My mother’s preference (of course this is how I begin: everything is my mother; for as long as she’s here and forever after that) whenever we manage to sit down and watch a tv show together, is usually, if not always, something travel and adventure. She likes to see the scenery, the landscapes, the wild woods of a planet she’s only seen a part of, but which can still remind her of her unfettered Caribbean girlhood.
When a lonesome sheep herder traversing the expansive Tibetan Plateau suddenly pulls out a phone, my mother points to the screen and exclaims, “Look, look! They have a cell phone!”
The seemingly anachronistic sight intrudes on her nostalgic memories, where not collecting enough firewood for the day means you don’t cook, when the flambeau runs out in the evening means you stop studying. I remind her that most people have cell phones now, how everyone on the planet is, in fact, existing at the same thumb-tappin’, scrollin’ time.
And what a time to be scrolling in. What a time to just be. A time of climate collapse, human rights regressions, and witnessing interrupting violent images of interrupting violent genocide in Gaza. For myself, existing now can feel anachronistic—the dissociated planetary scale of it, the loneliness in it.
It’s a reminder that distance, place, and time are dimensions inextricably linked. What feels out of place and out of time, can be a country; can be memory; can be trauma; identity; a name; information; ghosts and grief; can be myths and gods pulled to the forefront of now; can be light.
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This issue was bounded by the timelines that bind us: we kicked off the issue on Mother’s Day in North America, made final decisions around Father’s Day, and there were birthdays in between. It seems fitting then, that during this volume’s compilation, it was announced that Apparition Literary Magazine would be coming to a close, and Anachronism would be its penultimate printing. I am honored to guest edit and be the one shepherding these exceptionally moving stories and poems through this powerful installment of the magazine.
Many of the pieces in this Anachronism issue weave between differing timelines, memories, stories, and languages. “Another Old Country” by Nadia Radovich does it all by telling a myth three times over, whilst evading a god. “Like a Fly Clasped in a Hand” by Nadav Shul-Kutas asks you to read carefully in a future library, where knowledge, censorship, and ultimately decisions are paramount. Cass Wilkinson Saldaña’s “Melting Point” follows a sentient cargo container discovering new things about themselves at an inopportune time, and Leah Ning’s “Rosewater, Clinging to the Tongue” is a beautiful exploration of fractured memory by way of eating their wispy clouds.
We have a potent poetry lineup that enters some dark places, but deftly sees you through to the other side. “Galatea Pt II” by Mykki Rios opens with a question of what the creation of statuesque perfection would look like today, while Ayòdéjì Israel wears grief on the body, and encapsulates it within “Experiencing Grief Amidst Aliens”. Asa Delaney’s interrupting “For Poppy” explores through bone and blood, the nature of ghosts, trauma, and violence. Then like a breath of fresh air, Mary Soon Lee takes us aloft with language of ecological remembrance in “An Archive of Birds”. Our poetry ends with Coby Rosser cleverly reminding us of a star child’s place in the universe with “Light Lies”. Finally, Kelsea Yu closes the issue with her touching personal essay on loss, the anachronistic essence of ghosts and stories in “Here in the After”.
I invite you now, not for the last time, to look. Look at these stories and poems we’ve put together for you, they exist right now in the same time and place, as long as they’re here and forever after that.
Apparition Literary Magazine is funded by our patrons, the editors, and by your kind donations. If you’d like to support us, you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter and please consider donating and/or subscribing via Patreon.
Thank you for reading
Rebecca Bennett, Amy Henry Robinson, Tacoma Tomilson, and Clarke Doty
