A beverage of warmth and tranquility Ambrosial flakes of nature seeping and stirring Perceived as bland or monotonous A tacit waste of space and time. But it sits tenderly, anxiously With a distraught reflection aching, For another to stir the saccharine And break it free.
A blend of a halcyon feeling Of its timid essence, of its reality; Lead and judged by the ones Who smother its heart. Its autumnal spirit aglow, For a hope to abscond the dark blindness And not be lost.
His Holiness' Arrival by Paulo Lombardi
Reverence shimmers within the crowd as they anticipate his near arrival; vehement hollers suffuse the nave widely while ladies and gentlemen gather; many chandeliers hang above the ethereal, pulchrous aisle that leads to heaven.
Floorboards beshake from the trample of the churchgoers, and candelabra sparkle deeply; passional utterances welcome the graceful cloak; His pure, prime holiness has come.
Remembrance by Paulo Lombardi
I still remember the day when you vowed allegiance to your fourth wife whom you called “perfect,” and left the next month.
I still remember the day when you told me that the tuna at Costco is forty-two cents cheaper than its counterpart in Walmart.
I still remember the day when you gathered all my baseball cards that were exclusive and priceless and chucked them into the recycling plant.
I still remember the day when I had to regurgitate a eulogy that gilded your character and omitted your flaws.
Despite all of this, I love you dearly—step-great-uncle.
The Wizards of Macedonia By Carrington Golson
The Wizards of Macedonia took a quarter of my people, I wish I could’ve done something but my body was mentally paralyzed, I couldn’t stop them when they took the kids I couldn’t stop them when they took the adults I couldn’t stop them when they took my friends I couldn’t stop them when they took my family I wanted to stop it, Stop the pain, the lives lost, But I couldn’t because my shoes were drowning in unclean water as I panicked and prayed to God to keep me safe, The salty tears ran down my face, hearing the screams and bodies dropping to the floor, I couldn’t do anything because I was praying to God, That my life wouldn’t be ripped out of my chest, by a weapon of mass destruction.
The Wizards of Macedonia took a quarter of my people, But instead of magical people in a faraway land, It was a teenager done with life and making others suffer with him Instead of people, It was my classmates, my teachers, my friends, my family, While The Wizards of Macedonia were reigning terror on my people, I couldn’t help them because I was busy standing in toilet water, crying and praying to God, My Precious life, The Wizards didn’t care about me. They wanted to take something that was mine With its forceful magazine bullets thrusting through the unwanted air, Grabbing death’s attention immensely. There were more Wizards where it came from in Macedonia, God forbid they’ll be more. Death shakes its head over and over again as it takes another fighting soul not ready to leave but has to, Death has its job, but holds the adults over its shoulder and carries the children in its arms. Death wasn’t religious it just did its job, But Death did a prayer for every child it had to carry in its arms over and over again at these blood-ridden schools. Death didn’t cry. But realizing The Wizards of Macedonia came for the people, He sobbed.
