Fiction
IDLE ANIMATION by Ryan Petersen
I made sure never to start the day. Abstained from True Conscious Hours. And yet, somehow, it went on without me. The sweat underneath my upper thighs became my five o'clock work whistle, an inarguable sign that the day was already over, before it had ever begun. Weeks went by like this. So smooth and easy that I hardly took notice. For I was a junkie, refreshing my feed with abandon, in willful avoidance of the aforementioned True Conscious Hours. YouTube was where I found the good stuff. I let the algorithm swaddle me tight, held in close by its data-driven embrace. Fifteen-to-twenty minute videos filled up my daylight hours without friction. The app analyzed my viewing habits, my click-through rates, average time spent on a page, engagement (likes, dislikes, comments) and explicit feedback submissions, among hundreds of other figures, and then offered up a viral load of For You content. Up Next was left on perpetual autoplay. My Suggested Videos offered up new, pulsating veins to tap into.The algorithm led me to the strange community of glitch hunters. Those who scoured the three-dimensional plane, in search of an errant polygon or invisible wall. They looked for exposed flaws in the game design, ones that opened up new possibilities of play. And exploits, for speedruns. A number of these videos concerned Super Mario 64, a game they treated as a sacred hyperobject, the ur-three-dimensional movement game. The creators’ focus on Mario 64 went beyond mere glitches. They imposed masochistic constraints on themselves, in limiting their button presses to the least amount of jumps theoretically possible; all this within level environments specifically designed around the act of jumping. It was a mindset akin to religious asceticism, achieved through the careful study of mathematical formulas. Equations that led to new modes of movement. And the discovery of parallel worlds. The YouTubers tore apart the fabric of the game and grafted a new reality atop of it, one more pliable to the player’s will. I watched a series of videos in one uninterrupted sitting, a film festival curated by my most destructive viewing habits.
Super Mario 64 - Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses (Commentated)
Here is a play by play of what I do. First, I use scuttlebug transportation to move a scuttlebug to the corner of the Watch for Rolling Rocks platform. Then, I use scuttlebug raising to raise him to about the height of the platform. Next, I use hyper speed walking to generate massive speed. Finally, I use Parallel Universe movement to navigate to the top of the course, launch to the scuttlebug to bounce on him, and ground pound in the misalignment of the platform to get onto it. And from there, I collect the star.
The TRUE Number of Parallel Universes in SM64, Solved!
Parallel universes in SM64 are a glitch where the memory for a level loops back around, caused by wandering too far from the stage. The glitch manifests as an invisible copy of the level, with varying degrees of bugged collision or objects. This has a strong resemblance to the nature of the 'Minus World' in Super Mario Bros, which is caused by another mathematical memory error.
My usual microphone is broken, so the sound quality might be a bit bad (I'll consider re-dubbing the video at some point). Not 100% sure if anyone has figured this out before, but based on what people have told me I don't believe it's been done.
Super Mario 64 - Go to The Secret Aquarium - 0x A Presses (VC Only) [OUTDATED]
I go to The Secret Aquarium using zero A presses. Unfortunately, this method is only possible on emulator and virtual console, and NOT console. This is because if Mario goes to a Parallel Universe on console without fixing the camera in the main map, the game will freeze.
So what are Parallel Universes? Well, Mario's position is a float, but is treated as a short for testing collisions. Since shorts can only hold up to 2^16 values, some information is lost in this conversion. Following this logic, there isn't just one map, but a grid of near infinite maps spread out by 2^16 intervals. These other maps are invisible, and are called Parallel Universes (PUs). With enough speed, Mario can travel to these PUs.
The Mystery of the 1995 Build of Super Mario 64 (Every Copy of Super Mario 64 is Personalized)
On July 29th, 1995, a Super Mario 64 build was constructed that forever shook the internet. From a ghostly Wario apparition to strange cases of personalized copies of the game, this precursor Super Mario 64 version was full of many different mysteries. Many theories arose surrounding this haunted occurrence and today we'll be doing a deep dive into the bottom of the Mario 64 mystery iceberg.
(Rare) Unseen Footage Of E3 1996 Demo Of SM64 (Wario Apparition)
yep it fake ok ...
