the dangers of rogue hate: i have no mouth and i must scream by harlan ellison

“HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I’VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH […]

on prosperity in exchange of one’s suffering: the one who walk away from omelas by ursula k. le guin

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.” -Ursula k. Le Guin, The One who […]

A journey towards one’s personal legend: the alchemist by paulo coelho

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist A young boy’s desire for travel and a quest for glory and personal legend. This is what makes an alchemist. Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist features an Andalusian shepherd named Santiago, who travels to Egypt to […]

misteryo?: tatlong Gabi, tatlong araw by Eros S. Atalia

“…’mas mabuting mamatay sa paghahabol ng gusto mo, kesa mamatay sa kakaiwas ng ayaw mo” ― Eros S. Atalia, Tatlong Gabi, Tatlong Araw Ikalawang gabi ng pista ng patron Santa Barbara de Bendita sa Brgy. Magapok. Nagsiwalaan ang mga hayop. May ilang mga taong nawawala. Naririnig ang ingay ng makinarya at mga kakaibang boses sa […]

a proper dark humor: guts by chuck palahniuk

“In the end, it’s never what you worry about that gets you.” ― Chuck Palahniuk, Guts. The invisible carrot, it hovers in all of our heads. Chuck Palahniuk’s Guts is first published in Playboy Magazine in May 2004, and later in his book Haunted. The narrator talks about his and his friends’ stories of self-exploration turned wrong—even deadly. The story is not an easy […]

a commentary on a commentary: wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the west by gregory maguire

“People who claim that they’re evil are usually no worse than the rest of us… It’s people who claim that they’re good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.” -Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West Most of us are […]

the summer where it all happened: Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe

“I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.” ― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe Summer of 1987. Who knows Aristotle Mendoza and Dante Quintana’s life will change just because of a simple meeting at a public pool? Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of […]

the magical love of mothers: the paper menagerie by ken liu

“You know what the Chinese think is the saddest feeling in the world? It’s for a child to finally grow the desire to take care of his parents, only to realize that they were long gone.” -Ken Liu, The Paper Menagerie As the little Laohu escapes from a taped box, all in his wrapping paper […]

light words, heavy feelings: ariel by sylvia plath

Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. – Sylvia Plath, Ariel, from the poem Lady Lazarus Ariel is a collection of poems by Sylvia Plath published after her suicide by her poet husband Ted Hughes. It deviates from her previous poems in the book The Colossus in a way that it expresses […]

the bittersweet taste of happenstance: how they met and other stories by david levithan

“You have to believe there are kisses and laughs and risks worth taking.” -David Levithan, How They Met and Other Stories On average, we will meet more than 80,000 people in a lifetime–and one of them is our true love. However, before we find our true love, we must also thread through the torrents of […]