-Ryan J. Hodge

For someone who enjoys a great story, is there anything better than a narrative that engages you from the very start? Imagine a world so rich you can almost smell the scents in the air, a delivery so clever it forces you to think in a way you never thought you would. I’m Ryan J. Hodge, author, and I’d like to talk to you about…Video Games.

Yes, Video Games. Those series of ‘bloops’ and blinking lights that –at least a while ago- society had seemed to convince itself had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. In this article series, I’m going to discuss how Donkey Kong, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and even Candy Crush can change the way we tell stories forever.

What the Survival Genre Teaches Us About Existential Horror

A strange crop has risen to prevalence among independent titles. While the return of the 2D platformer in the forms of Limbo or Braid was welcomed, their reign was short-lived. There was something that seemed all the more intriguing to the indie dev: the Survival/Crafting game.

Many would probably argue that it all started with Mojang’s Minecraft (2011). A stark and graphically crude game, Minecraft nonetheless wooed players with its robust ‘crafting’ system. A ‘crafting system’, of course, is essentially just what it sounds like. Knock down a tree for timber; use that timber and a nearby rock to cobble an ax together. Use that ax to fell trees faster and create even more tools.

While it sounds simple on the surface; it gets surprisingly deep. From smelting iron to make steel to getting some friends together to build a to-scale model of the starship Enterprise.

Y’know…you can actually get paid to design and build things in real life.

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Home, Heart

With warmth of heart entering the scalded fall day,
recall –

kaleidoscopic drifts of leaves, Brown County, Indiana,
smooth sap runnels on firs, Coos Bay, Oregon,
taunting northwest snows, Missoula, Montana;

not the perversities of a winter foretold,
rather the rheostat of transformation,
seasons’ sliding dimmer switch.

Moment to Moment

Little bird tap, tap, tapping a third floor window,
trying to access The History of England, like me.

Too few Fridays at 7 a.m., almost too early to
connect the dots from Runnymede to Agincourt.

Facing a seventh decade, back at school again;
bird taps help refocus me on staccato note-taking.

Walking meditation at break; no monkey-mind, just
bird-rhythm thoughts, bloody horrors and heritage.

Being in the present, quarrels with learning the past.

From Within Reptilian Eyes

Amber leaves depend from ebony twigs,
wet bulbous nodules animate leafy emerald trees,
visually dazzling, these intellectual incongruities,
minor befuddlements, slowly ease into apprehension.

Velveteen crows glower from within reptilian eyes,
surreptitiously trickling Doritos from their beaks,
golden flashes flipping in the autumn breeze;
scavengers of the remains of the departed –

Nothing is wasted and nothing is lost.

Reap

‘TV screen after TV screen drives past and you realise: we’re going to reap just what we sow.’ The young man, eyes peering out curiously, nodded in response to his fellow passenger’s diatribe. Situated at the front of the coach, he stared resolutely ahead whilst the companion fated to him looked darkly through the faded red curtains, like a huddled up Dracula. Rain was beating heavily on the windows, the greyness turning everything outside two-dimensional. This, combined with the glass pane it was viewed through, reduced the pride of trees and the sporadic eruptions of birds and the dainty roadside graves to nothing more than a spectacle – a painting – whilst reflections faded in and out, synechdocic of magic apparitions being interrupted by returns to brightly lit life. 

Why had she put her fingers in my mouth?

‘We’re going to reap just what we sow,’ said the man again, not moving from the window. ‘The hour of vespertide is almost upon us.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the young man. As soon as he said the word, it soaked into the grey background, lost forever before it could ever have meaning. 

17:28

17:29

He tried not to look at the time but the digitally illuminated red light bounded into sight off every reflective surface.

17:30

The coach jumped and farted along whilst the rain’s anger became less easy to ignore.

The grey expanse brightened momentarily, wanting his attention with the blue wave of a ghostly hand: ‘Look here,’ it seemed to say. The hills, like a huge pile of shoulders, encircled sunken villages and jolly puffs of smoke billowed upwards as the old little building – knowing each other’s ways – chortled and rasped. And windmills splashed through the air, scattering the clinging droplets upon the dead leaves, only to be trampled by a magpie on his way to pull a juicy worm from the soil – whilst it was still wet. For a moment, the young man felt happy, his mood only disrupted by the shameful fact of its pathetic fallacy. 

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To Be Her Child

You need eyes opened to mayhem,

her oldest and newest lacerations,

ears that hear slaps of sorrow or shrieks,

a nose that detects her bleeding,

her hopelessness both of you can taste,

a body to witness all of it.

Divine Love

A thousand letters of love, was it a thousand?

Meticulously torn into a thousand pieces

thrown into a darkness, into angry rain,

cleansing almost, against her willowy figure

and hard obsidian filled waters.

In love with something he will never know,

refusing the pleasure of being with her.

On the brink, a cliff, not ready to be a man,

he turns to the God he so despised,

finds purpose, she will never understand.

He has fallen in love with the divine.

Touch

The child smiles,

Welcome, come in.

Perches herself on the lap

of a family friend,

his calloused hands explore her.

She doesn’t understand.

The child waits,

for Mother to arrive.

Young, naive, disbelieving.

Her only protector,

tells her to stay.

God, she doesn’t want to stay.

Rubina Akter is an undergraduate student at Temple University. She has loved writing since elementary school when she was chosen to write a book for the Young Authors Conference. More recently, she was awarded first place in poetry for The Muslim Inter-Scholastic Tournament (MIST) ™. Poet Amy Small-McKinney, who has urged her to start sharing her writing with the world, is her mentor. She lives in Lansdale, PA with her family.

ECHOES FROM THE GRAVE

As I sit in my chair, in the late evening.

I heard a sudden tap.

I glanced over at the kitchen sink.

However, the Delta faucet wasn’t leaking .

So, by now, the spirit of being puzzled,

took over my natural senses..

The tapping has to be the,

result of a major malfunction.  .  .

But, where?

And what could it possibly be?

Suddenly, the tapping sound stopped.

Then, I went into my living room to sip my,

freshly, hot, brewed, cup of tea.

When the peaceful sound of silence,

came to a screeching halt.

It was that same tap.

Only, this time, it was accompanied by a floating orb.

It bounced up and down all across the house.

A distant moan was heard.

It appeared to be coming from a bedroom window.

Overlooking an ancient cemetery.

I opened the window shade to see,

If I could detect anything unusual.

But there was nothing out of the ordinary.

So., the thought fled my mind for awhile.

Then, I was startled by a bloodcurdling scream that came,

from the front balcony.

And yet, again, nothing was seen.

The wind picked up ferociously.

The shutters were madly rattling.

The wind eventually stops.

But the rattling of the shutters continued.

The lost souls won’t rest

Due to a violent past.

The spirits linger on.

The sounds remain.

Echoing from the grave.

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