Every copy of Mario 64 is personalized?
why the f**k everyone keep saying THIS?
The Wario Apparition is a rare software glitch where an unused game sequence occurs with Wario’s head in a bowser room, in Mario 64. It is commonly mistaken to be a creepypasta. Waluigi apparition is also rumored to be in the game hidden somewhere, fake or not it’s very unsettling.
I looked up from the blue light of my laptop screen. Soon I would be called down for dinner. And have to do the dishes afterwards. Then I would eat a low-calorie yogurt cup while I watched an episode of Shark Tank upstairs. Finally, I would lay in bed for five hours. Stare at the ceiling as I listened to a podcast. Fall asleep with my fluorescent light still on. My teeth unbrushed, my face unwashed. Another day completed with little-to-no resistance. I wondered how long my desecration of Time could continue. Obscene enjoyment was derived from my days spent staring at the loading screen. The internal mantra of you were bad today, you were bad, you were very very bad—a vesper delivered with an implied smirk. From the outside looking in, I could see I was locked into a game of chicken, secretly yearning for someone to come nail me down and call me on my bluff. To finally force my hand. I wanted to be taken down so fucking bad. To be shown for the heretic that I was. But no one wanted to go there with me. Those in my general vicinity danced on eggshells.There isn't just one map, but a grid of near infinite maps, spread out in multitudes of intervals. The videos got stuck in my head. I let the Parallel Universes form in my mind, then disintegrate and rebuild, unsure of their resonance. There was a certain poetry in the Youtuber’s voice over. My position is a float. But treated as a short. I nodded along in agreement. The coordinates of my spirit. Manifested as an invisible copy, with varying degrees of bugged collision or objects. The hidden realm was left largely untapped. How did I make use of the unseen copies, the glitches in my own memory loop? There was an effort, on my part, to create meaning. With minimal button presses. The apparition’s head in the room. A ghost, trapped within the RAM of a Nintendo 64 cartridge, our names already written in the code, before we’ve had the thought of purchasing the game. An old TV screen flickered, with washed out, red-green colors. It played back the graphical abstractions. But they were cruder than I’d remembered, with flattened water textures, and a pixelated tree that stuttered in and out of existence. Yeah, it’s fake. Ok?A voice called out for me. And yet I couldn't move. I was paralyzed, caught in the thick ooze of Wasted Time. My eyes scanned the room in a panic, searching for a stray platform, a scuttlebug, anything to launch me into the next map, towards an alternate grid. I longed for an invisible place, where zero presses would be enough. February 7, 2025
Fiction
HOUSE FLY by Megan Nichols
Superstition slipped in with the last of the September flies. My hands were full and I couldn't get the door shut fast enough behind me. There was a clog in the bathroom sink where drain flies had nested. Something about my slowness made me wonder if we didn’t deserve it. Jake said to get hot vinegar if I was too damn scared of store bought bug killer. The sour smell drove him out all afternoon and when he came back he saw I had let the vinegar boil out. He headed upstairs with a bottle of bleach but found the bathroom door locked. He shook the handle, his mad rattling brass on brass. I kept the bathroom key hidden in a bag of bread flour and started buying loaves from Ms. Debbie. On Tuesday she said I had autumn all over me and could I please take off my sleeves because the sun wasn’t done yet. I told her I didn’t feel him. On Wednesday, Jake worked late so I cooked nothing and peered under the bathroom door. I heard more than I could see, a buzz louder than his engine in the drive. He came up behind me, a shock I can’t blame him for. I was captivated. A fly crawled under the door and then beside me on the floor, until it was under Jake's boot. On Thursday, I realized there was nothing in the drain but bar soap and toilet water. I wondered what they were eating. Jake left early the next morning, not mumbling like I thought, but shouting. Neighbor Mitchell came over with jam, said he’d seen all the bread I’d been carrying in and heard the yelling. I couldn’t think of what to reply because I hadn’t heard anything. On Saturday, I combed the crumbs from Jake's beard, wiped the jelly from his lips and stored