Prose

An Excerpt from “The Book of Dwellers” By Marti A. Silent It was her book after all. I found it. They had her scribe on it. Everything she’d provoked against the old philosopher. Everything I believed in deeply – questioned through annotations. On one side was written, “Has the old star seeker borne witness to the explosion of a star? Has the tall-taler any evidence that such empty skies ever carried life? Have you any sky dwellers?” She questioned his very core. The scienc

Crime might be an illusion. Will Right or Wrong, please step up to the witness stand? It’s our duty to determine how they differ, where we lie on the spectrum of morality. The will of His Correctness versus the Temptation of His Wrongness. Commonalities seem impossible. They can’t bear their similarities. Right and Wrong lie across from one another. They are neighbors. They wave hello to each other on their way to work. They share a wall between their cubicles. They call th

An Excerpt from “The Devil’s Game” By Marti A. Silent The enraged woman in red, surrounded by fire – she is either sun-kissed or burning. She resisted the order. She petitioned for peace and protested being governed. They called her a riot. They called her dangerous. She looked The Devil in the eye and challenged him for justice. One last game, she said. He asked, What game did you have in mind? It was then that this became the ending no one wanted, for she and The Devil

You raise your nose at me in the wake of victory and choose to wear defiance. And yet, your rebellion is my favorite performance. My time here has filled my head with colors; the most vivid and bright of them I’ve been forced to live in is The Red. When I close my eyes, I see the Red Room. I know He’s in there, but He refuses to be seen. His only wish is to be felt. Not with words, but with the weighted presence that leaves me breathless and begging for a less addictive and

Now and then, I wonder if I belonged down there. The more I think about it—his haunting, blinkless stares, his soliloquies as if we were never there, and his final words to me before the final snap of his fingers… Evelyn, he said, Should you come upon Eden… do not take the fruit from the tree… like a warning: Refrain from coming back here; I refuse to house you in my home—the less I believe I was ever meant to leave. His warning—to keep from burying my soul six feet beneath t

"You're not who I thought you were." The warmth of the embrace became fire, and Eve’s eyes flew open. A blaze ripped through the worn fabric of her crimson jumpsuit, crawling across her arms until she wrenched herself free of Lilith’s grasp. She clutched her forearms to her chest, the burns raw, and turned to face her sister, taking note of the black expanse they now stood in. Lilith was unwavering - a portrait of stillness - the little flames that licked her skin dying out a

An Excerpt from “The Book of Dwellers” By Marti A. Silent The water. You ask me what keeps me alive, but I do nothing to the water or with it. Still, it’s the water... To those who assumed me to say, “stargazing,” you’d also be partially correct. It’s what I do to remind myself how small we all truly are, sure. That smallness is, unfortunately… fortunately, necessary. But star hunting and constellation searching may not make me feel “alive,” as you put it. It creates purp