Issue 22

Ops

By C.T. Dinh

This piece is part of an art portfolio highlighting the intersections of femininity and STEM. It is titled “Ops” after the wife of Saturn in Roman mythology. (Why Saturn? In tribute to the color scheme and the ring of stars around her helmet. Why Ops? To highlight the lesser-known women of space and of mythology; and because her name can be read as a pun on “operations.”)

C.T. Dinh is a DMV-based artist and writer. She edits Backslash Lit and has speculative work featured in Flash Point SF, Strange Horizons, and Ample Remains. She will attend UMD in the fall to study immersive media.

Updated Shopping List

By Zainab Iliyasu Bobi

This picture was taken in a moving car, during the pandemic somewhere in Abuja, Nigeria. The photo holds the theme of survival; survival from the pandemic, and survival from hunger.

From where I came face masks were not well known before the pandemic, but due to the Corornavirus outbreak, everyone knew the importance and use of face masks.

The woman in the picture appears to be stressed and at the same time focused on searching her luggage, making sure that face masks weren’t omitted. I tried my best to capture the emotion of the woman shifting from worry to satisfaction as she searches her bags—survival from the pandemic. On the other side is an orange trader that was mostly affected by the lockdown because of low income—survival from hunger.

Zainab is a Nigerian writer, poet, spoken word artist, and an aspiring street photographer.
Her poems have been published and forthcoming in magazines and journals like Kalahari Review, the shallow tales review, Praxis Magazine online, Spillwords and more.

Mind, The Future

By Junseob Yoon

Mind, is a capture of what exists in my mind, expressed in a tilted box. In it, there is my puppy Scott, fruits to start the morning, and books I like to immerse myself in. But beyond that, this piece is a spin to what people always say, “think outside the box.” I feel that there needs to be more effort to be introspective, to look inside what goes on in the mind to make rational and right decisions. To express my message, I placed a human making his move inside a brain.

The Future, depicts what I envision our future to be. Don’t be fooled by the smiling faces of the astronauts – it is a disguise for something more serious. With so much pollution created every day, it seems inevitable that we will look beyond life on Earth and find alternative life habitats in space. I depicted the technology that will embark on the search, and placed buds to show that we will eventually find or build habitat we will be able to transition to. So the image depicts at once a dreaded future and a hint of hope.

Junseob Yoon is a junior in an international school based in Seoul. Junseob’s interests are painting, mixed media, drawing, fashion design, and illustration. He loves using art as a way to bring communities together. His work has been exhibited in both school and professional venues. He intends to major in the fine arts in college and dreams that he will be a creative director and industrial designer one day. During his free time, he runs his auction platform in school, studies contemporary artists, paints in studio, and makes clothes.

Editor’s Note

By Molly Hill

June 2021
Issue 22

Dear Readers and Writers:

I’ve never been a fan of the word closure, — same goes for journey, or summative statements like my takeaway, all in all, or at the end of the day. Yet it’s hard to ignore the urge to reflect on what we’ve all been through over the past year. * While some might claim they’ve emerged from 2020 a bit more insightful, with a deeper sense of gratitude and compassion, it’s hard to experience that basket of virtues without also feeling the lingering pang of loss, the still simmering sense of anxiety, and more than a hint of bewilderment and apprehension about what comes next.

In the midst of this possible-post-Covid, mid-vax, no more mask wearing era — we present our June 2021 issue.

Remember pre-Covid summer movies? THAT feeling, — you and your friends in the air-conditioning with a tall tub of popcorn drenched in butter, a blue raspberry slushie, or the XL box of Milk Duds? In the dark hush of the multiplex, the outside world receded for a few luxurious hours as you fell into the thrall of the story. Lights dimmed. Curtains opened. And as you settled back in your seat you also kind of leaned forward eagerly awaiting what was to come.

This is our 22^nd issue, but that movie theater feeling is always what we’re going for. Anticipation and reward, the story with the surprise twist, the essay that punctures the way you used to think about something.

Pull us up on your phone from your hammock or Adirondack, — scroll and lean in. Escape.

Molly Hill
Editor

*Resisting the urge to provide closure, we instead offer comfort from some of our favorite philosophers: Calvin and Hobbes.

In the Trees

By Hannah Kleinkramer

In the cara cara trees
I walk down the row and stomp
on oranges rotting in the dirt;
the guts slide across the treads of my Timberlands.

I pick a shiner, twist it off the stem,
dig my fingernails into its peel,
tear off the rind and pith
and take a bite.

I look down and see the miles of tubing
and remember that day…

My dad and I were checking the irrigation;
We followed tubing up the rows
in between the trunks and weeds.

I knelt to fix an emitter.
My dad turned to me and said,
“I got the results back from my biopsy;
It came back positive.”