the scraps in a paper napkin. He was late for the river yet drank his Busch slow while we waited for what, I wasn’t sure. When he left, he said the forest service would be burning the woods down and not to be afraid of any ash the wind might carry. I didn’t catch his meaning. I was busy shutting the front door behind him, then fishing the key out of the flour. At the flies’ door, I sprinkled the collected crumbs on the ground and blew them into the bathroom. There was no obvious reason for me to have grabbed the key. I knew from the first larvae floating under the faucet that I would never let the flies free, but I knew it in the way one knows a lie they like better than the truth. Playing pretend, I put the key in the lock and let it rest a while, imagining what it’d mean to open the doorand see what I’d let grow. The outside air was cooler now, no flies swarming picnics or slipping through windows. The neighbors had already begun to eat a little slower; begun to keep the lids off butter dishes. What would it mean to unleash the end of their ease? I pulled the key out knowing I could not open it and felt sick. A million flies thrashed inside that locked room. I pushed my forehead to the floor and the house vibrated in a familiar pattern, till I knew his boots were beside me. His hands didn’t notice the key still in the door; they carried a drill and went for the hinges. He didn’t notice how easy it could have been to open. I hollered, Jake, Jake we don’t want to know but the drill was in his ear and the screws fell to the carpet. At once the door laid him out flat, or rather the flies pushed the door down with him under it. I pulled the neck of my dress over my mouth and nose, sealed my eyes and through the pulsing air, felt my way to him. Flies were in my ears and over my body, the force of them so thick the air resisted as I pushed the door away. The flies did not disperse but were a continuous flood, layering over each other and on top of us, so that it took my roaming hands minutes before I found the key sticking out of the top of Jake’s leg. His hands found mine and pushed them away. He did not hear me as I said no, don’t make room for them in you. He pulled the metal out. Instinctively, I dug my fingers into the wound trying to fill the space but he didn’t understand. He pushed me out and I came back and he pushed me out again. In seconds the flies found their way into the flesh, eggs were buried close to bone. Seconds more and the larva was spilling out of his thigh, growing wings, laying more eggs. Maggots hatched the infection in his blood, then sped the decay. The flies forced the rot and ate it up and then they went for the blood on my fingers and the crumbs on my dress. They ate the wishes out of my belly and the lies out of my mouth and by the end of it all I understood superstition had just been a false name for knowing.
February 6, 2025
Micros
A BEETLE TRAPPED IN GLASS by Meghan Proulx
First, he’s packed and put on ice like a seabass. Then he’s put in a state of vitrification and becomes a non-crystalline amorphous solid like a beetle trapped in glass. Seeing him during this time is like visiting someone in a coma, except I can’t touch him because there’s a risk of shattering. For one month a year, his body is reheated and drained of all preservation liquid. This is when the science happens and I find out what it means for him to have donated his still-living body to science. There are educational posters about it on all the walls. They describe the process beautifully, using metaphors about butterflies to great effect. My mother and I visit him daily during the month. We watch specialists poke at him, inject him with diseases, and test him with trial-stage medications. One experiment goes wrong and he loses a foot. In exchange for his body, we’re paid generously. We can afford organic groceries now. My dad also receives a retirement fund and a promise that if he dies before his term is up, our family will get a payout. This happens in about 35% of cases.I’ll be forty when he’s warm again and when I imagine our reunion we’re looking at each other with similarly lined faces. His doctor tells me to be thankful, the facility says we should be proud, and after several years his body helps them find a cure. His sacrifice is for you they say, and so I wear my gratefulness as best I can and when the doctor turns away I touch my father's fingers. They’re soft, like the inside of a slipper, and when I leave I feel his handprint on me and bring it home where all the pieces left behind live.
