These are cursed times we live in. Nuclear winter, climate change, a global pandemic, the sixth mass extinction–we are continually on the brink of some global cataclysm that never seems to arrive, is always arriving, and those that do come to pass turn out to be false prophecies, manias like Y2K and 2012 we survive only by our own foolishness. We harbor suspicions that we shouldn’t be here at all and, some would argue, are doing our damnedest to ensure these premonitions come true. And yet here we are.

Of course this paranoia obscures the memory of innumerable, very real eschatons that have been carried out in the name of the mission civilisatrice. Too real it would seem, these histories more likely to manifest as supernatural phenomena—Giles Corey, fukú americanus, the Indian burial ground of so much suburban filmic anxiety—sites that haunt our collective conscience, returning from beyond to correct the record through acts of poetic justice. Curses befall those who fail to remember and won’t listen to less spectacular demonstrations of injustice. Those who count their blessings but not the other side of the coin.

Territory’s thirteenth and final issue, Cursed, is dedicated to understanding these imbalances and the great, often inhuman lengths we go to to restore and ignore them: @cursedimages, 1964 Dodge 330 “GoldenEagle”, “A plague o' both your houses!”, 青木ヶ原 / Aokigahara, the BasedGod's Curse, “bell, book, and candle”, Bell Witch, Bermuda Triangle, Bhopal, blood, boils, book curses, Centralia Mine, Charles “The Thrice-Cursed” Island, Chateau de Montségur, Chernobyl exclusion zone, clay corpses, collapsed mines, cupio dissolvi (“I wish to be dissolved”), Curse of 39, Curse of the Bambino, Curse of the Dragon, Curse of Knowledge, Curse of the Pharaohs, Curse of Tamerlane (Timur), Curse of Tippecanoe, Curse of Turan, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.”, Dadipark, damnatio memoriae, dead malls, Dead Kennedys, death drive, Death Note (2003-2006), devil bridges, doomers, Drag Me to Hell (2009), קופסת דיבוק / dybbuk box, ecogrief, eschaton, evil eyes & nazar, execration texts, expiration dates, the finger, first born, flies, The Flying Dutchman, four-letter words, Franklin’s lost expedition, frogs, fucú, Gaiola Island, Giles Corey, God damn it!, hail, hauntology, hexes, Historia del Huérfano, Hope Diamond, Indian burial grounds, inherited diseases, Jatinga and bird “suicides”, Kasepekang, Koh Hingham, lice, locusts, the Madden curse, manu fica, meidung, minced oaths, The Mummy franchise, Necronomicon, necropoles, the number 13, peak oil, Pele’s Curse, pestilence, Phineus and the harpies, Pine Barrens, Pittock Mansion, planned obsolescence, poète maudit, poetic justice, Poltergeist (1982), Prokletije, PT Barnum’s museums, リング / Ringu (1998), self-fulfilling prophecy, Seven Years Back Luck (1921), Shawnee Lake Amusement Park, Skinwalker Ranch, Sleeping Beauty (1959), Son of a bitch!, Stull Cemetery, Tantalus & Sisyphus, the Talladega jinx, Thinner, the twelve vile vortices, voces mysticae, voodoo dolls, the Von Erich family, Vulture Mine, “Who degrades or defiles the living human body is cursed, / Who degrades or defiles the body of the dead is not more cursed.”, “When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble” / “Whosoever disturbs my tomb will unleash an invader more terrible than I am”, wild beasts, Yeun Elez, יִמַּח שְׁמוֹ / yimakh shemo (“May his name be obliterated”), Zounds!

Issue 13 will be published Summer 2021. To learn how to contribute, read our submissions guidelines.