Aries: A Journal of Art and Literature, Vol. 29 by Allison Parker, Editor

Aries A Journal of Art and Literature

Fall 2014-Spring 2015

Vol. 29

Aries: A Journal of Art and Literature

Art Editor Fiction & Creative Nonfiction Editor Managing & Poetry Editor

September Krueger Patricia Bjorklund Allison Parker

Cover Art by Carl Kruger SCCNC.EDU fb.com/AriesSCC ARIES A PUBLICATION FOR SOUTHEASTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE PRINTED BY Correction Enterprises Aries / Fall 2014-Spring 2015 / Volume 29 Thank you to the SCC Art Club, the SCC Creative Writing Club, the SCC Foundation, the NC Writerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Network, Poets & Writers Magazine, Correction Enterprises, Dr. Kathy Matlock and the Royce Ray family for their lifelong support and contribution to the literary arts in North Carolina. Aries: A Journal of Art and Literature is an annual, nonprofit and self-supporting publication.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Frank Scozzari Too Old For War ........................................................................................................................ 4 Simon Perchik Untitled....................................................................................................................................... 10 Kushal Poddar You Desire, You Drift ................................................................................................................ 13 The Animal Channel .................................................................................................................. 14 Late Night Art Class Adjacent ................................................................................................... 15 Paul Piatkowski Echoes in Space.......................................................................................................................... 16 Matt Conte The Machine............................................................................................................................... 17 Sonya Groves Woman ....................................................................................................................................... 23 One Afternoon............................................................................................................................ 24 How to Kill My Mother-in-law’s Precious Baby Boy a.k.a The Snore King ............................ 25 Red Keds .................................................................................................................................... 26 Laura Merleau-McGrady Replace the Constants ................................................................................................................ 27 Equivalent to a Three-Sided Storm ............................................................................................ 28 Promising the Impossible Sun .................................................................................................... 29 Charles Rammelcamp The Incontinence Consultant ...................................................................................................... 31 You Made a Fool of Everyone ................................................................................................... 32 New Year ................................................................................................................................... 33 Mouse Floating Red ............................................................................................................................... 34 Lostblood trespassing lil bro ...................................................................................................... 35 Under tree tree bayobab ............................................................................................................. 36 Luis Madrigal Ava ............................................................................................................................................. 37 Theodore Haddad Running of the Dogs .................................................................................................................. 38 Michael Gebelein The First Girl I Saw.................................................................................................................... 41 I’ll Waste My Own Time, Thank You ....................................................................................... 42 Spider Poem ............................................................................................................................... 43 Quinn Hall Blue Sheets to a Browser ........................................................................................................... 44 Cydney Brayboy Untitled....................................................................................................................................... 49 Untitled....................................................................................................................................... 50 Deven Hayes Poke Plush .................................................................................................................................. 51 Crush .......................................................................................................................................... 52 Sky ............................................................................................................................................. 53 Tommy ....................................................................................................................................... 54 Jarvis Hammer Orochicll..................................................................................................................................... 55 Attack of Orchic ......................................................................................................................... 56 House ......................................................................................................................................... 57

Rock Star .................................................................................................................................... 58 Wolf ........................................................................................................................................... 59 Kayla Callihan Untitled....................................................................................................................................... 60 Untitled....................................................................................................................................... 61 Kasey Garren The Hunt .................................................................................................................................... 62 Molly Baxter Weekend Visitor......................................................................................................................... 63 S. Krueger Tree Bird .................................................................................................................................... 64 Rana Williams Missing Plane ............................................................................................................................. 65 Abraham Katoot & Rana Williams Spain........................................................................................................................................... 66 Castle .......................................................................................................................................... 67 Eiffel........................................................................................................................................... 68 Shaye Anderson Bird............................................................................................................................................. 69 Eric Smiarowski What if we were seeds? .............................................................................................................. 70 Leah M. Hughes Some Horrors of Science Fiction ............................................................................................... 71 Cosmo Spinosa from between trees ..................................................................................................................... 72 Carson Williford A Resurrection At Lunchtime .................................................................................................... 76 Laura Staubs Roadside Attraction .................................................................................................................... 77 Motel 6 ....................................................................................................................................... 78 C. Goodison The Blind Kid ............................................................................................................................. 79 David Groulx Scene Three: Booking ................................................................................................................ 89 Erren Geraurd Kelly Virginie ( Ver-john-nee )............................................................................................................ 91 Southeastern Community College Creative Writing Club Showcase Houston Long I assemble and cry ...................................................................................................................... 92 Nico Alexander L. Reyes To Write ..................................................................................................................................... 93 The Pen ...................................................................................................................................... 94 Latisha Robinson In Your Eyes .............................................................................................................................. 95 Bradley Derek Tyler Who Am I................................................................................................................................... 95 Michael Brown Africa ......................................................................................................................................... 96 Cling ........................................................................................................................................... 96 River runs ................................................................................................................................... 96

Frank Scozzari Too Old for War Old Makatiku looked wearily upon the young Katanuku. A pillar of youth he was, standing more than two meters in height with broad shoulders, a head full of shiny black hair, skin that was taunt and clear, and muscles that rippled like the palms in a tree. His shadow stretched out on the African earth like that of a giraffe. And from his position below, seated in his thatched throne, Makatiku knew he looked old and weak and worn from a life lived fully. It was me, Makatiku thought, staring up at the young shujaa warrior, forty years past. But I was taller, and even stronger, and I did not have this look of pity in my eyes. “You must answer,” demanded Kantaku. The council sat anxiously waiting. Makatiku glanced over at them. Among them were the elders and friends, and many brave warriors he had fought along side of in the internecine wars, all in their colorful, ceremonial tunics. If only there was a way out, gracefully, Makatiku thought. He glanced back at the towering young Kantaku. But there was none. Every spear has two edges and each side cuts with equal depth, he thought. If he agreed to the challenge, he would face a humiliating defeat. He was no match for a man one quarter his age. Is this a fit way to end it? Doesn’t a good life deserve an honorable end? After all the wonderful years of ruling with dignity and benevolence, having his face rubbed in the dirt now was something he could not bear. The thought of it offended his soul. Yet if he refused, he would have to advocate the throne. It was law. But Kantaku stood waiting. And behind him was his entourage of young Maasai warriors. “Are you sleeping?” Kantaku asked impatiently. “I am thinking.” And then a pleasant thought came into Makatiku’s head and a small grin formed on his face. Could young arrogance be so foolish? And when Makatiku did speak, everyone seemed a bit mystified by his confident tone and by the cleverness in his eye. “I accept the challenge,” Makatiku spoke loudly. “It is a great tradition and it is the people’s right to see the challenge answered, although I doubt that you are up to the task. I doubt that you, or any of your young followers, have the strength, nor the will, nor the intelligence to win such a match.” A sigh came from the council, as did all the villagers who were gathered around. Kantaku too seemed a bit surprised by Makatiku’s willingness to accept his challenge but welcomed his words nonetheless, and the chance to move the event along. “Okay then, let’s get on with it.” “There is one condition, however,” Makatiku added. “Yes?” “I would like to choose my own weapon.” “Weapon?” Kantaku asked. The young Maasai warriors standing behind Kantaku exchanged curious glances. “Yes, I ask that I be allowed to choose my own weapon in this case.” Kantaku looked over at the council. It had been more that fifty years since a challenge for the throne had been decided by a fight with weapons, a fight to the death. The Kenyon and Tanzanian governments had long since outlawed the practice and tribal leaders throughout the Maasai Mara had come to accept the notion of a bloodless succession. “Do you accept my request?” Makatiku asked. “A request for weapons is evidence of your antiquity. You are an old man stuck in old ways.”

“Nevertheless,” Makatiku said calmly. “It is in the book of laws, and has never been distorted. Though foreign governments have tried to rid us of our ways, the rules have never changed. It is the challenger’s choice of weapons. But in this case, I ask that I be allowed to choose my own weapon.” Kantaku glanced over at the council again as though expecting some form of intervention from them, but there was none. “I know tradition,” he replied. “Only women and politicians desire weaponless fights. That is one truth you should know by now. It is the warrior in all of us who chooses peace over war, but it is also the warrior who chooses bloodshed over defeat and humiliation, yes?” Makatiku asked. Kantaku then ran his eyes through the crowd of villagers and raised his chest high, presenting himself tall and confident. “I accept old man!” Makatiku nodded his head pleasingly. And then there was the issue of an aged body? he thought. What an abomination it would be if no animal seeked his meat! In all his years, he had seen it less than a dozen times. And the remembrance of Old Nampushi, who had died of some terrible, western disease and had been left in the sun for the buzzards, but no buzzards came. And how a spotted hyena came by and sniffed his dead body and walked past it without even taking a simple bite. This will never do. A corpse rejected by scavengers was seen as having something wrong with it and was cause for great social disgrace. His eyes dropped down to the red dirt beneath him. Nor was burial and option, he knew. It was harmful to the earth. To place a rotting corpse in the ground was to defile the earth! “Also,” he then spoke, “I will need five kilos of ox fat and blood, placed in the care of my good friend Jakaya.” Makatiku turned and looked over at his old friend who sat with the other elders on the high council. Jakaya nodded his head. Kantaku looked at him curiously. “It is not for me,” Makatiku said. Kantaku chuckled. “We will see who it is for, old man. Anything else?” “Nothing.” Kantaku signaled two young boys who hurried away to the butchery to gather the kilos of fat and blood. “And the weapon you will choose?” Kantaku asked, his voice now revealing a tone of disgust. “I would like to know the weapon you choose first? If that’s permittable?” Kantaku looked around at all the villagers, knowing anticipation was building. “Okay, if it is your wish. A long spear,” he said boldly. The young warriors behind him exchanged spirited words, voicing their pleasure of his choice. A long spear was the ideal weapon for mortal combat between two men. Its long shaft enabled a thrust from a great distance. Its barbed headpiece, once in, could not be retrieved, at least not without causing substantial additional damage. And when thrown properly, it could pierce the stretched cowhide of a Maasai shield. “And you?” “A simi.” “A simi?” “Yes, a simi,” Makatiku said firmly. A lively discussion erupted, not only among the young warriors, but among the council members as well. A simi was not a weapon designed for warfare. It was a simple tribal knife with a blade not more than fifteen inches, used ritualistically or for skinning animals. “This is silliness,” Kantaku said. “It is the weapon I choose,” Makatiku replied. Kantaku looked back at the warriors behind him. Then he glanced over at the council members.

Makatiku sat quietly, joking with the idea in his head. What form of trickery is this? Kantaku thought. All his life he had been taught to be suspicious of gifts from adversaries, and he was weary of Makatiku now, of his deception and cunning. Weapon, a simi was not; yet skillful Makatiku was, in the art of combat and killing. Kantaku’s father had told him all the stories, of how Makatiku had overcome a group of five Kaputiei warriors by hiding in the dead, rotting corpse of a water buffalo, and how he sprung from the corpse with bow and arrows and had killed all of them. And how he had been chased once into a steep canyon by a heard of crazed elephants, only to start an avalanche that crushed and killed most of them. His feats of bravery were legendary and his acts of cunning, something to be weary of. For Makatiku to choose a simi now, Kantaku thought, in a fight that would determine the end of his reign and perhaps the end of his life, surely there was some form of trickery behind it. And he could throw a knife further, Kantaku thought, than the length of any long spear. And its two-sided blade was perfect for finding a place to stick after sailing end over end threw the air. Makatiku sat quietly in his rickety throne, waiting. “And I will take a tall shield,” Kantaku said unflinchingly, “along with my long spear.” Again the warriors behind him nodded their heads and voiced their approval, whispering cheerful words to one another. “It is a wise choice,” was all Makatiku said. A tall shield, two-thirds the length of one’s body, was capable of deflecting a barrage of arrows, he knew. It could easily deflect a single, hand-thrown knife. Despite his arrogance, that which comes along with youth, Makatiku was fond of Kantaku and tolerated his youthful ambitions. Of this new generation of warriors, a generation that Makatiku did not like or understand, with cell phones and a desire to live in cities, Kantaku stood apart. It was he who most cherished the traditional ways. And he was most clever. The others were merely ‘warriors’ in name and appearance, Makatiku thought, who posed for photographs and dressed the part only to satisfy the expectations of the safari lodges. It is not an easy thing, Makatiku thought. To make way for a new generation of warriors, some of whom had exchanged their spears for cricket bats and text books, was to accept a contradiction of all he was, and all he knew, and of all his father and grandfathers knew. But this one, perhaps, had a chance, he thought, watching Kantaku’s eyes, if he was forced to eat hyena. He noticed a digital watch on the wrist of one of the warriors. Ah! The New World! It is a pity that life must evolve, and change, and end. And standing way in the back was another young warrior wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, no doubt given to him by one of the safari tourist. He quickly removed it when he caught Makatiku’s eyes upon him. Yes, too many changes had passed, Makatiku thought. He had seen it all, the erosion of customs over many years, from one governmental program to another, each designed to strip his people of their traditional ways. And the unstoppable inflow of technology, like a giant dust storm of locus that he could not keep out. Commercial cotton and the synthetic clothing had long since replaced the traditional calf hide and sheep skin, and beadwork, no longer of stone or wood or ivory, was now made of glass or plastic. He glanced down at the feet of the warriors and realized that half of them wore sandals soled with pieces of motorcycle tires, and one even wore a pair of Nikes. And too came the digital age. It was all too much, this new world that invaded his land and sweep through his people like a foreign disease. He recalled the electric pumps brought in by the new government to filter their water, and what happened when they broke and they had no water for three days because the unfiltered water now made them sick. And how the doctors poisoned their children with injected medicines, making them ill for one week when they were otherwise well; and how lion hunting was now banned by the Kenyan government. What kind of obscenity is that! And yet he had heard about the recent events in northern Tanzania, tribes of his flesh evicted in favor of fee-paying trophy hunters under a new government plan to create a ‘wildlife corridor.’ We cannot kill lions to protect our herds, yet

foreigners can hunt them for trophies? The government had gone so far as to denounce warriorhood, declaring it illegal. It was not a world that Makatiku liked, or wanted to be in. “Bring two tall shields,” Kantaku said confidently to a junior warrior. The young warrior, a boy not more than fifteen years old, went off to gather the weapons. “Wait,” Makatiku said, and the young warrior stopped in his tracks. “It is not what I desire.” Kantaku looked on, waiting. “I would like a short shield,” Makatiku said. The sound of snickering came from the villagers. Again he mocks me! Kantaku thought, running his eyes through the crowd and tightening his upper lip. “Follow his wishes,” he said angrily, and the boy hurried off to gather the weapons and shields. “Anything else?” “No. It is quite enough.” Nothing more was said, and the boy returned quickly with the simi, the long spear, and the two shields. And now it was time for Makatiku to rise from his thatched throne and face his young challenger. And he did so slowly, feeling the pains of his arthritic joints, but gloriously, rising to a height equal to that of Kantaku. Despite his age of nearly sixty-two years, his broad shoulders and lean muscles were still well-pronounced. His kunga, of red and blue, and pink cotton, wrapped loosely around his trim waist and angled down over one shoulder and across his protruding chest. Everything about him symbolized tradition, and the customs of old, and the seniority of his rank, and the success of his reign; from his graying, long hair, that was woven in thinly braided strands and fell to the middle of his back, to his brightly colored anklets. His earlobes were pierced and stretched in a manner reserved only for royalty, and there was the symbolic beadwork that embellished his body and told of his meritorious past; of a life lived long and fully. The boy handed Makatiku the short knife and the small shield. Makatiku examined the knife, running his finger along the edge of it. It had a finely honed metal blade and a wooden handle with cowhide for a grip. Then he studied the small shield, flipping it over and looking at the face of it. It is correct, he thought. It bared the sirata of a red badge that signified great bravery in battle and was only permitted to be painted on the shields of the highest of chiefs. Still, it was a decorative piece at best with a diameter less than twenty inches, not truly designed for combat. The boy then gave the long spear to Kantaku, and the tall shield. The shield, made of stretched and hardened buffalo hide sewn to a wooden frame, nearly cloaked his entire body. The spear, made of the finest dark ebony wood, held upright in his hand, rose more than a meter above his head. There was laughter among the villagers, and Kantaku realized how ridiculous it must have looked. Makatiku smiled broadly and ran his eyes through the crowd. His considerable stature dwarfed the small shield and simi in scale, even more so than their actual size. He glanced over at the council members and nodded his head appreciatively. Then he raised the shield and knife high above his head to the applause of the villagers. Kantaku waited for the applause to die down. “Now you must answer,” he spoke brazenly. Makatiku stared at him. Could young arrogance really be so foolish? he thought again. Then, seeing the muscles on Kantaku’s chest and shoulders tighten, Makatiku’s face became gaunt and serious. It is time! He quickly squatted down into a combat stance, holding his small shield firmly in front of his chest and the short knife high and aggressively in his right hand. Kantaku likewise firmed his stance, ducking low behind his large shield and raising the spear in a throwing position. The two men stood there momentarily, opposite one another on a small mound of earth, the old and the new. The time for talk had ended. The differences between the traditional and modern were past

