Familial Landscape

Haoran Zhi

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The tail of an aircraft

It was a finishing line that never finishes

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The green fields extend miles and miles away

Because of the hills 

They also get cut off from time to time.  

Or are they essentially part of the field anyways?

Has anyone reminded you that

familiar landscape is one of the biggest traps in life?

These traps exist daily

There’re so many fields

way too many fields here

in Sheffield

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There used to be a greyhound that entered cafe business in Shanghai

On its facade, hundreds of tiles together read

greyhoundgreyhoundgreyhoundgreyhoundgreyhound...

with each tile taking up one letter’s space

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I crossed out the option of sharing a private space with 60 other people for 8 hours

Despite the fact that any number that contains 6 or 8 

is a lucky number

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Vesuvius versus Mount Fuji

Fuji versus Mount Vesuvius

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It was a dangerous act 

outside the gate of Parc Authority

to walk around aimlessly where greyhounds take over.

Not only in terms of the possibility of being physically run over

But also the possibility of being 

the possibility of simply being a young woman like you

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The twitching

The tents

The needle

The deformed

The jarring

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Regardless, you have to put yourself in Port de Bercy once

To live life dangerously even for just one day

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We just crossed the dam that was built solely to prove that they have the capacity to build a dam

Like shooting a satellite into the space that holds no other benefit than contributing to the space debris

Water’s yellow

We don’t get to see much above the dam in the upstream

But I imagine there were shrimps

Clams that have no clam tissue inside

Broken sheepskin rafts

All beneath the water surface

 

Not long before we crossed that Dam 

(It was 20 years ago already)

I failed 

unregretfully 

to pick the correct answer of the multiple choice question of roughly how long the bridge is over the Yangtze River.

a)      5 meters

b)      50 meters

c)      500 meters

d)      5000 meters

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I chose

happily 

to not register its immensity 

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As at that time 

the fun-size of my flesh cannot register 

the potential danger of my upcoming life 

yet

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Flixbus Chronicles

Elis Lipinski

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Gazing out of the windshield, head slightly askew, while overwhelmingly loud snores pierce through the air. An overnight bus, saved a few bucks and lost a few hours. Hours of sleep, of existence, of time you could spend farting out your problems while doom scrolling to your heart's content. Anyway, it's hot in here. Like absurdly fucking hot. The trees that pass the freeway are being brushed with cool air, almost taunting me. Fuck you trees. Okay maybe not, I guess they do a lot for us. I’ve heard that at night they come alive in an awful anthropomorphic sight. I saw it once when I was taking the 1063 from Lille to Berlin. We were taking a 15 minute break while the bus driver snorted a few lines of something strong enough to stop him from killing all of us on board. I was dozing off, a rare occasion for me, mind you, when I was awoken by an intense rumble followed by steady aftershocks, vibrating through my toes every few moments. I fought off my haze and looked out the window to a bizarre sight. Branches made of brown, decorated with green, mixing into the ground as the trunk slowly released itself from its rooted shackles. It looked like someone taking a shit, but in the natural way that nature makes horrifying sights mesmerizing. The trunk was adorned with holes varying in size but mostly small, I couldn’t help but focus on two slit looking holes in the middle. After a bit of bewilderment, the branches began moving again. I’ve yet to understand if this was a part of it or not but at the tip of the branch it looked like there was some sort of rock, carved into the shape of an ax, or perhaps a sword? Before my confusion could form a thought the rumbling returned, this time more violent than before. The tree was stabbing its slits with its makeshift weapon, carving deep into itself. A wave of nausea rushed through me as I searched frantically for a barf bag. The tree's stabs penetrated the crust-like texture around the slits, which caused yellowish goo to come seeping out, at first in a gentle drip and then quickly into an aggressive stream of puss. I feel my insides rising and grip the barf bag next to my face, letting myself exterminate all of my revulsion. It is really embarrassing to vomit out of pure repugnance, it highlights how weak one is, in a visual like way. Once I calmed myself down I forced myself to look out of the window once more, curious as to what the tree was doing. What had emerged from the puss-filled slits were two bloodshot orbs, gleaming moonlight swimming within its opalescent iris'. Although my disgust was palpable, I had no fear. On the contrary, I was exceedingly curious at this creature's transformations. Unsure what to do I simply flashed a peace sign at the tree. It seemed to eye me for a bit, perhaps pondering what my movements meant? Surely enough, I was wrong. The tree flipped me off with its rotting branches and stomped away, letting me feel its indifference with each vibration permeating through the bus. Anyway, fuck that tree and fuck the trees soaking the breeze outside and fuck overnight buses.

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Lake

Elia Meregalli

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She pulls herself up the bed

Slowly, her arm bent, she reaches the handle

The French door leading to the balcony opens with a crack

Her head leans off the mattress, mouth open

When the body becomes an organ

Splinters of plaster enrich a vague forensic on the ground

A testimony. Disappearing requires perseverance

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Her head bangs on the right window of the Flixbus

Km 211. Brussels

She straightens up on the seat, rubbing eyes browned by the shade

Pungent lemongrass finds a new abode in her nostrils

As the stomach of her neighbour cramps loudly

The bus stops

– 10 minutes –

The screech of a robotic voice from above

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She pats herself down, a search without a place

“Do you want a cigarette?”