I nod my head, and we continue checking sprinklers.
I manage to focus by counting trees
And finishing off the row…

I take another bite of the cara cara
And look to the dirt.
There’s another orange in the path of my boots
and I stomp down.

Hannah Kleinkramer is twenty years old and is an English major currently attending Reedley Community College in California. She enjoys writing poetry and short fiction stories.

All that is stole, but what shall stay

By Geetanjali Purohit

-16/04/2021-

I didn’t know what grief was. That hollow feeling of helplessness and despair is consuming me now. Ever been to a casino and despite knowing the high odds of losing, felt the situation will be in your favor? It’s like you know the uncertainty yet don’t fathom its nature until you lose. Though I was acquainted with the uncertainty of life it is not until now during this pandemic that it is stark clear to me.

The coronavirus is still holding onto my chest, not treating me so bad but its effect on my family has got me weak in my knees. It was pretty late until my family realized corona had us in its radar which led to a series of unfortunate weeks and long hospital bills.

My grandmother and dad were hospitalized and the rest of us were quarantined at home. It’s this week that I realized how cautious we are to be of our frail lives, only one chance on existence. People spent a fortune on lives and not to my surprise my mom could spend an entire night sleeping on the administration room sofa in a Covid-19 ward while she was healthy to make sure my dad’s oxygen levels are in control.

I distinctly remember the scenario; it was almost midnight when my mom felt it was necessary to take my dad to the hospital, in the midst of the night on the streets of the once bustling city which was now dead, my mom rushed out with him during the curfew. You could only see the beaming lights from the sirens of patrolling cars and cops on duty making sure the curfew rules are strictly followed. No one was allowed to leave their homes after 9:00pm and so my mom was stopped by a cop but considering the emergency she was given a grant. On reaching the hospital and admitting my dad, it was so late, around 1:00 in the morning— there weren’t any Ubers available and it wasn’t safe to leave then,— and so my mom was left with no option but staying the night at the hospital despite the prohibition.

I guess I was never the loving kind, took the little things that people do for me for granted. I wasn’t very appreciative of the love I am often showered with and failed to notice its magnificent impact on my life until it was my mom with her immense love, who stood by us in our times of despair to rekindle the word grateful in my heart. I realize after having fallen multiple times, how important it is to notice and be expressive to people, as finally relationships are the reason you wake up every day with a smile and sense of comfort.

I kept hope imagining this phase to be a passing cloud, since everything is supposed to be temporary after all. However little did I know this pandemic was going to leave a mark of permanence. It got my grandmother.

Each night I slept looking at the void space on her side of the bed. Today I noticed the abandoned bird feeder and the weary wilting plants that have lost their lush in her absence. Right now, I peek down the balcony wall to see Kali our lovely black dog pressing on the bars of our iron gate, wagging his tail, still waiting to welcome her back from the hospital; little does he know she won’t return.

Battling through life’s harshest fights and always winning bruised but with an aura of bubbling confidence, I could describe my grandmother as invincible. Her sparks could make anyone’s day , so right now the steel cold silence that surrounds me is a reminder of her not being here.

Walking through our backyard now, where we use to spend a lot of time gardening together, I really feel lonely. I grew up eating her green chutney and pickles made from the mint leaves and lemons growing in our garden. I remember holding her hands when I was a child while she described all the herbs and plants in our garden. Her hands were always warm, a bit rough and sturdy. She had some scars which told great stories. She uses to tell me a lot of stories and I could see them come alive through her scars and her wrinkled hands.

She was a lot like me; fearless and full of energy, she used to tell me how she would climb on trees to pluck juicy fruits, how she had petted all sorts of animals she really adored and had seen mystical things I loved hearing about. My grandmother was nothing short of sunbeams, she used to light up the entire bazaar as she cracked up chatting with vegetable vendors, and catching up with the shopkeepers who adored her. The pandemic stole my greatest source of joy.

The surreal nature of this kind of loss is its contrast, with it being the most normal thing in life, everyone has to die. Yet strange; a coliseum of thoughts, dreams, and inexorably unique persona has been dispersed and will be a memory.

I can only promise to keep kindled her spirit of liveliness and bursts of energy, keep her love in the things that stay alive in her presence. I’m writing this to remind you lives are frail, change is constant. In this pandemic dark times are inevitable. Everything is temporary but our spirits shouldn’t die, just like my grandmother’s will dwell, the only thing that is permanent, the only thing that is not temporary.

Geetanjali Purohit is a fun-loving girl with a radiant personality. She loves to be the reason for someone’s smile. Having an array of interests from coding, writing, hanging out with her freaky friends to gardening with her grandmother she could be described as an amiable person.