them now, and Kantaku did not wait. He was certain Makatiku had a plan and would spring it upon him quickly if he gave him the chance. He wielded his spear way back, holding it cocked high to the side of his head, and with perfect aim, not wanting to give Makatiku time to strike first, he thrust it forward with all his might. At the same moment Kantaku released it, Makatiku dropped his shield and short knife to his side and pushed his chest forward. He stood there poised and relaxed with his chest exposed as if it were impenetrable to the spear. The blade of the barred spearhead flashed in the morning sunlight. All the villagers looked on in wonderment as the spear hit him squarely in the chest, slicing through his flesh and bone and coming out his back. For a perceptible instant, Makatiku remained upright, impaled by the spear. It was as though his body defied gravity, held high by the soul and the pride of a great chief. Then he dropped to the ground, dead. The dazed villagers looked on in disbelief, as did Kantaku. The suddenness of it was shocking. Their great king, the fierce warrior who had fought and won so many battles, had not even lifted a finger to fight. His natural ability to dodge and deflect, and to strike back, failed to invoke at the time he needed it most. Though he had out-witted many opponents in the past, he had left them now without a strategically plan; without the tactical display of brilliance they had all come to expect. Jakaya summoned the young warriors. “Mnakamata!” he said.“Take him.” The spearhead was quickly removed. The shaft of it snapped when Makatiku fell to the ground making it easy to extract. The entourage of warriors gathered him up, and upon Jakaya’s directions, carried him to a place outside the village, down near where the river flowed out onto the savannah. The five kilos of ox fat and blood was also brought down and set beside the chief’s body. “Enda!” Jakaya shouted to the young warriors. “Go! Go away!” And they did so, solemnly, without looking back. Jakaya knelt down and took a moment to look over his fallen friend. His face was sullen and old, and had the dark lines that come from oldness. His face was pale and gray with all the signs of death but his expression still revealed a regal presence. He was king, once more, Jakaya thought. And now was cut the umbilical cord between heaven and Earth. With a wooden ladle, Jakaya covered Makatiku’s body with the ox fat and blood. He covered every inch of it, making sure no place was left exposed. Then he sprinkled the body with beads of black, green, red, yellow and white, which mimicked the colour sequence seen in the animal life cycle. He added more white for the decade of peace he had brought to his tribe; and blue for the water colors, which ran clean and fresh until the machines of government destroyed it; and more red for the warrior’s blood and bravery. “Come feast little Oln'gojine,” Jakaya said. “Come taste the meat of a great warrior.” Jakaya left, back to the village, to the cluster of mud houses where he hung Makatiku’s small, red shield, and his simi, outside his inkajijik. Then he went to join the others in the celebration of the new chief. Though Katanuku sat in the thatched throne in full ceremonial dress, he found no joy in his heart. He had achieved the throne, but had not won a victory. Even in death, Makatiku mocked him. He laughs now, he thought. There, down by the river of life, he revels in laughter! The coronation was quite subdued. Though all the villagers gathered for the festival, it was not full of song and dance like the great celebrations of the past. “It was Makatiku who threw the spear,” one of the villagers said. Katanuku looked down at him and quietly hung his head. “Makatiku is still King,” another villager said. Down by the river Makatiku’s body laid in the hot African sun. All day it lay there and by late afternoon the tsetse flies had gathered and the smell of the fermenting ox blood rose across the savannah. Before the sun had completely set, three spotted hyenas came across him. They encircled him and sniffed

the earth around him, and the kunga that wrapped him. Their nostrils filled with the scent of human, but there was also the smell of the ox blood and fat, and when they tasted the meat, they found it to be unique and flavorsome. On through the night they feasted, gnawing down on the bone and flesh and stealing chunks from one another. By morning when the villagers returned, nothing remained of Makatiku but a stain on the earth.

Simon Perchik * You leave a fist, its knock elsewhere and no one to let you in the way her name on the door has grown huge, fed hillsides and the grass too is covered with granite: her small room filled with season after season and each finger curled held back, asking how cold is it it's everywhere though your arms still open out and all these doors at once, let you stand in front listening to a processionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;one pit filled with its echo and mourners empty handed, hungry, cramped. * Barely held in place pulled the way all funerals thin out as this whitening rock half for the dead, half already drifting closer: the moon beginning again on a river left open though you drink till the water reaches your eyes fill themâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;you look only for glare are sure what you follow is a sea changing hands, returned as if it expected to begin sorting one by oneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;this harbor for graves, this for mornings you won't see anymore. * Though one wire is stripped this plug will never abandon your cheek brushing against some last minute love song the lamp was already in place

as if it remembered its shade can be fed with no room for seasons falling through—a full meal just before the circuit is tripped trying to pace itself, slow down think about exhaustion, a darkness that is not doomed but a last chance there on the table—a gesture suddenly brought into some great hall with no locked entrance, whose slabs are covered, drying off the mist and between the tree lit lanes with your arms you sing to them. * This fence kept open must sense they're ripe : these graves arranged as if you are not the same once your shadow spirals down one side then the other—all this fruit with no one next to you, lower looking for clouds not yet the stone these dead have to live on fed by rain still covered with dirt though this huge, wrought-iron gate adds up the times you walk between folded in half to fit underneath and pull as if you were alone no longer decorated with flowers arm over arm a strange orchard. * A small charm, from paper yet and the balloon broken apart it's a game kids play that is not some air exploding or between your arms and days without someone to reach across loosen your fingers still damp from what was once countryside and now each other—you wish a lot

are tired, your breath no longer shops and once the tin cans and small cities are sorted out what you crumple is the brown paper bag they came in no longer has the feel you remember or the laughterâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the boyish clerk no longer asks, Plastic or paper? reaches under the counter already knows what's coming even there you cover your ears and gradually it's too far for you can barely hear the flashing lights breathe out and along the edge the same ashes falling off beginning to take hold.

Kushal Poddar You Desire, You Drift Those mid-shutter shades on the floor shifts and ripples. This the symbol of sun. No that. I have one of our family cairns in my hand and rocks to the abyss of sleep. Her mother muffles herself somewhere in those rooms I lose whenever she visits. Marry soon, she says. I stare at the wildfire spread over her babies eyelashes for some minutes before the darkness ensconces itself on the closure of the lids, seals of evening.

Kushal Poddar The Animal Channel For hours the animals bob their heads from hush and holes. Not for hours. We watch this for some time and decide to drift farther into this channel and other tributaries. They still move their heads in our heads. Some child yells, Bring me a mallet. Their heads keep at it. Soon we become those heads in our heads, imitate their movements, wait for the shift in shades, ceiling, clouds, trees, birds, bees, see if our enemies prowl nearby or our quarries, our foods. Once my reflection on a mirror makes me stay deep down for years. Not for years. Some hours or more.

Kushal Poddar Late Night Art Class Adjacent An entire sky locked in your sweats, salt, those crystals yield to wetness soon. A flight contained in your closed eyes. You can go anywhere tonight. How will you situate in your sleep? He takes the fetus position beside you, beside all other things. You paint the word passion with blind faith. It means nothing to any other person. They see a canvas full of shadows. Let them sleep. Beside. Beside you know a canvas shows the land, and the birds fly above on the spectator's eyes, face.

Paul Piatkowski Echoes in Space My mother told me about spirits she would see loitering in our dining room. Only a child, I could just imagine Renoir-like residents rustling through our china cabinet. How funny it is that now it is she that haunts me as I turn a corner in my father’s house and stumble through cardboard boxes recently excavated and filled with her old clothes. Moments of being, Virginia Woolf suggested, leave an imprint on this existence even after the moment exhausts. I think about that, as I puff detective like on Heath’s pipe or sweat into Chris’ old soccer jersey on a hike. In these objects, I suppose, some trace of them remains and, with every little use, their echo is recalled.

Matt Conte The Machine John is a scientist. He works at a huge corporation. He gets paid a lot to do morally compromising things - some so bad that it seems cartoonish, like you are being beat over the head with how evil the company is, if it were real; testing pills on their own employees, or dumping toxic waste into third world countries, or trying to invent ways to make the American public more miserable in order for them to gain profits. John justifies all of this to himself because when he is not working, his employment here gives him the opportunity to work on the thing that he has been working on his entire life. He uses the company's resources on his days off. John works on a machine with his co-workers, Brown and Jackson. They work hard all day and during the night and days off, they work on the machine. Sometimes, John's other co-workers mock them for their machine; they say things like "Are you guys wasting your time again tonight?" and "Look at those guys, they are stupid." The reason that they receive such harsh critiques is that their goal, and the goal of the machine, seems silly to a lot of people. John and his friends are trying to build a machine that will reveal the meaning of life. John is married to Jane. Their last name is Doe. I'm not sure what Jackson's first name is, or what Brown's first name is - although maybe those are their first names. Anyway, Jane has always been very supportive of John, but sometimes she gets frustrated with him. On this night, John comes home really late. He walks in the front door of the apartment, and Jane is still up. "What are you doing up, honey?" John asks. "I was waiting for you." "You don't have to wait up for me." "Why were you so late tonight?" "We stayed after work for a long time to work on the machine." Like I said, Jane has always supported John's dreams, and she understands his obsession with the machine, "How did it go tonight?" "Not so good. We've been stuck for quite some time in the same spot. I'd say that we're at a standstill." Jane shrugs. She wants John to figure out the meaning of life not for herself, but because he wants to figure it out. She doesn't mind that she doesn't know, and she doesn't care if she ever knows. She has a lovely husband and she has a great job working as the head chef at one of the best restaurants in town. It's called the Committed Pig, and they serve their drinks in old mason jars. She loves this job. On this, the next night, John comes in even later than he did last night. Jane is in bed, but she is awake. When John comes into their bedroom, he tries to be quiet, but she says, "How did it go tonight?" John says, "So good! We made a major breakthrough with the machine tonight, and I think that it's going to work. We had to let some things sit overnight though, so we won't know until tomorrow." "That's fantastic! Who are you going to tell first?" "When I find out the meaning of life, you mean?" "Well, hopefully Jackson and Brown will be there with me, so I will tell them, but then I will tell you." "You'll tell me? Aw, that's nice of you." John gets into bed and snuggles up next to his wife. His feet are cold, Jane thinks. The next day, when John gets to work, Brown and Jackson are already there. It is a disaster. They not only left their machine on to run, but some of the other things in the laboratory, other science-type things that a more science-savvy writer than me would know about, and they ruined some of the real experiments that were more important for the company. "Sir, it wasn't us, it wasn't our faults," Jackson and Brown plead.

"Are you not partners with John Doe?" "We are." "Do you not stay after work to build a machine with him?" "We do." "Did you not leave these other machines on and ruin the company's important experiments?" "Well, sir, that part wasn't us, that was John. John's fault." "Here's Mr. Doe now. What do you have to say for yourself, John Doe?" The boss has a stern look on his face." "What happened?" "You left these other machines on, and ruined some of the company's important experiments. The company's experiments should take precedent over your silly personal projects, and I've turned a blind eye to your silly personal project this whole time because it wasn't affecting your work, but now it has done so in a major way." "But we were so close." "But now you're fired." After John got fired, he tried to take the machine home to work on it there, and focus all of his attention on it. The company would not let him, though, so he had to start from scratch. Jackson and Brown didn't come to help because they were mad at him for getting them fired. John works on the machine, until it is up to where they were in the laboratory. John stops making money, obviously, and he becomes completely obsessed with the machine. He does nothing but talk about or think about or work on the machine. John and Jane go months without having sex, because John never comes to bed. Jane leaves John. I feel bad for John now. He has no friends anymore, and he has no lovely wife who works as the head chef at one of the finest restaurants in town, and he has no job, not even a morally compromising one. I feel even worse for John becuse he has done all of this in the name of finding the meaning of life. I myself know the meaning of life for John, and it would be so easy for me to tell him. John sits staring at the machine. He does not know where to go next. As the hours wear on, with John simply staring, I begin to feel guilty. I think about how easy it would be to tell John what I know and make his life so much better, and so, the machine begins to whir. Things spin and things light up. John's eyes grow wide. I begin to speak to John, making my voice audible to him. I write down what I say, so that I can remember it to write my story. "John, you are looking for the meaning of life, right?" John looks ecstatic. "Yes!" "Well, would you like me to tell you the meaning of life?" "Who are you?" "My name is Matt." "And how do you know the meaning of life?" "I will explain it to you. I am a writer - well, I try to be a writer. I don't know yet if I count as a real writer. Anyway, I wrote you." "What do you mean you wrote me?" "You are a character in my story." "That's impossible." "Is it, though?" I can tell you all about you. Your name is John Doe because I am not good at making up names. Your world is black and white because I don't like to use colors to describe things. When you walk up stairs, you have to step on the same step with the same foot as the person who is walking ahead of you. You do this because it is something that I do, and I gave it to you because sometimes I give my characters some traits that are also my own traits. Like how your parents are named Martin and Kathleen." John is quiet. Then he speaks, "What are colors?" "Never mind, John." John sits down and stares at his yellow and green Nike shoes.

"Now you know what colors are, right John?" "Yeah." "So?" John sits in silence for quite a long time. I think about stopped writing and going to watch Gilmore Girls instead. He bores me, so I make him stop sitting still. I make him speak. "If I'm just an invented character, than what is the meaning of my life?" "Well, you're in a story, and stories are supposed to entertain the readers, or maybe challenge them, or maybe confuse them, I don't really know, some combination of those three maybe, or maybe some other things, too. Definitely a lot of stories are made for entertainment." "So, I'm supposed to be entertainment?" "Well, John, yeah I guess so." "But then, if I'm just supposed to be entertaining, why is the machine working? Why are you telling me all of this right now?" "Because the story was getting boring. It was starting to drag. You just kept getting close to accomplishing your goal, but then failing. We can only handle so many failures before you either succeed or the story ends. I am advancing the plot." "And you decided to make me succeed?" "Yes." "So the meaning of life is to entertain your readers?" "Mostly. But how you do that is always up to you, John," I lie to him. All of his actions are up to me, but he doesn't know that, and as long as he doesn't know that, he will continue to treat all of his actions as if they are his own. "What are you going to do now, John?" "I'm going to tell all of my friends, and I'm going to tell my wife." "And?" "And I'm going to live an interesting and entertaining life, so that your story is interesting and entertaining." "Thanks, John, I think that that will help me become a real writer." After I've said it out loud, I regret using a sentence that has the word "that" in it twice in a row, because even though it's correct, Microsoft Word underlines the second one in red, which annoys me. John runs out of his apartment, and to Jackson's apartment. John is pounding on Jackson's door. It's five AM. "Jackson, get up! Get up! I've done it! Come on, I'm sorry about the things that I did, I've done it though!" Jackson gets out of bed, "Alright, alright, I'm coming." He opens the door and John bursts in, grabbing him. "I've done it, Jackson. The machine! I made it work!" Jackson's face lights up. "How?" "It's sort of a long story. Well, no, it's not long at all really, but it's hard to understand unless I make it long." "Did you do various lengthy scientific things that we always talked about doing?" "No, I did not!" "So then why did it work?" Brown interjects. John and Jackson don't react to the sudden appearance of Brown in Jackson's apartment at five AM, because it makes it easier for me if he's there already, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense. "Because it was convenient to the plot." "What?" "Yeah, the machine didn't work because of anything that I did, just simply because the plot needed it to, in order to progress. It was time." "What plot? What the fuck are you talking about?" "The plot of us. Our story." "Our lives aren't stories, they're lives," one of them says.

