Maev Barba Presents: Issue 5

Stories told deep in the woods of Washington where the observatory lies. Join us for a particularly SciFi issue featuring “Hyper-Intelligence,” “Throat Sounds,” “Blood of the Machine,” and “Elevator MacBeth.”

We are all eagerly awaiting superintelligence, but what of hyper-intelligence, as intelligent as SI, only impulsive, chaotic, and with a craving for stimulus? Amidst an apocalyptic disease spreading rampantly, two Czech scientists discover the true horrors intelligence while locked from the world in their underground lab.

In “Throat Sounds,” E.T. Starmann depicts a society which, because of irritants in the air, have forgone all communication with the throat, and, because of low-visibility due to a omnipresent low-flying cumulus cloud, have come to depend upon full-body gestures for all communication. The tongue and throat be damned! Arms and legs are enough for me.

Maev Barba describes the last days with her father, a Shakespearean actor, and the time they saw “Sleep No More” in Shanghai. Knowing the time with her father was drawing to a close, she asks, how might any Shakespearean play be extended? The production of “Sleep No More” spreads the scenes through a building, but why stop there? How many buildings would it take to spread the play between lines, words, or even syllables?