The Day the Earth Stood Still

— Matthew Minicucci

I was a carpenter by trade; a blacksmith in space; a metal master like every bomb you spend your days fawning over. Farewell, and be brief. Shoot first and I’ll shell the sky. Why every journey is, by its very definition, a day trip. There’s this thing where I’m supposed to talk about fear, or suspicion, or our bygones be bygone atomic days. Halcyon, when hydrogen is nothing but black and white; history as a scene at the store, man on a phone, this shared world; web of the almost-certain. In any script, there’s probably an inserted line about the almighty; a baby boomer barking about sin. We all begin as guests in our parents’ house. This isn’t a metaphor. One way or the other, we ascend. In the end, most of what you can learn about a culture is buried in their graves; their acutes; the loneliness of each lost circumflex. All too circumspect, is what I’ve been told. Get out, don’t you know? There’s so much nothing between worlds. Our shared stars, an ocean of lack.


Read more from Issue No. 20 or share on Twitter.