"No, they're not. The machine worked, and I learned the truth of our existence. We're not people." "If we're not people, then what are we?" "We're characters." "Stop fucking with us. It's late. C'mon, get out." “No, I'm serious." "So am I," Jackson ushers him to the door." "Jackson, no! Brown, no! Listen to me. You have to listen to me." He pushes him out the door, and begins to close it, but John stops it. "No, Jackson! You have to listen to me! I've discovered the reason we're alive!" Jackson pokes his head around the door, and somberly says, "I'm sorry, John." John turns to walk away, but then turns right back around. "No, Jackson." He's crying. "You have to listen to me! We are here to entertain! Jackson, the meaning of life! It's right in front of you! I've become self-aware! And you can, too!" John is still in the hallway, being loud. They open the door to relent. "Ok, John, but we think you need to go home now, and get some sleep." "Sleep? At a time like this? This is our life's work! It's been years!" "Yes, we know, but it's five AM. You've been up for an awful long time, and I just think you need some sleep." "So you don't believe me." "It's not that we don't believe you, it's just that we'd rather talk to you about it after you've gotten some sleep. How about you go home, get some sleep, and later today, we'll come over and take a look at the machine." John is unsatisfied. He doesn’t know if the machine will work again when Jackson and Brown come to look at it. He does not know if he’ll ever talk to me again. "Ok, tomorrow. No, today. Later today. You guys come over. Ok. Bye." "We'll call before we come over, ok John?" "Ok." John walks home. He doesn't go to sleep. He sits up in bed. He flips through his book collection. He stays up, writing things down, reading books, staring at the ceiling. He's sitting at the kitchen table wide-awake, doing nothing when Jackson and Brown knock on the door. "Hey, how's it going? Do you want anything to drink?" "How about a look at the machine?" He brings them in to the machine. They each take turns sitting in it - wait, sitting in it? What the fuck does this machine look like? There's a place to sit. I probably should have figured this out earlier. Nothing happens. “It doesn’t matter,” John says, "I've figured it out. I've figured it all out. We’re in a story. We're characters, and what kind of a story is it if we're just sitting around a kitchen table? Huh? Fiction is a powerful thing, you know." "Yes, we know, but we'd really like to know how the machine broke." "It broke when I was done with it. It doesn't need an explanation. It's just some soft sci-fi shit. Stories bring people together. It gives them something to connect over. Something to talk about and laugh about. It gives them an escape from the hardness of their real lives. It's a fantasy in a harsh reality." "Yes these things are true, John, but it's not possible that we're characters in a story." "It's not only possible, it's the answer." Jackson and Brown do not believe John. They leave that night still not believing John, and thinking that maybe he has lost track of his mental faculties. The next day, John wakes up. He jumps into his car and drives to the apartment that Jane lives in now. He yells up to her window. “Jane! Jane!” “John?” “She speaks: O speak again, bright angel!” "John, what are you doing?" "Winning you back."

"I don't think it's working." "Are you sure?" "I'm sorry, John." "Have you talked to Jackson Browne" - ah, shoot, I knew it was only a matter of time before I messed that up. It doesn't help that I'm listening to Jackson Browne on my iPod. Jane disappears into the apartment. John stands dumbfounded for a minute. He gets back into the car, and drives away. He stops at a red light, thinks for a second, and then decides to run it. He drives wildly for a few blocks, running red lights, before smashing into a truck. He gets out of the car, his forehead bleeding. "Ah, shoot." He walks over to the bus stop and sits down, leaving his car in the middle of the intersection, and the truck driver standing in the street, yelling, "Hey, buddy, are you ok?" "Call me Ishmael!" He yells to the truck driver. Over the next few weeks, John never thinks about working on the machine again. He goes bungee jumping. He hires a private detective to find out if he is adopted. He turns the PIs search into a noirish search full of backstabbing and double crossing. He hires prostitutes to make things erotic and steamy. He dresses up like a superhero like his favorite comic book stories. John's literary reference points are similar to my own, but why am I making him do all of this? I wanted to make some kind of point about free will and destiny, but I also wanted John to have a better life. Maybe I should give John his free will, and release him from the shackles of my story. Then this would be the end. I don't like this ending. I am going to keep going. One day, John walks into his apartment to Jane sitting at his kitchen table. "Jane!" "Where have you been? We've been worried about you! It's been weeks! Do you have a new job, buddy?" "Nope, I've just been living it up. You know, making things better. You know, for them." "For who?" “For them, you know, everyone reading. Person’s attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted…” "What?" "Oh, uh nothing, just uh...nothing. I'll think about it, ok? I'm tired now, I'm going to go now." "Wait, John, can you at least talk to me? You say that we're all in a story, right? If we're in a story, then why do you know that you're in a story?" "Oh, I asked Matt that," he says, which is true, I just didn't mention it before, and apparently I'm too lazy to edit. "And what did he say?" "He said that he didn't know. He said that I had a machine to find the meaning of life, and this was the best way for me to find out my meaning of life. He said that maybe it was because he is a really clever writer, and I'm going to help him become a real writer." "So, he's telling his characters that they're characters? He sounds like a hack who's relying too much on metafic - " I stop Jane right there. Jane always has a way of making me make her say what I'm really feeling. John walks by her, leaving her stunned in his kitchen. He walks back out, cocks a gun, and puts it in the front of his pants. He drives to the bank with Jane chasing him, and parks outside. He walks into the bank and up to the teller. He hands her a note that reads: "This is a hold up. I have a gun. Give me all the money. Feel free to act super-scared and tremble. Just do it in the most interesting way possible." The teller looks up at him with an utterly confused look on her face. Underneath the desk, she presses a button, then turns and begins grabbing money and stuffing it into the bag he handed her. "Take your time," he whispers, very sincerely.

By the time he gets the bag and turns to leave, the police arrive. John runs out of the bank, firing shots into the air. His face is angry; his bloodshot eyes hover above an unkempt beard. John is exhausted. Bullets hit Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chest. He falls to the ground, blood pooling around him. Jane begins sobbing, because I'm trying really hard to have three dimensional women characters in my stories. I'm sorry about this, John, I really am. I thought that I could write a story to prove how much life would be like a story if it were all predetermined, but don't worry, I'm going to try again. John is a scientist. He works at a huge corporation.

Sonya N. Groves Woman A woman without artifice must be destroyed, stricken from the record, her gender card revoked. For what is a woman without artifice, but an aberration to her species. Without her leopard heels and acrylic nails, how can she be recognized as the true hunter? Woman must have artifice. Her hint of Chanel and camouflage face paint help to mask her true intent: to locate, to stalk, to ensnare her prey. Without her artifice I say, she but be a man on display.

Sonya N. Groves One Afternoon He had hair then she had pert breasts. They met one afternoon by the side of the road. The intent was to meet and nothing more. The truth was a tumble in the backseat of his car. He Stood Alone while she drove away. She howled and wailed like a bitch tied to a stake headed home to her master.

Sonya N. Groves How to Kill My Mother-in-lawâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Precious Baby Boy a.k.a The Snore King Cold tile burns my bare feet. A cable box beacon my moonlight lead, Horrendous ruckus to my right, Like a Neolithic hunter, I crouch and I stalk. The sound is louder, my prey must be big. But soâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s my stiletto. Shoe in hand, a black beauty with steel for a spine. I raise her high to strike.

Sonya N. Groves Red Keds “Red shoes belong to whores,” she said. So I got white. I hadn’t wanted white shoes. I had wanted red. What’s a whore I asked. “Not a nice person,” was the response. My little brain could not register whore, but nice, it knew. I wanted to be nice, so I got white. They argued again, nothing new, but tonight it was about me. They argued about red shoes and whores. She said something about him knowing all about both. (Daddy knew whores and not nice people, not me I thought. I got white.) I lamented over not having red shoes, I saw them everywhere. I pointed to them and thought they all couldn’t be whores – little girls in pig tails, skinny girls in braces, and older girls with French manicures in white. My father saw my hunger and, one afternoon, fed it. I walked out of the store with my new red shoes on. I asked him, my head cocked sideways, my pony tail tipping long and swaying, Does this make me your whore?

Laura Merleau-McGrady Replace the Constants The constants e and q may be Replaced by new astral Bodies in the equation That maps out the distance From matter to light in Your heart beaming Kundalini Shakti into every pore Of your sky like cadenzas Because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s this music That wakes you up in The middle of a night whose Locus is a conic section On two fixed frameworks In your song of the same Dimensions the one in Blue and the other in purple And then the serpent power Coils right around the staff With its strange attractor Some cosmic magnet turning Three modes of vibration Into too many modes to chant Vibrating at the same rate As here and now that singing Serpentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s song the song Of the genetic code of the First reptile, the last Reptile, the only reptile Who sings the Big Bang

Laura Merleau-McGrady Equivalent to a Three-Sided Storm So much rain. So little Hypotenuse. The Pythagorean Relation in four dimensions Embodies the distance Between dreams in Solid skies. The rain Falling like someone Falling in love, solidly. Yet the equation is not Complete. A number of Strange ideas mystify The clouds, otherwise So solid. They don’t think They can do it again, The clouds doing headstands Now, turning upside-down So the rain falls away From here, toward There, where the hypotenuse Contracts in the direction Of its motion according To some unproven theory. For many years, you Thought even that was A hallucination. Yet It was all too solid – The triangular coordinates, The third axis passing Through the origin at Right angles to the XY Plane. And the rain – all That rain, equivalent to Your heart’s circumference.

Laura Merleau-McGrady Promising the Impossible to the Sun Establish the distances. Extend to high galactic Latitudes. And, if it’s not Too much trouble, unlock A wish – stimulate that Dormant chamber of my brain Again, where the Cepheid Variable Stars awaken the Inverse Square Law to defy Temporal behavior, unWinding gears sacred To the moon. Joyously, I will dance through The forest, across the plain, Up the mountain, leaping And plotting a map of The period-luminosity relation For my heart – a heavenly Graph revealing maximum And minimum light values Throughout each wave Of spiritual expansion. Here are my chakras. I offer them for your Aligning. Return them

To the galactic system They were meant to be A part of. And I will Promise to tell the sun Where I am, I will Keep the transformation Visible to all â&#x20AC;&#x201C; especially the Most feral animals who Before any would help save Me from certain implosion.

Charles Rammelkamp The Incontinence Consultant A woman in an office cubicle wearing a headset, the arm of it jammed down into her eardrum as if she were listening to intergalactic signals, guiding the Starship Enterprise through distant unknown galaxies, confides she’s an “incontinence consultant,” empathy oozing from her eyes as she looks into the camera. “Free, discreet home delivery,” she promises, an 800 number flashing at the bottom of the TV screen. “No more embarrassing trips to the pharmacy for incontinence products. Nobody ever needs to know.” Just you and your incontinence consultant, like a confessor, a shrink, an attorney. I’m surprised she doesn’t wink. A whole array of “incontinence products” drifts across the screen beneath her – diapers, mattress pads, cleansing wipes, stain and odor removers, disinfectant sprays. Ads like these used to seem funny to me – still do, on some level, bathroom humor never going out of style, since our very first poop and fart jokes at the age of two. But I remember my lips twitching in an amused smile when the physical therapist confided to me about “toileting issues,” when my mother was getting weaker and weaker, the accompanying prick of guilt that stabbed me in the face of my puerility as I recognized my mother was headed into unknown galaxies of her own.

Charles Rammelkamp You Made a Fool of Everyone On the last day of meditation class, Josh, the beatific instructor, began with a Zen parable about mindfulness. After ten years of practice, a novice approached the Zen master to gauge his progress. “It’s raining out,” the Zen master observed. “When you came in, did you leave your umbrella beside your right sandal or your left?” The student bowed to the master. “I will return in another ten years.” After a moment, Abby raised her hand. Josh nodded to her. “Does this mean once we’ve achieved mindfulness we’ll never lose another umbrella?” Josh’s expression was enigmatic, the silence awkward. Was she being sarcastic or just dense? Was she mocking him, or was she serious? I remembered the old Beatles’ song. If looks could kill it would have been us instead of him....

Charles Rammelkamp New Year “Are you retired?” the hygienist enquired, polite chitter-chatter before scraping and polishing my teeth. “Just taking the week off between Christmas and New Year’s,” I replied, wondering what it was about me that said, “out to pasture.” My bald head with the gray fringe like the pelt of a dying mammal? The jeans, the flannel shirt? Somebody sensing the same thing about me had given me red suspenders as a Christmas gift. At least I wasn’t wearing those. Behind her surgical mask, Renee looked to be on the old end of young, somewhere in her thirties. I remembered my father’s chagrin when I was Renee’s age and he told me one of his freshman girls had gushed she loved him. “You remind me of my grandfather.”

Mouse Floating red the roadkill pecked at the 3 crows hopping away each time a car drove by curiosity feeding brake light hunger.

Mouse Lostblood trespassing lil bro in red trim Underoos swings Spiderman longjohns around his head swiping his mother‘s blown glass green elephant brother holds the blown glass carburetor to take his first

occluded void inside keepsake’s beast’s belly rises and falls

his sativa tottertumbles from the mantle

stoking ground toward rushing tusks elephantoshatterrung

big brother passesbong lil bro holds the skinned up light Father’s megaphone on mute an exohome cries, it was the only thing they ever gave

glass in broken pieces to beer bottled

screams skeleton of mum’s phosphorescentfoster

her

Mouse Under tree tree bayobab Gave by jabber—by jove, Job, a shove roots anchored in the sky the stones beat tree of life blisterwyfe S t. Jerome’s breast 40 deserted years Vicar I/us nailhungUS Draint sap Molasses whisper Sticky ear DOGKyng liquor thrown saddles, stones, mannsundials & the vigilbabe suckles the fig Leaves and repressed I what tells you to behave? Wriggle f/r/ee/t self-saddlt stript stirrup pee’d. “. . ] ave lasted an average of 14 seconds before begging to be released. The Navy SEALs once used the technique in their counter-interrogation training, but they stopped because trainees could not survive it without breaking, which was bad f[ . .” (Lay ton 1) Intervallic photographs are the only way to ensure that the hallways remain graffiti free 2 smiles in the chestnut tree café. all the lambs are perforated leak

Luis Madrigal Ava I fried we make promises in the dark bem feito, serves you right bang fate that’s how we all look like in that hour hospice bed we laugh to keep it together oxygen machine i can’t breathe the dust which settles on all of us we try to shake off but becomes too heavy and we oxidize rusty statues i’ve never been so close II they remembered in portuguese thoughts and she dreamt in portuguese dreams our hands found whichever body part we could touch to give comfort to to know that we weren’t slipping away alone words for words sake as the life slowly dispersed from within all of us fado’s filled the room portuguese sad songs a woman ached in a language i didn’t understand i ached in english some of us aged years in a matter of nights there was a little furry brown dog who smiled at me whenever i passed her in the hallway i owe her a lot we sat and waited laughter from lack of sleep tears for the mother we would all soon lose ava, dressed in blue velvet slowly being carried away by cranes

