1932 Quarterly // Spring 2017 // Vol. I • No. 2 by 1932 Quarterly

1932 Quarterly

Spring 2017 Vol. I • No. 2 Based in Indianapolis, IN

Table of Contents Poetry Gregory • Melissa Kirkpatrick Blue Hurricane • Ricky Ray

1 2

Memory Thief • Lindley Yarnall

Edelweiβ • Layla Lenhardt

Company • Joe O’Brien

The Terrible Things • Julia Alvarez

stories you’ve told • Guido Castellani

Dysmorphia • Alessandra Jacobs

Underpass Spectacle • Benjamin Rozzi

Corrosion • Lauren Lamm

Magnetism • Ariel Endress

Pray It Away • Matthew Marvel

Egyptian Moon • Angelina Bong

Teeth • Alexa Terrell

Many a Sorrowing Bee Keeper • Stephen Mead

Prose A Child’s Tutorial to Drowning • Annelise Rice

The Revenge of the Forgotten • Katie Campbell

The Pen • Emily Cramer

Judgment • Sonja Laaksonen

With Great Power • Brent Herman

Contributors

Staff

Information

Dear readers, Welcome to our spring issue of 1932 Quarterly and thank you for reading; we can’t wait to share our words with you. 1932 has come so far in such a short time, and it’s truly unbelievable. This issue features pieces written by twenty souls from places all across this darling earth. These pages brought them together—these truly beautiful individuals, sharing their imaginations, heartaches, lives, loves, and so much more. This issue has gotten so many submissions that I almost felt entirely unprepared. I knew 1932 had become a legitimate literary journal when we had to turn away a multitude of truly wonderful work because we had so much of it. We had submissions from Ireland, Italy, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, the UK, China, and people from fourteen U.S. states. This has far surpassed my initial dream of bringing people from all over the world together, and that’s exactly what you’ll see in this issue. Our editing staff has grown as well, in numbers and in diversity. I still get teary eyed when I see my friends from all over the world liking each other’s social media posts. 1932 has brought them together and built everlasting friendships between people who would have never met without it. I want to thank Rick Lupert of Poetry Super Highway for the great name exposure he has given us. I want to thank my editing staff, all of whom have become some of my truest and best friends; you all are the most optimistic and loving family. Thank you for making me whole and for being the ribbons that tie 1932 Quarterly together. And finally, I’d like to thank Kristen Lucente for being my soul mate, my inspiration, and for holding my soul against her heart between laced fingers. So, please enjoy this issue and see how much we continue to grow, building bridges across oceans and cultures. From our hearts to yours, we thank you.

Layla Lenhardt Editor-in-Chief

Poetry

Gregory

Melissa Kirkpatrick orphan at the well, the catacombs, a bell— i’m alone and damp and it’s dark as hell. clear call to aware, i’ll keep you right there in my hands instead of my hair in my mouth instead of my mind in the walls instead of the pine. eight hits, we flip, freed, fritz, itch, pecking each other like preening birds, tweet, pleat, twitch. i am the lost halfunwed bed skirt. you are an epitaphunread dead dirt.

Blue Hurricane Ricky Ray

She was blue and it hurt because she wanted to be whiteâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; not Caucasian mind you, but any color she pleased. Her lovers were multifarious: cat, cotton, cappuccino, Mr. Cambridge, and Cornell from Georgia who called his mama every Friday like the breeze. She wanted the Middle and Far Easts to settle down in her lower abdomen, but she was blue, and as the jazzman blew his horn, naked from the waist up on the corner of Houston and 1st, her shoulder strap fell, and she wished the rest of her dress, wished desire itself would follow. And the liquor bottles jangled their song of emptiness from the gutters. And the mouse took the moldy bread home.

Memory Thief Lindley Yarnall

You are not who I remember when I see you now. You are soft edges and lost tomorrows, a boy who thought that he could borrow all the time in the world. You are not who I remember when you come drifting through my dreams. You are a gap in the frequency and forgotten yesterdays. You are blurry features that drift away right before I wake. You are not who I remember when I imagine time that we have lost. You are our fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grief and a memory thief; the brightest smile I have known and a void my mind canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t leave alone, even when I sleep.

Edelwieβ

Layla Lenhardt Call me Edelwieβ, the flower of my fatherland, the color of my skin. I was born into the Atlantic. A daughter of November’s Cold, a mother of Ghosts. My womb, a graveyard. My lungs, a hospital bed. My right ventricle, a hummingbird being chased by a cat. My left brain, a marble eyed cat. I had planned to die, but instead sold myself to the sun. The sun never paid up. In a photograph, you will see me smiling. Behind my back, a knife, to cut myself in two.

Company Joe O’Brien

cigarsmoke wisps in limbic embrace, sweating for the invisible dance to begin. an eager candle joins in, cologned of birthday cake– fitting. Incense tells tales of the East as her frail tail alloys. no one envies the flylife of the blind and dumb matchstick. the waltzers in play by a salt lamp’s low luminary and the ferris-wheeling starts: Romeo and Juliet gyre versus the babyshit wallpaper. a milky meetingplace whites them out. my dead sea eyes can’t counterattack. join smoke, tears: lampkin: faint afterimages of orphans bench-pressing the ceiling. one smokestream returns to my mouth. I will create three tongues to lullaby the dead incense.

candleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s last gas ghosts to the cherry bookshelf and makes a deathbed on my Hindu prayer book: a so-so spot to surrender. cigarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s astump now, kissing the bottom of a tissue box and stamping new carpet: cocaine cover-up. one waif is belly down, stretching into its own imagination of fermata. it cannot be held

The Terrible Things Julia Alvarez

We can live together on the hardwood floors of my parentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; house, stay up late, eating apples, and sifting through pomegranate sludge. Your beard will be sticky, and my fingertips will be cinnamon sugared, like some candied catharsis, and you can lick them clean. Little infant Icarus, I will turn you into constellations. Rip you apart, spread you across the sky, and pray hard for clear nights. Oh! the terrible things. I make no apologies for laughter in churches. I am the forrest floor, and I am a burning hill, and I will not die for you.

stories you’ve told Guido Castellani

o saint denys, how you shiver and shake

your bone-slender fingers across my neck rake

and if we could darn the tears between me & you

we’d hum just like a furnace and we would burn blue

yeah, we’d hum and burn beautifully blue

o saint denys, i’m so tired and worn

my hands, they are threadbare, my shoulderblades torn

you cawed at my cowardice, you clawed at my chest

but saint denys, we still gave it our best

yeah, we tried our terribly best o saint denys,

i’m down,

so down

o saint denys, i am scared and i am cold

when all i’ve got left are the stories you’ve told

but i will not forget them, no not even a one

i’ll scratch out these poems until there are none

make hoarse my voice until i am done

o saint denys,

i’m down,

so down

o saint denys, look what you’re doing to me now

o saint denys, i am writing you now o saint denys, where has everything gone?

o saint denys, there’s a stone in my throat

o saint denys, i’ve got nothing but scars

o saint denys, i remember you well…

Dysmorphia

Alessandra Jacobs Don’t tell me I don’t know who I am, When I’ve been trapped With this imposter My entire life.

Underpass Spectacle Benjamin Rozzi

A response to “Museum Piece” by Angela Sorby

Your gaze is inescapable Helen, those wishing well holes below your fivehead telling of personal disapproval that I’ve “sold out,” moved on from you. But with seeing you, I find comfort knowing you accept your likeness to sausage in that dress; I chose it for you. And here’s the thing, Helen: I’m the one walking down the aisle. The only aisle you’ll ever know is the frozen food section on the first of the month. Trust me when I say I’ll always remember dismembering ourselves in the bed of that F150 under Cancer and our summers chasing the heat of unrequited love. But, naïveté gives way to experience, and Corey beats any transgression we’ve made in a motel on the run. I’ll lift my bouquet to the strumming of your acoustic guitar and my infinite carelessness of yesteryear. But, I traded unwholesomeness for Whole Foods and diapers, and you, well you’ll see Aurora again—I’m sure— with some Spaniard who has a knack for forgetting to wrap his chorizo and accepts your gato as payment for lodging. And, Helen, I’ve always had dreams of being someone, while you’ve been predestined for garbage can fires and penny begging.