February 5, 2025
Fiction
YIELDING AS GLASS YIELDS TO FIRE: AN INTERVIEW WITH MANDIRA PATTNAIK by Rebecca Gransden
Shifting states. The novel-in-flash Glass/Fire (Querencia Press, 2024) exhibits the unfolding travails of girlhood, a reality adorned in rich contradiction and symbolism. Mandira Pattnaik’s sumptuous language carries forth a deep and sensuous meditation on life’s volatility. The wildness of nature’s forces at their most capricious lend an elemental intensity to fate. A dynamic and revealing exploration of growth, I talked to the author about the book.Rebecca Gransden: In the mood we were in, fire could be liquid, could be sand, or molten like lava, or flames, licking the last of us.You open the book with the above line. How important are opening lines to you and what does this particular line suggest about the book in its entirety?Mandira Pattnaik: Thank you, Rebecca. I do not particularly stress over opening lines, though I greatly acknowledge their importance, especially in flash fiction. It’s helpful to think of the opening as the answer to the question: What does it all boil down to? So, it is essentially the essence of what I want to convey. I want readers to feel surprised, or jolted, or pleased, or offended—I want them to respond in whatever way. With fiction, I shepherd some of the things that I know as truths ignoring from which field of study they originate and insert them into my make-believe world. I’ve now grown to enjoy this kind of braiding. This line, while it braids certain facts about the nature of fire, also tells something about ‘us’. Do ‘we’, as much as we are ‘in the mood’, as yielding as glass yields to fire? I asked myself this question that hadn’t been answered or addressed in my mind and wished to take the narrative forward from there. That’s the way I approach writing—a kind of collaboration between knowing and unknowing. It becomes interesting how a fractured pattern forms that I must uncover in the process while exploring what remains unsaid. Since I had the scope of a novella, and it was the first time I was attempting something of this length, I had the liberty to take or not take the chance to provide answers, and hoping the reader will decide for themselves.RG: How did you decide upon the title—Glass/Fire—for the book?MP: Glass and fire are unrelated in ordinary usage, and it is easy to forget that something as common as glass is formed by subjecting moldable liquid to fire. But then, glass is fragile. Again, some of the toughest glass-made objects are very useful. Fire is energy, enormously potent, but it is shapeless. It has many forms just like glass. Firepower, however, again like glass, has been tamed to suit human needs. So, all these facts seemed very related, though not in a general comprehensible sense. When I set upon the idea of the novella, the opening story was already out in the world, titled as “Glass/Fire”. After that first piece was published, I was sure it was a title that was full of possibilities and that could be open to interpretation (which I kind of love about titles!), and I had to name the novella that I was writing with the same title.RG: A recurring theme is that of impermanence, the fluid nature of states, whether that be of the physical, tangible and chemical type, or the psychological or spiritual. What is your approach to transience?MP: In Indian Hindu religion and mythology, from a very young age, we’re rather familiar with thought-schools such as the cyclical nature of births and rebirths, the virtue of detachment (to possessions as well as relationships) as opposed to being attached, and how change and impermanence is in-built in the universe (as opposed to absoluteness). I understand the doctrine of impermanence is very important to us as a people. Neither are rulers forever, nor is the mortal body to last eternally. Similarly for wealth or happiness, as is bad times and sadness. In Buddhism too, which originated in India, ‘anicca’ is the same doctrine of impermanence, evanescence, transience. Just as life changes in empirically observable states of childhood, youth and death, so do mental events as they come into being and get dissolved. Friends and foes appear and fuse into the mind’s horizon when their job is done. I find this deeply profound. I realize that the recognition of impermanence alleviates the stress of modern living. I seem to course around the theme of transience quite often in my prose and poetry and somehow that has touched a chord with my readers. Simultaneously, I am a great believer of fluidity and interchangeability. These preferences, I understand, gain ground in my writing in a natural manner.RG: Your language is rich, sensual, often concentrated in its descriptions. You make extensive and poetic use of simile and layered meaning. How much of the style you’ve chosen for Glass/Fire is a conscious decision?MP: Thank you so much for saying so. I’m grateful for all the