Theodore Haddad Running of the Dogs For once I left the high school I taught at early to come home and take my dog for walk. I taught English at a posh public school out in the suburbs of Minneapolis near where my wife and I live. My wife, a realtor, was showing a house that afternoon and wouldn’t be back until late so it was a chance to spend some time with just me and the dog. This was the first warm day that spring. A good day to get out in the garden, or do some lawn work, go for a walk or run. But this would also turn out to be one of those days that leave a pit in your stomach and a bigger pit in your throat. I couldn’t have known it, but it would be one of those days that leave that universal and unanswerable question swirling in your mind, ‘What if?’ What if I hadn’t left early, if I had stayed to finish grading papers before the weekend, to sit around in the teachers lounge and listen to the other teachers complain about teenagers, and bureaucrats. Because this was the day that my neighbor’s Pit Bull, for the first time in my knowledge, bit. I came home. I drove down our street and people were out, enjoying the weather. Craig, who lived down the street a few houses, he’s a traveling salesman, he was out mowing his lawn. The elderly couple, Heinrick and Eileen, that live across from my wife and me, they were landscaping, laying stones for a walking path or something in their front yard. And at the end of the block was this burly old widower named Roger, digging in his garden. He’s got a big tattoo scrawled down one arm and he yells that the kids that cut across his lawn on their bikes. I think he’s a good guy, concerned about the neighborhood. I think his wife died years ago. I came down my street and a young woman was out walking slowly with her daughter near my house. I waved and she smiled and waved. I don’t know the woman, I’ve seen her around, her daughter might be three or four. I pulled in the driveway, shut off the car, and I unlocked and opened the front door ready to great my dog. He’s a good dog that wags his tail and seems to smile and sleeps on the sofa when no one is home even though he knows he not supposed to. I opened the front door and my dog was there wagging his tale when I caught sight of the Pit Bull out of the corner of my eye, sitting in my neighbor’s yard. My wife and I get along well with the neighbors that own the Pit Bull, they’re responsible with their dog, usually keep the dog locked up in a kennel or in the house, especially when they’re not home. If they’re not home the dog is almost always in the house. It was one of those days when the sun is shining and the damp of winter is drying in the breeze and you have that energy that comes from the warmth and the change. Maybe the Pit Bull felt the energy too. I turned and the dog was running, its shoulder muscle twitching with each stride, propelling itself with its powerful haunches. I thought the dog was coming for me and my breath caught in the back of my throat, but the dog ran past and I watched it, watched where it was going, and I saw the woman, her red hair, her white legs, and the little girl. I had never seen a dog attack before, but the Pit Bull had an aggressive look on his face, his lips pulled back into a tight toothy grin. I froze. I watched him run toward the woman and her daughter. He ran at them almost inaudibly and they didn’t see him coming at first. I heard the quick ha, ha that a dog’s breath makes when it is running. I wanted to yell, to tell the woman to watch out, but I could only stand and watch and listen to the pads of the dog’s feet thudding the pavement and then go silent in the grass. When the woman finally saw the dog coming at them she put her hands out toward the dog and opened her mouth like she was going to yell or give it a command, but said nothing. Then she turned away, away from the dog and toward the girl and pushed the little girl down in my yard and laid on her. And the Pit Bull, for the first time in my knowledge, bit. I left my front door open, left the keys in the lock. Now I was running. I was running and on my way down the front steps I grabbed an aluminum watering can my wife had left out. My feet were hitting the pavement and thoughts were striking my mind. I couldn’t help thinking while I ran, thinking about the woman at the end of my yard, thinking about my wife. Last Sunday I made love to my wife. Loud and passionate and in the middle of the afternoon. We hadn’t made love much since moving to the suburbs over a year ago. We moved here, from Minneapolis, to start a

family. We bought a house, we brought the dog with us, we had a housewarming party and my in-laws came to visit from Kentucky, we painted the rooms and put in new countertops, then we found out my wife had something wrong, that she needed a hysterectomy, we found out we couldn’t have children. But last Sunday we went to church. On our way home we stopped for pie and coffee. We didn’t talk much, but we smiled. We smiled while we ate our pie and I could tell that something was changing for her, that life was returning to us. We went to the grocery store and bought fruit and cookies and frozen juice and expensive dog treats, the kind of dog treats that we usually bring home for his birthday, or Christmas. But the mood was different that day. We made love and it was raining. I ran toward the Pit Bull and the woman and her daughter, the watering can swinging at my side. It couldn’t have been more than thirty yards from my door to where this woman lay on her daughter being bit. Thirty yards, a few seconds to run thirty yards, but I had time to think about sex with my wife. A few seconds but the world passed. All the things in the world and universe moved in those few seconds if even for a fraction, the way they do in dreams. The Pit Bull growled while it bit the woman. Other people must have heard the dog growl too – not even a growl, a high toned snarl like the metal tongs of a yard rake scratching across cement, a car engine revving past its red-line – and they could see the woman in my yard being shaken and bit. Other people ran now, too, away from mowing their grass, away from turning up the damp soil in their gardens. Craig left his lawnmower, he ran with a cell phone to his ear. But how much damage would be inflicted before the police got there? Heinrick ran toward the street and Eileen stood in their yard and watched and covered her mouth with her hand. Roger was running too, he had his shovel, but he was at the end of the street. He wouldn’t get there in time. This was a white-collar street, clean shaven, Pilates, eighty-thousand dollar SUV’s. I think that no one knew what to do when the Pit Bull starting biting, so we all just ran. I ran in my dress shoes and dress slacks and button down shirt with my wife’s watering can. While I ran I heard more of the soft padding of dog paws and more of the ha, ha breathing and my own dog come out of the open front door of our house and started running the thirty yards to the sidewalk where the woman and her daughter lay. He ran like everybody else. He was a good dog who never fought before, never even bared his teeth. We got him when he was a puppy, a mutt from a friend who had moved out to the country, part German Shepherd and part something else. I brought him home and played with him and he was clumsy when he ran, tripping over his big feet. He chased me in the park across from our apartment building, when we still lived in Minneapolis, and he couldn’t catch me unless I let him. Now he was running past me. My wife and I babysat my niece and nephew a few years ago, the year we decided to start a family of our own. My dog was so curious about those smelly, noisy little things. My nephew, just a few months old, lay on the floor on a blanket on the living room carpet and my dog wanted to smell him and put his nose on him but wouldn’t go on the blanket. No one told him not to go on it but he just sat there at the edge of the blanket and watched the baby move around. My dog was bigger than the Pit Bull, but he had never fought before. Once, he picked up a doll in his mouth that belonged to my niece and she screamed, so he set it back down. He had never even bared his teeth. But his teeth were bared now. He ran past me and his tail wagged, aggravated, a warning. My neighbor’s Pit Bull doesn’t have a tail. I ran with my wife’s watering can. My legs felt slow like in a dream. I dream-ran against the same wall that holds you back when you are asleep. I watched Roger, with his shovel, dream-run too. I knew that he wouldn’t get there in time, and I knew that it would be up to my wife’s watering can and my dog that had never fought to get the Pit Bull’s teeth out of the woman’s leg. My dog was first to reach the woman at the end of the yard. The two dogs spit and snarled, my dog was bigger than the Pit Bull but that wouldn’t make a difference. Everyone yelled while they were running, yelled at the woman to get up and run away while the dogs were fighting, but she didn’t, she lay in my yard on her daughter shaking and bleeding and wouldn’t get up. And it struck me then that the woman didn’t cry out, did not scream, hardly made a noise and I wondered how it was possible, being bit and shaken, that she didn’t make any noise. I was close enough to see the woman’s face, her red hair

draped over her daughter, her thin white arms wrapped around the little girl. The woman looked so young and her eyes were confused and frightened. When I stopped running the Pit Bull had my dog by the neck. I rotated my arms with the watering can in my hands like I was hammer throwing and clubbed the Pit Bull on the head. The aluminum handle broke and the watering can flew up and landed on the sidewalk. The metallic sound of the watering can landing on the sidewalk was almost lost beneath the snarl of the dogs. The two dogs snarled and spat and the Pit Bull shook its head around my dog’s neck the way it had shaken its head around the woman’s legs. I grabbed the watering can again and started clubbing the Pit Bull, but all that was breaking was the aluminum can. By the time the others came close my dog wasn’t fighting anymore. The Pit Bull still shook him. Roger swung his shovel like he was hitting a baseball and the Pit Bull squealed and tumbled away from my dog and away from the woman and her child. And before the Pit Bull could bite again Roger hit it with another swing of the shovel. He drove the shovel down, down like driving a spade into hard ground, like breaking hard soil. Blood splashed on my dress shoes and dress slacks. We all stopped. We stood silent. We all breathed out a sigh. I tried to assess what had happened, tried to comprehend it. Someone bent down and started talking to the woman. I think it was Heinrick. He told the woman it would be alright. Now the woman sung out her pain in a long soprano cry. Red streams flowed down her right leg. Her flesh pulsed and seemed to breathe where the dog’s teeth had been. The woman squeezed her daughter. Craig knelt with his cell phone, he told the woman the ambulance was on its way. Someone tried to pull her daughter out from underneath her but the woman didn’t want to let her go. Now Eileen was there, too. Everyone gathered around the woman and her daughter and waited for the police and for the ambulance. My dog was dead. My dog had never fought before. He never even got to finish the expensive treats my wife and I had bought for him. The paramedics took the woman and the girl in the ambulance. The police asked for my neighbor’s names, the one’s who owned the Pit Bull that, to my knowledge, had never bit before. Everyone went home except for Roger and his shovel. The police needed a statement. When he was done talking to the police Roger looked at me, at the blood on my shoes and pants, “Damn dog,” he said. And then he went home, too. “What about my dog?” I asked. “Did your dog bite anyone?” “No,” I said. “The city will come by later for the carcass.” The carcass, I thought, and a minute ago it was a living thing fighting to save another living thing. When my wife got home the dog carcasses still laid in the yard. I was in the yard, too. I couldn’t move so I stood and looked down at my dog, looked down at the collar of blood around his neck. I tried to not to peer into his still wide-open eyes. I wanted to reach down and touch him. Echoes of the dogs’ fighting reverberated in my ears. I held the watering can, I don’t know why. I told my wife about the woman and her daughter, about our neighbor’s Pit Bull, and about the watering can and Roger with his shovel. She looked at our dog. She cried. She wanted to know if I was alright. I couldn’t speak then. I turned toward the grey sided house and it seemed to disappear against the sky, empty, lifeless, a barren womb. I wanted to run away. But I knew I could never run as far as I ran that day.

Michael Gebelein the first girl I saw the dirt flew off of the asphalt today and the heat waves rose and glimmered like nothing Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d ever seen before and I felt romantic about everything like I could grab and kiss the first girl I saw. but I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. I just sat down at the table and lit a cigarette. the farmers walked past, the parolees looked around the corner. I felt so much bigger than my skin, bigger than these eyes that squint and turn red or this mouth thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so quick to brutalize something weak. like the universe was conspiring with me for that brief moment.

Michael Gebelein I’ll waste my own time, thank you very much the old man, the publisher, tells me that time is my most precious commodity and it’s a cliché, but I believe him because every time the phone rings I cringe because I know I’ll soon be wrapped into an empty, meaningless conversation and I’ll have to pretend to be interested when I’m not. I’d rather waste my own time than have someone waste it for me.

Michael Gebelein spider poem each night the spider twitches and jumps and spins his web across the porch and each morning when I wake up the web and the spider are gone. thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a poem in there somewhereâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a poem about work and life and progress.

Quinn Hull Bluesheets to a Browser I came out feet-first. I always have and always will. Yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah. I spend the great majority of my time before the screen of a laptop, which I sometimes call affectionately ‘the prompter’. I am quite truthfully a striver, a seeker, a finder and a non-yielder. Sadly, though, I am no invisible-man, no inside-man, no underground-man, no Holden Caulfield, no Stephen Dedalus, no Charles Highway, no Portnoy, no Ishmael. Again, I am a soi-disant browser; of the internet, of women, of books, of occupations, of people, of things. Many people like to call me ‘a bum’ or ‘an asshole,’ which is alright by me, just as long as they leave me alone when I wish to be. This occurs most usually when 1.) I am masturbating and/or 2.) I am reading. I perform both these tasks in equal frequencies and proportional durations. To illustrate, I will only say I read more than most, which does not say much. I only average about ten or so books a semester not including plays, collections of poetry or books which I have started at an earlier date. Even though I am a slow reader, I am a strong reader. Many people may argue I do not read so much as I claim, and that they themselves read more, which is an honest statement when counting books alone. However, to them I would always like to put the statement, but never do: “We know how much you are reading, m’darling yes; but what is it you are reading?” (Note: Were one to calculate my daily pace and stamina in reading, they could easily and pretty accurately determine how often and for how long I share-out my time to the former hobby on a weekly basis). As I began earlier, I enjoy mostly being alone. I will elaborate on how I prefer to be among company. When I am with others, I prefer to surround myself with the opposite sex except for maybe one or two non-threatening males, for I have a crippling inferiority complex. Also, when I am out, I prefer to be drunk as soon and for as long as possible, preferably on Guinness (if someone else is paying) or Pabst Blue Ribbon (if I am footing myself). Imagine this. Me: Lev Shelver (a blighted name, considering my inclinations). A little tall, a little fat, a little stooped. I wear (for now, in the winter) a fur-hooded, three-quarters length army-looking coat I found in a Salvation Army in downtown Akron. Jeans that flood, baggy socks that droop, too newlooking Nikes or scuffed Doc Martens. A flannel shirt or striped sweater (for alas, I am a dork). Pensive eyes behind square-framed (say, ‘hipster’) glasses balancing on a longish though blunted nose. A nondescript fish mouth, large pig-cheeks. And very very very hairy hairy hairy. Hair! hair! hair! sprouting from my shirt, pants, sleeves, nostrils, chest, neck, ear-holes, back. Especially my back. And hair in a wispy, side-swept, side-parted mop atop my crown. I can sometimes sport a thin red beard. How’s that, folks! No wonder the girls came flocking in high school. My father had to beat them off the porch mit ein ugly-stick… As if. I couldn’t even get the short, hooded Jewess in Algebra to meet me for pizza. Mostly I sat at home and ate my heart out on Uncle Ben rice, chicken parmesan, Hanover pretzels, moon pies, bad t.v., John Steinbeck and James Joyce, Macy’s bra ads, porno sites, L.L. Bean underwear catalogues, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues and phantasies. Vain vain phantasies. It should make sense, then, that I should occupy a small room in a relatively small house in a town by the name of Fantasy, Ohio. I halve the rent sometimes with one saturnine, unsaturnalian Salvador Salinurus Salamander, (known simply as Sal), who occupies a much bigger room in the same relatively small house. By ‘sometimes’ I do not mean Sal’s occupancy of the house varies, but that he rather insists on refusing to pay rent. Here, at the university, I am enrolled as a student in the M.L.B.I.F.S.L.S. (Master’s-of-Library-and-Basic-Informational-Fundamentals-in-the-Science-of-Lookingfor-Stuff) program or, as I and my classmates like to call it, ‘library school’ or, more simply just ‘the program’. Ah, the program; the program! How it teases us, how it eases us, how it pleases us! Oh how it loves us! There are perhaps a few dozen students in the program who throw themselves at it with enough zeal and gusto to make everyone else convinced it is a form of mortal salvation, which for many it actually is. For me, I am doing it because my elders advised me to, since filling the role of librarian is a