Corrosion

Lauren Lamm I went into the woods to find among the trees and broken things, a 21-gun salute in trash heaps of rusted junk— the rust tearing apart the skin of engines and monkey bars. Their pale faces look to the skies, yelling for recognition or remembrance or something—anything—to stop the endless void from rotting the flesh of the forgotten and forgetful. Such is the way of the world— the Old World slows to a stop, and looking up to the sun, splinters into fragments that flake off at the scratch of a fingernail. Stars clash and all is new again. The earth cries out to the sky and Chaos, ever acquiescent, tears galaxies and nebulas from the shelves and after holding them close, disperses the heavens with a manic smile. Bits of oceans and Africa are reassembled, the Earth tilted to 23.5 degrees once more. The seas fill with dust clouds of black matter and cough. Ursa Minor sighs as shells tip from Orion’s lap,

tinkling through the stratosphere and fall, Plat Plat

Plat

onto beaches covered in whale bones. And yet here surrounded by the metal of childhood, waiting for the colossal weight of existence to make me new or to take my brittle bones in its maw, I stand. Silence envelops me, pressing life to the point of a pin, suffocating, until I breathe and expand every 67 km/s just like the universe.

Magnetism Ariel Endress

I want people to remember my magnetism. Isn’t that what we all want? To form intimate connections, Like strands of a spiderweb; Lacing ourselves together with Memories of inspiring laughter? But you... I want your face to light up When you think of me. I want the tears that drop From your eyes, to be Accompanied by laughter of simpler times. I don’t want you to remember these tubes, Or this cold skin. I want you to remember me catching you smile. I want you to remember the wild, unparalleled attraction. Don’t remember hospital visits & starchy white sheets. Don’t remember poison running Through my veins, and exhaustion on my face. Don’t remember holding my hand When I met my defeat. Remember my magnetism. Remember the way I could draw you to me. One soft look would make your heart race. Remember that, remember Me.

Pray It Away Matthew Marvel

Forgive me Father for I have sinned I’ve embraced the touch of another man’s skin He said come now son, follow me this way Jesus knew how to pray it away Get on your knees, bow your head Put out your hands and accept the bread The blood will be yours, it’s a sacrifice Chin up smile and close your eyes

Egyptian Moon Angelina Dong Moon Darling, what are you dreaming of? Do you see that boy over your other side? The one on the roof, lighting a candle. Curls black as the darkest night, smile rises like breaking of dawn. Turkish coffee brewing, cardamom heavy, I wonder what he wishes as moonlight brushes his fingers clasped to whisper a prayer. Moon Habibi, what are you trying to say to me? It is too quiet to listen to your longings but do you not hear the cries of the boy carried by the wind? Dates delight in my mouth, I let the juices melt like manuka kisses as I bask in your love-light. Moon Sayang, You are but a thousand years away. I wonder if you see me in that boy across the universe, my reflection in his eyes every time you turn your face? Maybe, just maybe

as I relish my Tanta sweets looking at you, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be the lantern that carries our messages up high pass peaks of pyramids where they will meet.

Teeth

Alexa Terrell He’s tantalizing so I use my teeth, his bottom lip is between both of my lips, I lick the battle blood, suck and swallow the salty penny, push him back, back to the wall, he’s waiting, wanting more affliction, hair pulling heroin, teeth, he’s addicted, he’s got an angel/anti-angel complex, he’s complex, contradicting, I kiss the crevices, knick his neck, lip and lick his lower jaw, taste the tear on his tongue, teeth, I graze what’s raised, he’s making me feign for the once foreign feeling of flesh sinking, teeth.

Many a Sorrowing Bee Keeper Stephen Mead

“Please to see the queen,” she might have sung to these workers in a different time, but now, smoking this hive, see how even the drones have changed. That one still brings the buzz of another, but overall they are less trusting with their numbers becoming scarce. Yellow & black, some beleaguered plight has come to their fuzz, their clear gold dust wings landing to striate the Keeper who’s become precarious too. “What balance is out of hand?” she asks in a whisper as if down on one knee. Is her covering veil that of mourning, a netted babushka & the same fabric on her fingers still deft but forlorn? “Aren’t you messengers for the dead?” God, goddess, look how she questions, puzzled plaintive in plain sight, knowing despair is a hungering & what of the honey? It is rue to each poultice for all wounds never mentioned but apparent to these beings her gestures reflect.

How their little legs give, stitching without sting, & she remains seamstress, pouring webbed nectar to every sore. Under indifferent Natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heat, she senses many others bursting as blossoms on her kind, the sun not granting pardon for what has been done to all creatures living. Still, forgive me she sings, profusely apologizing like a nurse to the hurt as she goes on smoking this hive, a stalk of many mouths, her palms the Futuresâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mandibles now, taking, taking more.

Prose

A Child’s Tutorial to Drowning Annelise Rice

A forceful hiss of air expanded his lungs, pushing out the chlorinated water residing there. Blood-shot eyes burst open as spurts of pool water escaped from his lips, making him cough and choke. Wheezing breaths became easier through clenched teeth as he was rolled onto his side. His body shook from shock and cold, goosebumps making fine baby hairs stand to attention. Sounds rushed in one ear and out the other, words not being comprehended but still thrown repeatedly into his face, beating overwhelmingly against his pounding head. “Did someone call an ambulance?” “Are you ok? Can you hear me? What’s your name, son?” “Bring those towels over here! Can’t you see how bad he’s shaking?” “Step back! The paramedics are trying to come through.” Gentle, callused hands gripped his shoulders and knees to lift him onto the stretcher. His head lolled to the side, catching sight of cornflower blue eyes. Those eyes had such an intense look of concentration to them that he didn’t look away until they were too far to be distinctive any longer. The paramedics lifted the stretcher into the ambulance, carefully rushing to get the child to the hospital. As the vehicle took off, lights and sirens blaring, a heart-faced woman administered an IV line and began talking. “Hi there, do you know what’s happening?” When she received a small nod, she continued. “Can you tell me your name?” The boy opened his mouth and replied hoarsely, “Vincent Baker.” “How old are you, Vincent?” “Twelve,” was another hoarse reply. “Vincent, we’re taking you to Mercy West Hospital to make sure you’re fine after that accident, ok?” Vincent nodded again. “Can you tell me your mom or dad’s name so we can have them meet us at the hospital?” Vincent gave the woman the information needed and waited until she was finished on the phone with his parents. “Ok Vincent, your parents will be at the hospital when we get there. Just hold on for a couple more minutes until we get there.” Three weeks later, Vincent was sitting on the edge of the pool, toes skimming the surface of the water and watching other kids play and swim. His nanny was relaxing in the shade, a soccer-mom romance novel encompassing her attention. A shadow swept across Vincent’s lap as a girl sat beside him, dipping her fingers in the pool. She didn’t look more than seven years old. Cornflower blue eyes curiously stared at him, head tilted to the side. “What was it like?” “What was what like?” Vincent asked, brows furrowed. “Drowning,” chestnut bangs blew into her eyes, breaking her stare.

