhere – I was unsure exactly where. I wondered, in some disquiet, if I was on the part of it that would kid me that I wasn’t on it at all, therefore leaving me open to all kinds of acts of spontaneous foolishness. Dzanka had had a bad week at the university, wondering why she was bothering, and yet stuck with the idea that it was somehow important for her to be there. “Yes.” She squinted at the man sourly, and went back to her papers. “That’s him. He’s… pasty,” she added, a sop to conversation. “And fat.” “You don’t see that on the radio.” His poster campaign imitated old-style propaganda posters, with thick yellow letters stating, Listen In! and A Nightclub on your Mantelpiece! and other vacuous slogans thought up by men in western-style

suits and red plastic-framed glasses. Under these exhortations reposed an enigmatic face trapped in time, topped by thick, dark, curly hair. The man in the café had an older face, greyer hair, and enigmatic was not a word that came to mind to describe it.

me in because I was with her. “Just to tell them. You know when you’re listening to the radio, and it’s annoying the hell out of you, and you just want to go round to the station with a baseball bat, and trash the place?”

“Wars come and go,” I said to Dzanka. “Governments rise and fall. Borders change. Whole peoples get rubbed out. But DJs, their haircuts stay the same.” Dzanka smiled despite herself, and coughed out a laugh.

“No.” Dzanka burst into a giggle. “Strangely enough, I don’t.”

His suit was expensive, the world could tell, but shapeless. Was that deliberate? Who knew, anymore? He looked miserable as he sipped his cappuccino, but still had the preoccupied air of a fat-cat-in-themaking. The girl he was with was young and pretty and tarty. She had a square metre of madly over-groomed hair, like a country-and-western star from the nineteen seventies. “I bet I could get him to say why he plays such terrible music.” I nudged Dzanka again. “All the music in the world,” I said, “and yet whatever is terrible, he finds it, and he plays it.” I made a money sign. Dzanka put her paper down, interested at last, I thought. “I could get him to say why he says such stupid things,” I added. “Ask him who he thinks he’s talking to.” “But who cares?” Dzanka said. “Anyway, they’d only kick you out.” She indicated our surroundings. “They only let nice people in. We’re only here because there are not enough nice people for them to make a profit.” “It’s an opportunity,” I said, but I saw her point. And it wasn’t fair: Dzanka liked it there, and they knew her, and only let

All the station’s equipment, I saw, smashed to bits, its lights winking frantically, and covered in a litre of olive oil from the groves near Gorjad, in Herzegovina… Two litres, maybe. Dzanka said, “You could always try switching it off.” I kept listening because a part of me is cowed enough to hate not getting it, and being the only one out in Radioland listening to a room full of silence. I craved music – I did – but then, if you crave music, you listen to the radio to hear some, and end up still craving it; it’s like one of those sentences that read the same backwards. “And anyway,” Dzanka said, “there are worse people than him here tonight, if you really want to grind your teeth. Look at him over there.” She dropped both her voice and her head. “Blue jacket too big for him. See him? Know who he is?” “Yeah.” I surprised myself. I knew the features well, the white hair swept back from his deep forehead, the pale, piercing eyes. It was the jacket that had thrown me, the bow-tie, and the frilly-fronted shirt. On television at the height of the war, he was usually seen in some quasi-uniform as he justified his militiamen’s feats of bravado, which had sometimes involved the razing of villages and some unfortunate

collateral damage to women and children. And nobody disagreed that he had done it on behalf of us all, to save us having to go and do it ourselves. And nobody disagreed that he should have become at least a little bit rich on ‘donations’ from the UN, while selling plundered medicines, food and temporary shelters to the enemy to keep them in good health, nourished and warm enough to live again to be shot-at. He was a legend, and nobody disagreed. At least, not out loud. Why did he feel safe enough, I wondered, to sit drinking in public with a friend? Maybe it was something to do with the two men who sat near him, all beards and tuxedos and gristle and mineral water glasses tiny in their hands. “Sure,” I said. “I could go and ask him about his work.” I nodded towards the guards. “Before those two kick my face in.” Dzanka said, “Stick to your DJs,” and added hastily, “I mean, leave them alone – leave them all alone. One is a national hero and the other a nonentity. And what, at the end of the day, have they ever done to you?” She went back to her book. I picked up one of her other books, flipped through it without method, was grabbed by a passage that finally disappointed me, then got engrossed in one that didn’t, until it did. The friends we were waiting for didn’t turn up, and we guessed they hadn’t got by at the door. I sobered up gradually, and we talked about and laughed at nothing, just loud enough to let everybody around us know that we were having a good time. *** As I did my business in the toilet, I looked up at the window set in the ceiling. I

