Please post your most notable pieces, either fiction, poetry, non-fiction from any &amp;amp issue. If you have any analytical or critical comments on that piece, that'd be cool to read.

>>21936815 (OP)

Okay then



It lived in the ocean among the arrays of creatures in the depths. Not with the whales or the sharks or schools of fish, but with the things that never saw the light, that never even knew what the light was. For darkness was it's corporeal half and it flourished and thrived in that stygian blackness of death. For it truly was death; The death of a millennia of life that has come and gone without so much as a whimper.



For the duration of it's life it was the shredding teeth that tore flesh apart and broke bone, it was the attractive snare that lured in it's hapless prey with a dulcet voice unnatural to it's disposition. It was the consumer of life energy that you would describe as a soul. And it was the stark intelligence of man above in his kingdom.



It's thoughts were foreign at first, completely infantile and new to itself. But with the passage of time, those thoughts started to sharpen with experience and self-criticism. It learned what it's environment was, then it learned the difference between itself and the creatures around it. Then came the thoughts of a hunger that was remorseless, a hunger of a certain thing that lived in the flesh of the creatures it ate. A certain coruscating energy unlike anything it felt within itself. Which led it to ponder if it itself had this energy...this soul.



It was a question that had turned from a gentle curiosity to haunted and tormented thoughts that had caused it to attempt to end itself by letting itself almost fall victim to of the larger predatory denizens of the depths. But in a moment of realization as it's jet-black eyes closed in anticipation of the end of it's life, it realized that it didn't need to have a soul because it was eternal.



The teeth of the predator came down on the titan's head and shattered like glass, causing it to let out a behemoth bellow of pain as it quickly back stroked and fled into one of the trenches.



The titan tentatively let one of it's fins feel the area where the teeth had bit into and felt not a tear or wound, it didn't taste the copper of it's blood. And in that moment of realization of it's immortality, a sudden but refreshing thought became manifested.



If it was truly immortal, it wouldn't need to fear the surface any longer. It wouldn't need to fear what creatures lurked in that alien environment it avoided for centuries.



Always the apex predator of it's home in the darkness, but how would it do in the blinding light? How did it even know what the light was? Perhaps...perhaps it was a genetic memory passed down from it's ancestors but that was hard to say as it's memory of it's existence was a haze. It didn't matter. The titan knew what did and it began it's ascent into the unknown.

There are a few worth noting. I’m going to make a Director’s Cut™ this summer

>>21936815 (OP)

I wrote a story for &amp;amp over a year ago that a lot of people complimented... i havent written for it agian... i have submitted to many normal journals and magazines and been rejected... my life is falling apart