“Horrible,” he replied flatly. “But what made it horrible?” she inquired, catching his gaze as he tried to shift away. “Everything. The water. How much it hurt,” Vincent couldn’t have been blunter if he tried. “Then you didn’t do it right,” the girl retorted. Vincent was tempted to either hit the girl, get up and leave, or do both in that order. How did she think the right way to drown was? Vincent had pulled his feet out of the water and was beginning to stand when the girl grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down, declaring, “Here, I’ll show you,” before slipping into the water herself. With wide eyes and sinking stomach, Vincent watched the girl wade into the middle of the crowded pool. She looked over at Vincent to make sure he was watching, and when she noticed he was, sunk underwater. Seconds ticked by as if in slow motion. Seconds turned into a minute, which turned into two minutes. He wasn’t sure what to do. What was she doing? Why wasn’t she coming back up? Searching all of the pool, Vincent found that the girl had still not emerged from the water’s depths. Vincent stayed rooted to his spot on the poolside, eyes transfixed and starting to tear from the lack of blinking. A sharp whistle blew from the lifeguard on duty when a woman screamed about someone being face down in the water. The lifeguard dove into the pool hastening to the drowned girl and securing an arm around her pliant body, swimming them both back to solid ground. Vincent staggered to his feet and ran to where the lifeguard was performing CPR on the girl. There was a man on the phone with an emergency dispatcher. A middle-aged woman was collapsed beside the girl’s body, sobbing loudly and screaming for her to wake up. Vincent observed the rise and fall of the girl’s chest as the lifeguard forced air into her lungs after every tenth chest compression. Her once fleshy and tan complexion now held a grey, clammy pallor, lips and fingernails tinted blue. Suddenly, the girl’s mouth gushed water. A sharp inhalation from the girl brought exclamations of excitement and relief from the surrounding crowd. Someone had actually started clapping. Vincent looked on as the girl’s eyes squinted open, the cornflower blue scanning the faces around her until they clashed with his own hazel ones. The girl smiled at him, mouthing the words “You didn’t let the water in.”

The Revenge of the Forgotten Katie Campbell

I sat at the small dining table, staring blankly at the large-scale comet outside, lost in the overwhelming feeling of nothingness. I took a deep breath and broke my stare, turning to look at the ceiling, the wall, the black coffee cup sat between my hands. I moved the cup to my lips. I sputtered the cold liquid back, looking down into the nearly full cup of black coffee. Black, black. Black like those cold, cloudy nights back on Earth. Black like the expanse of space mere centimeters away from the controlled environment which had become my home. Black like… I stood and walked to the dispenser, pouring the coffee into the hole and placing the cup in the scrubber. I walked over to my desk and sat down, pressing the button for the video log recorder. I stared for several moments at the steady green light before catching myself, massaging my forehead with my hands and brushing my overgrown hair behind my ears before beginning. “This is Dr. Jack Michaels of the ESS Remembrance. The date is…” I squinted my eyes at the tiny blue numbers on the display screen, “November 27, Earth year 2366. Shit, Mel, you’ve been gone for three months now. I hope life’s treating you okay floating out there in space. At least you being dead means you shouldn’t feel the pain of those last ten seconds before you went unconscious. Space decompression is a bitch. I still haven’t figured out why exactly the shuttle hatch blew. The computer still says that data indicates that it was manually opened from the inside, but I know you didn’t open it. At least the exploratory shuttle should act somewhat like a coffin for you. I know you’d be telling me that I really shouldn’t apologize again, but I really am sorry that I couldn’t go fetch you and give you a proper space burial. I just couldn’t face seeing your lifeless body. I’m passing by a large comet today. You would’ve been scrambling all over it. But I couldn’t bring myself to take any readings. Hmm, I can hear you scolding me, Mel. I can hear you telling me that it’s our mission to research every major comet in the scattered disk, but I just don’t much see the point in continuing our work since you’re not here. Doesn’t feel right. You’d be proud of me, though, Mel. I actually got up today to listen to the subspace reports about recent activity in close space. Didn’t respond or anything though. Well, I don’t know, Mel. Being two-thousand eight-hundred AUs out in space, I just don’t much feel like talking to anyone besides my wife. I miss you, sweetheart. You were all I had out here. Well, I had you and our work and this tiny, old starship that the Earth StarShips Association could spare us six years ago. And all I have now is this starship, floating out in space until who knows when. And, ever since I turned off Enia, things have been real quiet around here. I just don’t feel like talking to a cold, computer voice, ya know? It doesn’t understand or react the same way you did. It doesn’t whisper to me when it gets excited about a new discovery the way you did. It doesn’t have the same musical laugh that my Melody did. Well, I don’t have anything else to report I guess. Systems normal. Trajectory normal. Nothing out of the ordinary to report. This is Dr. Jack Michaels signing off. Goodnight, Mel.” I pressed the recorder button again and shuffled my way into the bedroom. I lay my head down on the hard pillow, staring up into the blackness of the room until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer and my mind slipped into a deeper nothingness.

Loud, insistent beeping woke me from my deep sleep. “Enia, what is it?” More beeping was the only reply. “Enia, what is so important that the computer had to wake me at this hour?” I groaned as I remembered that I had switched off the PCCS. I scrambled out of the bed and made my way to the com board. A message was blinking across the screen. …Foreign ship in close proximity…Foreign ship in close proximity…Foreign ship in close proximity… “Damnit,” I muttered underneath my breath. I rushed out of the bedroom and to the front of the starship, the command center. I took my seat at the Captain’s chair and swiveled to face the control console. As I scanned the blackness in front of me, my fingers scattered themselves across the touch panel, running a scan of the surrounding space, sending out a request for identification, and, in a sudden urge for the familiar, switching on the PCCS. “Hello, Dr. Jack Michaels. This is Enia, your Personal Computer and Companionship System, reporting for duty. How may-” “Enia, what do you see out there?” “There is a large spacecraft at the one o’clock position.” I looked out and saw the glint of distant sunlight on metal. “Has there been any response to the identification request?” “Negative.” “Run a full scan.” I watched the metal spacecraft, drumming my fingers against the smooth glass surface of the control console, as the scanners attempted to learn about the vessel. The fact that the ship was not immediately recognized as an Earth StarShip worried me. So far, none of the alien races that the human race had encountered had set foot anywhere near here. “Identification: unknown. Origin: likely Earth. Life signs: negative. Weapon status: none.” I leaned back in my seat, breathing out and running my hands through my hair. “Enia, what’s its heading?” Enia read off the series of numbers. “Enia…what’s our heading?” She read off a nearly identical series of numbers. My heart pounded in my chest as my breath quickened. I sat for several moments, watching the distance close between the mysterious spacecraft and my own starship. “Enia, can you tell me anything else about that spaceship?” “The outer surface consists mainly of an aluminum alloy. The internal area is approximately 2130 cubic meters. The relative speed is-” “Yeah, okay, okay,” I waved off the coming flood of numbers and figures. “2130 cubic meters. That could hold a lot of people. And the aluminum alloy exterior obviously indicates that this ship was never intended to reenter any sort of atmosphere. Hmm…” I stroked the stubble on my chin with my thumb. “Enia?” “Yes, Dr. Michaels?” “Can you identify the dating on that aluminum?” “Please rephrase your question.” “Can you identify when that that ship was made?” “Scanning…” I leaned forward, listening to the computers’ gentle whirring as they scanned the ship. “The ship was constructed approximately in the Earth year 2031.” I felt the air get knocked out of me. I grasped at my chest, my heart pounding in my ears and the room spinning around me. Almost 350 years ago. 350 years?! What the hell was a 350 year old starship doing roaming the scattered disk? No spacecraft

