Losing Symmetry

Equivalence was dear to me, It was a yearning of the soul. Two equal halves, a balanced mind, It took its toll. With the hand's slightest twitch, The colors start to blend. Perfection dies before your eyes, and symmetry is at an end. -Joshua White An Airman with an imagination  http://hashthemag.tumblr.com/post/6996236356...

Continue

HASH E-zine: Issue 03

Bruised Perfection  Whispers of a Tainted Soul Paper ghosts flicker on the fringes on yesterday, crawling into the space between ink and fingertips. They breathe, they heave, they sigh, they weep...they speak. Words spoken shatter delusions. What once was picture perfect becomes a bruised reality. Contributors: Layan Adham, Dane Bahia, Ariel Chu, Okwuje Israel, Asma Alabed, Sabrina Wu, Emily Aguilar, Joshua White Featured Artist: Ana Priscilla Rodriguez (Have trouble viewing the magazine below? Click here to see...

Continue

A State of Affairs

Do you often think of the world? Of the human race? What of life? More specifically, how do all of these things collude in the modern context? Modernity, with all its power and majesty, is – to use a modern term – plastic. I do not know for sure if it is this way because it might be that we have simply jumped on an exponentially large number of times in the past 1000 years (and especially the last 100 years) in all physical terms; we might have simply not had the ample time to evolve into accepting all our progress as a race. That being...

Continue

Jack of all Trades

A Jack of all Trades,  Master of none, Is often better  Than a Master of one. He is a renaissance man, In every shape and form.  Though to master a trade, May take more than he can afford.  So he dabbles in this, Scratches the surface of that.  All to try something, He may be efficient at.  No longer he stays, Than to get a good feel. No sooner he leaves, Than when lost is the appeal. - Hailey Brant Scene...

Continue

A Lesson I love

This does not happen a lot. When it does, I thank God once more. Growing up in a distressed world, I hope there live people who believe and feel what I do sometimes. A moment to leave all the materialistic interests you have and balm your mind. I think we all yearn for a life like that. One in which we can sit outside our house on the front yard and listen to nature connecting herself with us. One in which we appreciate what we have. Most significantly, one in which we feel fully adequate with what we have and not want more. That one evening...

Continue

New Beginning

New Beginnings- Jose Portilla              I hope you will find a love,              So big, so deep, so pure.              Your previous loves have made you weak,              And the new one should be your cure.              You are an incredible woman,  ...

Continue

Devil's Breath: Curse in Disguise

I recently went through something that got me thinking about power and how having it bestowed on us may influence our actions. Upon research, I found the ultimate power tool, Devil’s breath, a drug that rids the taker of free will, the real life equivalent of Harry Potter’s Imperius Curse. This short story explores how a person would react to owning this drug. P.S. Before you jump to the conclusion that the main character is the 'villain', stop and consider what would you have done had you been given the same opportunity.  I stared at the...

Continue

Lobster Man

In a land where pink trees nudge higher at a bright yellow sky everyday, it's only natural to assume that a lobster man lived there. He had to lobster feed, bright red hard skin and a clamp, his left hand though was completely normal. The man's growing rage was all thrown behind a pair of fierce purple eyes, so his rude heresies never gave away his psychotic personality, nor did his fearsome looks. The man went to the local pool with no apparent...

Continue

The Curse of the Caste

I’m an urban boy. I love big cities with their fumy exhausts, historical monuments, rude people, wide wealth gaps, disgusting public transportation and chic restaurants. After the excruciating process of taking my IGCSE examinations this May in Cairo where the sirens and whistles are sometimes too loud for you to be able to think, I decided to visit my grandma in Alexandria which contrasts with Cairo the way New Jersey contrasts with New York. After...

Continue

Just Another Day at School

Dumb people walking in slow motion surround me, they remind me of stranded sheep. I throw away the dirty cloth I used to clean the dried blood off my custom-made baseball bat that had nearly 127 one-inch nails attached to it…pure beauty. It did take a while to do that though; I should probably use Dettol next time. I lift the loose-hanging bandanna around my neck to cover my nose, eyes and chin, then I tighten it firmly. The electric guitar intro...

Continue

Chains of Glass- Part 4

"19, 19 had died in that bombing. 17 of them were adults, probably parents. 17 parents had been blown into bits, ripped apart, piece by piece, mutilated like some insignificant lifeless toy, like my glass box. And something had whispered in my mind then, “Only 19?” I threw up. It had taken them thirteen hours to piece my mother together." (Continue reading Part 3 here, or skip straight to Part 1) Have you ever wondered, when you look...