more practical and level-headed career choice than that of a failed writer. Were I to pursue writing, I would undoubtedly contract syphilis at a young age and climb that big, gold and filigreed stairwell-in-thestratosphere reserved exclusively, toll-free, for all those not meant long for this terra firma. Or perhaps I’m putting words in my advisors’ mouths. Perhaps it is I who fear becoming a failed writer, of never telling my story, of never being read – having the general public read me, properly that is, for once. Just as one reads road-signs or music, although neither are written in words. I’ve always learned best how to live Suzuki-style, anyway. I suppose it’s why I am afraid of dying alone (as we all fundamentally and inevitably are). I fear I won’t have even one reader, to read and to be read. Instead, I perch in a concrete block on the main drag of America’s fine burghs, entirely surrounded by the volumes of those who achieved the palms, that are read and re-read and re-reread. Yadda yadda yadda. Blah blah blah. I work at McCall’s Free Library, which isn’t free at all because patrons like to take out items for years at a time and get then get un pour agitated with me for the late fees. I am paid to be shat on for four-hour shifts at a time, sometimes back-to-back, other times back-to-back-to-back. From dawn until dusk, to be shat shat shat on. There’s always something to find at McCall’s library. My psychologist, Sonorusen. Brined salty dog that he is. His Aryan children have gone and invented a new brand of miracle penicillin each, both of which I will no doubt one day receive in my buttocks, one for each wunderkind, for stepping barefooted on a rain-eaten rake in my backyard (not to mention also receiving a crushed nose from the wooden handle). He used to be in the Merchant Marines, and reminds me of it any opportunity he gets. I fit him with an eye-patch (for effect) every Thursday evening after working at McCall’s library. Several years ago, I was visited by the concept of a novel complete with cover, opening line and denouement, length, chapter headings, font, format, reviews on the flapjacket, editorials in the Sunday magazine, booksignings, talk-show appearances and all-around, general international stardom. All of this while in bed with a girlfriend. I forgot the concept, however. Unrelated though, I broke up with the girlfriend later. I am somewhat the Henry VIII of girlfriends. It is a universal truth no man can engage himself in any way with someone of the opposite sex without being partially, if not entirely (which is more often the case) committed to her for the rest of his life. This is so that on breaking up the relationship, he becomes completely to blame for salt-crusted pillowcases, tattered split-end heartstrings, nasty phone calls, guerilla toilet-papering, drive-by vitriol attacks and all other various and sundry ugly histrionics found in the annals of love. I seem to have littered my past like Dorian Gray with a lovely, putrid pearl string of one sob-story case after another, girls whose lives and bodies I have infiltrated, despoiled and then set loose by the wayside like a pair of soiled underthings. How many dispensed, debauched souls have I wadded-up and suctioned down the drain, flushed with a turn of the faucet, left idling in my wake? Mind, I’ve achieved all of this and kept my virginity, along with it a certain amount of very painful dignity. I still stand on trial. Call to the witness stand: the Primadonna, the Twig, the Frigidaire, Lil Piggly-Wiggly, the Camp Femme, Vain Black Starlet, the Psychiatric, the Welted Sister, the Highland Prancer, the Pregnant Nun. All of them crying out to me with their wet hankies, months after the breakup (well after the fact) for more parked-car promises, more telephoned rebuttals, more midnight pledges, more more more, as vainly as a whoopee cushion whimpering out beneath a sat-on chair cushion… Except for one who wouldn’t. Froggy. My old love, my old flame. Old maid. Prick of my affection, womb of my rejection. She and I work at McCall’s. Froggy has scorned all phone calls and texts I’ve sent her, but still, every shift we spend together, she puts forth the personae of the Invisible Mademoiselle, that fated role of the most beautiful girl-next-door in the room, whom nobody asks to dance but her single, honest amour. I asked her on a date once, and she said she was focusing on her career. Froggy was an undergraduate student then. When did I first meet Froggy at McCall’s Free Library? I can’t find it anywhere in my notebooks. I remember the faintly damp pressure of her palm when we were introduced. Now, Froggy may seem a despairingly disparaging name to someone who looks like a frog. But, who ever said Froggy looked like a frog? It is a name of unadulterated adoration. Tall, with furls of red brazen curls, shoulders

huddled cove-like around her breasts, with thick straight legs, wide ankles and horribly pigeon-toed feet. Fond of sundresses, she wears them even in winter, with a cardigan and jeans or leggings. How marvelous is my Froggy! I store my forgiveness for her in a bottomless barrel. It spools out endlessly. On a bibulously hot afternoon in July, I had the great luck to see – as she leaned over into a crate of books, oblivious of her showmanship – the seat of her coy blue-dotted panties; unfortunately, I also had the great shame to look away. Her father owns the Green Acre tavern on Benjamin Franklin avenue. Down this brick-lined promenade I traverse to my house many nights, going home from the bars, posting my mug in the big frame of the glass window looking onto the sidewalk, to see if her father is still there at the beer pulls. I can remember how in the middle of winter, by sheer fortune, I ended up talking to her for three hours in the living-room of her Sewanee Village apartment every particular subject known, eating popcorn and playing with her kitten. That was the last time I remember being the happiest in recent modern history. Not in any of the bars I’ve gotten drunk in, not kissing any of the girls I have, not even Christmas morning. Then I went ahead and done it, messed it up. Big time. I put the fatal wound into the possibility of ever seeing Froggy alone ever again: I hugged her at the door on leaving. On my way home, in my resulting ignorant euphoria, my slumberous musings, looking forward to other nights spent in the same manner with Froggy, a policeman prowled behind me, with no lights on, for seventeen entire blocks before deciding to pull me over in front of my house as I was turning into the gravel drive. I was let off with a warning and hee-hawing with a secret, libidinous, flowing mirth that not even the cop with his lacquered uniform and powerful electric torchlight could stint or un-course, I drifted in neutral gear through the garage door. And that was that, folks. I didn’t realize it until months later, though, that I had smothered the seed before if even began to sprout, let alone bloom. I cringed, imagining my luggish arms uncouthly encircling the scarlet princess beneath her hallway lamp. With her cat watching, too. How insufferable it must have been for her; how miserably I feel for imposing on her like that. Sonorusen thinks not all is lost, but I feel sometimes he inflates me with false hope, just to watch me keel over like the Hindenburg balloon, so I know I can still get up. Which I can and somehow usually do (no matter how poor the fall) by some hideous strength I’ve yet to learn to control within me. But why? Why why why! I beat my brains out nightly against the walls, as I did as a child, wondering: Why? for the love of Christ almighty, Why? Why waste my time? I know why. I have vested into and projected onto Froggy (my beautiful a-courtin’ Froggy!) all those infinite and amaranthine desires I have coddled and harbored (so like a brief candle in the shuddering wind!) since childhood. But also, because I am so very very happy – guffawing, gee gosh golly happy – around the damn girl. I sometimes imagine that Froggy is asexual, had perhaps been declining all suitors because, surreptitiously, she was hoarding up eggs in the bedroom of her apartment in Sewanee Village. And every Friday and Saturday night she is actually humidly brooding in this secret terrarium swamp, glowing bluely with hydroponic lamps, loud with the slow dripping of the faucet and whiff of a spray-fan. Millenia from now, she would hatch her offspring and unleash an entirely self-sufficient race of changeling, ribbeting Froggies, all still singularly steeled with the fictive intent of marriage and children. My brother Roscoe used to work nights as a parking attendant in downtown Cleveland. He was born with mild multiple sclerosis and uses a crutch and lives at home with my parents. The parking manager who would leave when Roscoe got there would have to carry the tray of bills and coins for the cashier drawer over to the booth for him. One night in February, the parking manager had left early and so Roscoe had to carry it by himself with just his one hand and his crutch. Well, he spilled it, wouldn’t you know? Later, while he recounted the story early in the morning at the kitchen table of our house, I could imagine him down on his multiply-sclerosissed hands and knees, down in the gathering crystal-hard snow picking up nickels and dimes, illumined by the night-time glare of cat-eyed headlights from the line of agitated and impatient cars forming at the striped lever-gate. Roscoe wheezed laughing about it later though, at the kitchen table in his white tee-shirt and rubbing his itching eyes, drinking his coffee. Another time, Roscoe was shot in the face – the face! – by a motorist desperately in need of cash. The drawer could only have had about $150 in it at the time. But the face? The face I tell you! At least that

was the medical terminology the doctors used. (Ugh! the face? the face!). So we got called down to the hospital where he’d been taken to the ICU there and sat in the waiting room. We had been there for a while when a very glad doctor in a green and slightly blood-splattered frock came in through the pumpaction doors to our one side, removing a surgical mask. In doing so he revealed the bottom half of welcoming, smiling, blue-shaven face. “Well, it looks like he’ll be just fine. He’s alright,” said the glad doctor. My parents at this point were, of course, that heap of the entire spectrum of emotions running between relieved terror and joy. I could see a tear forming in the eye of the glad doctor. “I must return to the unit, but I just wanted to tell you the good news,” continued the glad doctor. “Thank you! Thank you!” said my parents, and the glad doctor turned and walked away. At that moment another, not-so-very-glad-at-all doctor, in a not-so-slightly-blood-splattered white frock came in through the pump-action doors to our other side, who also removed a surgical mask. However, in doing so, he revealed a starkly white beard concealing the better part of the bottom half of his not-so-welcoming face. Luckily, at that moment, our jovial glad doctor returned to us. “Also, I forgot!” he said. “It’s a boy!” “I’m sorry?” we answered in response, for of course Roscoe was a boy – he was a fully matured man at that point. No matter, though. Roscoe was just fine, was alright, was good news. “Congratulations!” said the glad doctor, and left us through the pump-action doors. Ghoulishly, the pale not-so-very-glad-at-all doctor appeared at our side. “Your son…is dead!” he exclaimed. We thought the doctor must have mistaken us for another family and explained this to the doctor, that he must have the wrong family – the wrong family! – for we had just been assured by a very glad and certified physician that our man (or our boy) Roscoe was just fine and was going to be alright. “You are the family of Roscoe?” the pale doctor inquired. “We are the family of Roscoe,” we affirmed. “Then it must have been that other doctor who was mistaken. Those are the doors to the maternity ward. I am Roscoe’s surgeon,” replied the pale doctor. “Roscoe is dead.” So, he is actually dead. I’m afraid I fooled you for a bit, but I simply could not spoil the end. Oftentimes, in my dreams, Roscoe has an apple for a head like in a Magritte painting. Or a peach. And always somehow smoking those thin Polish cigarettes he had, though he doesn’t have a mouth in the dream. He wears a bowler hat and doffs it gentlemanly and offers me a seat. Other times he keeps it balanced somehow in front of his face, without hands or string. Sometimes he has a bull’s head or a chicken’s head and sometimes these are backwards on his neck. The worst is when there’s nothing there but an enormous, perfectly carved hole in the center of his head where his face would be, and I can see straight through and out the back and he’s just going on, reading one of his copies of The Nation or War & Peace, smoking and flipping through the television channels, as though he’s still got a face, just like everybody else. How strange a death, a crime, really. How French. How French of Roscoe, to go ahead and lose his face like that. What is it with the French, anyway, and the faceless? They were the first to pioneer the face-transplant, not to mention Gwynplaine, the Phantom-of-the-Opera, Eustache Dauger, Quasimodo, Les yeux sans visage… I would like to offer a lesson in searching. Or heuristics which, in short, are the paths others have used in order to find things, which can be used as shortcuts for others to find these things themselves. Or, instead of others having searched, we can think in terms of ourselves in the past, therefore these trial-anderror paths being those horrific nightmarish mistakes which we have made and (hopefully) properly flagged in order to not follow again after the first, the second, the millionth Game Over. I am slowly achieving this fine art of looking for things, something I never achieved in childhood when my mother bid me to look for clean socks, dental headgear, the spare church shoe or a lengthy assignment on John Adams in my filthy whore of a bedroom. Why do we continue to fail in doing the same things over and over? Why do we fail in searching for girls, searching for shelter, searching for friends, for happiness? We think it will be different. But why do we think it will be different? Einstein has said insanity is doing

the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Yet the sadistic music lessoner will chime again and again Practice makes perfect! Life doesn’t play music; it plays math. 0 will always = 0 will always = 0. Which is 0. Or a space _. So why search? Because we are all trying. Still we strive. Like Ulysses, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield! Seeking is a process in which we are constantly failing until we succeed. We constantly undergo the process of searching; we constantly are in the process of shitting. Even after fully digesting, we are waiting until we are hungry for the next meal. A few axioms from the Library of Congress call number system: Letters come before numbers! Nothing comes before something. Here’s something else: AND/OR/NOT. You can apply it between two or more descriptors in a query, with hopes it will the narrow the results from what materials are available (or possible), and those materials with you want. This is what we call Simple Boolean logic in library school, named after the mathematician Boole. He thought he was a pretty smart nut, I’m sure. But he wasn’t. He was a dick and an idiot. I remember Sal, when we were in a McDonald’s in Paris together, spouting out Cyril Connelly to me, how we know what we do want by knowing what we don’t want. Sal could apply this to his own lifestyle, but he doesn’t know he doesn’t want this lesson yet. Logicians are hard in the making, it seems. Life continues. I go into the door beneath the swinging painted sign of John Ball’s ‘Pub and Spirits’ (Baller’s, so the townsfolk call it) on the corner of Two States Road and West Water street, where all the lowborn and washed-up and alliterate tend to agglomerate every Saturday, Sunday, weekday and holiday, night and/or day, like so much silt and shit at the bottom of a clogged cesspool. I drink too much, shout at my friends and so walk home, alone (as before), down Benjamin Franklin avenue (pausing at the glazed window of the Green Acre) kicking a can and scaring a cat, getting a look from the cop leaning at the entrance to the Standing Rock park. I continue down that venerable brick byway, passing the other wet and crowded bars, the crooked stooped houses on the hill, the traintracks beside the river, a vacant post-war grass lot before sidewalking under the bouncing highway overpass. I cross the intersection by the offshooting Madrigal road, which once you get on it, leads you enticingly farther along the railroads and stockyards to absolutely nowhere at all. I turn off left there, down my lover-less lane for the final truck-haul to that bed in its relatively small, whitewashed room in that relatively small, aluminum-sided house among the sumac and pine trees… I could envisage it then! A wonderful 6” x 4” stock-paper glossy greeting postcard, with Farewell from Fantasy! in big frilly gothic letters scrawled across the top. Below, in the picture, Yours Truly (me!) going down the lamplit avenue under the empty boughs. That I could see my (hush now) feet carrying me (hush) beneath the arclights (hush now) tending homeward (hush) where perhaps I would prepare (hush now) a peanut butter and banana sandwich (hush now) and glass of milk (hush!) and then at last the moon, the pillow, the flannel sheet, her spinning stars! I could or I should? Should I forget Froggy? I certainly could forget Froggy. I could drop out of the program. I could accept Roscoe’s death. I could get a job splitting wood on a farm. I could, if I chose. But should I? Well, that’s a tough one. Who’s to say? Whoever wields that power, I’d like to meet him. I’d like to be him. Perhaps I already am! It was up to me. I just didn’t want to. I could just be happy, instead of trying to find it somewhere else. Be Happy! say the bumper stickers on the interstate highway. After all, it is just that easy (really) forsooth, since happiness is just another state of occupation, like sitting down after work or walking to the store for a Coke or grooming your hair with a comb or eating a gala apple; it was a continual process, of happying. You could be happying all the time, now even, filling all your happy days with happy hours! But how? (hush now!) I’d think about it more in the morning. Call me up on the jelly-phone, Mrs. Sloan. Read it in the paper, Mr. Draper. For now, for me, to bye to bay to bed; Goodbye, good boy. Goodnight!

Cydney Brayboy, Untilted

Deven Hayes, Poke Plush

Deven Hayes, Crush

Deven Hayes, Sky

Deven Hayes, Tommy

Jaravus Hamer, Orochicll

Javarus Hamer, Attack of Orchic

Jarvus Hamer, House

Javarus Hamer, Rock Star

Javarus Hamer, Wolf

Kayla Callihan, Untitled

Kasey Garren, The Hunt

Molly Baxter, Weekend Visitor

S. Krueger, Tree Bird

Rana Williams, Missing Plane

Abraham Katoot and Rana Williams,Spain

Abraham Katoot and Rana Williams, Castle

Abraham Katoot and Rana Williams, Eiffel Painting

Shaye Anderson, Bird

Eric Smiarowski What if we were seeds? the garden grows our hope petals to bloom into space travel elevate time vertical to the tip of a fluid cattail on a windy afternoon in June weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll die by the scythe of shadow of flying loon Eaten as word derogatory absurd grown as food on a food world hunger for growth as it were; fattening peasants, first pleasing the tongue of our farmer God.

