Iustitia has done nothing but deceive us, smash us into the dirt, blacker than the night that suffocates us in our sleep. I gasp for air.

Our city has always been loud but never to the point of chaos. The streets would echo with the sweet melodies of jazz trombones, open-air frying machines, rustling leaves, and neighborly chatter. Then the sirens began to cry and lights began to flash.

LIBRA CITY BY ANIA ALBERSKI 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 113

We are tilted 55 degrees in the wrong direction, tipped toward destruction. Our throats are choking on sorrow.

Our city has always been loud but never to the point of chaos. The streets would echo with the sweet melodies of jazz trombones, open-air frying machines, rustling leaves, and neighborly chatter.

Then the sirens began to cry and lights began to flash.

Our land is made of glass, a flat, fragile plane, swiveling between heaven and hell. This platter is suspended between clouds and high-flying birds, barely clutching the atmosphere but somehow responsible for carrying all our weight and burdens.

We are living on the exact edge between right and wrong, and Judgement Day falls upon us frequently.

We are slipping away from our origins, hanging on by a thread.

Gamma and Sigma Librae count the toll. These red-headed twins have no skills beyond making tally marks and carrying gold weights. I want to laugh at them but I am too scared.

We are not even really sure who they are, yet the fate of our city lies in their hands, their freckled, dainty hands. For each wrongdoing or evil deed, a weight is deposited into the portal, and for each act of kindness and altruism, one is removed. One weight is enough to tilt our glass city toward the Devil by one degree.

Some say that the Librae have never before deposited as many weights as they have this past month.

I have only ever known the Librae through spoken legends and oil pastel depictions framed in gold and hung to adorn the Capitol walls. They are revered, but for what? For adding and subtracting double-digit numbers?

These beady-eyed cogs, dressed in a veil of obscurity, have become the majesties of our city. Everyone is afraid of the Librae.

I too feel the fear trembling in my bones but I will never admit it out loud. The nerves gnaw at my brain and prick my eyes with tears in secrecy. I reveal my suffering to no-one, especially because the truth might get me killed. We obey here.

The sirens are louder, pounding my ears. Iustitia’s militia-men roam the streets, bronze soldiers with piercing red eyes, lasers embedded in their pupils. Iustitia declares that their purpose is to surveil and protect, but I have seen them slice heads off.

Teenagers dressed in silver jumpsuits are getting ready to strike the Capitol. Thirty years ago I would have joined them. But I know now they are wasting their time. Some of them will never return home to their crying, begging, pleading mothers.

Iustitia has done nothing but deceive us, smash us into the dirt, blacker than the night that suffocates us in our sleep. I gasp for air.

Our glass city is still tipping farther and farther away from goodness. The streets are painted in filthy violet, a fusion of coagulated blood, vomit, tears—and only the stars know who or what is tattooed on the ground, they see us suffer, cry out in turmoil, kill each other and rupture our knuckles all night long.

In the first hours of the terror I hid myself under a blanket and rocked my knees against my chest. I waited for the Librae to finish counting weights, but they just never stopped dropping gold into the portal, and they’re still going now, and we’re past 85 degrees.

I have not filled my lungs with a full breath of air since we hit 75. I’m gasping. Again. My heart is beginning to lose me now too, sometimes pumping blood through my veins, and sometimes forgetting to.

Fleeing my home, I am stepping over corpses. They lie perfectly perpendicular to the original horizon, with their heads pointed like arrows toward hell, and their legs raised like a last plea to be pulled up by God to the heavens.

Tears have streamed down my face since the moment I stepped outside, my ears are ringing violently.

The fog and soot hang low, like a wretched memorial for those slain by the city, by Iustitia and all the lies she has ever spewed.

And, for the first time, I see the shadows of the bright red Librae shoveling weights into the portal. They move robotically, like the bronze soldiers shooting laser beams, and they no longer bother to count the tally marks of good and evil. The toll is at zero.

IIustitia’s golden robe slips in between the Librae, and three words escape her cranberry-colored lips, hissing between fangs: kill them all.

ANIA ALBERSKI

My earliest days as a writer were spent after bedtime scribbling in a notebook under the covers. I write to make sense of what surrounds me and to reach for something more. I am an educator and literacy advocate with an MS Ed from the University of Pennsylvania GSE. I enjoy painting, watching real-estate TV, and drinking English breakfast tea at any hour of the day.