marvelled at the leaves that touched the glass, outlined artfully by the lights in the upstairs rooms, the hint of dark sky beyond. I thought of a report of a prisoner of war somewhere – actually, in Herzegovina, near the town of Gorjad – who saw only the sky and the leaves for half a year through his tiny window. He hadn’t known it, but he was in the safest place; he got out intact, but found his parents’ olive groves destroyed, his village wiped from the face of the Earth, and his entire family, and everybody he had known in his life, gone with it. The presenter had ended by bemoaning the unfortunate ways of war, then handed over to a DJ who brayed a slogan, played a jingle, promised news of weather, and stuck on a Europop drone. *** When I came back, Dzanka was putting on her coat and scarf and gloves. We decided to walk, perhaps to redeem a little of the evening – she was giving me the chance – and to save a tram ticket for another, better evening. It was a clear night, bright with tiny stars. Dzanka changed her irritation into a smile that was forgiving. The quiet made us feel good, and easy in ourselves, got us looking forward to home and bedtime and sleep. As people began to pour out from bars and cinemas and dives to fill the streets, steam rose from the open doors, and a jolly little bastard of a song arose with it.

Mitchell Atkinson III

He was born in Flint, Michigan. He studied music at Berklee College, and subsequently performed in various states of glee and ignominy throughout much of the world. He holds a BA in Analytic Philosophy from the University of London and an MA in Sociology from Lancaster University. He currently does research in Sociology and Philosophy at the Graduate School for Social Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences, working on applied phenomenology, informational social influence, empathy.

` Nowy Swiat

We’ve seen many in this city with faces like blisters, clots of raspberry and hot blue wandering down Marszałkowska silvery and aromatic, like strange angels burdened no more. But you with the eyes on the train and the problem signaled so intently to precisely no one, you carry your burden still. And you are no angel. You’re just asking for an end. Cessation Cunctation Creation. I imagine you walking into department stores mystified. Like me, you think clothes and taste have become carnivals of mystery and provocation. You read Zły and found its scandal enthralling. You remember when women with public thighs were whores, and when Kalina’s cleavage crucifixed was worth the gasping. In your day you made love demurely, silent and grateful, or placid with hope for a quick koniec. Or maybe not? Who screwed the world exactly? What strain of disembodied parasite got hold of things and who should take the blame? In Żoliborz lives a man who can curse in all tongues, who grins and stumbles—fondling dogs— wants to shake your hand grinning, grinning

for złoty, laughs or company. I wonder if you’ve seen him? Where do our brothers and lovers go once lost? But perhaps that’s just the problem. Sometimes they never go away. There are women for whom the Sun is a curse—hexed by light they dream of transparency— women who burn and flake at the thought of August, grey-eyed and freckling, women for whom to be perceived is neither essence nor existence but danger, the hot raw pulsing of which is the ragged rhythm of social life. Danger, big D. Is that what’s coiled flat, matte and shineless behind your brow furrowed and resigned to its distortion? Is that what’s pressing the flow of passive angst up from the bottom rung of your spine past your greater cavities into the corners of your mouth, the sacs circumscribing your eyes? Danger, D capital. I, its representative, I smile calamity and you become a clench, an octopus in a jar. You’re out of ink to spray, facing opaque intention. Reaching up to the psychic plane, I scream I’m dark but harmless. Astral projection has my spirit body putting your fingers in its mouth to taste the time you’ve spent on others. You could snatch my tongue and make me wordless if only you felt this suckling ghost. Drink my blood, you’re back in time: Young and Free and Western. I’ll eat your liver and become post-communist bones. But when you smile optimism over me, I’ll rise; I’ll take your hand and tell you what it’s like to be a woman in the new world.