Leah M. Hughes Some Horrors of Science Fiction Based on just a literary dare, Mary Shelley set the scary in motion: aberrations of nature forming early science fiction, introducing jaundiced hulking bolt-necked monsters skulking from labs through dim cob-webbed corridors, making public appearances in frozen pristine Alpine ranges, or one Pole or the other, startling inarticulate howls falling on the ears of those who should know better than to reassemble charnel house remains and label that distortion new life. The ensuing, relentless pursuit of temptingly unlimited immortality; history thinks Eureka at unexpected profit-margins, and makes a few hundred sequels, made-for-TV-movies, a paperback line -“the return of” one experiment a mass market. The world discovered it liked being scared out of its mind. Our dementia feeds a global genre, mood; a cannibalistic craze, trend; a lifestyle looking to escape, and not to the Caribbean. As if our nightmares don’t prompt us to live right. Or purgatory, or blood-freezing smoldering-to-the-core lava oceans. Just when civilization dares to formulate fear again, new factors resurrect, arise from the ash tomb rubble grave marsh -no rubbing moist palms in anticipation of world demise, no more waiting around for what we don’t know, but instantly satisfying fear wilder than ancient witches’ brew or relics, in surround-sound 3-D technicolor, horror safer since it came from our mind and not our neighborhood. The recesses of the human mind in Kenya, USA, China, Peru swell with mildew, shattered lightbulbs, compost and rotten apples, growing mold cultures on yogurt, until the solid underfoot moans, crackles, fissures, erodes away. Rots. As if six feet under were not as dark as it could get. As if the bloated teenaged boy floating at the bottom of a boarded up old spring well, or the fixed blue-eyed stare caught in the swirl of her own hair, or the wolf in grandma’s bed; because hourly amber threats broadcast on Headline News cannot give good (like sex) sweating, panting, and irregular heart beats. We demand badly-contrived thrill: some(one)(thing) chasing, stalking, overcoming from behind, catching up off-guard or just not watching or sleeplessly dreaming -- As if an angry God did not suffice. We yearn for the chills and goosebumps of suspense, for the jolt from what no one could even imagine as real. Conversation opened. 5 messages. All messages read.

Cosmo Spinosa from between trees

sound of train from far off, known trajectory of movement joined over water, over tunnel, coursing, over bridge how the sound begins as a wave in its echo to appear elsewhere the untold events turn to static, the hollowness of a word

fills a lung

tracks once signifying commerce would end in an ocean the rocks heavy with algae these migratory patterns have concluded, the geese overhead contained within their enclosure the terraces across the harbor the terraces of the harbor the terraces of rocks extending between drainage vents at low tide where the rocks built up turned to a mound of shells, a collection

of trash piled into an island this island of debris is hollowed out with its canals, separated on any side by walkway trash island: and beneath the sand is trash, beneath the canals,

cement

native species flock to it, herons in the shallows, the miniature pond of dwelling peopled with fish the cooperâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hawk cradled between the bare branches swoops down to take a sparrow

plastic bag floating on surface, a white blossom or balloon caught between copper piping, where the rowboat is tied to the dock, the waterways are a circuit leading to a barrier of reeds, to an ocean,

unable to travel

what has been equated: the planter box grown and withered, the egret hunting in the rain

and mud mistaken for runoff both are no less true meaning is replaced with its opposite in each conjecture

words following through what cannot grasp,

the dried weeds and chicken bones found in a stretch of dead grass a house of sticks built to relay homecoming, the bricks being laid in circular mosaic, vines crawling up the gate, or through the condemned homeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; boarded doors and windows, detritus and busted lawn chairs in the front yard, an old vw van rotting from the inside

fallen branch obstructing entrance, fallen leaves accumulated by roadside tend a patch of earth restlessly, pour water onto potted herbs along the shore the waves are churned up by wind the people having vacated long ago, leaving it to the terns and driftwood,

the buried condoms and discarded wardrobe

steeple cut off by roofs at this elevation, birds gather in the high branches their bodies meaningless nearly part of the gray frieze of clouds covering any trace

of sun

Carson Williford A Resurrection at Lunchtime Hungry, I stand from my seat on the couch to walk to the kitchen. Immediately I feel the weight of my head on my shoulders. I can feel in the center of my consciousness, that ethereal sphere with no circumference, an inward heaviness that gradually brings my head to a bow while my vision gives way to blackness. The blackness consumes my sight, starting with my peripherals and moving inward until it swallows the last of the light. Yet, even if I could see, my vision would not possess the clarity I am accustomed to; the heaviness in my head reaches a capacity and begins to dissipate, relieving the tension I feel and with it my awareness. All things become skewed. I enter into a liminal state reminiscent of that between being awake and asleep; only this is a state balanced between being and nothingness. I can hear the sounds that enter my ears but my response to them is stifled by the seemingly insuperable dissolve of my awareness. My body wants to lie on the ground, to surrender to gravity, but instead of complying I extend my arm as a brace to the back of the couch I stand beside and incidentally experience the couch as the most concrete reality in my existence. My body ceases its forward movement but I experience continued travelling in dimensions previously unknown to me. I feel that instability is an inherent property of existence and the restiveness of my consciousness removes me from the concreteness that I felt in the couch. I feel myself leaving existence; I feel myself leaving myself. Thoughts become so unnatural and confused, so alien to me, that I cannot grasp the concept; that itself would require thought. In a single moment I feel that my consciousness is being dissolved, condensed, and released. Reality becomes paper thin and I know not on which side of it I stand. I lose my will to live, my will to return. The lack of thought and comprehension is a lofty freedom that takes me beyond such things as will. Reaching the brink of my existence, I fall to the caprice of naked reality. Death is near and I have no will to fight it, no will at all. I do not greet it, but I do not fight it; I am just faintly aware of it. I have no hope, no fear; this is sublimity. Just as the casket of my consciousness appears to shut, it reopens. Gradually, I feel life return to me; perception, thought, feeling, awareness. I unquestioningly assume them and recollect my position. The tear in my reality is sewn and I breathe deeply as I straighten myself. Hungry, I continue to the kitchen and make lunch.

Laura Staubs Roadside Attraction Pretty little tramp: queen of weeds and asphaltâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a girl searching a lonely stretch of highway, hoping to become undone. Cursing her careless garments, her denied pleasuresâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; she dreams of wildflowers unfolding. She waits to tear each button loose, to shed them like petals beneath bare backs and parted legs.

Laura Staubs Motel 6 The housekeeper did not bother to part the drapes today. Had she done so, the late morning sun would pour into the empty corners of each roomâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;illuminating the abandoned spider webs, the dust suspended, the dull warmth of blue carpeted floors. It is as if Summer had never come to this part of townâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; as if these rooms were always vacant, but the housekeeper, again failing to care, neglected to turn on that buzzing neon sign.

C. Goodison The Blind Kid “Oh no.” A sigh. It’s raging outside. No April showers but a full thunderstorm. White lightning flash, black thunder, the whole works. There’s a beauty to the way in which Mother Nature prepares everyone for summer; for the heat, the ubiquitous news stories of scandal, celebrity, and mayhem; for the noise, chaos and easy seasonal euphoria. It rains heavily outside, but not for long. “Oh no,” is the again-panicked response. “What happened?” As he sits before his computer, James reaches over to his left. Just minutes before was a loud pop! sounding like it came from outside. If only he had really long arms and could see what had happened. That’s how people see. Something’s wrong, but what, exactly, he’s not sure. A coolness falls over his face and he knows his computer is dead. It was the pop that killed it. “Mom! Something’s wrong with my computer.” With an absent lick of the fingers, Mom leaves the kitchen where she’s eating alone and walks up to the boy. The fact that she prefers to eat alone does leave her feeling guilty. You see, he has the habit of pressing his thumbs to his already deep-set black-rimmed eyes. It looks painful, the way those thumbs just sink in as if he were pressing on silly putty. He does this to calm himself. It’s his way of controlling the sensation that his eyes are jumping around though they’re not. He resents it when she tells him to stop. In the past, he’s thrown food and spat out porridge. Yes, something all kids do, but that’s not always easy to remember. If she sits too close, he’ll grab her, digging his fingers into her flesh. He doesn’t do this as much as he did when he was younger; but he still does on occasion, when she sits with him, even though she tells him she’s not going anywhere. The doctors say he wouldn’t grab and pinch her so if she would eat with him more, if she did all she could to reassure him. “Anxiety is normal in kids like him,” one doctor explained. But it hurts to even think of that. Her boy, afraid of a dark that won’t go away. James is the kind of sweet, obedient kid many mothers would die to have, and that’s why it’s so hard to feel this way: that she’d rather be alone in her own darkness than have to contemplate his. He stands up to meet her. It’s a small enough apartment, busy in the kitchen and two bedrooms, but sparse in the remaining areas. The living room where James stands and walks toward his mother has only a table and a few chairs. There’s also some kind of tan and beige furry carpet, not a pretty thing, and a small television set that is never on. “What now?” she says, placing her hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know. It’s my computer. It sounds like something hit it,” he says. “Let’s look.” She walks him back to his chair. James’s mother, Violet, has a kind, pleasant face, the generic type you’d find on the farmer’s wife in any book of tales. A permanent spot of blush here and there and a soft, pointy chin. She’s trim and short and looks a little more cushiony in places than she probably would if she were a few inches taller. “Have you tried restarting it?” she says, and he shakes his head ‘no.’ “First there was that sound and then I smelled something burning so I didn’t want to touch it.” “Let’s give it a try then,” she says. Nothing happens. There’s no beep, no whir, no light. “Yep, I think it’s fried.” There’ve been other moments like these, things going wrong at the worst times—lightning striking—so James’s mom remains calm though he is finding it hard to do the same. What’s happened? What’s going to happen? He likes typing on his computer. What about his paper for class? What about school tomorrow? What is wrong now, again? And why? His mother consoles him. “Don’t worry. We’ll get it fixed. The lightning must have struck it.” “But I need it.”

“I’ll call your teacher tomorrow. I’ll let them know,” says his mother. For James, and so for her, this is potentially another bigger-than-it-should-be problem. There’s no way of reading his face. His shoulders slump a little as he sits before the machine and, as he does most of the time, he accepts what she says. His face betrays no emotion. No anger, no fear, no sadness. He’ll wait until tomorrow. “And I’ll call your Dad,” says Mom, “I think he should know.” It’s turning out to be a very busy morning for James’s mom. While she gets dressed for her job as a nurse, makes breakfast, and takes a final look at the computer before packing it up. She’s on the phone now. “I think you should take care of it,” is the last thing she says before hanging up. They’re divorced and not on friendly enough terms for her to suggest James’s half-sister as a playmate. Their separation was a slight variation of a common story. The stress of a blind first-born son was too much for the both of them and she preferred not having to worry about how her marriage was holding up under the strain, about the competing advice of in-laws and everyone else. James’s condition was one thing enough to worry about. “I just spoke with Dad,” she turns around and says, a little surprised to find him standing right behind her. Who knows how long he’s been standing there, she wonders, and how does he do it?. These days he’s becoming even more insistent on doing everything himself. He didn’t wait for her to wake him up this time. She worries for him. He’s asked for a mountain bike. “What did he say?” “He’ll take care of it. He doesn’t think it’ll be a problem to get it working again.” “What about school?” “I’ll call. What do you want to eat?” “Toast.” The administrator who answers the phone at James’s school is a kind-sounding woman with a fine, high-pitched voice. “We’ll let his teachers know.” “I’m running a little late so he might be too,” she says. He only eats half of the toast but quickly puts away the fritters and banana pudding. Before long, he’s feeling his way down the hall. She checks to make sure he doesn’t bump into anything. “I’m fine, Mom,” he drawls in that way kids do. “I want to make sure you don’t burn yourself in the bath,” she says. It’s never happened, James scalding himself by accident, but she’s convinced he’s becoming a little too brave. He protests as she follows him to the shower: “I’m fine.” She stands there for a while as he strips and climbs over into the tub. He feels with both hands for the knobs and faucet and turns the cold knob. Slowly and carefully he sticks his fingers in the cold stream. He fumbles for the hot and turns that knob. He places both hands under the faucet, palms up; a few seconds are all he needs to test the water. Finally, he reaches for his washcloth with his right hand. He turns the hot water knob with his left, one last time, for a final temperature adjustment. He lathers up, and it does look awkward the way he does it, left hand over right. He soaps up with no trouble though and takes his bath. He’d prefer her not sticking around to watch, but soon enough, she leaves. His mother selects his clothes and lays them on his bed: a dark blue-and-white horizontal striped rugby shirt, a worn pair of jeans. “Jeeze.” It’s really late. The time on her watch says five minutes to go. Scrambly, skinny legs, like a delicate new fawn, James walks over to his bed in only his jockeys. He’s gangly like his Dad, all tied-up legs and arms, long and not long enough, his feet turn out slightly. It’s common in kids like him. Something about early childhood motor skills. Something the doctors said. Long lashes frame his downcast eyes as he feels along the bed until his fingers find his jeans. “We have to leave,” his mother tells him.

“Okay.” He’s still thinking about his computer and when he’ll get it back. Will he get it back? It’s going to be tough without it. It’s a normal computer, a computer like all others, something he has to keep explaining. It’s the kind of computer that normal people use and that normal people understand. You can type what you want to say and then have it printed out and there it is. Normal words in a normal language written in a totally normal way. Not something you have to explain. He can feel these are his favorite pants. They’re thin and smooth at the knees, with two pockets in back, and two in front, and they’re long enough to cover the tops of his feet. These are the jeans he selected himself when his mom took him shopping and the ones he wears skateboarding. As he slips into his jeans, springing off the ground in a little jump, getting ready to zip up, he thinks about his classes for the day, especially Mr. Rose’s. There’s supposed to be a test. His mother hands him his shoes and his cane. He places the shoes on the floor in front of him and rests the cane on the side of the bed. He finishes dressing himself and sits in his chair by the window, waiting for his mom to come in and pack his bag and comb his hair. He always combs his hair himself but then she pretends like he didn’t and immediately starts recombing before sending him off. Unlike yesterday, it’s very hot today. The sun rests harshly on his skin. He hears the cars and people down below. How far up am I, he wonders. Not very far. The cars are very loud and the people even louder. The elevator ride always makes it seem such a long way down. *

As the blind kid waits, fellow classmate, Omar, is already on his way to school. He hopes to avoid an old nemesis from the not-very-distant past. I hope I don’t see Cliff. I don’t need trouble. I try to tell my mom and dad that he’s the one who starts all the fights, but they don’t believe me, or they tell me that I have to learn to ignore troublemakers and turn the other cheek. I don’t see how you can ignore somebody who walks right up to your face each time to call you names. The other day I tried not saying anything or doing anything and he just stood there for a second, then shoved me to the ground and ran off. I don’t want him thinking he can get away with that all the time. I’m not afraid of him. Not when we were both at P.S. #2 and not now. Since I left for my new school he doesn’t bother me as much, but he still bugs me when he gets the chance. Last time I told him he’s just upset because I finally made it to junior high and he’s still in grade school and that made him really mad. I actually feel bad for him because he’s the oldest guy in his grade and he keeps getting sent back. Even his mom is embarrassed. She’ll call my mom to apologize for the way he acts. Says not even she knows what’s the matter with him. I would help him now that I’m getting better grades but that would probably make him even more mad. So I just avoid him, even though I hear, recently, he’s been avoiding me too. Normally my mom drives me to school, but sometimes I tell her I can take the subway. She always thinks something bad is going to happen but Dad will jump in and tell her that she should let me ride by myself, that the subways are safe and I’m a big boy and all of that. “Don’t spoil him,” he’ll say. “If someone wants to give you a hard time, you just give them a hard time back.” One minute he tells me I have to stop making trouble, then he’ll say something like that. I don’t think he’s happy about having to take me out of public school and sending me to this new school instead. The last time I griped about a problem I was having, he said, “It’s not free.” The school takes up a whole block and at one end of it you can see kindergartners inside their rooms doing art. They have the biggest playground, I think, but then ours isn’t too bad either. It’s big enough for a basketball court if they wanted one. The seniors hang out by the Korean deli across the street and pretty much everywhere else. They spill out into the street despite neighborhood complaints about them sitting on people’s cars, idling.

