If the election blues (/reds) have got you feeling a bit down this fall, retreat into The Opiate, Vol. 39 for, well, not respite, but at least some form of intelligence via fiction and poetry from Charles Wilkinson, Lance Romanoff, Daniel Allen Solomon, David Harris, E.P. Lande, Steve Fromm, James Stuart Nolte, Antonia Alexandra Klimenko, Dale Champlin, Mary Birnbaum, Floyd Humphrey, Charlie Robert, John Bradley, Mark Dunbar, Heather Sager, Kevin Richard Kaiser, Hugh Offor, Richard Weaver and Elizabeth Kirkpatrick-Vrenios.