praise that my use of language gathers, given that I am not a native English speaker. Also, I am not a trained writer in any sense—no degrees or writing workshops, and nothing to do with writing in my family, so it amuses me when Granta, denying me a bursary that I had applied for, compares my sample piece’s style to that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It also propels me to search for what is my true calling, but then I realize that, having had no training is a blessing as I have all the liberty in the world to use my natural style the way I wish to. I have often been appreciated as a lyrical and sensual writer, which of course, is gratefully received. As often happens, one is not prepared to hear anything about one’s writing—I feel so inadequate as an outsider, untrained, writer from the global south. And then one does get more comfortable. It kind of grows on you, and one starts believing in one’s writing—which I guess happened to me. It was never conscious. I am happy I am allowed my lyrical style, without the imposed regulations that academia might have suggested, or which formal training might have eroded.RG: Let’s imagine pure mechanics. Not fire. Instead of glass, let’s talk attraction and repulsion. What is to be stirred with two scoops of isinglass so courses of molecules change, or solidify like glue, or say, become viscous?It’s tempting to see a tension between the scientific and materialist language used in the book and the lyrical and artful, but the impulse to adhere to distinct categorizations on those terms is made moot early on. While you talk of the chemistry that makes us, the stuff of life, the novella interweaves aspects more broadly to present a holistic view. How do you view the scientific when it comes to Glass/Fire? Do you have a personal interest in the sciences?MP: It's really difficult to place science and art in two watertight compartments, isn’t it? There’s a constant osmosis taking place, and even one feeding on the other to enrich and enhance each other. I like this interplay. I tend to incorporate this tension between science and art amply in my writing. When it comes to Glass/Fire, the very basis of the work, starting at its title, is heavily drawn from various branches of science. I like to think of myself as a scientific and rational individual who also recognizes the limitations of science, both theoretically and practically. I have a background in science, yes, but I also graduated in economics and worked in accounts and audit—so these are all related and interwoven into my writing now. I’m also a big advocate of science explained and used in everyday life, as should the arts be. Instead of classrooms and seminars, science and arts should be part of life for the masses, not just the elite few.RG: But being suspicious in a relationship cemented with trust, is really cruel, it eats away the insides like termites.The novella addresses heavy themes such as adultery, marital breakdown and family strife. Your characters face the undermining of their foundations. How did you go about incorporating these aspects within Glass/Fire?MP: In opting for exploring certain issues, or the choices of themes we make as writers, I am not much interested in topics that essentially affect an individual or family, such as the themes above. I’d rather explore issues that affect society more broadly, such as hunger, civil unrest or apartheid. Having said that, themes of a domestic nature are no lesser in my mind, just a matter of what I am keener on examining as a writer. To me, issues of adultery or marital breakdown are simply manifestations of other problems in families and societies, and as you very importantly point out, in surviving these, the characters in Glass/Fire face the undermining of the very foundations on which their existence depends. These are ways in which the characters are forced to reevaluate the very basis of their being—and they undoubtedly fight back. I wanted to address how fragile existence sometimes becomes, when the truths and relationships you hold dear to yourself are shaken. I believe this kind of tangential approach to characterization requires more involvement and engagement. Instead of examining the said intensely domestic themes directly, or thinking about these issues as specific to one group or category, I asked myself if I could get to the core of their sadness or unfulfillment, and if there were several minor issues that were responsible for the situations the characters found themselves in.RG: There was a man dwelt by a churchyard. His wife was the enormous yew tree that shielded him from all. His children came by as autumn leaves, or as some say, they were the cattle that died grazing upon the yew. Sometimes the man coughed so hard, he’d want to be taken out to sea. But they’d trick him—his wife and his cattle-children—saying, the season’s changed and Christmas is here, when nothing ever changed