Chapter 2: Isekai Entrance by Jason Wu
Note to the reader: Chapter one is posted in the February 2022 edition under a different title. (link here)
In the year 3240, the Steam Empire has grown into a galactic empire with over 30 planets in its territories. Onboard the SSF Ice Spear, floating in the middle of nowhere in space, there is an experiment occurring led by a scientist named Dr. Haley. As she arrives at the testing room she thinks about the report she will have to make. She begins to type onto her phone onto a note taking app: “Monday report, Project Soul Synthesis update. The souls of the original couple that volunteered have been successfully removed. The two new souls have been put in. Currently awaiting for the test results. Some questions to ponder on: How would the body’s memory react to the new soul? What effects would the body’s bio memories give? Will they go into conflict like the last 39 times or will they be in sync? These are questions that still need to be answered, however I think the answer is yes, and only partially. But I shall await and see the results myself. Also I forgot to reverse the bio-marriage (Marriage that binds two bodies together spiritually andmentally via implanting core memories within bio memories, can be altered and reversed.). Why can’t we just do marriages the old way, the way that didn’t include spiritually and biologically binding a couple together? Now they will have to wait like 2 years in order to call an appointment to reverse the bio-marriage.” She walks to room and checks on the test subjects and sees Crystal, who has awoken on the left side of a two-person cryo-pod. Obviously, as common courtesy dictates, a greeting is in order. “Subject 001, Crystal. Welcome to the Steam Empire. The year is 3237 AD, and we hereby welcome you to the most amazing empire in the universe.” “What happened? And where am I?” “You were just in a simulator that trained you to be able to fight well for us and let you do as you pleased. This is the SSF Ice Spear, the ship that shall be generously bestowed to you by yours truly. The SSF is now yours to command. “First of all, who are you?” “I deeply apologize for not introducing myself. My name is Dr. Haley. You are the first test subject in the virtual training program that I am testing. And might I add the “first successful one at that. Not saying anyone has failed yet or anything.” “I see, well then. I’ll just get a tour of the ship.” “Go ahead, after all, it is yours to keep. However, just remember that there is still one test subject, 002, that you will have to keep an eye on.” “Got it. Anything else I should know, Dr. Haley?” “Nothing other than the possibility you might need this.” Dr. Haley gave Crystal a phone and a syringe.” “A phone. I just realized that I didn't have one on me. Thanks for the phone, Doc. And for the syringe, what’s the deal about it?” “It is a medication to help you gain your memories back.” Crystal jabs the syringe into her left arm and injects the mysterious liquid inside the syringe into her. “No problem, I’ll see you later. I’m going back to my ship now. Also the guy you were with, he is your husband.” “Wait what?” The door of the hallway closes before her voice could be projected to her. Puzzled and with many questions floating around her head she begins to tour around the SSF Ice Spear in order to take her mind off the fact. The ship didn’t exactly fit the image she had in mind. Not only was it a ship well suited for combat, it had a food court in it, allowing the crew to eat on their breaks any day. Crystal then takes a mode of transport to the command deck to check out the place. Soon, after she gets there, the crew appropriately and formally greets their new commander. Crystal returns their respectful greeting with a casual wave. She briefly observes the deck and begins to look around the controls, somehow knowing how to use all of its instruments and tools. A few seconds after observing the control deck, an unfamiliar ship enters her peripheral vision. Even though she possesses general knowledge of how to commandeer the ship after waking up half an hour ago, she’s unsure of how to react to this ship that doesn’t cease to approach. As if to answer Crystal’s fight or flight decision, the menacing figure attacks the SSF Ice Spear. Crystal begins to panic a little but quickly regains her composure. She calls for all personnel to get to their battle stations. Soon, the ships go into a battle, and with every command, she keeps pushing the odds in her favor. But the enemy soon decides to change their method of attack, which catches the eye of a sharp crewmate. She rushes down to give Crystal a status report. “Commander, the enemy has sent out a group of fighters to reach us as we focus our fire on their ship. I highly recommend sending our own fighters to intercept them.” There was no experience that Crystal shared with the crew, nor any real battle experience besides the simulations. Despite this, her crew seems to trust her completely as they await their orders on how to handle this new dire situation. “I understand. Fighters, intercept the incoming groups and prevent them from reaching us!” Despite their best efforts and well-timed coordination, they failed to realize one strike fighter slipped past their defense and collided with the Ice Spear. “We’ve been hit! What percentage of the hull has been hit?” “Commander, 20% of our ship has taken severe damage. Mainly in the point-defense systems and the engines.” “In that case, please send our repairmen immediately. I’ll set the Ice Spear to defensive mode. With our firepower, we’ll try to hold the enemy back as long as we can.” After a mere thirty minutes, the ship is fully functional and prepared to unleash an all-out attack. But soon before Crystal can order the finishing attack, she gets a text message from Dr. Haley. She immediately logged onto unimessenger to reply to her.