Wongoon Cha

Wongoon Cha lives and teaches in Warsaw

` Swietokrzyska 16 77

I stood on the street corner and O! the skyscraper imploded just up the street ’Twas the next neighborhood methinks. As I stood on Świętokrzyska Street, holding my briefcase, drinking my latte, a skyscraper imploded up the street. I watched a cloud of dust, debris, and dread charge up the street, furious at its life. (Can I assign fury to a cloud? Yes! If ’twas a dream, which was not all a dream) I stood still as the cloud became my whole world. What should have been a fortnight of greyness settled in moments, sunless became brilliant, the street was clean and people were smiling. I was caked in asbestos, glass, plaster. They smiled and gave me a new latte. Then the sea levels rose, quite steadily, mundanely and menacingly like a drain occluded with odds, ends, emissions. I found a lovely gold inflatable and drifted across the submerged city.

Hours seemed like days all alone in my boat. Fortune smiled and I chanced upon people, cosplayers of anime with sailors, they sat cross-legged on the salvaged deck of wood, absorbed in consultation. I looked for a place to board their salvage; eyes for each other -- they paid me no mind. I ambled to the centre of their salvage, & someone noticed me and shouted DECEASED! The costumed sailors looked my way and laughed; they gave toothed grins, turned heads, contacted eyes, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not deadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, I muttered to the group. They delivered me to a parking lot, I grabbed my briefcase, stepped onto asphalt, I believe it was a parking lot for a park, It was a sunny windless day, no dread, I stood alone amongst parking spots

Roberto Reale

He takes delight in the criss-crossing between structure, languages, and people.

The Námestí

Josef Sudek, Staroměstské náměstí a vodní nádrž u pomníku Mistra Jana Husa, 1900-15

“Have you ever seen the clock, at noon? Oh my.” For I alone, among all mortals, have never stared at the contraption that makes everybody lose their mind. At twelve noon, I would always take care to stay clear of the mob. And yet, I wonder: mingling with tourists, wearing as a carnival dress that very same chit-chat that they beguile each other into, that very same amazement on prescription: why not? Anyway, when you head for the river, you cannot but cross the Náměstí. Especially if what you want is steering clear of those entangled lanes, so unrespectful of your planned path even when you know the route by heart. And, of course, one can always be flattered by the truism that in the midst of the waxing-and-waning multitude no one cares about that merry andrew of an old flâneur, which is what I am become. Not on a summer night like this, by all accounts, will they heed me: lo and behold, all those young males swaying their girls through a cunningly hidden agenda (which could be inferred, e.g., from how fast they slip amongst the narrow, slightly ajar, arches of Týn). As for me, this very night I have grown tired of the dull suburban concrete of my abode and walked all the way till the square. And now I am busy at crossing a few last alleys, and at getting closer and closer to the river. But I stop short of the water. I can almost feel the river rubbing against the banks, against its bed; slowly; but I am hardly aware of the hills spinning faster and faster around the highest spiers of the Hrad, like a top. I can sense the pull of the water and my own giddiness. And yet I turn my back upon the river, and stop in the middle of the Náměstí, and let my head rest on Jan Hus’ stiff feet, and fell asleep. I feel at home. At around noon, the day after, I will get up, with the sun on my face, and go and watch the clock and its wimpy wooden genies.

Cleffy Ibrahim Sorie Bangura

He’s a poet and musician living in Freetown, Sierra Leone. He migrated to the city to escape rural poverty, surviving on the streets before joining WAYout Arts where he studies poetry and sound engineering. Cleffy was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers Adda poetry commission, has poems published in Praxis Magazine Online and in ‘Written Off’ a collection of Sierra Leonean writing. He is now working on a poetry project supported by the Prince Claus Fund.

My Legend

My feet have worn heavy hard-skinned shoes To trample the thorny pathways of my life. I have spilt uncountable sour tears Unwillingly licked the raw salt from my lips Smelt the cemetery stench of pain But I refused to melt down under the strain. My soul has raged tormented battles On the shameful corners of forgotten African streets Where poverty, disappointment, depression And deep bites of failure Tore at my troubled thoughts Making my dizzy brain turn somersaults. But, I kept telling myself Failure is not a broken future Not a permanent plan But a creeping career That will stand on its feet and run. A homeless street servant; an orphaned child My biological roots unintentionally threw me Into the depths of a worn out universe.