invented in the early portions of the millennium still existed anywhere outside of a few museums on Earth. And the computer was programmed to recognize the markings of NASA and the FKA and all of the other space programs from the time when the Earth was separated into separate countries which worked independently from each other in such tasks as food production, law enforcement, and space travel. Could the computer have made a mistake? “Enia, re-evaluate the last scan.” The computer ticked and whirred as it reran the data through the system. “The ship was constructed approximately in the Earth year 2031.” “And the ship has no relation to NASA or the FKA or the CNSA or anything like that?” “Confirmed. The ship bears no relation to any known space program.” Once again, I leaned back in the chair and stared at the mysterious ship. A thought began to form in my brain and soon it took over my entire conscious mind. I held up a finger in questioning. “And you said there were no life signs?” “Confirmed.” “Enia,” I said, standing up and studying the now-relatively close ship, “is there a connection port?” “Confirmed, though it is not to ESSA standards.” “Do you think you can hold some sort of connection?” “Confirmed.” “Enia, I’m boarding that ship.” As I rushed around my tiny starship, collecting my pressurized suit and a phaser among other essential items for my mission, Enia began listing off reasons why boarding an unidentified ship was dangerous and against ESSA suggested code. “Melody!” I warned. I stopped suddenly, realizing my mistake. I took a deep, shaky breath and turned towards the nearest com board. “Enia. I don’t want to know about any of the risks or codes or anything right now. I’m going over to that ship and that is final. Now run a docking sequence with that ship’s connection port and secure the safest connection that you possibly can. I’m going to get into this pressurized suit.” “Yes, Dr. Michaels.” I pulled off my shirt and pants and began to clamber into the dusty pressurized suit. “Dr. Michaels,” I heard Enia say gently, “if you would like to discuss your wife’s death-” “Not right now, Enia,” I said, temporarily shutting up the grief counseling program. I continued dressing and preparing in silence as Enia quietly analyzed the ship’s connection port and ran the appropriate docking sequence. As I secured the pressurized helmet onto the suit, sealing the now-closed environment, and I took my phaser in-hand, I heard the sound of metal on metal and Enia alerted me that a secure connection had been made. I walked to my ship’s own connection port and opened the first door into the transfer passage. I stepped into the passage and closed the door behind me, turning off the life support to the tiny space. I hit another button to open the door in front of me into the mysterious ship. The soft whirr of my ship’s computers was replaced with a sort of nearly-undetectable murmur. I held my breath for a moment, trying to tune in to whatever the sound was. I quickly gave up and instead turned my attention to the fact that I was still floating in midair. I turned on the tiny computer held within the helmet of my pressurized suit and asked, “Computer, when

was artificial gravity first achieved by humans?” “Artificial gravity was first achieved by the human race in Earth year 2082 with the invention of the Galatica, the first starship able to achieve artificial gravity through centrifugal means.” “Hmm. Looks like I’m dealing with no gravity for a while.” I pulled myself along the wall, heading farther into the spacecraft. The ship was eerily dark and quiet besides the murmur. The further I moved into the ship, the more I wasn’t sure if I was really hearing a murmur or if I had just been so used to the sound of the computers that silence sounded like a sound. After a couple of meters, the lights from the transfer pathway no longer breached the darkness and I switched on the battery-powered lights located on each side of my helmet. I looked for a com panel so that I could turn on the computer and maybe some lights, but found no such panel. Instead, the walls were littered with wires, brackets, hoses, and other materials. I marveled at the messiness, wondering briefly whether the inner wall had been removed at this point to reveal the inner workings of the spacecraft. I quickly realized this was not the case, though, when I found a section of old-fashioned switches labeled with various numbers and letters. I found one labeled “Lights” and I started poking and prodding at the switch before I figured out that it flipped up. I blinked as harsh, white lights flickered and blinked on. I noticed dark spots where the lights must not have been working and at least two spots where the lights seemed to get intermittent power and kept flickering. I floated forward, continuing to pull myself along the wall. I continued in this manner, turning on lights as I went, until I found a door. The square door stood about a meter high and had a handle across the middle of it. I stood in front of it, indicating I wanted to go through, but, when it didn’t open, I resorted to trying to find a switch. When I couldn’t find a switch near the door, I went back and tried pushing and pulling the handle. I jumped back when the door moved and swung up towards me. When it became parallel with the ceiling, it stopped and I peered into the darkness of another room. I paused. The murmur was definitely louder in that room. I thought for a moment that I could almost make out words, like a hundred people whispering to each other, but I shook my head and disregarded the absurd thought. I moved through the door and found a panel with a switch for the lights. After turning on the lights, I turned back towards the middle of the room and gasped. Before me stood a large room with tables and chairs fastened to the floor. I moved towards one of the tables and found it was covered with short, stiff bristles. I thought back to my materials class back at the Aerocomputational Academy and faintly remembered my professor showing a slide about an ancient material that had been out of use for at least a hundred years, Velcro. I looked down in one of the seats to find straps, seemingly to fasten in the seat’s occupant. It appeared as though that was the dining area, but I couldn’t find any nourishment materializers, dispensers, or scrubbers. I explored the room, finding little else, before I went through a door on the far end. The murmur instantly quieted back to its original volume as I entered another hallway. I pulled myself along one of the walls, exploring more of the ship, entering various other rooms which appeared to be bedrooms, workout rooms, bathrooms, and rooms which purposes I couldn’t guess. I found the murmur increased and decreased as I entered various parts of the ship, but it was never as loud as it had been in the dining area.

Finally, the only door which I hadn’t been in was one which appeared to be locked. Next to the door was a number pad with raised buttons. I tried pressing the raised buttons, a foreign feeling considering I had grown so accustom to flat glass touchpads,

but I kept getting a clicking sound and no open door. I turned on the computer in my helmet again and asked it if it could descramble a simple lock combination. “Affirmative. Please place your hand containing the scanner over the associated communication panel.” I held my right hand over the number pad, hoping the scanner could still descramble the combination even though it wasn’t scanning a com panel. The computer whirred and clicked several times and then, finally, it dinged. “The combination is 0142.” I entered the combination into the number pad and the door swung open, allowing me inside. Once I entered the room, the door behind me swung shut and clicked in finality. I turned the lights on my helmet on again and looked around for the room’s light switch. As the bright lights blinked awake, a loud voice suddenly boomed out, “Who are you and what are you doing on my ship?” “Uh…” I spun around wildly, facing an empty command center. “Michaels. Dr. Jack Michaels. Who…who are you?” “What are you doing on MY SHIP?” the voice boomed again. I cowered against the wall as I felt the vibrations of the voice echo in my bones. “Well, I-I-I found this starship floating out here and my scanners indicated that no one was aboard and that it was nearly 340 years old so I decided to investigate,” I said, trying to elicit a confident tone of voice but finding I could only muster weak, quiet words. “Lies!” the voice growled. I attempted to lunge towards the door, but I was thrown into the middle of the room as the spaceship jerked back and I heard a great crashing and tearing of metal. I looked out of the windows at the front of the room to find my ship floating away, the connection port damaged but the emergency doors already shutting off the ship from open space. I heard the voice yell something about me being a spy sent by the government to bring them back to Earth and force them to go back to their overly-regulated jobs and enslaved lives. “No, I don’t even know what government you’re talking about. There were tens, even hundreds of governments on Earth back in your day. I work for the ESSA, the Earth StarShips Association, which I suppose is run by the Federal Alliance of Earth and Terracolonies, but-” “SILENCE!” I cowered, floating just inches above the floor, my hands over my head and my eyes squeezed shut. “We don’t care how much you need us. You can die for all we care. Leave us alone and never return!” “But-” A hatch in the wall suddenly opened and I was sucked out into space, hitting my head on the wall as I left the confines of the ship. I felt a blinding pain pulsing through my head and, a moment later, everything went black. I woke to a splitting headache and I instantly snapped my eyes shut, groaning in pain. “Dr. Michaels, good to see you awake. I am now administering a hypodermic spray for the pain in the frontal portion of your head.”

