Loomings 2011

LOOMINGS

2011 The Vibrant & The Obscure 1

Loomings Volume XLII

2011

Cover Art Front: Color Wheel ~ Angela Nelson Back: Untitled ~ Elizabeth Szalewski

Dear Reader -

Editors-in-Chief Francis Petruccelli Jill McFee Prose Editor Rachel Bailey Poetry Editor Harry Ruedi Art Editor Chloe Donaldson Layout Angela Nelson Humam AlMukhtar Advisor Dr. Michael Stigman Published by Benedictine College 1020 N. 2nd St. Atchison, Kansas 66002

How many moments of your life slip by without being caught by the eye? By the ear? By the skin? By the heart? How often do we consume life without tasting it? The joy of art is precisely the heightened awareness it brings to both artist and audience. The artist sees more, hears more, feels more; he or she not only lives but knows the taste of living. As Henry James advised to writers, and indeed, to all artists: we are to be the ones “on whom nothing is lost.”

Art is capable of rendering the vibrancy of life permanent. It is equally adept at unveiling the obscure, giving it new form and radiance. For this reason, we have chosen “The Vibrant and the Obscure” as the theme of the magazine this year. The stories, poems, pictures, and drawings are arranged in the magazine under the guidance of a color wheel. We hope you enjoy the artistic efforts of your fellow classmates, and we ask that you allow yourself to become enriched by this magazine. You too may be one on whom nothing is lost.

Thank you for reading!

Francis Petruccelli and Jill McFee Editors-in-Chief

Materials appearing in Loomings may not be reproduced or reprinted without the express written consent of Benedictine College and the authors of each work. Writers, poets, photographers, and artists contributing to Loomings retain full rights to their work and need not obtain permission from Benedictine College for reproduction.

Cost per copy $6.00; copies free for students; 750 copies.

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It is a summer of uncertainty. As they all are.

Hydrangeas lay their overgrown heads through the white rails penetrating a floor afflicted with crushed cans and stale butts.

They give their perfection to this sullied space and crown it with a strange beauty.

Your songs come through with a forced tone on a small white computer. Sirens are fading in the background.

We sit here too often I think.

I think.

Silent Conversations Joslyn Marko

This slim space opens to view the world from a secluded perch.

Fringed in chimes and hanging plants, we are protected.

We are seated explorers in this narrow aisle.

Years have I sought asylum here.

Escaping to melt my mind on your white wicker.

Questions fall from our mouths, oddly shaped and sometimes heavy.

Hitting the floor with no expectations, we leave them there to look at.

The rest we have is silently held.

Contemplating in company.

We rest here, in the eye of the existential storm.

We will become restless I think.

I think.

Adam’s Eyes Cynthia Jensen

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Playa, El Salvador~Nick Porretta

Ocean

Leslie Naden

You held my hand when I first saw the strip of blue-meets-green Pacific as we approached the pier stretched out like an elastic string before us.

After we walked the white-spattered pier, we let the ocean touch our feet, feeling the sand implore our toes to remain forever.

You held my hand and we watched the waves unfurling like the uncurling walls of a dying tornado.

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Paragonia Ean Henninger

Abridged

It was a late spring afternoon in London, and Perpetua Norm had just decided to found her own country. This was not a rash impulse brought on by a burst of youthful idealism, as her parents would no doubt mischaracterise her forthcoming disappearance, but rather a reasoned and well-informed notion that she had been seriously contemplating for quite some time now. [...]

The immediate impetus for her decision was a tiff she had just had with her parents over the subtleties involved in having a right and proper teatime. It was sadly apparent to Perpetua that Lord Terabinth and Lady Condraline Norm did not regard herring snacks and dried pineapple as proper accompaniments to tea. It was possible that they meant well, but was it really necessary for them to be so petty over such a small, private matter? It was a trifle on the face of it, and she had endured such arguments before, but the accumulation of disagreements on almost every conceivable aspect of English life had worn her down over the years and finally touched a nerve, such that she could no longer bear to suffer them. [...]

This new country, she had decided, would be named Paragonia, since that was one of her goals: the creation of a paragon for other governments to appraise. As far as she could tell, the business of setting up a new nation in such a manner was an entirely new and unexplored enterprise, but one of the guiding tenets of her philosophy on life, such as it was, was that just because something had not been attempted did not mean that it was impossible. [...]

A few nights later, Perpetua sat on her bed, surrounded by charts and figures and lists, and mused aloud to Dilettante, her shorthair cat and the future mascot of Paragonia.

“I think we’ll need some more settlers: scientists, engineers, vicars, farmers...two of some jobs, but not all. It might have done for Noah, but we can only fit so many on the boat.” [...]