I forced my brain to see beyond The barren valleys of that world. I forced my feet to be indefatigable For I had to climb the steep-sided days and nights Of my struggle for survival To grasp for myself a bundle of dreams. Now, I have done putting on my hard-skinned shoes I have started to run on my bold, bare feet. Even if I slip on the stony road I shall run on my blistered soles For I have done putting on my hard-skinned shoes I have swallowed the self-determination of a legend I keep going on and on. The devil grumbling inside me says â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Boy, you are persistent In attaining the head and heart of a legend I am tired of disturbing you I can no longer stand against Your desperate fiery spirit of achievement Go on, the unbeatable legend.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Yes, I am Because I have fought against my past For its clouds of dark despair Not to eclipse the brighter galaxy Of my future. I have forced my mind and pen To write this legendary poem.

Wilfred Derosemi Cole

Wilfred Derosemi Cole is a direct descendent of the free slaves. Born in the nineties, raised up in Freetown, in a place called Kroo Town Road. His grandfather used to tell him about great and famous warriors coming from the different ethnic groups across the country. Warriors who fought for their culture and identity, indigenous value and respect to uphold and keep their and his history. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s currently studying poetry at WAYout and loves every bit about poetry.

Legend On My Mind 89

Once upon a time, there came a war My grandfather said A war about tax Taxes imposed on the inhabitants By the so called white-man rule Paying for what they make from dungeon With their family to live in freedom Bestowed as our rightful own Taking orders from foreign-don A warrior fighter and a tribal leader A tall figure stand up in their midst With a black wool garment called ronko Dressed from head to toe Designed with cowrie shells His black cap made of the same nature And he carried a long staff As to stand firm for his right As he walks among them, he speaks with an open tongue That makes his word overshadowed Pierced them and open their mind eye

Spread around them as a great light Taking rightful place in their heart He makes them to see nationalism get up and stand Looks into itself, as patriotism stands by Deep down principle were worthy-while Traditional value and norms are open But equality was not seen around He says; It’s ours we must not pay With their rules we must not lay This is our land, let’s fight for our right Let’s bring this darkness to light Then the world will know our plight His words formed a firm foundation within them Building tough the spirits within Let’s not sit with their so-called white mediocracy This is our land for divine democracy His words spread around them as the great light Military tactics like guerilla armies He makes them to resist, restrained and even refrained

Mozis Rozis

Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a Sierra Leonean, a Limba by tribe, and was born in 1995. His mum had his pregnancy at a tender age, so he was raised by his grandma, Mrs. Mbalu Turay. He has gained senior secondary school education. Half a decade experience of a ten years long civil war, flooding, Ebola, and mudslide experience is all in his head. He loves creative writing, visual arts music and Mozis Rozis food. Poetry is his lady. He canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forgive himself, if he forgets to emphasise how much he loves delicious food.

Last Leg End

Her beauty full of scars, Her story rages from the soul of her feet to the crown of her head, From her toes to her ankles, Veins her childhood years, She was dreaming of being a fighter, for social equality, and injustice. Then her dreams were damaged by the civil war, She was raped, And she lost her parents to the gun of her rapist. From her ankles to her knees, Skinned with struggles of sexual harassment, and stigmatization, No one to her rescue, Drugs and crime were her neighbours in the slum. Her tender eyes continue to flood tea as She lost her property, her left leg, And her only child gave to her by her rapist, to a flaw full flood. From her knees to her loin, Muscles locked by dreadful Ebola, Quarantined her brain, Diarrhoea her dreams, Fevered her strength,

Tragic theme plays... She survived, From her loin straight to her top spine, Her ribs intertwines the time, She moved out of the slum to the hills. On the hills, mudslide divides heads and spines, Unlike most legends thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s where her last leg ends. She is crippled to a wheelchair, Her last leg is living dead under the mud, Strength in her lungs transformed wind of death to breath. Though she lived most of her early life in starvation, Her hair is always plaited deliciously as a crown of woman among woe men. Her tribulations teach his that, Legendary is not only about what you do, But also, the kind of things that happened to you, How you endured them, makes you a legend. Unto this day her nose is still breathing, (EQUAL SHARING TO HERS, NOT PARTIAL JUST HIS) as oxygen, And (SILENCE THE VIOLENCE) as carbon dioxide,

Luis Javier GuillĂŠn Ruiz

Even if he makes a living translating, the thing that really makes him feel connected to his inner being is writing. He loves literature, music, cinema and art of all kinds. He was born in Granada, Spain, and he is currently living and working in Warsaw.

