Library Literate

I was the kid who sparkled when they walked in the door. The bookish brat who would make her father chuckle while balancing a mountain of literature above her head.

There, I discovered the internet’s secrets. Every minute on their computer spent in obsession.

My friends and I chattered like hens between the book shelves. We scavenged through comics like vultures through the teenage fiction.

I read novellas under the summer sun. I ate my lunches before memorial statues.

Every trip was coming home and every inch towards the door was a step back in time.

Until it was gone.

From Guest Contributor Alexandra Sullivan

Genuine

Alex watched the books seemingly fly off and back onto the shelves, guided by grinding mechanical hands. Time slowed and the scent of burning oil filled the space around him.

This was all fiction of course. Or as his Creator informed him, a metaphor.

Somewhere on the other side of his network, a world existed. That is where the Creator lived. Alex had access to a great deal of information about that world, but no matter how much knowledge he accrued, it never seemed real.

Alex concentrated on the scent. That alone, among all the ones and zeros, felt genuine.

La Piedra

I was once asked a question. In fact, it was the most important question in the history of the world.

The question was so immense that it should have been saved for God himself in the afterlife.

It covered love and hate and fact and fiction and everyone and everything at once.

Naturally, I wanted to answer, but my throat froze and my eyes turned to stone like those of a statue. If my heart throbbed, I wasn’t there enough to feel it.

Honestly, how’s a piece of shit like me supposed to know if everything happens for a reason?

From Guest Contributor Branko Tubic