Helios Quarterly Magazine Volume 1, Issue 2

By Radiant Crown Publishing, LLC

Mythology and murder collide at sea. An otherworldly planet too close to the Garden of Eden. Mechanical hearts and synthetic skin. Welcome to Helios Quarterly Magazine Vol. 1, Issue 2 filled with strange secrets and hidden wisdom.

Theme: Miscommunication

Volume 1, Issue 2 September 2016

Contains five poems, eleven works of fiction, two pieces of non-fiction, three photos, and one piece of art.

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Dazzling Simplicity, Sparkling Depth

Helios Quarterly Magazine is a science fiction, horror, and fantasy (SF / F / H) periodical founded in 2016. Helios Quarterly aims to publish quality fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art that illuminates the darkness. HQM wants stories and poems that grab ahold of a reader from the opening lines all the way to the finish line. Works that push boundaries, are succinct, and well developed are smiled upon.

ISSN: 2473-9189 (PRINT)
ISSN: 2572-150X (ONLINE)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Radiant Crown Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Dec 13, 2016

Radiant Crown Publishing, LLC

Established in 2016 Radiant Crown Publishing is an independent publisher of dark, diverse, and subversive speculative fiction and romance. Characters whose stories are pushed to the margins are welcome here. RCP primarily promotes upper middle grade, young adult, and eclectic adult fiction. We accept poetry, narrative nonfiction, and art for our full-color anthologies, annual chapbook award, and literary magazines.

Book preview

Helios Quarterly Magazine

Volume 1, Issue 2 • December, 2016

Near the sun is the center of the universe - Nicolaus Copernicus

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief:

Elizabeth O. Smith

Creative Director:

Morgana Harp

Cover Art:

Zombie robot of DOOM! © Devin Francisco (http://devin-francisco.deviantart.com/)

Contributors:

Editor’s Corner

Our Secrets by Elizabeth O. Smith

Poetry

Golden Dawn by Robert Beveridge

Che(mother)apy by Nicole Melchionda

One Oscillating Thread by Nicole Melchionda

A Pillowcase of Poe by Zev Lawson Edwards

Tveir by Martina Rigoli

The Forlorn Creature’s Lament by J. J. Steinfeld

A Lifetime of Headlines and Confusion by J. J. Steinfeld

Positronic Dreams by Greg Beatty

Fimbulheart by Jennifer Crow

As the crow flies by Martina Rigoli

Fiction

Prisoner in Stone by George Nikolopoulos

The rabbit that wasn’t there by B. Anne Adriaens

Beware The Rabbit by Kaia Pieters

Witness Interview #54678 by Sim Bajwa

The Animals II by Kaia Pieters

Thok by Nicholas Stillman

Prey by Ron Sanders

Fossil Fuel by Van Alrik

Cheese by James Keen (toeken)

Girl in the Woods: A CrossRoad Puzzle by A.P. Sessler

And We Shall Inherit the Sea by H.L. Fullerton

The Crow by Kaia Pieters

Prospectors by J.M. Kerr

Naturae by Kaia Pieters

Jutland by David Rae

The Migration by Dean Brink

Psychosis by Kaia Pieters

Imperceptible by Shane Fraser

EOS•Quarterly

Imperfect Solution by Marie DesJardin + Interview

Spotlight

The Second Adam by Louis Rakovich + Interview

The Beast Within by Shikhar Dixit

Serial Fiction

How the Dun-In Man Got His Name by Stephen Scott Whitaker (Part 2 of 2)

Something Ravaged, Something Red by Shikhar Dixit

Colophon

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Editor’s Corner: Our Secrets

Elizabeth O. Smith

As Helios Quarterly enters its second issue, I’ve become concerned about the future. Will it last? Will it live up to expectations? Though these questions and many more will remain unanswered, I cannot help but speculate on information that is outside of my reach. We are strangest to ourselves and all on a journey towards an unknown conclusion. All that unifies us is that that we must all die but, what that looks like or even a life beyond death remains to be seen. What to do with the knowledge that I will never know?

