Letter from the editors
dear readers,
this issue was inspired by casinos in the desert, by the moment when you finally make a decision and the pressure of choosing just dissolves. rolling the dice is about doing, writing, or drawing the unexpected. in creating for this issue, you’ve captured what happens when you leave things up to chance and hit “random” on the character generator page. you’ve questioned if this is really the game we want to play, and yes, it is.
the result: rolling the dice is wide-ranging, containing anthropomorphized poker players and a series of haikus about where in the body dice fit best. we’re delighted to publish a reflection on physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment and a medley of arguably the two most important cultural touchstones ever: the Beatles and John Mulaney. we rolled the dice (haha) on all of you and we’re honored to publish your work in the following pages.
sincerely,
joshua & alissa
Table of Contents
Anonymous...
Tessa Schwartz...
Romeo Tigner...
Connor Bartol...
Isabella...
Clara Fletcher...
Tali Hastings...
Pan Deines...
Paloma Link...
Pan Deines...
Anne McCready...
Anna Stone...
Paloma Link...
Bethany Stimac...
Annie Stephens...
Kacey Moulton...
Emerson Voss...
Series of Haikus
The Game
I check my card stack
I have been dealt a bad hand
I am the loser.
No Luck
Coin found on the street
Unfortunately dirty
Can’t put in my ass.
The Dice
I will take two dice
Their cubeness beckons to me
Put it in my ass.
Anonymous
Taking A Chance
I’m rolling the dice
I wonder what I will land?
Snake eyes. Put in ass.
No More Room
No more room in ass
I guess I tested my luck
Try again later.
Random Character Generator
Tessa Schwartz
Thinking about a Drakewarden Ranger I play on Sundays named Cédile, level six, a satyr, “goat-man”, re-skinned, gender-fucked, something like “deer-kid,” they’re just a little guy! Saw a tweet the other day that said HRT that makes you grow antlers and run in front of cars and went LOL! So me, so Cédile, so it goes. Thinking about how all D&D characters are either people you want to be or people you want to fuck, thinking about all the foul-mouthed high femme clerics and fucked-up soft butch druids I’ve rolled up over the years, wondering which is which. Little bit of column A, little bit of column B, maybe we’ll just roll 4d6-drop-the-lowest and call it a day. Thinking about the section in the Player’s Handbook called GENDER that says Think about how your character does or does not conform to the broader culture's expectations of sex, gender, and sexual behavior. Oh, my dear Wizards of the Coast, I’m thinking about it more than you’d believe. You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. Hey, thanks!
clowns & clay
Romeo Tigner
Schrödinger's Cat Gets His Revenge
Connor Bartol
Cat in box. Jar with cat. Poison in jar. Hammer above jar. Geiger counter by hammer. Isotope nearby.
Isotope decays. Geiger counter detects. Drops hammer. Jar smashed. Poison released. Cat dead. Very sad.
Isotope does not decay. Geiger counter does not detect. Hammer does not drop. Jar intact. Poison contained. Cat alive. Cat waits for other shoe to drop.
“Superposition,” Erwin told cat. “Both alive and dead until I look inside the box.”
Doesn’t matter to Cat. Cat will know when dead or dying. Cat will live in fear of hammer falling. Cat will live in waiting to die. Cat has lots of time to think.
Man in box. Box is big. Box holds the Man, and all men, and the Earth, and the Sun, and all suns. Box holds everything. Walls of the box are so far apart that Man can never reach them. Box is growing all the time. Man is surrounded by poison jars and hammers. Always Man is flipping coins, always a stroke or a slip and fall or a car wreck to smash open his poison bottle. Always Man is superpositioning and collapsing into one of two states. Always Man is dead and alive.
Cat cannot see Man in box. Man in box is alive and dead until observed.
Cat moves jar away from hammer. Cat moves jar very very careful. Cat waits.
Emission. Detection. Thump as hammer falls. Misses jar. Safe. Alive.
Waits.
Footsteps as Erwin nears.
Good, thinks Cat. Collapsed the wavefunction.