Our homeroom teacher, Mr. Rose, teaches English first period. He gives a lot of work and always acts like we’re driving him crazy, like we are giving him too much to do. We know he likes our drama teacher and goes to school himself. He’s in college. When I get to homeroom, I see Kerry and Laura there. They’re inseparable. They go everywhere together. They even dress alike. Hair in two ponytails at the side, tight blue jeans and pink jackets. I go to my table beside theirs and wait for the others to start showing up. I see Mrs. Brick talking to a woman outside by the door. The woman wears a long skirt and long-sleeved blouse and has long hair. She nods as Mrs. Brick talks to her, then looks in at us and looks around the class. She turns to Mrs. Brick and asks her something. They talk for a while until nearly everybody is in. Normally Mr. Rose would be here by now, but instead it’s Mrs. Brick standing at the door as the long-skirt woman walks toward Mr. Rose’s desk, which is stacked with a ton of papers and books. Mrs. Brick leaves and the woman by Mr. Rose’s desk opens her black leather bag and takes out a book. She puts it to the side and studies the sheet of paper Mrs. Brick gave her. No one else seems to notice her at all and everyone’s making a lot of noise. Mr. Rose would have told us to quiet down a long time ago. But as class is about to start, she gets up, walks in front of the desk and holds up both her hands. “Excuse me!” she says. “May I have your attention, please!” Still, no one pays her any mind, so she stops and places her hands on her hips. I feel sorry for her. It’s mostly Joel. He races up to his friends at the other table, jumps all around and gets the others excited. “C’mon everybody. Be nice.” That’s Laura. Little wisps of her fine hair stick up in the air, from static. She holds her book in front of her face like she’s hoping to disappear. If Joel doesn’t stop, the woman will think we’re all bad. But then everyone quiets down and she smiles and raises her hands again. “Hi. I’m substituting for Mr. Rose. He had to be somewhere else today,” she says. Her name tag says ‘Susannah Atkinson.’ Before she says anything more, Lui holds up her hand and asks to use the bathroom. “Is it an emergency?” I think the teacher’s ready to say something like, ‘don’t test me!’ We had a substitute once who would say that every time we asked her a question like that, could we use the bathroom or go to the water cooler. Lui is one of the cool girls. She hangs out with the kids who’re always talking about all these great parties they went to over the weekend. She’s the tallest of everybody and I can tell that scares some of the guys even though she’s sort of pretty and nicer than the other girls in her group. “Um, ok, never mind,” replies Lui. “So it’s not an emergency?” asks the teacher, and Lui shakes her head ‘no.’ “Mr. Rose did leave a quiz for you, so find your group and start your questions and let me know if you don’t have a copy of the questions. I have extras.” I start groaning along with the others. I was kind of glad Mr. Rose wasn’t here. I thought that meant no quiz. “No, no, no. We’re still on!” she says with a laugh. She stands with her hands full of papers and her arms folded to her chest as we move around to our groups. “What’s my question?” Joel asks her. “What group are you in?” “Four.” “Do number one.” “Aww, do I have to? Can I change?" “No,” says the teacher. “Do the question assigned to your group.” “Why do I have to get the worst question?” “How would you know that when you haven’t even read it?” I sit where I normally sit, in the right corner of the room. The only other person in my group is Malcolm. And James. James the blind kid has always sat at our table, so Mr. Rose let him stay with us. I think Mr. Rose was happy to have a ready-made group where we all got along with no squabbling. He had a harder time satisfying the rest of the class. Lui cried when he tried putting her with Joel and apart

from her usual group of friends. As for Joel and Rich and Jan, they like being together and fighting among themselves. Malcolm and I aren’t the best of friends, but our parents have gotten to know each other. We’re the only two black boys in the class. Malcolm’s mom is a lawyer and his dad is a college teacher. (My mom’s a librarian and my dad an electrician.) He’s been here longer than I have. I only started last year. He’s been here since kindergarten. We both sort of keep to ourselves and don’t have a lot of friends. He has a sister who’s almost a senior and pretends she doesn’t know him when she passes him in the hall. She’s part of a group that speaks in made-up-Shakespearean and likes to dress in velvet and lace. So Malcolm and I look out for one other even though we don’t have much to say to each other. I really start wondering about James though. He’s usually late, but not this late. And he’s never missed a day of school except once when he got the flu at the same time everyone was getting it. Maybe I’m closer to James than I am to Malcolm because Malcolm just doesn’t want to talk to anybody, but I think with James and me, other people don’t know what to say to us. We both just started and are still kinda new, and we both live far away from here anyway and I don’t think either of us lives in a house big enough for a party. We try finishing up our questions. I wanted to type my essay but Joel got to use the computer instead. I was sitting there first but he asked and told the teacher she had to let him use it since he asked and I didn’t. My question is on fate and I talk about what I would do if I had a pearl. If I had one, it would be because I’m really lucky. I don’t know if it would lead to bad things but I doubt it. It would have to be good. You could buy a lot of things if you had a big pearl like that. No secondhand anything. Maybe the reason why things turn out so badly for the people in the Steinbeck book is because they didn’t appreciate how lucky they were in the first place, and so they couldn’t help getting greedy. Maybe if they were happy with finding a pearl and left it at that and went on their way then everything would have been okay. But I write about what happened to the people in the book and I say what I would do if I was very rich. The teacher is reading a book and the room is very quiet. She has long brown curls and a short, diamond-shaped nose. The book has Charlie Brown and Snoopy on the cover. She looks around the room and then goes back to her book. Snoopy hugs Charlie’s legs and Charlie breaks out into his crumbly smile. The cover says “The Gospel According to Peanuts.” After spending the beginning of the class staring into space, Gina starts packing her bag. Her group sits right in front of the teacher and she stands up to tell her something. “I got a big bump on my head yesterday… I have permission to go.” I just notice how small she is and that she has knock-knees. Ms. Susannah gives her a ‘Yeah, right’ look, resting her book pages down on the table, she cocks her head to the side, raises her eyebrows and says, “Really.” Gina turns to the two other girls at her table and says— “She doesn’t believe me!” “It’s true!” Joel jumps in. “She’s supposed to go to the nurse.” “Really,” the teacher says with a smile. She won’t let Gina go. “No, it’s true,” the two girls at Gina’s table say. “She doesn’t believe me!” Gina says to the class, but a girl at Lui’s table says quietly, “She does have to go, it’s true.” Laura, the girl who told everybody to be nice, says it’s true too, and this time the teacher says, “Okay.” Just then, I hear James’s cane tap-tap-tapping up the staircase. I think he travels all the way across town to come to school, or maybe it’s because he’s blind, but a lot of times he’s the last guy to show up for class. It’s always just like five minutes or so, but this time he’s really late. I’m not sure how he gets to school but I wouldn’t be surprised if he walks the whole way by himself. He likes to do everything himself, which is fine because mostly everybody just leaves him alone anyway. He shows up with his big backpack and without his computer. He always has his computer. I think he can talk into it. I once saw him do that.

I don’t say anything to him, but I think he can tell that I’m here because he always knows where to stop and rest his bag. He doesn’t like to sit. He’s always standing. In place. By himself. Like he’s doing now. But not for long. He’s popular today and people are all around him in no time. “Where’s your computer?” somebody asks. “Did something happen to it?” asks someone else. “It got hit by lightning,” he says calmly. “Wow! That’s so cool!” says Joel, his eyes now almost out of his head. The teacher walks over to us and makes a shhing sound with her finger on her lips. “But his computer got hit by lightning!” responds Joel. “That’s quite enough,” the teacher says. “Why don’t you return to your seat?” “But…” “No,” she tells him. “But that’s so cool!” says Joel again. She turns around to face him, and he retells her in a whisper, like he’s hoping this time she’ll be impressed too. “His computer got hit by lightning though.” She leads Joel back to his table and shoos everyone else away. She stoops down to talk to the blind kid. “Hi, are you James?” “Yes,” he says. She’s very close to his face, almost like she’s staring at him. “I’m Susannah. I’m your teacher for today. I’m subbing for Mr. Rose.” “So you’re Ms. Susannah then?” he asks her. She laughs, “You can call me that, yes. I heard that you don’t have your computer? Is that right?” “Yeah.” “What happened?” “It was hit by lightning.” “Really?” “Yes.” “Oh, that’s too bad. So…” She looks at me. I try to help her. “He has a typewriter,” I say. “He has a Brailler? Where is it?” “It’s over here?” says Malcolm. He’s already standing by the machine. “Could you bring it over?” I go and help Malcolm bring it over to the table. I place it down in front of the blind kid. It’s small but heavy with only four or five buttons. Really big buttons, though. He rests his hands on the machine like he’s getting ready to type. “Let me know if you need anything,” says Ms. Susannah. “Okay,” he says. “Do you know what you’re supposed to do, by the way? “Um, no. What’s my question?” “What group are you in?” “One.” She’s holding a pink paper in her hand and some green and white ones too. “Your question is number two,” she says. “Could you read it for me, please?” “… several bad things happen to people in the novel after discovering the pearl. Give three examples of the role of fate in The Pearl. Fate is something good or bad…” “I know, I know,” he says quickly. “I know what fate is.” He wants her to skip ahead to the rest of the question, but that’s it. Maybe he just wants to get started.

He sort of looks at you when he’s talking or maybe just over your shoulder. He has normallooking blue eyes and he’s a serious kid, kind of like me. And Malcolm too. The three of us aren’t very close but we do all right together. Clack. Clack. Clack. That’s the noise from his machine. He hits the buttons hard and the sound fills the room. Everyone’s really quiet now because they have little time to finish their questions. He stops for a long time like he’s really thinking about the question, and he sighs. His hands are just resting on the buttons and he’s staring out with the cane handle resting on his chest. Did I mention, his white cane is as tall as he is? He lets out a bigger sigh after a while and then it’s clack, clack, clack again. Maybe he can’t help thinking so much. I could ask him what he’s thinking about. I get a copy of The Red Pony when I hand in my paper. The two tall stacks of paperback copies are almost all gone now since everybody finished writing and got their copy. James finishes too, both hands on his cane, and stands alone by his typewriter. Eventually Ms. Susannah picks up his Braille boards. They’re yellow folders with pin-head sized punctures. “You’re done?” “Yes,” he says. She goes over to the file cabinet again. She took out all the books before, so I don’t know what she’s looking for. She goes back to her desk and looks around before walking over to my table. “Is there a book for you?” she asks him. “Do you know where it would be?” “Mr. Rose would know,” he says. She searches her desk again and this time she goes through the drawers. She comes back over and looks at me. “Is there a Braille book?” she asks. “Mrs. R would know,” Malcolm says to her. She turns to James, “Who is Mrs. R?” “She’s a lady who prepares materials for me,” he says with a gentle inflection, but he also sounds like a little old man. He respects grown-ups and always answers their questions except sometimes I think he feels like it’s too much. At least that’s what I think he means when he sighs and sounds annoyed. She turns to me. “Could you find her?” she asks. “I don’t think she’s around. She only comes around sometimes,” I explain. “I could ask Mrs. Brick.” I get up to go look for her. “And ask her where his books are, please.” I leave and go downstairs to Mrs. Brick. She sends me back upstairs and tells me to go to the teacher next door. But the teacher next door doesn’t know where his books are either. I approach Ms. Susannah to tell her but she just looks at my face, purses her lips and turns on her heels. She walks quickly across the room to search the cabinets again, the ones against the wall. She walks back to her desk, pushes the books and papers around and then just stands there with her head down and her hands resting on her hips. James is no longer still. Everyone is now on to the next assignment, reading the same paperback that features a frolicking pony. Ms. Susannah and the next door teacher, who comes in to help, searches for James’s reading materials as he ambles around the room kind of aimlessly. We’re all trying to be good and read our books and, as usual, no one notices him; it’s like he’s not there. Ms. Susannah goes over to the blind kid and stoops to speak to him: “I can read to you if you’d like?” “Um, I like when people read to me and everything,” he says, “but…” He doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. “But you want to read for yourself,” she says. “Okay, I’ll find it.” She’s back to fumbling around at her desk when suddenly, she pulls out a yellow folder from a pile of papers in a book on her desk. It’s like she’s going to cry until that moment when her face lights

up—“Yes!” She walks over to the blind kid and gives him the folder. He makes his way back to our part of the room, sits down and rests his head on the table. I watch as his fingers glide down the yellow boards. Not long after, the period ends and it’s suddenly noisy. Ms. Susannah looks lost for a minute until the teacher from next door shows up and says something to her. She turns to the class before the other teacher is even out the door, and loudly says to us: “Okay, everyone. I want you to pack up your things, form an orderly line and go to the library.” She sounds like she means it this time and we slowly drag ourselves down to the library in pairs. James is alone in the back. Ms. Susannah is behind him, barking at us to hurry up. We have a free period that we alternate with drama. We’re supposed to just sit and read again but I don’t want to do that. We have the library to ourselves and decide to flop ourselves down on the floor and talk and play games. Rich doesn’t have any shoes on, and neither does Joel. Rachel brought crayons and is drawing a horse, a red pony, for Ms. Susannah. Malcolm brought his video game, so we can play against each other. I see Ms. Susannah talking to the librarian. “I’m not going to get them to sit quietly and read,” she says. “Well, they can do other things, but it has to be educational.” Ms. Susannah slings her bag back over her shoulders and uses a rubber band to put her hair in a ponytail. She walks over to Rich and Joel. “Where are your shoes?” “I do have on shoes,” says Rich. He’s wearing someone else’s. They’re obviously too small for him. Joel joins in with a mismatched pair. They continue to laugh until she goes away. “Is that educational?” she says to me. Malcolm answers yes, “It’s about farming. We’re learning farm management.” “I don’t think so,” she says. “From what I can see, you’re just exploding cows. Take out a book.” Reluctantly, I take out my copy of The Red Pony and continue to read. Malcolm is still trying to see how many cows he can explode. Several times she tries to get us to “do something educational,” but eventually she leaves us alone. We’re not that unruly and she seems happy with that. Again, James is by himself and making his way around the room without his cane. He stumbles around absently, stops for a while, then moves around again. He seems lost in thought. Like he thinks a lot. He stands by Peter and his friends, who are playing with action figures. I say, kind of quietly, “James wants to play.” Peter shouts back without looking or stopping, “He can’t play. You have to see to play this game.” James is still standing by them and it’s a long time before he moves. He moves over to us. Mrs. Brick comes in to talk to Ms. Susannah, who seems surprised to see her. Mrs. Brick looks around and fixes on Joel’s group. She says something to Ms. Susannah, who nods her head up and down, yes. She goes back over to Rich and Joel. They both walk upstairs to homeroom, I think, for their shoes. Ms. Susannah goes back to Mrs. Brick. She nods her head yes again and puts the book she was reading in her bag. Mrs. Brick walks out while Ms. Susannah looks at her watch, then stares out the window. I’m talking to Malcolm about what I want to be when I grow up. He says a hockey player. I say astronaut. I decide to ask James. “What do you imagine being?” “A truck driver,” he says. I don’t know what else to say except, “Why?” Ms. Susannah comes over to us and rests her hands on James. She tells the class that it’s time for recess. “And remember, you only get twenty minutes.” We rush to the door when she shouts: “No. Remember how you came in? A nice line please, and no yelling.” We’re two abreast and ready to leave.

“Ok,” she says. James moves away to get his cane then stands around waiting for her. As she gets ready to walk us out, she leans closer to him, and I hear her say, in a lowered voice, “Did you know you can’t be a truck driver?” “Yes,” he says, in that weary way again. And then, almost, like he’s ashamed, “I was just imagining.” Like Malcolm. Like me. Later on, at the end of the school day, I see James alone in the library. He’s waiting for his mom, and I pretend to wait for mine. He has his head on the table again and I don’t know if he’d want to talk to me. When I sit in front of him, he sits up and I ask him, “How come you never say anything to anybody?” “Well, nobody ever says anything to me,” he says. “They would if you let them. I don’t have a lot of friends either, but most of the time people still try to be nice.” “You were reading with everybody else today.” “Yeah…” “So I don’t know what you mean. I hope they’ll know where to find my books next time.” “I liked Ms. Susannah,” I say. “I thought she was very nice.” “I mean, I like her too,” he says. “I just hope she’ll know next time.” “How far did you get in The Red Pony?” I ask him. “Not far,” he says. “The pony dies in the first chapter,” I tell him. “It’s like everything gets sick and dies! I hate the book! I don’t think they should’ve killed the pony. I mean, he didn’t have to get…nothing had to be wrong with him. I mean the book’s named after him! I wasn’t expecting something to go wrong with him! They should’ve been able to fix him or something, so he wouldn’t have to die.” “Why?” “Well, first of all, it made the kid, Billy, very sad.” “I wonder what the pony thought of the kid,” he says to me. “How do you think he feels? Everything doesn’t have to be the way the kid wants it. Maybe the horse felt bad because the kid felt so bad. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad for the horse.” “The pony?” “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, they didn’t have to feel bad for him. Just do good. Whatever was best for the pony.” “Yeah, just do good.” I ask him if he has any pets. “No, I get scared of them.” “What do you play with?” “You mean, like toys?” he asks me. “Yeah.” “Teddy bears and things like that scare me too.” “So what do you do?” I ask him. “I read,” he says. “I like to read. My mom says I could be a poet, like Homer.” James’s mother shows up and instinctively he knows she’s there, or maybe it’s because I paused. He gets up to go and she asks me who I am. I tell her my name, as James stands there waiting, and staring, with both hands resting on his cane. She asks me about the both of us, am I good friends with James? He says, “Kinda but not really.” “Well, nice to meet you,” she says, and then they’re gone. *

He’s on his way to rehab and James sits in the front passenger seat with even more impassivity than usual. And now he’s developed this intermittent wheezing sound, a kind of soundtrack to his mind’s thoughts.