at all.When it comes to narrative, the novella constantly highlights the meaning to be found in the everyday, that symbolic significance not only exists in a wider cultural manner but is amplified and changed by the personal stories we tell ourselves and are reinforced by family rituals. What was your approach to narrative for Glass/Fire?MP: I find the symbolism in ordinariness haunting me everywhere. It is like there are things on display, in nature and in people, waiting to be observed and newness discovered, until one realizes that it is only the form that has changed, and nothing ever changes permanently. I think I am going back to the theme of impermanence I discussed earlier. There is a lot of anguish, sense of betrayal, and a sense of forced mental captivity in Glass/Fire, and the only way out of it, at least momentarily, was to search for symbolic outlets for that feeling. I think the undercurrent of anguish is somewhat redeemed through the pursuit of, what I term as, ‘extraordinary ordinariness’. I’m attracted to natural, accessible objects' magnetic qualities, things and sights easily missed by the unobservant, which are significant in the way they enhance the beauty of the everyday and what is considered the regular or mundane. In that reference, my approach in Glass/Fire was to find that ray of hope in ordinariness as a signifier of extraordinariness.RG: How does the concept of freedom impact the book?MP: Ah, now that’s somewhat muddy territory for me—I mean, this concept of freedom. What is even freedom—how free are we? What is the freedom of mind? Is being free in the body enough? There are so many questions, and I can hardly begin to comprehend even if I knew the answers. But yes, I am very much an independent thinking individual and the concept of being free, or at least, feeling free is very important to me as a writer. I routinely turn down offers to write according to a certain theme or plan I’m not enthusiastic about. I respect others’ freedom, and in that context, I think it is very essential that we can be tolerant towards the ‘other’, whatever that may encompass. In this book, the narrator, Lily, their mother, Jo, and Heena—they are all seeking some degree of freedom. Some manage to achieve that ‘limited’ freedom they had been dreaming of, others don’t. So that again becomes slippery territory and I’ll leave readers to decide for themselves.RG: Gaze at the archipelago around, like it were the pores of a humungous indigo skin. Pass the tiny island where the market still spills with cheap wares people buy. Not you fancying something anymore, though—glass bangles and silk scarves and colored beads mean nothing today. Ceased to have any merit long ago.At a point in the novella you address the psychological consequences and emotionally disruptive impact of a devastating event. What struck me as particularly perceptive was the observation that in the aftermath of such an event meaning is drained from the world, rearranged or lost. Do you have a philosophical approach to meaning that is expressed in Glass/Fire?MP: I am not sure I am consciously incorporating the ‘meaninglessness’ of certain things in the aftermath of a particularly traumatic or psychologically draining event, but I think it follows as a universal truth of the human condition. When a relationship is thriving, there are several associated memories, and the lovers hold on to those as proxies of the ‘feeling of being in love’. But when there’s a disruption, the equations change, and the same things have no significance.The stories I’m interested in and truly invested in, and want to produce, are about finding the truer meaning underneath our superficial lives and delving into the raw, untouched material underneath. That is where the root is—the origin and consequence. After Where We Set Our Easel, my debut novella, I found myself thinking, What is the consequence? In my debut, I was particularly favorable to seeking a hopeful resolution. But in this one, because of its length which allowed me more space, I wanted to approach the questions of origin and consequence with more elaboration, and not necessarily a peaceful resolution.RG: Looking back, but with an eye on the future, how do you feel about Glass/Fire now? What is next for you?MP: I feel content with how Glass/Fire has been received by readers. I can perceive that it has generated critical interest and is being seen as a book that stands out from the crowd. This is extremely encouraging because I write about characters and settings that are not very common—especially because they belong to South Asia and the novella almost entirely happens in a coastal region of India. I am also happy that this means I can continue to be as original and faithful to my style as I want to. Following this, I have a collection of short stories that I hope will find publication soon. I am also excited about my debut novel that I am currently working on.