Footsteps closer, wood creaking as hands open lid. Cat crouches for pounce, eyes wide, claws out.
Cat jumps before he can even look inside.
Lucky You
Isabella
Lucky Rabbits
Clara Fletcher
Really, This is the Game You Want to Play?
Tali Hastings
Comeback Kid
Pan Deines
Cocaine daisies, The Beatles in a sinking yellow submarine
none with mustaches and then suddenly all with mustaches
(and other weird theories) accented, their loved ones far away
above the oily surface of the sea, listening to the sirens singing
of a man named John Mulaney, a salad with dried cranberries
in an octopus’s garden, you have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair,
and all you need is love, and you could pour soup in my lap and I’d probably
apologize to you, you with the look of horror in your eyes and you with your
sun that’s always coming and I’m Chip Mulaney, I’m your father, rehab and
yesterdays don’t mix with comedy, The Beatles don’t make sense; we know
they were on drugs, throats and veins tipped back like blackbirds singing
in the dead of night, when there was a horse, loose in the hospital,
and a girl named Lucy in the sky, with diamonds, or was her name
Molly? She was a singer in a band, right? Life goes on, right?
Tangled
Paloma Link
Poet's Prison
Pan Deines
I’ve spent all day writing poems that don’t make sense.
I’ve been sitting on my bed, shuffling a little deck of cards
with words like ‘Trump’ and ‘Minnesota’
but also words like ‘trans’ and ‘home’ and ‘fire’.
I haven’t spoken to a person all day.
I think that if I ran into a friend at the end of the hall
on my walk from my room to the kitchen,
I would only be able to say
‘moist snow’, ‘neon drive’
‘stars’, ‘my body’, and ‘alive’.
Poker Faces
Anne McCready
Chest Pocket Treasure
Anna Stone
Untitled
Paloma Link
alarm at arms reach
Bethany Stimac
you rest beside my head again,
a soundless, sullen face.
your hands point sharply to the time
but i know time is fake.
as i dream in spinning rhymes tonight
the rhymes are oddly flat—
i know i’ve carved my hidden heart
(please don’t pester me on that).
i'm not sure what a poet is,
i'm not sure where my dice will stray.
we’ve walked our maze and left, my friend
who stays there, anyway?
so i gather from the ground what’s left
of presence, of my breath—
soon when your arms have stilled for me
i’ll open mine for death.
Mood Swing
Annie Stephens
Mood Swing II: why the long face?
Annie Stephens
REVERSALS
Kacey Moulton
Twice Orange and Yellow and Brown
Emerson Voss
A Minha Menina. Baby Rose.
Something love, hope and shame and dark black hair,
Gambling with my time, dice in hand,
Poets and Songwriters, something romantic and only true until the numbers are shown,
True like you and I are here but a good thing too soon and alone,
A flight out of state and then NY then somewhere I do not understand,
True like in my soul she's taking me,
On a plane back to ********** and dark black hair.
Que Pena and Luciana.
True blues and it's so beautiful that longing Saudosismo,
And perhaps if I roll it the right way it will have been love, True.
The neighbors take weekend trips to Scranton,
Slot machines and two dice, craps grey skies and small talk,
So dry and desolate waste and pride red black grey,
They may not be in love but they are surely together,
And I am in love with some dream,
Some blue pink orange velvet red yellow black and brown brown blue black fantasy , green, of some brown black blue green purple woman I do not know and cannot begin to understand,
What I bet on, bet with was never right and the blues in me would wait,
Because please there is no beauty if not for longing for dark black hair.
Congênito.
You here and I,
Two dice in hand gambling with emotions I feel too strong and cannot begin to understand or believe,
Rain sometimes and blues always, loss,
But colors I am just beginning to see,
Me a strong lover, more an artist two cracked dice and paint wet in hand,
So rich in feeling so much life and broken dice.
The neighbors grey and tan,
Twice Orange and Yellow and Brown,
And you and I here, curls of black hair,
O Grande Amor and Be Beijar.
Be Beijar.