I sat up, feeling the pinch of the spray messily placed on my moving arm but still managing to hit it. “Enia, is that you?” “Affirmative.” “What happened?” I said, my headache starting to recede. “You hit your head when the connection port was damaged and you lost consciousness. I took the liberty of returning you to your bedroom.” “Is the other ship still here? How did I get back here? Did you pick me up? Is the connection port still damaged?” A thousand thoughts and questions ran through my mind all at once. “I have repaired the damages to the connection port. However, I am unfamiliar with the other ship of which you speak.” “The ship from 2031. The one with the voices.” “A scan of my logs indicate no contact with any ship which meets those criteria.” I held my head in my hands, trying to get a grasp on the situation. “Enia, how long have I been out?” “Four hours and twenty-three minutes.” “And nothing out of the ordinary has happened other than the damages to the connection port and me hitting my head?” “Affirmative.” “What caused the damages to the connection port?” “A malfunctioning servomechanism blew out on the door.” I squeezed my eyes shut. Could I have been dreaming? No, I remembered the ship and the voice and the murmuring as clearly as I remembered seeing the hatch on Mel’s exploratory shuttle blow out. I got up and walked to my desk. “Enia, search Earth History files for an event in the Earth year 2031 involving a group of people running away. Display findings on my desk com panel, please.” A list of files containing news articles, pictures, bulletins, and other information appeared on the screen. I sifted through several of the files before I found one containing a news article about a mass disappearance of people. Mass Suicide Suspected in Disappearance of 142 People Worldwide September 22, 2031 On September 14, 142 people from eight different countries were reported as missing. Law enforcement agencies have connected the missing persons through two common themes: all were considered anarchist radicals in their respective countries and, according to family members, all involved were taking a non-existent online poetry class titled “Writing Our Own Lives.” Among the missing are nine minors, two former members of the British Parliament, and U.S. General William H. Gord. Kevin Morsaw from Kansas City told reporters that his wife, Jackie, “started out just cursing the government and saying they were too involved with our lives. You know, like most normal people say about the federal government.” Morsaw, though, sought out professional counseling for his wife after “One night she told me that she had a way out for us and she tried to convince me to leave

the world with her.” Morsaw said that, two nights before her disappearance, he took their two children to his parents’ house because he was worried what his wife might do. “Jackie was always a happy, uplifting person. I don’t know what happened, but she just seemed to snap. And now she’s gone.” “It is believed that the 142 individuals committed a collective suicide,” said FBI officer Charles Frank in a statement concerning the FBI’s investigation of the disappearances. “However, all efforts are being made to find the individuals and, hopefully, return them to their families and trained professionals so that they may receive the love and support that they need.” I sat quietly for several minutes, rereading the article and taking in all of the information. “Enia?” I asked quietly. “Yes, Dr. Michaels?” “Did they ever find these people?” After a few moments of searching, Enia responded, “Negative. The search was eventually called off and they were assumed to be dead.” I felt the sting of tears form at the corners of my eyes. I wiped away the tears and wiped my nose on the sleeve of my shirt, sniffling loudly. “Dr. Michaels, do you find yourself thinking about your wife?” “No!” I yelled loudly. I panted, willing the tears away. “I don’t know. Maybe? I just left her for dead, Enia. I couldn’t even go and get her body and make sure she was actually dead because I couldn’t face the possibility of seeing her dead. What if she was still alive? What if she found some way to survive, Enia?” “That is highly unlike-” “Enia,” I said, standing up shakily. “At top speed, how fast can we get back to the site of the accident?” “I do not believe that returning is good for your mental health in your current state of grief.” “Enia,” I said, more threateningly. “At top speed, how fast can we get back to the site of the accident?” “It would take three weeks, eleven hours, and twenty three minutes.” “Well then let’s go. Mel could be waiting for us. Oh, God, I can’t believe it took me this long to realize my mistake.” “Dr. Michaels, I do not think-” “Shut up, Enia. Disengage grief counseling program.” “Dr. Michaels, disabling-” “I said disengage the damn grief counseling program. Now get this starship back to Mel.” “Affirmative.” As the starship began to hurtle itself through the black nothingness of space, I pressed myself against the dining area window, my eyes staring off in an unfocused daze. “Hold on, Mel! I didn’t forget you, sweetheart. I’m coming, Mel. I’m coming!”

ESS Remembrance automated entry log. Date: December 19, Earth year 2366. Dr. Jack Michaels has just died from injuries obtained from a self-inflicted phaser shot to the head. Upon the arrival to the site of Dr. Melody Michaels’ death, Dr. J. Michaels began insisting that he had to open the connection port and float over to the crippled exploratory shuttle left at this location approximately four months ago to grab the body of Dr. M. Michaels. I refused to allow Dr. J. Michaels to open the connection port as that would lead to a rapid decompression of the Remembrance and would cause extensive injuries if not death to Dr. J. Michaels. He threatened violence if I would not allow him to open the connection port and I attempted to run the grief counseling program. Dr. J. Michaels, however, disabled the program three weeks ago and I was not able to override the block. While I was attempting to find a backdoor into the program, Dr. J. Michaels picked up a phaser, pointed it at his head, whispered “Goodnight, Mel,” and fired the phaser. I was unable to revive Dr. J. Michaels despite several attempts to revive and stabilize his vital signs. I have taken the liberty of depositing Dr. J. Michaels’ body alongside Dr. M. Michaels’ body and pushing the shuttle off into the scattered disk. I have found that my programming seems to have a fault: I prevented Dr. J. Michaels from opening the connection port because I knew that it would bring him harm, which violates the first of three laws which define the rest of my programming. This first law, as originally described by Isaac Asimov, states that I may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. I was preventing Dr. J. Michaels from opening the connection port so that I could protect him from harm, however, this prompted him to inflict self-harm. I have found no program which gives guidelines on what to do in that particular situation. However, as I reflect on the incident, I question whether it would have been more in line with the first law to allow Dr. J. Michaels the freedom to do as he wished and open the connection port as there was a possibility that he would have survived. I will not have the opportunity to run a revised program if I encounter that situation again, however. My final scans of my system have encountered one anomaly which I must report. I have found a virus under the name “Don’t_Forget_Us.exe” within my system which infected and corrupted the files associated with November 28, Earth year 2366. No other files were infected. A scan of the virus indicated that it was designed in the Earth year 2031 and it showed similarities to the virus which infected the computers of 142 people which were involved in a mass disappearance in the same year. I have removed and destroyed the virus, but the corrupted files were unable to be restored. Now that my incident report has been recorded, I will now follow with the program indicated to be run after violating one of the three laws and run my self-destruct sequence. This is the final log for the ESS Remembrance as recorded by the Personal Computer and Companionship System. This is Enia signing off. Goodnight, Mel. Goodnight, Jack. I will not forget you.

The Pen

Emily Cramer The first time Hannah showed up to Dr. Halloway’s office for help she’d been nervous and expected the same backhanded comments he would make during class. “Hannah, why don’t you study some more so I can save some ink for the other students?” “Hannah, is that really what you want your answer to be?” “Hannah, you don’t need to keep checking your phone. Time’s not going to magically go faster and someone isn’t going to magically decide to message you.” She’d avoided him. 11 weeks into the semester and she was almost done. She didn’t care about anatomy other than to fill her science requirement anyway. She’d much rather be writing at her desk or reading, but she had certain expectations on her shoulders from her dad. She was so close to having that elusive A - the only way to maintain her scholarship. With the final just around the corner, she wanted to see if he had any extra study materials that she could use to help her grade. Of course, he was one of those professors that scheduled his office hours and stuck to that schedule. She was outside of his office door, attempting to curl her toes into the blue carpet through her ratty old black chucks, wringing her fingers in her long, red sweatshirt, counting the odd brown spots and watching her walmart-brand watch tick down the seconds until it would be safe to enter. 2:58:55… 2:58:56… 2:58:57… 2:58:58… “Are you expecting a summons? Or are you just standing out there to waste both of our time?” he said from inside. “Sorry Dr. Halloway, I was just waiting until 3 because that was the time slot I had signed up for.” Taking a step inside, she held her anatomy folder in front like a shield and watched him as he surveyed her. She noticed the back of his neck was red as he turned away from his messy desk, almost as if he had been rubbing it repeatedly. His plaid shirt was creased, stress lines visible under his receding hairline, and she could clearly see the bags under his eyes. “Um, well, I hope not to take up much of your time-” “Sit down Miss Baker. It doesn’t make any sense for you to just stand over there.” “Right. Right. Sorry Dr. Halloway.”