February 4, 2025
Creative Nonfiction
REPOTTING by Ona Akinde
1at the airport in lagos, we find out my bags are overweight. it doesn’t surprise me. how was I supposed to fit years of my life into two 23kg suitcases? I buy an overpriced ghana-must-go bag to replace the heavier suitcase so I have more room for my things but my bags are still overweight. my mother is frantic as we pack and unpack, and I decide what else to let go of. “are you sure you don’t need this? the dress is nice on you,” she asks as I hand her another item of clothing to take back home. I nod my head yes, despite the uncertainty that washes over me. I think to myself, maybe I do need this. I still need you. I don’t know what I can do without. my bags are exactly 23kg by the time we’re done. I finally check in and as I hug my mother goodbye, our words become tears. we stay in that embrace, in silence, weeping and weeping until an immigration officer asks me to stop crying because I’ll see my mother again soon. but I don’t know when soon is. 2.ten days after I move to houston, I start feeling unwell. I tell myself it’s nothing serious and decide it’s fatigue from adjusting to the peak august heat, but I get progressively worse. my head won’t stop hurting. my throat is sore. my eyes are heavy. I’m burning up. I manage to buy flu and fever meds at a nearby h-e-b. for four days, I am confined to my apartment, weak and exhausted. I don’t have family or friends here yet. I haven’t figured out my health insurance plan. I don’t know if the meds are working. I have no appetite. I wake up each day feeling better and then worse. I cry because I’m so afraid. I set multiple alarms because I worry I will sleep and not wake up. my body feels like foreign matter the city is reacting to. 3.the sickness passes on its own, but for weeks I dread going to bed. I struggle to fall asleep and when I eventually do, I struggle to stay asleep. my dreams feel like malaria dreams: vivid and nonsensical. I dream of childhoods I didn’t have. I often dream of a lagos that I am familiar with but that also doesn’t exist. the events in the dreams blur the line between real and unreal. I wake up confused and worn out. I have to remind myself where I am. I still wake up at the times my alarms in lagos used to go off. my full-size bed feels like it’s consuming me so I start sleeping on my couch because there’s less room for me to wander, for my body to lose itself. in lagos, I had no trouble falling and staying asleep. 4.it’s midnight in lagos and london. everyone I love is asleep. but it’s 6pm in houston and I don’t know who to call or text about my day. I spend my evenings in silence in my apartment. it’s the quietest I’ve been in months. 5.on a saturday in september, I make puff puff from scratch for the first time. I combine flour, sugar, milk, yeast and warm water to form a stretchy dough. I worry that the consistency isn’t right but I cover the mixture with a towel, put it in one of the kitchen cabinets, and hope that it rises. I think about lagos and the small joy that was going on a drive to buy puff puff. and how it’d become a longer drive because I’d remember something else I needed to buy and stop at a supermarket, or two. I think about my regular routes that I could navigate without google maps and ubers and buses that are never on time. the dough rises as it should and I deep fry the mixture in scoops, watching mostly perfect golden brown balls form. I take a picture when I’m done frying the puff puff and send to my mother. I eat puff puff for lunch and dinner that day and then breakfast the next day. 6.my screen time is at an all-time high. I don’t want to lose touch. I keep streaks on tiktok and snapchat. I send multiple long voice notes to update my friends. it’s always video calls with my parents and sisters, never audio calls. but I feel like I’m constantly playing catch-up. like I’m missing out on experiencing life happening to the people I love. it will never be the same again. I wake up on a monday morning in october and call my sister. she stays on the phone with me as my voice breaks and the tears fall. I just feel so alone, I just feel so alone. when my professor asks later that day if I’m settling into houston okay, I say that I am. 7.I’m aware of my possibilities as a writer in houston, in a way that I wasn’t in lagos. it feels like for the first time in a long time, my writing finally has the space to thrive. I knew I needed to leave lagos. but being here is hard. my god, it’s so hard. 8.if plants aren’t repotted when they need it, they can outgrow their existing pots and become pot bound, causing them to suffer and struggle to survive. however, healthy plants may appear sick after repotting due to transplant shock, a temporary stress response caused by the disturbance of the plant’s root system. in most cases, transplant shock is temporary and while some plants will recover within a few weeks with proper care, others may take several months to fully recover. 9.it’s december. I’m still struggling to sleep through the night.