Dr.Haley Dr.Haley Congrats on passing the test, You have shown me that it is possible for troops to be trained virtually. I’ll be sure to report this info to Emperor. Crystal Emperor? Like, we have a ruler in the steam empire, or is the ruler's name ‘Emperor’? Also, that was a test? Dr.Haley Yep, Emperor is our emperor. But there’s something more important that you should get to before I can tell you more. You should check on Subject 002. He should be awake by now. Crystal Got it, I’ll be sure to check on 002.
She immediately closed her phone and left the Command deck to check on 002. She arrives at the pod, and checks on him, to find that he has not awakened yet. Out of curiosity, she checks the name tag of this mysterious Subject 002. “Clyde? This name seems oddly familiar. I can’t put my finger on it, but…” Her head throbbed a bit as an unknown memory quickly passed her by. “What’s this? I remember something about… a math test. I don’t know where or when this memory came from. I know I woke up recently, but I can’t write this off as being half-asleep. Not after that intense battle. I’d ponder more about this in my current free time, but… I’m getting really hungry. I don’t even remember when was the last time I had something to eat. I’ll get something to fill my stomach first real quick and have that fuel my brain for the rest of the day.” After eating breakfast in the food court, she realizes that she hasn’t seen every place on her ship, so she goes on another tour, particularly in the maintenance hallways. A short while after she’s satisfied with her exploration, she travels to the flight deck. She enters and is greeted formally, but this time, also excitedly by the crew. Some of her members begged her to fly an AFF-22 jet fighter. They seemed pretty impressed with the way she handled that enemy attack, even if it was a virtual simulation. From all the praise, she couldn’t help but sheepishly laugh and accept their request. She enters the cockpit and takes a few moments to remind herself of its controls before taking off. Still, on the greatest high she’s felt in a while, she shows off and does some tricks and practice shots before returning to the flight deck. After returning, she does a quick check on Clyde again, only to find him still asleep. Her hunger problem was already solved, so she only had two things she had planned for today. Explore the rest of the ship and learn more about Clyde. Even though she only had that memory for an instant, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. But Clyde was still asleep, so she went with the former idea. Before heading off to the command deck to check out more of the ship, her faithful crew greets her once more. The idea of being adored also seemed vaguely familiar, but she was more interested in her memory with the man she remembers that so happens to resemble the man in the cryo-pod. Crystal walks towards a holographic screen, or holo-screen, and checks it out. She finds that it is very useful and convenient. She gets slightly addicted to the holo-screen and plays with it until tiring herself. She decided that she was satisfied with her day and went to bed in the captain's private bedroom, located near the command deck. The next day, she wakes up with vague expectations and begins her new daily schedule, made by Dr. Haley. No matter how much time passes, no matter how technologically advanced their society becomes, no one’s daily routine changes. She gets up, brushes her teeth, gets changed, and makes her way down to the food court for breakfast. Later, she begins to train her troops for a few hours before getting some free time which she spends playing games on the holo-screen. Her crew doesn’t care much about what she is doing because she is a very relaxed person. After all, she doesn’t mind when someone does something unfitting to a crew member. She’s very tolerable and barely scolds them as long as they don’t cause too much trouble. The training session passes smoothly, and in hopes of one success after another, she returns to her daily check-up on Clyde. As usual, he was still asleep. She stared at him for half a minute, wondering what he has to do with that memory. She gets up from her seat when his eyes start twitching. An excited Crystal quickly plopped back down onto her seat and leaned closer to him. His eyes were slowly opening. But instead of observing his surroundings as she did, Clyde’s eyes only focused on the beautiful girl waiting for him to respond. He stares for a minute, and Crystal patiently gives him the time he needs to process all of this. His eyes dampen as if he’d shed tears of joy. “Is that really you, Crystal?” Crystal hears his voice and her brain starts to flood with memories of him “Yeah. It’s me, Clyde.” After they get caught up in their stirring reunion, Crystal regains her sense of reason and explains the current situation to Clyde. “Welcome to the SSF, Steam Space Forces. The ship you are currently on is named, the SSF Ice Spear, my command ship. You, my fellow soldier and friend, have been in cryosleep for a long time.” Clyde took a second to look around the room he slept in for so long. “For a long time, huh? I think that’d be pretty obvious, when you look at all the tech around us right now, let alone the fact that I’ve been in cryosleep this whole time.” “Right, lots of time has probably passed.” “Give me an explanation of why I’m still alive, please would ya? The last thing I remember is my life flashing before my eyes.” “Oh yeah, that. Well, you lived a normal life in today’s world until the young age of 19 when you decided to join the SSF. