<< 75.1 Fall 2025
Comics

Parasomnia

by Mariah Gese
A one-page black-and-white comic titled: “PARASOMNIA.” All text is handwritten. The top box contains repeated text: “WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP? HEY.” On both borders, there are quotation marks. Under the top box, the title, “PARASOMNIA” is written. On the left border, vertically, it reads “ALONG SIDE of” and on the right border, vertically, it reads “SLEEP.” The text box below reads, “Woke up, thought I heard a dog crying outside. Often, it’s.” On both borders, there are backwards quotation marks. The box below continues, “knocking, or spectral voices garbled like radio static. Below this, the page is divided into a grid of nine illustrated squares. There are two boxes along both sides of the grid. On the left, there is a gated entrance with a star on top of the gate door. Two lines, broken up across three irregular panels, extend from the gate, resembling a path. In a triangular panel beneath, there is an apple. In the space over the gate, the Greek word “Ύπνος” (sleep) is written. On the right, there is a gated entrance with a moon on top of the gate door. Two lines, broken up across three irregular panels, extend from the gate, resembling a path. In a triangular panel beneath, there is the core of an apple. In the space over the gate, the Greek word “Θάνατος” (death) is written. At the top of the grid, a box reads, “I must sleep in a different reality.” Inside the grid, various drawings appear. In the top left and bottom right panels, there is a blooming flower. In the top right panels there is a raised hand extended from the bottom of the panel. In the bottom left panel, there is a raised hand extended from the top of the panel. In the center box, there is a dog from a side view, with its paw over its nose. Its left eye is directed toward the reader’s perspective. In the remaining boxes in the grid, there are triangles that extend from the outer side of the panel and point toward the center. Each triangle has three stars inside it, and there’s a dotted line tracing the rest of the inside of the panel. In the left panel of these remaining four panels, “HYPNAGOGIC” is written. In the right panel, “HALLUCINATION” is written. In the box below the grid, it reads, “No one lives there but me.” In the next box, it follows, “ Noises from there wake me up here. Troubling,” In both the left and right borders, there are braids in knot-like patterns. In a box below it continues, “how believable they are, how real the unreal.” In each border, there is a diamond shape. In the box under the text, there is a horizontal illustration of stars, constellations, and a face with a star on its forehead. The left side of their head has a wing coming out of it. Each star has a label. From left to right, it goes as follows: “Aludra,” “Wezen,” the symbol for oxygen, “L,” “Muliphein,” “Sirius,” and the symbol for theta. The borders on both sides read: “ƵƵƵ”. In the very bottom box, it reads, “I hum little songs in my sleep. For the crying dog?” Each of its borders has an open eye with emanata going out from it.

Mariah Gese is an artist and writer from a haunted swamp in New York. They received their MFA from Indiana University, where they were the editor-in-chief of Indiana Review. Their work appears in The Rumpus, Black Warrior Review, the Adroit Journal, Split Lip Magazine, Lunch Ticket, Speculative Nonfiction, and elsewhere. They recently won the 2025 Hayden’s Ferry Review Fiction Contest for a choose-your-own-adventure story. They like plants, math, and other scary things.

FROM Volume 75, Number 1

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