February 3, 2025
Fiction
she transmogrified in my bed by Rylie Farr
My girlfriend has started a new regiment this week. She told me after coming home yesterday from work. Supposedly, this is supposed to help her achieve her “ideal form.” Every night now she is supposed to take these fluorescent green pills with her dinner. I don’t mind it too much. She becomes so sleepy afterwards, so I tuck her in our bed before sitting out on the couch for a couple of hours. Our flat is now quieter than usual.It seems the side effects are starting to take place in her body. This morning, she woke up before me squealing in front of the bedroom mirror. Her reflection seemed sickly in color that contrasted her cheerful visage. Grabbing my hands, she drew up my fingers to her cheeks. The skin there felt taut, reflecting the light from the ceiling fan. After we got ready for work, she texted me to go get some food and blankets for the upcoming weeks. Coconut, muskmelon, and vinegar for fruit flies. Her skin has begun to constrict, pulling back to reveal new valleys and canals. I asked her if she should be more concerned about her health, but she says this is natural. It’s harder to watch her stumble around more often around the apartment. I wrap cute bandages around her fingers from all the glasses she drops in the sink. Bruises color her thighs and hips. Her eyes have begun to cloud, a soft chocolate becoming milky blue. I have started to memorize where to run my thumb in circles at the front of her scalp, feeling small bumps under her skin. She asked me to help her this weekend hemming her jeans. When I run my hand along her vertebrae, she shivers while I test the new skin of hers.She quit her job. She told me that she won’t need it anymore. When my arms rest around her waist, foreheads touching, her new antennae curl in an arc and brush my ears. I asked her how much more fruit do we need to go through, and she giggled. She pressed her sharpened fingertips to my chest. Murmuring, she tells me how refreshing it feels now to breathe, to feel in her own skin. Next Tuesday, we’re supposed to get a humidifier in the mail to help her skin break smoother. The pills are starting to run out, so I have to go pick up her refill tomorrow and grab more trash bags.The night her new limbs emerged was the worst. I had just refilled the humidifier the second time while she begged to be held, covered in a cold sweat. Gently, I would roll her over on her side while I switched out the wet towels to toss into a bedside hamper. I would lay down on my side, rubbing her naked back in circles while the skin sloughed off to reveal a set of newly emerged elytra. I lean over to see her tear-streaked face, pressing my lips to her eyelids and her mouth, gently kissing where labrums fought to break out under her top lip. We both smiled. Once she fell asleep, I gathered her shed skin into a pile and shoved it down into trash bags. I got her the lavender scented ones this time.I like to watch her eat now, watching the juice run down her neck as she practices using her new, miniature mandibles. They click while she talks and when she annunciates her S’s. She told me that soon it might be harder for her to speak without proper vocal cords, so I signed up for a subscription to an American sign language course. She sits beside me while I review the alphabet, stroking my back with one of her new, dark legs that jut out from her waist. When we lay together in bed, I like to lay by her back and rub her newly fitted wings between my forefinger and thumb. She becomes more iridescent by the day. The flat has become lively again, with happy chitters reverberating throughout the place. I had to get her a pair of crutches today. Her legs were the next to go, as I watched the marrow into chitin. The thighs I would grip were now small enough to be held in my palm. As her bones start to hollow, it has become easier for me to carry her around the apartment. She covers her face whenever I decide to carry her like a princess from the bed to the kitchen for her meals. Slowly, she asks me what I will do once her transformation is done. I tell her that I will still love and take care of her regardless of her body. Her antennae wiggle in response. That night, I carried her to bed and held her tight to my chest. It felt like I was holding a bird.When I woke up this morning, the other side of the bed had a beetle sitting on her pillow. I put my hand out, watching her crawl up my arm to my nose. I walked her out to the kitchen and sat her by the sink. She spun while I cracked open a jelly from the fridge for her to squish into her mouth. Later, we went to the pet store to pick out a new enclosure. I brought her in her old water glass. She would point out which substrate she liked, what hide aways she wanted. Everyone else there was also carrying their girlfriend in cups. I set up her new enclosure in our bedroom after. She sat on my hands chewing my cuticles. She seems to really like her new spot on our nightstand by the window.My girlfriend died today. One morning when I woke up, the bed felt devoid of her presence. I shot up, running my hands and flipping up blankets and pillows, trying to find her. When I ran over to check her fish tank, I could see her on her back, arms curled up into her chest, bright green peeking out underneath. I scooped her up with my hands, flipping her over while I sat on her side of the bed. She was beautiful. I didn’t even know how to mourn. While I sobbed, cupping my girlfriend to my chest, the humidifier screamed waiting for its tank to be filled again. I decided to put her by the edge of my nightstand afterwards. When I turn in my sleep, I can twist and look into her honeycomb eyes before hiding under another blanket. I like to imagine that she is still there beside me with her cold exoskeleton pressed against my stomach.
January 27, 2025
by Mike Topp
$25 | Perfect bound | 72 pages
Paperback | Die-cut matte cover | 7×7″
Mike Topp’s poems defy categorization. That’s why they are beloved by seamstresses, pathologists, blackmailers and art collectors.
–Sparrow
