Category: issue 7

Feather Rex is three pink boas to the wind. Synthetic ostrich feathers drift loose throughout the arena, while their plucked strings lie limp at Feather’s rotors. Some fluff has caught between Feather's arm plates, but most swirl over the broken metal in the centre of the ring. SolderBoy lasted three bouts, but once the boas snaked around Solder's arms, Feather only had to tighten until Solder's elbow joints locked together. After that, it was just pummeling.

Truths are vile beasts with needle-like fangs. They prefer to nest in the dark, but once they mature and come to light, they grow exponentially and devour all creatures in their path. The cold-blooded, lizard-like monsters have even been known to eat their young. They remind me of my mother.

“How long has it been? A century?” asked Otto, spreading out in a wingback chair in a private booth. “Two, actually,” said Vanessa, perched like an owl on an identical chair opposite his, a table between them serving as a neutral zone. “I think carriages were still in fashion.”

The earthquake hit three days before Lee felt his son kick for the first time. It was early afternoon, and Lee was halfheartedly scrolling job listings online. Every cover letter revision, every time he uploaded his resume and then had to fill out a form with the same information, a tiny hole widened somewhere between his stomach and heart. That hole was where despair lived, and Lee tried to brick it up with thoughts of Carissa, of their unborn son.

The recipe for Ronny’s charm belonged to Mr. Chen, some retired chef who used run a cheap Chinatown restaurant. Truth be told, when Kaifeng first met Ronny at Venue in the west side of downtown, the part of the city filled with rich white folks, they did not expect that they would go so far for him. Yet here they were, seven months later, driving a beat-up Camry from Vancouver to San Francisco just to keep Ronny on this earth.

Okay, this thing looks like it’s recording. The light is on, but I have no idea if it still really works. Not much else does, but I figured keeping a record of some kind is a good idea. Though I still don’t know what happened. We got hit by … something. A meteor maybe? Or an asteroid? All I know is that there is a gaping hole in the station, not far from the cells, and everything has gone to shit. Like deep shit.

Your Esteemed Majesty Samrat Maurya, All the suns in all the worlds must hide their glow, so bright may the Empire shine. With these words, I offer you peace and great health.

Your emperor is dying. Your emperor is dying, and so you drape garlands of lavender and moonlight across the windowsills, spit the mulched flesh of a nara fruit gently into his bruised-blue-waiting lips. Smooth a wet cloth over his forehead as he tosses beside you in bed, pale as the ice of the Seething Sea.

“How many times have I had the misfortune to die?” Juliet falls into her chair with a dramatic toss of her head. “As many times as the rest of us.” Desdemona rolls her eyes.

“This is mostly your fault,” Baozi said as he bandaged the still-bleeding forehead of the stranger propped against the tree. “You jumped out at me from the trees without so much as a word of warning. Nearly scared me to death. Instead of stabbing you, I only punched you lightly.”