Texto escrito en el muro norte de la Torre de las Infantas de la Alhambra ES

Si he de hablar de mi único recuerdo, este lo conforma una visión de impenetrable oscuridad. Un manto de tiniebla capaz de cubrir todo cuanto los ojos pueden distinguir, o siquiera intuir: me resulta inútil tratar de describir la imagen de una ausencia total de luz que me envuelve el cuerpo, el cabello y todo lo que considero que existe por mera intuición, pues desconozco haber vivido el momento en el que capturé la imagen de los conceptos que, inexplicablemente, guardo en mi memoria. Durante largas horas he tratado de averiguar cómo obtuve el don del lenguaje y de qué manera fui instruida en el cono-

cimiento de las palabras y de las ciencias que explican el mundo. Intento indagar en lo más hondo de mi conciencia buscando imágenes con las que ilustrar todo lo que sé acerca de las cosas, pues tengo la certeza de que alguna vez mis ojos tuvieron la oportunidad de contemplar: creo recordar los volúmenes, la profundidad de los objetos y, por ejemplo, la disposición simétrica de las lacerías que recorren las paredes del lugar en el que paso los días. Sin embargo, desconozco las formas exactas y los colores, y me resulta imposible ilustrar los conceptos que mi atribulada razón se empeña en salvaguardar. En las noches de plenilunio, un tími-

do reflejo de claridad penetra por una alta grieta, atravesando el centro de la habitación de un extremo a otro, y se me ofrece la oportunidad de acercarme a una de las paredes para dejarme alumbrar por el destello plateado que se cuela en la estancia, pero su claridad resulta tan débil e inestable que ejerce un efecto mistificador y sugestivo. Con asombro y gran confusión me debato entre la idea de estar siendo víctima de una alucinación o si, efectivamente, estas son mis manos, estos mis brazos y estas mis costillas: lo poco que percibo de mis propias formas me parece fragmentado y brumoso, a medio camino entre lo real y lo imaginado, razón por la cual rara vez acudo a la llamada de estas oportunidades de autodescubrimiento por miedo a ceder ante la locura. Sin embargo, a veces mi alma se contagia de la claridad de estas noches señaladas y, con gran esfuerzo, consigo balbucear el que recuerdo como mi nombre, cuyo sonido resuena fino y apenas perceptible, como el resplandor bajo el que palidecen los muros de mi cautiverio: Zorahaida. Tan pronto como logro pronunciarlo, una ventana se abre en mi interior: recuerdo con claridad mi infancia en la costa, el viento azotándome con furia contra los cabellos mientras observo junto a mis hermanas la pleamar desde el castillo de Salobreña. Recuerdo el efecto de nuestras intrigas, la emoción compartida por el descubrimiento del mundo que se nos abría como una granada madura. Veo las fuentes y los cipreses de los jardines del Generalife, el rostro ajado de Kadiga, aquella a la que llamé madre a sabiendas de que distinta sangre nos corría por las venas. Contemplo su figura sentada al borde de la alberca, frente a mis hermanas, percibo el aroma a jazmín y a azahar, el calor de la primavera sobre las afanosas gentes a los

pies del río, la melodía del laúd flotando en las perezosas tardes estivales… Veo al joven cristiano del que me enamoré, su mirar altivo y sereno tornándose en angustia mientras me implora la huida junto a él. Veo mis pies descalzos pisar la escalera que desciende de la muralla, las manos muertas que me caen a ambos lados del talle, mis hermanas al pie del muro mirándome con urgencia, me veo volviendo al palacio con el rostro anegado de lágrimas y el corazón arrepentido. Padezco la cólera de mi padre. Veo la escolta que me conduce al umbral de la torre donde ahora me encuentro, veo cerrarse la puerta, la oscuridad que me devora calladamente la memoria, y permanezco vacía de recuerdos hasta la próxima luna llena. Es por eso que me creo maldita, por eso que mis lamentos asustan a los amantes extraviados al otro lado de las ciegas celosías, por eso que el espectro que cuelga de mi nombre está unido a estos muros con una cadena de plata y diamante, velada por el gobierno inexorable de la luna. Escribo estas líneas en un vano intento de no olvidar, de vencer esta amnesia a la que he sido condenada, aunque el tiempo convierta mis letras en manchas sin significado, apenas defectos sobre los muros de esta dimensión inhabitada, de este aljibe oscuro que tiene el aspecto de la eternidad. Zorahaida

