Two Stories
Bronka Nowicka
The Nature of the Beast
Stephen Graham Jones
Like a Disease Whose Threshold No One Can Cross, She Says
Coral Bracho
Flying
Julia Elliott
Introduction to the Reading of Hegel
Bennett Sims
Watch Your Sister Disappear
Akil Kumarasamy
Two Poems
Jessica Reed
The Order of the Flaming Crows
Rick Moody
House of Rashomon
Kristine Ong Muslim
Fluke
Kathryn Davis
The Seed of the Wicked
Brandon Hobson
Ben Turns Into the Botusfleming Hedwigkraken
Monica Datta
A Propitiation
Michael Harris Cohen
Gate 9
Jeffrey Ford
The Baby-Monitor
Joyce Carol Oates
Four Poems
Shane McCrae
Four Poems
Shane McCrae
Good Night, Sleep Tight
Brian Evenson
Studies in Mortality
Elizabeth Robinson
Twelve Nightmares
Barbara Tomash
The Cult of Ciudad Mitad
Matthew Baker
Remember When We Were Holy
Tori Malcangio
Four Poems
Bin Ramke
Ghost Soliloquies
Rebecca Lilly
Gimmer
Genevieve Valentine
Don't Look Now
Terese Svoboda
In the Woods Behind the Market
Rob Walsh
Messages
Mary Kuryla
Behind the Curtain
Troy Jollimore
The Consequence
Quintan Ana Wikswo
Pan Frontispiece
Eleni Sikelianos
Humans have a genius for fear. Its range and registers are as vast and old as life itself. And fear—whether founded or irrational—is present in the myths, songs, arts, literatures, and historic legacies of every culture. Being alive is a chancy business, and with every passing year it seems our reasons for feeling existential fear only grow. Terrors of every imaginable kind surround us, as often as not the wily demons of our own creation, and grow more ghastly, untenable, and malignant with every passing generation.
Conjunctions:78, Fear Itself explores fear in its countless guises. We fear violence and injury, betrayal and abandonment, falsehoods and persecution. We fear failure, but also success. Some fear flying, others diving, yet others fear needles, cellars, spiders, public speaking. Devils, ghouls, fiends of every sort provoke fear. We sometimes fear our hellish selves yet, as Sartre has it, L’enfer, c’est les autres. The fear of thunder and germs, of clowns, chickens, and mirrors afflict us. We fear the unknown, but also fear what clearly looms before us—climate catastrophe, a global pandemic, social and political upheaval, wars never ending. Some fear living alone. Some fear dying alone. Some fear just waking up to face another day. Phobias of every stripe abound, some of them admittedly unusual. Arachibutyrophobiacs fear peanut butter while nephophobiacs fear puffy clouds and optophobiacs are afraid to open their eyes. There are diabolic fears that cause others (thus all of us) to suffer—xenophobia and homophobia come to mind. For all our fears of what does exist, nihilophobiacs fear what does not. And lest we forget, we can even fear fear itself.
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