A man with a denim jacket and a thick Italian accent

“You should’ve bought them in Luxembourg, cheaper there”

Her eyes ignoring in absence

Screeching breaks reminding of when bottles clink frantically

They sang, messaging friends, Freudian slips

There were warnings, to be told

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They held, fine, leaning in spirit

The lights of a speedometer break on the bus’s windshield

Even speed becomes a norm when you live on borrowed time

Km. 1063. A place of quarantine

Breeze mourning, mixed with nerves. It is quite simple

Becoming lake, breaking moulds and muscles

Until you flatten and crackle

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The fishes, they rant

About a spectacle

Sifting through algae to hide from the sunlight

A miracle, they murmur

On the border

The wharf from which languid shimmers attract

The fishes, they say

There, you can vanish

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Ink gurgles, letting the hair on her back tingle

It’s a transitory state

A form of escapism

Where breathing feels like muffled laughs

It is like travelling

to a forge to never revisit

So pleasant that your stomach stops cramping as well

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Eusexua and the State of Being on a Flixbus Ride

Petra Parčetić

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I'm a die hard concertgoer. Consumer at its finest when it comes to this type of consumption. And I do not plan to "de-consumerise" myself in this aspect. This trait was a reason for me to be trying to enjoy the mundaneness of the bus ride through a Dutch and then Belgian landscape(?) on my way to Paris, where I am about to see one of the artists that inspires me most - FKA twigs. Her tour didn't involve Amsterdam, where I'm based. The tickets for Brussels show were very sold out. I have a close friend in Paris. And hey, FlixBus is the friend of all of us, "champagne taste on a beer budget" warriors.

I got the idea last night, but decided to sleep on it. I slept four hours and woke up before my alarm, eyes wide open. This was my sign that the decision was made. I bought a ticket while still in bed, sent my friend a familiar, green colour palette-themed screenshot of my ticket as a good-morning message; packed some random clothes in my backpack and got on a bike to the bus station. I worked on my laptop a bit; exchanged a few polite words with my fellow FlixBus warriors; looked after my neighbour's laptop while on a break; then he watched after mine; told the girl in a cool outfit across me I don't have a paracetamol unfortunately; fixed my mascara while the bus was going across la bumpy part of the road. Then I remembered the open call about the FlixBus stories. Then I remembered I have so much to say about twigs' new album; and that I will see her perform in a couple of hours. Then I realised I was tired. I decided to take a nap while listening to her latest album (after which the tour is named too) - EUSEXUA. I only ever take naps while commuting; never absolutely never while at home. This makes me appreciate commuting as such, because you are in a sort of a limbo. You can be sitting, staring outside the window or working on your laptop or napping, the result is the same: you will reach the destination (of course, in case the ride is safe).

The concept for an album was born in the club the artist was visiting in Prague, where she said she finally felt the organic and raw energy of clubbing without any overly aestheticised fixations that often pollutes contemporary clubs, now that raving is not strictly rooted in activism but has also become a commercial source of income. This is exactly how I felt listening to the album for the first time, second time and now in the Flixbus for the N-th time. The album brings vulnerability of a soul liberated on a dance floor, while at the same time its bass and breaks bring the fierce elements in where you realise - don't get it twisted! This vulnerability can be something powerful.

"EUSEXUA is a state of being. A feeling of momentary transcendence often evoked by art, music, sex, unity. EUSEXUA can be followed by followed by bliss and feelings of limitless possibility. Also used to refer to: ‘The pinnacle of Human Experience'" is how the artist officially defines her latest body of work and honestly it really did resonate with me upon listening to it. Especially while on a transcendent FlixBus ride. This sentence sounds quite ironic, considering the usually underwhelming association prescribed to low-budget bus rides, such as FlixBus, but it doesn't have to be. Just as twigs stated in an interview about this album that the concept of eusexua is a sort of a flow state where the one living through it loses track of time (Vogue), so do I on these bus rides. This is something I truly cherish, normally being a restless, impatient person, staying active round the clock and always feeling like a just wish I had ONE more hour in a day. While being on a FlixBus ride is not as close to being so ecstatic as the real feeling of eusexua, it does put me in a flow state of losing a track of time. Moreover, the time itself loses the track. Knowing there is nothing I can do more than sit on my seat (that I wasn't assigned, and no one usually cares, and I love that) but get lost in the corridors of my mind puts my thoughts on an adventure, hence gives my mind "limitless possibility" and lets my thoughts roam free. Similarly, the songs of this album are, although all infused by electronic sounds, ultimately genre-bending and varied: from hyperpop vocal edits to high-BPM drum'n'bass breaks and 4-to-floor techno beats, the EUSEXUA tracks feel like roaming through different rave experiences, but also the different introspective experiences that arise when exposed to a darkness and a dust of a nightclub.

Although dynamic, explicit (in melody, rhythm and lyricism) and explosive, EUSEXUA is also deeply mysterious, introspective and vulnerable. I feel like we are in a similar state (of being) on the dancefloor (more expressive in our behaviour, but covered in the dimmed lights and overwhelming noise), as well as in the bus environment of strangely colourfully patterned seats: the environment full of strangers, yet all on a similar mission (which again makes a parallel to the album - by the titles of two tracks: "Room of Fools" & "Perfect Stranger"). The environment, just as the saying does - where a stranger in the street is a neighbour on the dancefloor, is here also a neighbour that might (not) have a paracetamol, but might watch after your belongings for a bit. These environments and experiences are also both collective yet very individual, considering each of us claiming the same physical space (with one another), yet mentally taking a separate and individual journey. Just as a musical artist's performance/set takes you on a journey, and just as EUSEXUA's versatility of tracks ride us along different paths, so do our thoughts in the strangely safe bright green environment of a FlixBus.

I just got interrupted by my neighbour's bottle accidentally rolling over to my side of the table (yes, in this bus ride, I claimed the holy premium table seat where I can actually pretend to be a hyper productive digital nomad) and it took me out of the flow state and I looked to the clock, but the condition of a ride will out me back to it, and just as the lyrics of the closing track Wanderlust suggest, "I’ll be in my head if you need me" (Genius, 2025).

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