Continue

Think Again!

Summer… it’s that amazing time of the year when we get to embrace the hobbies that we barely get to practice year-long, well at least, for people who are too lazy to get a job, like me. Earlier this week, as I got to reading The Phantom of the Opera for the third time around, my father pulled a little intervention on me to force me out of my profound introversion. We ended up visiting my great-aunt, a Turk of sixty-something who was born and raised...

Continue

Pain, He Who Works Unpredictably

I have lived a life now for not too long but much to understand quite a lot of aspects of pain. Pain is not what we all think it is. Pain does not come from disasters we think will hurt us. Pain is not planned. To be clear, you cannot exactly expect yourself to know beforehand if a certain problematic situation or tragedy will sink you in pain. People are usually called sensitive towards problems that often are not or might not be something...

Continue

One Short Day...

In the life of Adam Ashraf, 20 years from now... Even after nearly a year living in the penthouse my spouse and I bought when Sarah turned two, the panoramic view from the expansive window pane never fails to take my breath away. The sight of every skyscraper looking back at me from my Upper West Side castle in the sky continues to tantalize me. It was what drove me to move to the city from across the world to begin with, after high school,...

Continue

Chains of Glass- Part 3

"When a plane crashed into the World Trade Centre, my first notion was excitement, not anxiety- but borderline exhilaration. I was eight, and it was then that I was introduced to ‘terrorism’, ‘attack’, ‘bomb’, and ‘war’, I was introduced to the world outside....I didn’t realize it then. It had been drowned in the series of events that followed. Our peace was threatened for the first time.And there was a crack on the glass." (Continue reading...

Continue

Apollo Agrees

I realize that if I was a celebrity I’d be getting lots of hate mail for this one, but thank God I’m not! Viral hit, that is what the international culture of Transhumanism will evolve into over the next couple of months after it has become the central topic of bestselling author, Dan Brown’s new book, Inferno, which hit the racks just last month. Similar to the case of the Illuminati, a groundbreaking phenomenon, society will spend a...

Continue

Hash E-zine: Issue 2

Finding Wonderland: Where It All Began "They lied...there is nothing beyond the ocean," she said, casting a forlorn glance at the agitated water as its ripples danced ceaselessly around their abode, spitting its spray in measured intervals like the disappointment in her tone. "At forever’s end we will find what we have so passionately hunted. Until then, let the ocean take you where it wills.” Replied her comrade just as he felt the fishing line go taut. Bracing for the catch, they gasped as the swishing fins of silver tore through the water’s...

Continue

In tribute of: the Issue 1 Contributors

We might've thanked you guys a million times already, so this one could potentially get on your nerves. But we have much to owe you. HASH was an idea, something Haroon and I decided to blindly leap into just to somehow make our inner passions a meaningful part of our lives. So that we won't forget them. So that we could live them everyday. So that it wouldn't be that they don't count. Or reward.  So that we could share them with the rest of you. And more importantly, absorb all the almost out-worldly inspiration you have to offer. It's...

Continue

Ode to a Pleasurous Life

One who pursues knowledge is one who pursues unhappiness.  A man who pursues pleasure finds joy in everything.  The sinful man suffers The One’s wrathfulness,  The righteous man finds happiness beyond measuring.  Taken for granted some pleasures go unnoticed,  Little things in life bring satisfaction and delight,  Pursuing the unaquisitionable is foolishness.  But keeping hope always, and...

Continue

Chains of Glass- Part 2

"I hadn't grown up in a bubble; I was raised in an enormous oblong glass box. The extraordinary thing about this glass box was that I could see everything of the world without. But to that world, I was completely invisible. The box was impermeable, it was impossible for me to shine in the radiance that showered around it. The glass simply reflected its bright glares. None of the beams reached within."       (Continue...

Continue

Smile

A smile is a precarious thing. Thought to be the expression of happiness, it can hide away other things. A shy smile is to let that blue-eyed boy next to you know you like listening to him talk. A broad smile is to let the shy girl know you think she’s lovely. A shared smile is to connect over a joke, a feeling, an understanding. These are the ones known to everyone. But there are those who use smiles in a different way. A plastic smile, to let...

Continue

A Bulb to Brighten

Like many of us try to deny, I am insecure. Maybe it isn’t for the specific flaws another person might have as theirs but just like everyone, I have insecurities.  It is impossible to perfect yourself if you are not even aware of who you are. Everyone has their own light bulb inside of them. You cannot be someone else. In other words, you cannot steal a replica of another human being’s bulb and try to shine it as bright as they are capable...

Continue