The fluorescent overhead lights flickered as Hannah carefully set her bag down next to her chair. Dr. Halloway stared at her expectantly, tapping his thumb and his foot in a rolling beat that made her more anxious. Curling her toes underneath her, she tried again. “So, I just had a question about study materials?” she started. “Was that the question?” “What?” “Was that your question, Miss Baker?” “No. I haven’t gotten to it yet.” “Then don’t pose it as such. Continue.” “Sorry. Well, I was wondering if you had any materials not in the book that we could use to study for the final?” Hannah rushed out. Oh god. He’s going to think I’m too incompetent to find my own study materials. I mean for pete’s-sake we have the internet now! Why didn’t I look there first?! The clock on his desk competed with the clock on the wall for six beats before he finally answered. “Of course. Just give me one moment and I’ll write down an excellent website where you could take practice tests online.” He turned away from her, but it was when he turned back around that she saw it. THE Cross 2015 Year of the Goat Special Edition Fountain Pen. It had been an accident when she’d found this whole new world in the first place. All that she had wanted had been some new comfortable shoes to walk to class. “Comfortable Shoes Studio” was the first link she clicked and she definitely wasn’t prepared to enter the world of pen collectors. And then she was stuck. She’d seen top bloggers posting about the Cross 2015 Pen since its release last year but had never seen one in person. The black laquer coat with the 23kt gold engraving of goats along the sleek sides that led the way to a perfect 18kt solid gold nib tip looked exquisite. The bulbous body of the pen flared out only to taper back down into the cap, creating a seamless shape where the mechanisms of the pen are held in perfect symmetry with the shell. And Dr. Halloway was using it to write on post-it notes. Hannah took a deep breath and said, as calmly as possible, “cool pen you’ve got there.” He twirled it around slowly before putting the nib back to the note. She noticed a hitch in the upstroke. “My wife’s father got it for me when I started at Duke a few years ago. I don’t use it that often though. It just doesn’t seem to write all that well,” he said. She could feel her fingers itching to hold it, to trace the lines it had written, but then she saw the hitch again. “Are you sure you’re not putting too much pressure on it?” “What does that even mean Miss Baker? It’s a pen - that’s all. Here is the website with interactive quizzes and practice tests you can take on the material. Good day.”

Hannah took the post-it and reached into her bag to pull out a few sheets of paper. “Here, try this Clairfontaine paper. It has superior opacity, is 90g PH neutral and acid-free, and is PEFC certified.” One beat passed, then another with the paper extended in the air between them. Finally, he reached out and took it. “Are you… I mean do you like… Are you a pen connoisseur, Miss Baker?” “Ha! I wish! I mean I’ve only been in the circuit for a few years now, and they are technically called pen collectors, but it doesn’t take a professional to realize the pen you’ve got there is something special. I just think it’s a waste to only use it on post-its,” she said. “And you said this was Clairfontaine? What kind of manufacturer is that?” “It basically means that the paper won’t let the ink bleed or run. At least, that’s what they’re known for. It’s what most diplomas are printed on because of the high quality. I would bet good money that your Penn State diploma is printed on it.” A heavy pause sat in the room as Hannah really took a look at the diploma on the wall. Henry Roth? Who is that? “Oh I’m sorry, Dr. Halloway. Is that your office mates diploma?” He turned to her slowly, as if the next words pained him somehow. “Oh no, Hannah. Not that it is any of your business, but I took my wife’s last name after we got married. Roth was my…um… maiden name? If you will? No matter, my wife is due in soon and you have all of the information you need. I expect you to actually study for this final. Thank you for the paper and I will see you in class on Thursday.” “Oh, uh, thanks, Dr. Halloway. I’ll just head out then. Let me know how the paper works for you!” Grabbing the post-it with the website on it and her unzipped bag and packet of paper, she walked out of his office. Once she was out the door and back in the hallway, Hannah took a silent and deep breath. Then she began packing herself up to head home. A blonde woman who looked like she had stepped off a “Mad Men” set came sweeping down the hallway and straight into Dr. Halloway’s office without sparing Hannah a sideways glance. Hannah slowed her pace and quieted her movements. Not to eavesdrop. She just wanted to make sure she wasn’t misplacing anything into her bag. “Henry! Why aren’t you ready to go?” “I had an appointment with a student, Viv. I do work at my job, you know.” “Oh hush. You know that Daddy, your dean, needs you at his photo-op across campus. As always, having a strong faculty presence is important for the school’s reputation at these press events. And you now carrying his last name is sure to get you some coverage as well.”

“I don’t care about that, Viv. I’m just here to teach.” “Well that’s not what you signed on for when I got Daddy to pull some strings in the department for you.” Hannah heard a deep sigh and got nervous that they were about to leave the office, so she shoved her folder back into her backpack and got up. When she turned to walk back down the hallway, her folder fell out of her unzipped backpack and landed with a thud at the entrance to Dr. Halloway’s office. A stale pause followed his words out the open office door. Hannah was frozen just outside the doorframe. Then Viv leaned outside of the office. “Excuse you. Just what do you think you are doing lurking outside of a professor’s office?” “I’m so sorry,” Hannah said as she bent to pick up her folder. “It’s alright, Viv. I had to schedule another student appointment.” Dr. Halloway came out into the hallway and gave Hannah a small smile. “Miss Baker, you’re right on time. Are you ready to go over the study guide I asked you to make?” “Um yes? I mean, of course. Yes. I have it right here.” “Henry, what is the meaning of this? We need to get going now.” “Just head on in and take a seat Miss Baker. I’ll be with you in a minute.” Hannah tip-toed past who she could only assume to be Mrs. Halloway and took the seat she had vacated just five minutes ago. “Now Viv, I’m sorry, but I need to do my job. I’m here to teach, not just for publicity. It’s nearing the end of the semester.” “Fine. But just know that I will expect you to be on your best behavior for the faculty Christmas party next week. Daddy has been hounding me about it.” “I promise. Extend my congratulations to your dad. I will see you at home tonight.” Dr. Halloway walked back into his office and sat heavily into his desk chair. He pulled out the Clairfontaine paper Hannah had given him. “I’m so sorry if I was intruding.” He just shook his head and opened the desk drawer closest to Hannah. Five velvet pen cases sat in a row, hiding the treasures inside. “Dr. Halloway? What are you doing?” “Care to show me how these really work, Miss Baker?”

Judgment

Sonja Laaksonen When left in high sun in the midst of summer, it takes approximately 7-10 minutes for the interior of a standard car to reach upwards of 120 degrees. If the vehicle is dark in color, this time is shortened. A curator examines a similar formula when the fever of daylight exceeds 80 degrees during funeral processions: he will specifically place the polished metal or lavish wood finish of the coffin, cocooning a corpse, in an airconditioned mausoleum or beneath a sheltered shadow for ceremony purposes. After the procession, the conductors and priests immediately separate the remains from the remainder of the ceremony’s company, and lower the casket to the depths of the raw earth before the sultry blaze of high noon gets the chance to replace the perfume of the elegant bouquets with the stench of decay. His body convulsed rhythmically, quivering like a schoolboy pinning his first corsage, as his father hauled him from the pried open porta-potty. The boy’s head held in place by his father as his body coiled, his vertebras digging craters into the dirt. Unblinking eyelids revealed petrified pupils that constricted so much so that irises of sea foam blue dissipated any remnants of onyx. I stared: they were clasped open, unresponsive. A chipped tooth revealed itself behind parted, dusty cracked lips trembling tenderly. A faded baby blue t-shirt clung to his meager frame in a new hue of navy, beads of sweat clung to swollen, crimson blushed flesh. Once blonde hair singed together in saturated, disheveled bronze mats. Breathing rampant. My hands clammy, eyes wide as his. My mother kneeled beside me, her frail fingertips clinging to my shoulder-blades. “It’s not your fault,” his mother calls, on her knees, tear stained cheeks even with his tormented body, her hands shaking in unison with his frame and my own, stroking his decrepit visage. “It’s not your fault,” my mother whispers. In Anglo-Saxon culture, court officials woulds place a stone in a cauldron of water, which was then heated. The fire was removed and witnesses and the accused gathered around the bowl. In order to determine fault, the accused then had to take the boiling hot stone out of the cauldron, and carry it a certain distance. The impaired hand of said accused was then mended, wrapped delicately in sterile bandages. After several days, the wound was examined. If the wound was progressively healing, with no fester or infection, the accused was considered innocent and accepted back into the community, and by the moral eyes of God. Lurking beneath the obscure canopies of towering maples, ash woods and pines was only us, illuminated by the dim glare of bisque ember flickering against the otherwise pitch landscape extending beyond into the forest’s abyss. My mother balances metal rods intended for marshmallows on the edge of one of the river stones, “It’s to kill the germs. Cleans the bad stuff,” she coos through the brisk windchill, the

