Introduction
BY RACHEL LU & HUNTER LEWINSKI
As winter approaches and the days darken earlier and earlier, we may find ourselves spending more time in the comfort of our homes, a library, or even a single room. The winter’s impenetrable dark and relentless cold projects a vacuum, something like a scene from The Twilight Zone where only the uncanny may tread. This issue explores the strange phenomena that occur within these airless spaces. The pieces featured traverse all manner of terrain—rooftops, the bottom of the ocean, barren expanses disturbed only by some inscrutable accretion—to reveal the multiplicity of preternatural universes lurking beneath the surface of our waking life.
Find yourself looking into the serene, nighttime world of Emma Fighera’s “Galway” or on board a desolate bus route in Ruth Coolidge’s “The Night Shift.” Or perhaps you can explore the anxious, fragile human psyche in Gregory Duke’s “Why Is It Constantly So Tremulous.”
You can dive into the eerie with a galactic encounter in Samantha Chen’s “Glimpse of Tiny World Beyond Pluto,” fantastic creatures in Theo Golden’s “Emotional Support Animal #2” or ethereal, yet portentous, jellyfish in Sam Guidon’s “Zenoseyne.” Words leap from the page into an impassioned dance in Bella Moses’ “Trip the Light Fantastic,”or are suspended in the air like in Cliff Musial’s “At the Intersection of Past and Future: A Novel.”
Whatever it is, submerge into it slowly, and then all at once—soon you will find yourself in a cosmos beyond the one we know. So grab a copy, head indoors. You have worlds upon worlds to unpack.
- Rachel Lu ‘22 & Hunter Lewinski ‘20