Solace for the Troubled Mind
by Nam Tran
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Nam Hoang Tran is a writer and visual artist based in Orlando, FL. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Posit, The Brooklyn Review, Word For/Word, New Delta Review, Always Crashing, Diode, and elsewhere. More at namhtran.com.
By Greg Santos
As I write this editorial, it has been a relatively warm season so far and my family has been doing our utmost to partake in quintessential fall activities like apple picking, elaborate Halloween costume preparations, and getting ready to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival with mooncakes and all manner of round-shaped goodies.
By Oreganillo.
Aodh Ó Riagáin is Oreganillo., a non-binary Irish artist working with a brush, pen, and ink on comics, illustration, graphic design, animation, film, and more.
By Eden Andrews
In an effort to escape, I had run a bath. Shortly after, you opened the door. As if you were trying to move molasses. I couldn’t look at the burn in your cheeks or wonder how your clunky knees must be feeling on the tiled floor. Leaning on the side of the tub, you looked like an aged man, who had only lips and a nose.
By Carol Krause
Another email from the queer social group appears in my inbox. I am invited to skate with a group of strangers. I do not open the message. It will be too much for me, this gathering of fingers and eyes. I may get dazed. Or I may drown in the clattering of voices, temporarily losing my grounding in the so-called “real” world.
By Khashayar Mohammadi
I arrive at the station, disembodied. I’m brimming with images. I walk into the house. His house. Filled with mourners. A hall to welcome the black vested with cheese platters. The utter horror of being haunted by too many ghosts to keep track of in a line of sight. The panic of forgetting.
By Caitlin Stall-Paquet
Captain Cécile Hauchecorne parked her Zodiac boat at the dock in L’Anse-Saint-Jean, a village of just over 1,200 on Québec’s Saguenay Fjord where granite-faced mountains plunge deep into frigid waters. After I stepped onto the vessel, she handed me a waterproof orange jacket and overalls, a beacon in the grey morning.
By David Hudacek
I work at a job where I’m not meant to sleep—at night, I mean, and I can’t sleep during the day, not in any real sense, at best a half-sleep. On bad days the sun doesn’t come up, all is twilight or dark, but on good days if the sun is out it’s worse—I can see the horrible brilliance of what darkness has hidden.
By Robbie Maakestad
After Bill Murray swipes the sleep from his eyes, the first thing he checks is whether the sky watched him sleep throughout the night. Its presence brings comfort, for as a child young Billy sometimes awoke to find his mother, or his father even, bent over, watching him sleep—
By Fiona Vigo Marshall
The children call me Sasquatch and say that I live in a hole in the playground. They say that I never get cold, that my body hair keeps me warm as I curl up to sleep. They say I walk the Mexico City metro lines by night, from Tacubaya to Indios Verdes, looking for stray passengers.
By Hana Mason
Sometimes the only thing that gets you off is the thought of your own success. That, or the thought of the neighbour coming over and taking you behind the rotting old woodshed. The housing co-op where you live, where you used to live with your aunt but now just live alone, has backyards from which you can see every other backyard.
By Nicolò Monti
She’s petting a white bunny with creepy red eyes born not long ago. We come and check on it every day because she thinks the cage is too dark and uncomfortable. We set it free and let it roam the old stable for a few minutes, door locked and eyes watchful so it doesn’t run away.
By T Williams
A text from Terry buzzes. Already, Aidan is at attention. Terry’s opening is as aggressive as it is subtle: “Got a six-pack of Stella. Your favorite.” Aidan can’t resist the offer of free Belgian imports. He replies in seconds, “Sure.”
By Kalden Dhatsenpa
An astrology website once told me that my moon sign, Sagittarius, indicated that I likely moved a significant amount as a child. Another suggested that whenever I was feeling down or confused, that I should travel to a different neighbourhood as an alternative form of therapy.
By David Scriven
The oral history of my mother’s family has always intrigued me. I wanted to learn more about my French-Canadian ancestors who emigrated from Québec to Ontario in the mid-1800s. Fertile land was becoming scarce in Québec, and Ontario was encouraging settlement.
By Nam Tran
Nam Hoang Tran is a writer and visual artist based in Orlando, FL. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Posit, The Brooklyn Review, Word For/Word, New Delta Review, Always Crashing, Diode, and elsewhere. More at www.namhtran.com.
By Erynn Wakefield
Dressed in black or blue, you can’t drape yourself in humour or tie the shoelaces of wit. As much as you try, the collar of your crewneck isn’t kindness as much as it is sour cotton. And even dressed in red, your envy seeps through the fabric.
Translated by Nadiyah Abdullatif from Sharon Paul
Nas sang the song that told the story of the prince uprooted from the great land and sent to this small island. As he sang the prince’s tale, all those around him were wondering who he truly was. Who was able to sing like that?
Translated by Alani Hicks-Bartlett from Théophile Gautier
In spring, the birdsong was beautifully deafening: each leaf hid a nest, each tree was a full orchestra. All of the tiny, feathered musicians vied with one another to be the loudest and best.
By Charlotte Morris
Charlotte Morris is a queer, Jewish, multidisciplinary artist who happily studies English Literature at Concordia University. She is interested in Jewish folklore, all forms of horror media, and takes every excuse available to make comics.