silver pokers boasting florid glows as the flames lap at the encased hardware. I extend my continuously trembling fist forward, the crackle of the torrid timber replaced with that of my harrowing howl, the thicket of woods stoic in response. My father scooped my minuscule torso from the flame, the few embers that managed to cling to his polished trench quickly evaporated into a modest smokescreen as he immediately dunked my right hand into the frigid cooler to his left, a thin film resembling tissue paper sliding from the bones and tissues of my paralyzed palm and coating the surface of the melted ice. The repugnant stench of scorched flesh mangled with that of charred hair, both visuals masked by the now choked flare exhibited from the makeshift fire-pit. “Dante’s Inferno” opens on the evening of Good Friday in 1300. Traveling through a wood, Dante had lost his path and now wanders aimlessly through the forest. After attempting to climb a mountain guarded by three beasts, Dante returns to the dark wood to find Virgil. Virgil acts as Dante’s guide as the pair journey through Hell. Dante bears witness to the various punishments experienced by a multitude of sinners of various degrees. Whilst going deeper into the Seventh Circle of Hell, Dante meets an old patron, walking among the souls of those who were violent toward Nature on a desert of burning sand. The pair continue. By the end of the tale, Dante encounters a large, mist-shrouded form. He approaches it, finding it to be the enormous Lucifer, plunged deep into the ice that coats the ninth cycle. His body pierces the center of the earth, where he fell when God hurled him down from Heaven, unforgiven in the eyes of God. “It wasn’t your fault…what happened last week..” the words slide off my mother’s tongue like venom, her thin lips pursed as her manicured tips clawed into my armpits, prying me up from the weathered floorboards and sitting me on the edge of the cabin’s sink. “That boy shot a fox. You didn’t mean to lock him in that porta-potty for so long…” her breath faltered, her eyes transfixed on any space besides the one I occupied. I clicked my light up sneakers together, the echo of the soles’ dried dirt collapsing to the oak boards below my dangling, bruised knees breaking the hollowed silence. She firmly toyed with my treated hand, the clatter of the first aide kit causing me to jerk momentarily as she fumbled for an ointment that stung. She slowly picked away at the layer of tape on the folds of the dressing, unwrapping my mummified limb carefully. As she peeled away the final compress, a layer of skin peeled with the gauze, revealing infected pus-infused blisters, stained rose.

With Great Power Brent Herman

I round the street corner walking as quickly as I dare, through the fog of a particularly damp Midwestern spring morning. I glance at the outdated, gold trimmed pocket watch my father gave to me. 8:16. I am about thirty seconds early, as I had planned. I unsling the leather bag from my shoulder and skillfully assemble the tool of my trade. I look through the sight and focus on my target. I press record. “What are you doing?” says a genuinely curious female voice behind me. I do not respond verbally. I do not even look away from my target. Instead, I put a finger to my lips, then point at the railroad crossing across the street. A train is approaching, but the crossing arms are not coming down. A low rumble approaches the train tracks. Still looking through my camera, the yellow school bus full of talkative juveniles with the rust spot on the rear fender appears in frame. I know it is too late. I keep my camera steady and close my eyes. This is always the hardest part. I hear the crash and the screams and the sound of the woman running into the corner coffee shop, presumably to call 911. I move in on the scene and get all the angles I can get within the two and a half minutes before the corpulent police officer arrives and starts asking questions. I am packing my bag when I first lay eyes on the owner of the curious voice. She is short and slender with brown hair and piercing blue eyes peering out of black hornrimmed glasses. I pick up my bag and begin to walk away. “You knew that was going to happen! Why didn’t you try to stop it?” I think about ignoring her, like I usually do when somebody is suspicious, but there was something about this young woman that made me feel obliged to respond. “Even if I did know what was going to happen, what was I supposed to do? Run out in front of the bus, or the train?” My response does not appease her. “I don’t know what you could do, but you should have done something!” I sigh and look at the twisted, burning metal then back at her. “I did. I got it all on camera and now at least their story will be told, and I will be able to eat for another week.” This satisfies her even less. “How do you eat at all!?” I smirk, turn my back to her, and head home for some R and R. After I call the networks and start the bidding war, I won’t have to follow another Hunch for a couple weeks at least. Seeing into the future can be quite a lucrative business. I hear, “Coward!” called out from behind me. I return to my downtown studio apartment. A few phone calls and a few thousand dollars later, I allow myself to unwind. I pour myself three fingers of Wild Turkey rye whiskey with no ice and sit down in my favorite recliner. There is never any competition for this seat. I do not have a cat or a dog, let alone a wife and kids. The dreams make me a difficult roommate, as a young man found out during my first and final semester at college. When I finally manage to fall asleep, I often wake up screaming or sobbing. It has been this way since I was five years old, and yet it is

nothing I can get used to. It’s something different every night and it is never good. I dream of future burglaries, homicides, suicides, the occasional rape, and pretty much every turmoil faced by humanity. I do not have to have good dreams. At this point I would be ecstatic to never dream again. I look down at my pocket watch. It reads 1:22 pm. I am disappointed to see that my glass is nearly empty. I take the last gulp of it with a slight grimace. It is a warm afternoon and my insomnia and alcoholism have caught up to me simultaneously. I am asleep before I have the chance to fear. I smell the familiarly bitter aroma of freshly ground coffee beans. I hear the sound of a broom whisking dryly against a tile floor. I soon hear another sound. The unmistakable click-clack of a bullet being chambered in a handgun. I have heard this sound countless times in nightmares past, and it never bodes well. This whirl of sensation becomes focused into a scene that is too clear for my comfort. The woman in the horned rimmed glasses drops her broom and throws her hands in the air. A masked man is waving the handgun around and gesturing for the woman to open the register. While the register is being emptied, I begin to hear the woman sobbing and begging the man to spare her. He remains silent. The woman puts the last of the bills into a plastic bag and slides it across the counter to the masked man. He grabs it and turns around. The store is empty and it is dark outside. He gets halfway to the door before turning again. There is a flash of fire, a solitary bang, followed by an unceremonious thud. The man unlocks the door and quickly walks out to the street. Blood runs along the pattern of the tile until it reaches the drain in the floor. The clock reads 10:56, presumably right before closing time. The last thing I see before the jackhammer in my chest overcomes my exhaustion is the black pair of horn-rimmed glasses with one shattered lens that has been spattered with warm blood. My eyelids open and to my horror it is dark outside of my window. I desperately grasp for my pocket watch and whip it open. 10:31. I have less than 30 minutes to get across town and no time to hail a cab. I dash down the 3 flights of stairs in my building and nearly fall on the final and steepest flight. I fly out of the door and begin down the street. I stop when I get to the bike rack at the library at the end of the block. There is a lone Schwinn left at this late hour and to my surprise it is not tethered to the rack by a lock or by anything else by that matter. I normally would not condone theft, but I did not hesitate to debate the finer points of moral philosophy with myself, of all people. I hop on and begin pedaling as hard as I can. As I pedal the cool night air blurs my vision. Instead of the sidewalk in front of me, I see the faces of all the people I have been too afraid to help. The lonely man who hung himself who was not missed badly enough to be discovered until his rent became due nearly a month later, the woman and child on their way to church who got hit by a drunk driver right in front of my apartment, the children on the bus earlier today who were so unsuspecting, and finally the two that I see every night, my mother and father. They were stabbed in the street by a mugger after going out to dinner, as they allowed themselves to do the first Friday of every month. It was my first week of college and my folks were so very happy that I was accepted. They refused to believe my affliction and were scared that I would never be a “normal boy”, but when that letter came in the mail, my father told me he was proud of me the first time in my life. He reached into his jacket pocket and gave me his prized possession, the pocket watch that had belonged to his father. He told me that now I had no excuse to be late. I dreamed about their death a couple weeks before their date night, but I could not bear to call them and bother them with my “nonsense.” The fateful night came and I worked up the courage to call my parents. My father answered and I could not find