To cope, I have crafted the final issue of Year One around the topic of secrets, information redacted and being lost in figurative and literal seas. I am most concerned with the spaces in between when it comes to writing and in life. The things left unsaid, the actions that should have been taken and roads paved, they fascinate me to no end. And, to that end, I hope this issue provides a wide array of stories, poetry, art, photography, and even a crossword puzzle that will aid you, dear reader, in the dissociative reality one must face when living in the moment.

The theme RE_ACTED touches upon a nerve I see in the culture and feel. No one can be trusted, not politicians nor traditions we use to hold dear. As lies, fears, and confusion pile up, how can we begin to heal and seek truth? I believe writing becomes a process of unraveling open secrets we won’t admit, art a way to convey the inexplicable, and poetry a language of the lost. A start, a beginning, a new horizon. And, without further ado or attempts at poetic language on my end, I welcome you to issue two and hope you return in the New Year.

Cheers and enjoy!

Golden Dawn

Robert Beveridge

A monk moans and chants

atonality echoes through the stone

halls of the monastery.

in locked rooms adepts

try their hands at godplay

lead into gold and such.

one, mad at his lover,

attempts to construct a mermaid.

The most opulent room

in this fortress has a throne

of rock, an unadorned tabled

an unassuming man. Unlike

the adepts, he needs

no props to call mythical creatures.

he uses only poems.

•••

BIO: Robert Beveridge makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry just outside Cleveland, OH. Recent/upcoming appearances in Chiron Review, Pink Litter, and The Literateur, among others.

Che(mother)apy

Nicole Melchionda

You’ve sunk your coniferous barbs

through peppered skin, moon-washed

the sound of atomic rot.

You’re most insidious when you dangle

between each polymer to smell

potential offspring. Pregnant in the gills,

you release your presence into every genome.

Generations will fear your reawakening

as their cells unrope.

Each doorknob sweaty,

each lump your kiss,

each egg their last.

Mitosis always begins with a mother,

trillions of parents ritualistically ripping themselves

down the middle, but why do you whisper

the wrong code? Your children’s laces

will never be tied correctly. One knot will bind their feet,

the other will hang glide their necks.

•••

One Oscillating Thread

Nicole Melchionda

These veins splay Hades’ radiation,

siphoning star-blushed hematomas.

The nurse’s needle ruffles past

vessels into Shifty Father,

owl-necked. Arms (in)finite,

he hides his offspring from seedy blood.

Arachnid fibers blacken,

tremble, crackle through osmosis.

All of who he is:

his DNA, his trillions

of metaphysical half-blastocysts,

the fate of how he will die,

reduced to one droplet.

Which form of decomposition

is lurking behind the bars

of his nucleo-prison?

His arms falter. Our needle (re)treats.

What festers inside already broods

in his children, here, now, in all of us.

•••

BIO: Nicole Melchionda is currently a senior at Stetson University where she is majoring in English with a minor in creative writing. She recently completed an independent study on gothic poetry with award-winning poet Terri Witek. The interests that infiltrate her work include biology, human anatomy, cosmology, psychology, and interpersonal relationships.

A Pillowcase of Poe

Zev Lawson Edwards

The contents of Hell’s casket

Displayed on dancing, rickety graves

Torn in the night’s twisted decay

Between the rapping cascade of whispers

Where years are stretched backwards

Insomnia is piled deep in feet of six

Opaque corners are cracked in broken twilight

And ghosts are the captains of nightmare ships

Just a spilled bag of midnight

Slumbering on a pillowcase of Poe

Spirited unburied corpses of decade’s despair

Have opened crooked windowsills slackened ajar

Painted haunted corridors with grisly delight

Answered fractured doorways with warped floors

Left uneven like death’s inverted smile

In their wake, splintered teeth bite through empty rooms

Where brooms long forgotten in dusty passages

Have swept ribbons of spider webs ghastly spun

An overcast of gray with a stroke of macabre

Just teardrops of Poe wailing in pain

•••

BIO: Zev Lawson Edwards was born and raised in Northern Michigan. He has lived and taught in three countries, including Australia, Korea, and Saudi Arabia. He currently lives in Detroit, Michigan. The New Punk, based in a fictional Detroit, is his debut novel.

  Tveir © Martina Rigoli (https://www.behance.net/martinarigoli)

The Forlorn Creature’s Lament

J. J. Steinfeld

The forlorn creature

of