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been told via the holo-screen. And then we sent you into cryo-sleep in order to train you. All of the plant armies were virtual.” “But all those people were real, right?” “Some of them. Anyways, take this pill. Even though we remember each other, not all of our memories are intact. This pill will bring those memories to your current self in two days. If taken now, your memory will return probably by the morning after tomorrow.” “Did you also take some kind of pill?” “Syringe, actually. But I was told by Dr. Haley that my memories will return whenever yours do.” Clyde nods understandably and swallows the pill. “So, go ahead and get some rest. You had a rough time. Oh, and your room is at Barrack 12.” “Thanks, Crystal. But I don’t understand. If I came from this “world”, why don’t I have memories of this place?” “That’s because you spent three good virtual years in that virtual environment. Don’t worry, your current body is only 20, so nothing has changed at all.” “Oh, that’s nice. By the way, since I missed all of this, I’m kind of both culturally and historically ignorant. Can you tell me the history of this world?” “Well, I can tell you about this world up to the point of my knowledge. Okay, here we go. So our planet had been involved in a lot of wars till a single person appeared and managed to unite all of us under the Steam Empire. There are other empires like the Juno Confederation and the faze Empire. Then we, the Steam Empire, researched spaceship technology, and now, we’re preparing to go take over some planets. The other ones do have space technology as well, however they don’t do as much colonization of planets like we do. The only reason why we need to is because of our growing population. It is much bigger than the juno confederation or the faze empire.” “Cool. Can you tell me about the planets we will be capturing?” “One of them is inhabited by bugs and insects of all sizes, and don’t forget, they have giant leeches.” “Giant leeches?” “That’s right, they can suck up all your blood in a matter of seconds!” “Scary, what can we do about them then?” “We are developing technology to fight against that.” “Um, okay. I hope that gets developed before we capture that planet. That much is a given. Wait, can the insects invade us?” “For now, we don’t actually know. We have only gotten two exploration ships down there, and they really got wrecked badly.” “So, that’s great and all, but how are we going to attack a place we don’t know about? I’ve only heard a little and even I can tell they have the advantage.” “They can’t use their advantage if we strike before they can use their opportunity. So we’re going with sneak attacks.” “Wait, we’re sneak attacking them? What happened to a nice declaration of war?” “Times have changed, Clyde. Battles now happen on a regular basis. Many have gotten tired of following an honorary code. Nowadays, we must win, no matter how dirty the tricks we play are. Plus, these are plants we are talking about, they don’t speak the same language as us. They use chemicals to communicate, not words. Anyways that’s enough for today. It’s getting late, so go and get some rest at the barrack.” Despite having been in cryo-sleep for three years, Clyde needed some natural form of rest. But he needed to know one more thing before he went to sleep. “Alright, but can I ask you one last question?” “Sure, go ahead.” “Where in the universe are we?” “This is the universe of Pavilion, the time is currently 22:34, the date is 3240 AD.” “Okay, then. That is good to know.” “Oh, and here’s a phone. This goes without saying, but the phones in this time period aren’t like the ones you and I used to use back in the day. I’ll teach you how to use it.” “Oh, thanks.” Clyde goes to the barracks to sleep while Crystal goes to her room to sleep. The next morning, greeting Clyde became one of her favorite parts of her morning routine. When they had free time, she taught Clyde how to use a phone. Clyde took his leave after being taught some very advanced features about this high-tech phone. Clyde walked towards where the barracks are. He had no issues with the barrack he was assigned to as he had the whole room to himself. This was only his second night, not including the one where he woke up from his cryo-sleep. His natural rest became easier and easier to get used to. In no time, he was in a deep sleep, dreaming about his future.