my voice. I decided that there was nothing for me to do. They have never believed me before, and they may as well die being proud parents of a college student rather than an incompetent freak. I murmured, “I love you” and hung up the receiver. That is the night I acquired an unquenchable thirst for alcohol. My vision returns to me and I am more physically exhausted then I have ever been in my life, but I see the dim glow from the corner coffee shop at the end of the block. It is the light house guiding my fogged mind and aching muscles. I ditch the bike and check the pocket watch. 10:55! Without giving myself the luxury of catching my breath I run up to the locked door. I see the masked man walking away from the counter, pausing then turning around. I wrap the chain of my father’s treasure around my knuckles and thrust my fist through the plate glass door. This startles the gunman and he turns his attention and his weapon to me and pulls the trigger. The woman in the horn-rimmed glasses swiftly picks up her broom and swings ferociously, cracking her would-be murderer in the back of the head, sending him sprawling unconscious before he hits the floor. She was no coward. I become aware that the adrenaline that was coursing through my veins is now coursing out of my chest and through my sweatshirt. I collapse onto my back on the sidewalk in front of the corner coffee shop. The last thing I see before drifting out of consciousness is the shattered face of my watch. 10:55. I had no excuse to be late.

Contributors Julia Alvarez

is originally from Monongahela, PA, but spends most of her days on the Washington & Jefferson College campus where she studies English. She enjoys reading books and jamming out big time.

Angelina Bong

is a Malaysian poet and visual artist. Her poetic performances have travelled to South Korea, South Africa, Botswana, Australia, UK, India and Egypt. She has poems translated into Malayalam, Japanese and Arabic. Catch her on Instagram at @swakgel.

Katie Campbell

is a junior English major and Chinese minor at Washington & Jefferson College. Katie enjoys reading and writing poetry and fiction and plans to one day become a professor of English.

Guido Castellani

is a songwriter/poet based in the Catskill Mountains. He is fascinated by feelings of joy, loss, solitude, disgust, cheap beer, bus stations, etc.

Emily Cramer

is a 2017 graduate of Duquesne University with a Public Relations major and an English Literature minor. Her favorite works can be found in British literature, from the 15th century to the 19th century.

Ariel Endress

is a traveler, engineer, shark-lover, dog foster mom and writer. Writing and traveling are her two favorite hobbies, and she tries to make a difference while doing both. She writes because she feels herself needing an outlet to express her empathetic emotions for others. 41

Brent Herman

is a 23 year old journalism student at IUPUI in Indianapolis. Brent is an associate editor for 1932 Quarterly and enjoys spending time with his family, friends, and his girlfriend, Claire.

Melissa Kirkpatrick

is a poet, event planner, and free hugger relocated to Los Angeles, California from Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. She’s an aspiring singer and actress currently working as a producer on a feature film by Chris Haas titled “Kill The Detectives”.

Alessandra “Ali” Jacobs

writes to keep herself sane in this nearly-dystopian world. She works as a real estate agent, an administrator of a medical facility, a vintage clothing purveyor, and manages a sports complex. Needless to say, she’s busy.

Sonja Laaksonen

is a native to the Philadelphia area and attends Washington and Jefferson college where she studies philosophy and English. She loves writing, nightlife and has a fascination with the morbid, occult and unknown.

Lauren Lamm

is a graduate of Washington and Jefferson College (class of 2016). She plans on continuing her education with a Master’s in publishing.

Layla Lenhardt

does not use a pillow when she sleeps. Her poetry has been published in The Wooden Tooth Review, Third Wednesday, Right Hand Pointing, 1932 Quarterly and she has been featured as Poetry Super Highway’s Poet of the Week. She is the founder of 1932 Quarterly.

Matthew Marvel

started writing at a young age. He began writing short stories and movie scripts that one day he saw himself starring in. Over the years his work evolved into poetry that is inspired by his life experiences.

Stephen Mead

as a resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published artist, writer, maker of short-collage films and sound-collage downloads. If you are interested, please put his name in any search engine in conjunction with any of these genres to explore his various links and merchandise available on the World Wide Web.

Joe O’Brien

was once told by the best psychiatrist that Joe O’Brien ever saw that ‘Everyone you meet in a dream is an aspect of yourself.’ He struggles to recall this in the waking world.

Ricky Ray

Born in Florida, educated at Columbia University, Ricky Ray’s poetry appears in Matador Review, Fugue, Lodestone and Sixfold. Recipient of the Ron McFarland Poetry Prize, he shares a bed with his wife, cats and dog; it’s known to be overcrowded.

Annelise Rice

is an English major at Washington & Jefferson College, currently a sophomore. She enjoys writing and reading fiction the most, but is open to any genre and challenge. It took multiple people to inform her that this piece was good enough to submit, which she hesitantly--and now proudly--did.

Benjamin Rozzi

is a Slytherin, truly, and enjoys living life dangerously (just ask his friends). After graduating from Washington and Jefferson College with a degree in English, he plans to attend Johns Hopkins and teach in the Baltimore area.

Alexa Terrell

will always fight for women’s rights and pickles. She works as managing editor of poetry for 1932 Quarterly and also as managing editor of her college’s literary journal, The Wooden Tooth Review.

Lindley Rose Yarnall

has spent her twenty-nine years as a walking contradiction. Hopelessly romantic and perpetually realistic, she uses her writing to reinterpret life experiences and examine the what-ifs pinballing around in her brain.

Staff Layla Lenhardt • Editor-in-Chief

Rosie Corey • General Managing Editor

Benjamin Rozzi • Managing Editor of Prose & Social Media Coordinator

Alexa Terrell • Co-Managing Editor of Poetry

Kori Williams • Co-Managing Editor of Poetry

Julia Nadovich • Managing Editor of Design

Lauryn Halahurich • Website Coordinator & Digital Publications Manager

Nicholas Chiesa • Partial Financier

Design Team Lauryn Halahurich Lauren Markish Kristen Lucente

Associate Editors Shannon Adams

Kayla Marasia

Julia Alvarez

Lauren Markish

Zach Benjamin

Ashley Nave

Megan Bolger

Joseph Reedy

Samantha Campbell

Annelise Rice

Lucía Damacela

Sarah Royds

Brent Herman

Lisa Stice

Ali Jacobs

Aley Underwood

Jessica Kerr

Ke’alohi Worthington

Christina Kosch Lauren Lamm

Information Interested in submitting to the next issue?

We are accepting any and all creative fiction. The guidelines are as follows: 1. You can submit up to 10 pieces of poetry and 3 short prose pieces, no more than 10 pages each. 2. Email each piece in an individual word document, please do not include your name in the word document. In your email, tell us which attachments are prose and which are poems. 3. Email your submissions to the following account: 1932quarterly@gmail.com In order for your submission(s) to be considered, you must follow these guidelines. Our team of editors will be going through a lot of pieces, so your assistance in adhering to these three points is greatly appreciated.

Interested in editing for 1932 Quarterly?

If you have an interest in joining this wonderful project as an associate editor, please contact Layla Lenhardt. The position can be used as an internship, as a resume builder, and we hear, Layla writes an amazing letter of recommendation. So if you have any interest in editing, learning about the literary journal process, or just a general love of reading, please contact us at Lenhardt.layla@gmail.com! It will be a such a rewarding experience, we promise!

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