“Well, how did it go?” asks his mother. “When am I getting my computer back?” “It’s fixed,” she says. “School wasn’t so bad, was it? Did you have a hard time?” “I don’t want to be late anymore.” “We had an emergency this morning. Do you remember?” She’s sympathetic to his obvious frustration. “What happened today?” And now she’s really curious. “We had a sub. She was trying and everything but she couldn’t find my book.” “That’s not the first time, is it?” But of course, it doesn’t matter if it wasn’t. They travel in silence until she asks about his final destination for the day. “What about your work for rehab? Did you do your homework for that class?” “Yes,” he says, like the good boy he is. But why does he have to go? To normalize himself. He must become familiar with new techniques and gadgets and learn how to talk and play with others. Does he want to do well in life? Yes. Well, he has to learn these things. How to look people in the eye and maintain eye contact when they speak to you. How to use a knife and fork in a restaurant without calling attention to yourself. People expect certain things of you and you don’t want to disappoint. Why make them uncomfortable? You can’t keep saying things like, I could see the lost ball if I had long arms. People will laugh, but what do you do when you’re a man and it’s not so cute? There’re all kinds of things these days, computers you speak to and that speak back. You must learn to use them. Homer didn’t have all those things, but he was also a slave. Who wants to be a slave, and one unable to run away? His mother said none of this, of course. “How are you getting along with Mary Ann?” she says. She touches his cheek so he’ll respond. He lowers his head and blushes. He hears his blind friends’ voices, their laughter off in the distance. That means they’ve arrived. He looks forward to a hug from his favorite rehab schoolmate, Mary Ann. An affectionate girl with long arms.

David Groulx Scene Three: Booking Take off your boots Take off your belt Fold your pockets inside out And I do as I am told We need this to go smoothly Him and I We need to stay cool Because at any moment Things can go wrong for us Him and I We need to watch the body language Of each other Right now he needs to understand me and right now I need to understand him Stay calm: No sudden movements He takes my things and puts them into bag One eye on the bag One eye on me He motions me into another room Relax he says I need to relax I need this to go smooth He needs this to go smooth He needs to relax And there it is the light is grey the camera, a miserable black the paper is miserable grey the ink a sad blue index right finger first itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a good print Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happy He relaxes Did you try to have your prints burned off? He asks No, I burned my hand in a house fire I say

We do my left hand And everything is going smooth He good at it And me I’m an old hand He lets me wash my hands in a sink He waits The pink soap isn’t cleaning anything off I wipe what I can off With the rough brown paper My hands are blue He tells me to stand in front of the camera Face the camera Flash Face left Flash Face right Flash Any tattoos? Yes I roll up my sleeve Right Upper Arm Any scars? Yes I lift my shirt Right chest Where did you get the scar? A knife in a street fight I say And we say no more He leads me to the cells they are painted pink— To keep people calm So things can go smoothly For him the pink walls Have no effect

Erren Geraud Kelly Virginie ( Ver-john-nee ) We traveled to Paris from Long Island City, Queens, on the E train; her voice was rich with croissants and pain de chocolats, she told me â&#x20AC;&#x153;Paris was New York City Without steroids.â&#x20AC;? She spun my soul around like a windmill; I wanted to put her in my Movie. She would be good for walking along the seine river, with her legs long and sleek, flowing like gauze. Even the train smelled Better because of the fragrance on her neck, that lingered like a song.

SCC Creative Writing Club Showcase Houston Long I assemble and cry Agony grows with a faint sigh People judge my dissimilarity While voices slit my throat People will never understand, I sense. Will this ever converse? I ponder in my puddle of distress. Empty inside from not passing the test A puzzle that will never be mended Tears fill my palms with pain transcended The weight of unhappiness holds me down in suffocation Will this ever terminate? I may find out or I may not. Holes in my heart, Glass in my feet. Confusion becomes my broken light And my only wish is to gain sight; A sight that will guide and nurture my soul Fire within me creates a life toll Is there a way to alternate? Someday I will know the answer. Till then, I shall wait. Singing tunes about a broken existence, Marketing emotions, hoping for attention My dignity ceased long ago now. Today, I realize what it's all about. People will betray, Independence is the only way. Will the questions of unknown ever end? Maybe in your world, but never mine. Yes, today, I realize what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about.

SCC Creative Writing Club Showcase Nico Alexander L. Reyes To Write: Steven Han is a professional event coordinator; he works to create elaborate events from weddings and to the not so elaborate ones like birthday parties for children. Mr. Han is very passionate about his job. Although in some days his work seems to become the epitome of stress, but like other men, he decides to ignore it and keep on going to his ever stressful position of coordinating various events. There is limit however to how much stress a man can handle, and it wasn’t long until that fated day arrived to Mr. Han’s life. And it did. On a certain day in summer he woke up wondering if his life was any better before he decided to take the route of becoming what he is right now. At that point in time he lost his focus and often made arrangement mistakes, which lead him to be reprimanded by his supervisor a couple of times. That to him was already enough as a huge source of agitation, but another big blow awaits him that same summer. His mother experienced a heart attack while being confined in the hospital. Naturally, he rushed to the hospital room where his mother is confined, but he was late. It was perhaps the most horrible sight in his life, as he opens the door he heard a familiar sound that he often heard only on soap operas, the sound of a flat-line vital apparatus, thus meaning that his mother has already passed minutes before he arrived to the room. After he talked with the nurses about the funeral procedures, he sat on a bench just outside the room. He wondered if it was all right for him not to be with his mother at the very last time of her life, but saw no good excuse for himself. Truth be told, his mother was confined for quite some time already, but he refused to take care of her because he was busy working and instead he leaves everything to his younger brother. In the end, it was his fault for not being with his mother at the very last time, yet he decided that sulking wouldn’t improve the situation any better. As he stands up however, his brother gave him a pen. The pen was his mother’s memento of their deceased father. He inserted the pen to his pocket and was getting ready to leave, but his sorrowful brother said a couple of words that breached Mr. Han’s enduring spirit. “She called for you…” Those four words were enough to stick a bullet to Mr. Han’s enduring resolve and make him fall down to his knees and weep. Weeks have passed after the funeral; Mr. Han lived in a life of misery. He continues to question himself as to why he could not afford to lose his stressful job and be with his mother in her last days. Certainly, he lost his job because he was out of sync the next day after his mother’s death. Along his self-questioning, he is troubled by the words etched in his head: “She called for you…” Weeks have passed, but everything remained stagnant in his little apartment until one day he reached at the pen that his mother left for him. He noticed an engraved mark on the pen saying: “Use me to pave your way out!” He wondered for a while what it meant, but he certainly knew that his father had wanted him to write long ago before he chose the route of becoming an event coordinator. He, out of curiosity did as the encryption says, and started to detail the pain that was locked in his heart because of his mother’s death. By the time he ended writing, he ended up with a short story detailing all the things he felt after his mother’s death. What he understood was that the pen is somewhat a way to get out of the depression, a way to the freedom from the entire burden that he has long been carrying. And indeed, it did what he thought it would do; he felt sudden tranquility of writing down the thoughts detained in his soul. Not long after his first composition, he started writing more and more for he did not wanted serenity to fade away from his heart and be captured by depression once again. Every swing of his pen gave him the strength to continue his life, not as a stressed event coordinator this time, but an appeased writer of literature. Even with a lower funds coming from the sale of his works compared to his past job, he seems to enjoy it better than the latter and its good enough to sustain himself. He lived a simpler life than before, but was happier than ever. He does remember his parents however, and of course felt mournful every single time, but he found a route around that kind of situation by writing down what he felt and he most likely felt better afterwards. His whole life changed from complete misery to a life clinging to hope and tranquility. One night, when he is really tired he decided to write a poem dedicated to the pen that saved him at the darkest moments of his life. He did finish the poem however, regardless of how tired he was. He entitled the poem “The Pen.” He is happy to have finished the work, yet was peculiarly tired. So after finishing his poem he was overwhelmed by drowsiness and slowly and gently lean his head on his desk and after awhile fell into a deep slumber. What he did not know however is that it was the last day that he will ever compose literature with his mortal body. As

his consciousness awakes, he saw a place that sparkles in brightness. It was a land filled with angels flying around, but just as he was about to step towards the gate that leads towards the brilliant land, he remembered something that he always had with him, his pen. He looked for it on the pockets of his pants and in sheer desperation, he even took his coat off and look if it was stuck on it somehow, but his parents’ memento were nowhere to be found. Mr. Han cried hysterically as if a relative of his suddenly died. It is indeed like a death to him because the pen is the manifestation of his parents. To Mr. Han, having the pen means that his parents were always there with him and guiding him to the right path, but without it he’s lost. As he weeps, he unknowingly walks towards the land of brightness and heard two familiar voices singing. He looked up and saw two flying beacons slowly descending towards him. He kept his eyes open even if the light was almost blinding. He can’t believe what he saw with his very eyes, it was his mother and his father. He immediately ran towards them and embraced them, what he did not notice however was that there was a pair of wings that grew from his back as he hugged them. The wings were pure like snow in color like his mother and father’s wings. He was flustered at first at the thought that he could now fly on the skies above, but happily accepted it because he was with his parents. Together the family ascended up above the mid-air as cherubs. And they started singing songs of happiness, all of which he recall because they were his lyrical poems of joy and happiness while he was still living as an appeased writer. He then acknowledged that his parents have always been with him. They may not have physically existed, but their love was, is, and will always be present through the words that he wrote down on paper through his pen. The Pen In times of peril he clings unto IT, Tightly and smoothly as to feel repose. Oh, union so great that his soul is free; Swinging ‘till delight has greatly arose! Never did he expect such potential Lying in the lone island of his soul. By then he understood the beauty of a verse And reveres them as the instruments that disperse. Drafting by every letters possible, He dismisses his soul to the canvas, But on the night of another union, His sleep brought eternal–termination. His desk was eerie and IT lies down on the ground, With a wish like his, to merge yet again! He likewise is craving and aspiring rebound: Back to his table to draft once again! He then recognizes the sight, Eden; Where the angel sings, and the faithful clings! In sheer desperation, he clasps his hands, And the salvation he sought therefore lands. And so he chants his poetry as a cherub, For their union has proved, that no one can remove– His passion that will forever ignite. Because to write will always be his light!

SCC Creative Writing Club Showcase Latisha Robinson In Your Eyes This is a very rare occurrence, few and far between have it, but it’s something I’ve witnessed with my very own eyes.... Beyond the sparkle, in your eyes I see Heaven and Hell. Have not seen this in many pairs of eyes, but oh, the bliss and fury in yours took me to another time and place. Falling, falling, falling--- then up, up, up and away in Heaven’s grasp. Please let me stay in that sparkle and glimpse of Heaven I see in your eyes. The innocence, the reassurance, the comfort of the Heaven in your eyes makes me feel so safe. Makes me look directly in your eyes, as I could not accomplish this before, so shy I was, but now I smile and love looking into your eyes. I get so lost, my heart starts to flutter, I don’t want to leave.... I close my own eyes and see yours, but suddenly, snapped back into reality--there is the devious sparkle of Hell’s fury in your eyes, so hot and intense, I must figure out how to get the Heaven back, but for now, I just look away and await that Heavenly sparkle’s return, the other half to the Heaven and Hell, I see, In Your Eyes.

Bradley Derek Tyler Who Am I? Where are my keys? I always leave them on the hook. And where is my purse, With my money and checkbook? Now where was I headed?I know I was going somewhere. Oh, now I remember, But why would I go there? What did I come in this room for? There had to have been a reason.Is today someone’s birthday, anniversary, or special time of season? Who is the man in this picture? And why is his arm around me? You say he is my husband, Well that just can’t be! Where am I? This house seems such a strange place. Nothing evokes a memory, Nothing, not even a trace. Who are you? You’re a stranger – not a child of mine. All this talk of family Just crowds and weakens my mind. Who am I? Everything’s new and strange. I just don’t know anymore. I guess I’ll slowly drift away.

SCC Creative Writing Club Showcase Michael Brown Africa Strangers disrespected her being by invading her Deemed a savage and unkempt Strangers forcefully penetrating themselves into her To change her by Her Identity Her Purity Her Thoughts Her sporadic movements to rid herself of these Strangers fail in vain Strangers chain and whip her Slowly working themself down the contours of her body They push and pull her against their body As the Strangers grope and fondle The rush of pleasure overwhelms them A climax of epic proportions comes This unfortunate ordeal finally ends Hoisting themselves on her back as they survey their newly conquered territory Continuing to assert their dominance like mother-nature over mankind.

Cling I cling to you like a babe to its motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s breast Our love has grown into a flowering black orchid Paralyzing me with that gaze so pure and innocent The conviction of your touch covert and vexing The taste of your lips sensually yet venoms And makes my senses react as the moon pulls on the ocean current

River runs The moon blue of light and pale of color lights your path The bottom of the river calls you taunting you You see for a minute the sweet release form a world of loathing Washing you of your sins and pain Clinching your sweaty palms You descent releasing your inhibitions You plunge into the dark and tranquil water Descending the water washes you of your pain and sorrow Bringing a new beginning to an old world

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: ROYCE RAY POETRY AWARD 2015-2016 Prize of $100 ______________________________________ Columbus County poet Royce Ray published two collections of poetry, Gallberry Honey: Pure, Unrefined Poems (1992) and The Flip Side (2007). His poetry has appeared in Aries One, the Brunswick Free Press, the Federal Reporter, N.C. Poetry Society, Award Winning Poetry, Orphic Lute, and Thoughts For All Seasons. _________________ The award is open to all North Carolina Residents. Send 3 to 5 poems, with biography, to allison.parker@sccnc.edu. Entries accepted April 1-October 31. The Royce Ray Poetry Award is sponsored by generous donations from the Royce Ray Estate.

A.R. AMMONS POETRY CONTEST 2015 Call for Submissions: Monetary Prizes awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners, with certificates for honorable mention. First place winner will be published in Aries: A Journal of Art and Literature. 1. Division V shall be for original poetry written by students enrolled in undergraduate college coursework. Eligible individuals will be those enrolled at the time of submission in an undergraduate course in a North Carolina college or technical school or those enrolled in out-of-state undergraduate institutions who are residents of Columbus County. 2. Each entry must be accompanied by its own Official Entry Form or a copy. A student may enter up to five poems. (Contest Rules and the Entry Form may be downloaded at www.whiteville.com. Click on A.R. Ammons Contest Rules.) Sponsored by BB&T, Rueben Brown House Preservation Society, and The News Reporter.

SUBMISSIONS Aries: A Journal of Art and Literature accepts submissions of art and literature May 1 to October 31 each year. Send work as a Word (writing) or JPEG (art) attachment, along with contact information and biography, to: Fiction & Creative Nonfiction: Poetry: Art:

Patricia Bjorklund - patricia.bjorklund@sccnc.edu Allison Parker - allison.parker@sccnc.edu September Krueger - september.krueger@sccnc.edu

ISSUES Current and back issues of Aries: A Journal of Art and Literature issue is available for free online at www.issu.com or via our facebook page. All sales and proceeds contribute to the nonprofit publication of the journal. To order the current issue, please send a $5 check or money order to: Aries PO Box 151 Whiteville, NC 28472 Like us on Facebook! fb.com/AriesSCC