Evelína Kolárová / @EvelynnEvenstar / is a young, emerging writer from the Czech Republic. Her poems have been previously published in literary magazines such as Really System, The Gambler Mag, Red Weather, Genre: Urban Arts or Sink Hollow. Her work has made the finalist list of the Poetry Matters Project’s Literary Prize 2019.
THE 2AM CONTEMPLATIONS
My name is Evelyn. Would you like to hear a y? Hello, I’m sixteen years old. Do you ever think about the greater sense of life, about the consequences of every single action you make during every single day of your life? How even the smallest kind of action can change the course of the future and, more likely, why? Do you also get the feeling sometimes, the feeling that can’t be described? Do you believe in coincidence or fate? Neither? It is truly shallow of me to ask because I don’t even know what I believe. Do you ever get the feeling that everything is slowed down? And I am not talking about traumatic or ecstatic situations now. Have you ever had a vision, saw exactly what would happen in detail and then felt perplexed when it actually happened within the same framework? Do you ever look at somebody and see their aura? Are your dreams happy or shy? But if there is one thing I know for sure, I don’t and didn’t mean to write a story at all. Just for the effect you know. Do you think about how impression and appearance are so essential, even if told otherwise?
I wonder if I am the only living person that thinks about and fears the day your calculator gives you a straight answer when you type in two divided by zero. What actually happens to the last man standing? What would you do if you got the access to a time machine? Future or past? Would you rather want to see and gain knowledge from history or would you want to change anything? What do you think, is there a story written for everyone that can’t be changed or does it sound better that coincidence is the unpredictable force in this world? Do you believe in soulmates? Is there a hidden meaning for your phone password? Is it something important to you, is it just a random combination of numbers
or are you one of those people, like me, who don’t have it locked at all? Mayonnaise or ketchup?
Do you read between the lines? Do you also ask questions way too much? Do you like the answers? What about the status quo, do you also hate it? Do you want to change something? Do you eat your vegetables before dessert? Do you ever feel happy or sad for no particular reason? When you look into the mirror, are you proud? Is there a number, whether rational or not, that you have in mind at least a little bit more often than not? What do you think it means? Are the numbers just making fun of you? How sweet is your revenge? Favourite ice-cream flavour? Do you enjoy lonely walks on rainy days? Do you ever want to walk through an entire forest alone, just for the experience of nature? Is mist too mysterious to you? What is your favourite kind of poison? Do you like the smell of rain? Who put the cat in caterpillar? Imagine the most improbable situation, does it involve unicorns? Have you ever thought about the best alibi but never got to use it? Why do you think I am asking? I just am.
From the Editor:
We hope that readers receive In Parentheses as a medium through which the evolution of human thought can be appreciated, nurtured and precipitated. It will present a dynamo of artistic expression, journalism, informal analysis of our daily world, entertainment of ideas considered lofty and criticism of today’s popular culture. The featured content does not follow any specific ideology except for that of intellectual expansion of the masses.
Founded in late 2011, In Parentheses prides itself upon analysis of the current condition of intelligence in the minds of these young people, and building a hypothesis for one looming question: what comes after Post-Modernism?
The idea for this magazine stems from a simple conversation regarding the aforementioned question, which drew out the need to identify our generation’s place in literary history.
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By In Parentheses in IP Volume 7
32 pages, published 1/15/2022
in parentheses 
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