USED BOOKS FOR SALE

by Brydon Caldwell

As developers race to build more powerful AI models, and lawsuits over copyright mount, a cottage industry has sprung up to supply them with millions of physical books that are stripped apart, scanned into training datasets, and discarded. —Yahoo! Finance, July 29, 2026. AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News.

Soft, almost like felt,

worn down by so

many different thumbs.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

A warm smell with

just a hint of must,

memories of comfort.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Words carefully arranged,

adjusted, revised just so,

telling a narrative.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Knowledge, hard won,

meant to be shared,

illustrated clearly.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Cultural threads woven

together to patch  

gaps in society.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Lone voices calling

from the past, trying

to share themselves.

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

What cost will we pay

when the future devours

the past?

Slice. Scan. Destroy. Repeat.

Brydon Caldwell is a long time teacher and emerging writer from the western edge of the Canadian Shield. He was recently named the winner of the 2026 Icelandic Festival of Manitoba Short Story Contest.  His writing can be found in The Ekphrastic Review, The Fib Review, and the upcoming Fear Dealer, Opolis 2026, and Still From Somewhere anthologies.

BEING NEIGHBOURLY

by Brydon Caldwell

As humanity expands to

fill the globe, so too

does density as we are

stacked one on top of

another on top of another.

Neighbours, who used to be

a friendly wave across a 

field, are now as close as

thin sheetrock, plaster, 

and some studs.

In our proximity, our

capacity has not changed;

we are no more magically

tolerant of others than before.

We share a space that is

subject to the elements,

acts of God, even fire, water,

and air. Accept or deny

climate change, we all live

on the same globe with

common conditions. We can

turn on the kitchen fan when

the smell of curry gets too

strong, but none of us have

control over Mother Nature.

Still, it is easier to blame

someone nearby for those

things that are beyond our

dominion, rather than face

the shared responsibility for

dealing with those outcomes.

What, then, is the

neighbourly response?

Brydon Caldwell is a long time teacher and emerging writer from the western edge of the Canadian Shield. A lifetime of creativity and flirtation with the written word has finally coalesced into writing that he’s proud to put out into the world. His writing can be found in The Ekphrastic Review, The Fib Review, and the upcoming Fear Dealer, Opolis 2026, and Still From Somewhere anthologies.