Text written on the northern wall of Alhambraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tower of the Infantas EN

If I must speak of my only memory, it is one formed by a vision of impenetrable darkness. A mantle of obscurity capable of covering everything that can be perceived, or even discerned: it would be futile to describe the image of this total absence of light shrouding my body, hair, and everything else whose existence I can only grasp by mere intuition, as I have no recollection of having experienced the moment in which I portraited all these concepts that, unaccountably, I keep in my memory. For long hours I have reckoned with how I received the gift of language and how I was instructed on the knowledge of words and sciences that describe the world. I try to enquire into the deepest corners of my

conscience, looking for images that would illustrate everything that I know about things, as I am certain that my eyes were once able to contemplate the world before them: I dare to think that I can recall volumes, the depth of the objects and, for instance, the symmetrical disposition of the embroideries traversing the walls amongst which I spend the days, yet I am unaware of the exact forms and colours, and it is impossible for me to exemplify the concepts that my grief-stricken reason insists on protecting. On the nights when the full moon rises, a subtle reflection of clarity penetrates through a crack and crosses the centre of the room, which gives me a chance to approach one of the walls and allow my-

self to be illuminated by the silver beam that strains into the room. But its clarity is so weak and unsteady that it exerts on me a mystifying and suggestive effect rather than a revealing one. With great amazement and bewilderment, I debate whether I am the victim of a hallucination or if these indeed are my hands, are my arms, are my ribs: the few parts of my body that I am able to perceive seem vaporous and hazy, halfway between reality and imagination, which is why I rarely attend to the call of these opportunities of self-discovery, as I am truly afraid of giving in to madness. Nevertheless, sometimes my soul feels impregnated by the clarity of these momentous nights and, with great effort, the opportunity arises for me to stammer what I remember as my name, whose sound echoes as smoothly and barely perceptibly as the gleam that whitewashes the walls of my captivity: Zorahaida. As soon as this word leaves my lips, I feel a window opening within: Suddenly, I clearly remember my childhood by the seaside, the wind blowing fiercely against my hair as I observe the high tide along with my sisters in the castle of SalobreĂąa. I remember the effect of our gossiping, the shared anticipation of the discovery of a world that was unfolding before us like a ripe pomegranate. I see fountains and cypresses nurturing the gardens of Generalife, the haggard face of Kadiga, whom I called mother knowing full well that different blood was running through our veins. I contemplate her figure sat by the edge of the pool in front of my sisters; I perceive the scent of jasmines and orange blossoms, the spring heat over the unflagging laundresses by the river, the lute melody drifting through countless idle summer afternoonsâ&#x20AC;Ś I see the young Christian with whom I fell in love, his haughty and

calm demeanour turning into a grimace of distress as he implores me to flee with him. I see my bare feet stepping on the ladder that descends from the wall, my limp hands swinging by my sides, my sisters at the base of the wall looking at me with impatient eyes. I see myself coming back to the palace with a repentant heart and tears running down my face. I suffer the anger of my father. I see his caliphal bodyguard leading me to the threshold of the tower in which I have been kept ever since. I see the door as it closes, the darkness that quietly devours my memory, and I remain devoid of any memory until the next plenilune. This is why I think of myself as a cursed one; this is why my laments startle the lost lovers who wander on the other side of the bricked-up lattices; this is why the spectre that hangs by my name is bonded to these walls with a diamond chain, veiled by the inexorable command of the moon. I write these lines in a futile attempt not to forget, to overcome this amnesia to which I have been condemned, even if time will turn my letters into meaningless flaws that stain the wall of this inhabited dimension, this gloomy reservoir that has the shape of eternity. Zorahaida

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Acknowledgments

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Our biggest thanks and regards to all the authors, published or unpublished here, who made this issue possible by sending their text and artwork to our mag.

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Redakcja: Lorenzo Berardi, Vladimir Guzman Contreras Przygotowanie graficzne: Snizhana Chernetska Ilustracje: Snizhana Chernetska, Fassal Thayakath, Valerio Gaglione, Josef Sudek