Size / / /

Occasionally a mirror reflects
out of boredom a dreamy face,
two eyes glittering with life
and a paper-creased forehead,
as I flip, zoom, turn, and pinch, 
and shift my attention 
from the gorilla screen 
to five straw-fitted elephants,
riding an Indian saucer, 
honking a wind chime
with their baby trunks.

Twenty-five centuries of space 
and time trapped inside a library 
of a gold-teethed memory chip.
Isn't it amazing? 
A time machine made out 
of zeroes and ones entirely!

Our existence has reduced to binary digits,
to be summoned by strangers at their will; 
awakened by man’s memory,
his loneliness and her curiosity.




Salik Shah is a writer, filmmaker, and the founding editor of Mithila Review, the journal of international science fiction and fantasy (2015-). His work has appeared on Asimov’s Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Tor.com, and The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction (Volume 2). Twitter: @salik. Website: salikshah.com.
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25 Mar 2024

Looking back, I see that my initial hope for this episode was that the mud would have a heartbeat and a heart that has teeth and crippling anxiety. Some of that hope has become a reality, but at what cost?
to work under the / moon is to build a formidable tomorrow
Significantly, neither the humans nor the tigers are shown to possess an original or authoritative version of the narrative, and it is only in such collaborative and dialogic encounters that human-animal relations and entanglements can be dis-entangled.
By: Sammy Lê
Art by: Kim Hu
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