I failed to give up my smartphone last summer, mostly because I noticed my texting-based relationships with faraway friends suffered from lack of contact. I feel the need to explain my failure to friends who notice the absence of my technology-inhibited phone.

"I need to text long texts to friends," I say. "I need QR codes to eat at restaurants. I need maps if I'm lost, I need subway predictions."

The sensation of getting lost now nauseates me. It's fourteen years following my senior year of college in the spring of 2012, when I used to trek around the Bay Area with a handful of MapQuest printouts. A wrong turn meant a slow realization of unfamiliar streets that accumulated along with my misery, until I doubled back.

I don't mention to anyone the persistent itch in my brain for something I could call entertainment, actually the meaningless interruptions that now ground my life, pulling me into videos without end of somebody's dog or somebody's bread or apartment or family.

How do I turn off the ghostly suggested words floated by AI agents in my emails, offering to complete my thoughts and personal messages?

If AI can reshape communication, and friendships rely on asynchronous texting, what do we retain that is purely creative, empathic, and human?

Our second issue explores both moments uniquely alive and self-reflective, as well as imaginings of worlds thrown into despair by unmoderated technology. Writers responded to our themed call for works probing the influence of technology on relationships, while other pieces examined our human capacity for resistance and memory. Visual art in this issue showed an exchange of skill and practices shaped by personal history.

In this issue, we feature fiction that follows the transformation of human character under pressures. "What the Water Took" by Chidera Udochukwu-Nduka traces the psychological impact of childbirth. Chad Gayle's "The Firewalker in My House" dives into a community's reaction to authoritarianism. These narratives consider human vulnerability through the lens of empathy, a topic that AI could not generate.

A trio of fiction works explores our theme of technology's impact on relationships. In Sabyasachi Roy's "Everything I Forgot to Save," a long-distance couple attempt to bridge their separation using a lens that records from her eyes' view. R.F. Daniels' "Past-Perfect" traces the experiences of a person considering another reset, an erasure of memories. "The Light Between Screens" by Plamen Vasilev asks whether conversation with a loved one can be regenerated, whether the imitation can bring human reassurance.

These stories interrogate the role of technology as a participant in our identity formation. If technology is embedded in our communication and interior stream of ideas, at what point can we separate our personalities—our values, thoughts, patterns of relating—from lines of code frequently driven by commercial interests?

Our nonfiction pieces this issue look at the complexity of relationships with others and ourselves, the complications that arise from closeness. Sarah al-Hamad's "Dalida, Mama, and Me" and Sherry Shahan's "Runaway" follow narrators who contend with their parents' limitations. In "The Room Narrows" by Ria Cabral and "The Nightmare" by G.W. Fox, panic and terror are traced with thoughtful meditation.

"Coats" by Chloé Magee sparked conversation among our staff. Friendships are essential to our emotional life, the flows of vulnerability, challenges, and joy that differentiate us from machines.

Our second issue features moving visual art by Carol Berman, Michael Butkovich, Ria Cabral, Anyanwu David, Janina Aza Karpinska, Aliyu Omar Muhammad, Peter Olude, and Amanda Yskamp. Their work offers the visceral experience of mental health, the range and subtleties of emotion. AI-generated art cannot impart the perspective of another person.

To be uniquely human is partly to be in relationship with each other, and we hope that our magazine can bridge connections with other people's experiences.