All the necessary components were coming together nicely, she thought. She had already made a trip to the country to get some farmers and fishermen on board and sounded out a few of the people with whom she kept in correspondence through various letters, but she still needed more people to colonise Paragonia properly. They would probably be concerned with basic subsistence for the first little while, but the more educated people they had, the less they would have to reinvent the wheel later on, so to speak. [...]

In addition to gathering settlers, she had purchased a fine ship earlier that day. She had elected to do business with Woolwich Dockyard, England’s Largest Purveyor of Nautical Vessels Since 1771, and the gentlemen at Woolwich had been only too happy to oblige her in shedding a portion of the Norm fortune. [...]

She had arranged for Woolwich to have the ship moved to Ballingsgate Dock so she could load it with supplies and people, bade farewell, and strolled on out.

Patchwork parasol spinning over her shoulder, Perpetua wandered into the eclectic mess of Hilligoss Appurtenances and Sundries the next morning and cleared it of a significant portion of its inventory

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Early Traveling~Johnny Severson

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within the hour. Old Mr. Hilligoss was charming as always in his animated, vivacious fashion, and he was positively delighted by the thought of young Miss Norm going off to start a new country. [...]

“Good for ye,” he cackled, rubbing his hands together. “Givin’ the children more things to learn in school. Very civic-minded of ye.”

Perpetua tossed Mr. Hilligoss a mock salute and asked him whether he had any suggestions on what else she might need. His bushy eyebrows did a little dance as he contemplated the question.

“Well,” he ruminated, “ye’ve not bought a flag yet, and ye’ll need a flag. Flags come in handy for all manner of things, and it just so happens that I have me a flag-making kit in this shop. Sedgwick and Southworth. Top notch quality, ye know.”

More nimbly than one might have thought possible, he dodged an Indian man loaded with swaths of fabric, clambered over a bookshelf full of interesting binoculars, and disappeared behind a rack of pomegranates, which wobbled as he struggled with something beneath it. He triumphantly popped back up with a faded brown box with drawings of various flags all over it.

“This has everything ye’ll need to get started,” he proclaimed. “Cloth, stencils, scissors, the lot.” [...]

“So you really believe I can do it?”

“I believe ye can do it, girl,” he said, “but whether ye can do it well is another matter. Ye’ve got a chance to make a new start, but ye’ve also got a brain what’s been stewin’ in the paradigms and standards of another culture. Mind yer mind, that’s all.”

Perpetua assured him that she was quite able to avoid bias and wrote out a rather large cheque to Mr. Hilligoss for the goods. She had got everything but the galley sink, which they hoped to have in by Thursday. She left the shop through its back door and surveyed the enormous pile of supplies taking up most of Mr. Hilligoss’s loading courtyard, then regarded the steam cart that she had rented to transport the pile.

“I might have to make a few trips,” she nodded decisively.

That afternoon, after loading up the ship, Perpetua set up a booth down by Ballingsgate Dock with a banner over it advertising thus:

TLANTIC VOYAGE TRAINING CREW NEEDED FOR TRANSA Y’RE ON ABOUT, ONLY PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THE PLEASE TEACHING EXPERIENCE BENEFICIAL

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APPLY BELOW

She had named Ballingsgate in her advertisements as the place for interested parties to find her, so she hoped to be able to gather both settlers and crew over the next few days. Interest in her venture had been quite heartening thus far. It seemed that she was not the only one looking for a fresh start on things.

Some passers-by could be heard grumbling that it was bad luck for a crew to have a woman on board, but others pointed out that it was really the woman who was having the crew on board, and so the grumblers passed on their way, momentarily confused, if not mollified. [...]

A tall, dark-haired young man came to the fore. Though by no means a dandy, he was dressed in a way that bespoke nobility.

“Hello!” she said, giving her parasol a twirl.

“Any questions about the venture?”

“Miss Norm, I presume?” he asked softly.

Perpetua’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know my name?”

“We’ve communicated before,” he said, bemused. Perpetua blinked, then suddenly matched his Scottish accent to one of the addresses in her little book of correspondents.

“Finn! I thought you weren’t coming!”

A wry smile twisted his mouth. “Funny how being disowned can change one’s plans.”

Perpetua’s mouth fell open as she appreciated the depths of Finn’s troubled relationship with his parents. From what she had gathered in his letters, it was even more troubled and antagonistic than hers.

Although coexistence with her parents was far from pleasant, she would never have regarded being disowned as a possibility.

“That’s awful,” she breathed. “Are you making out all right?”

He shrugged. “I can’t say I’m terribly bothered.”

“Well, welcome to the fringes of polite society, then.”

Finn shifted, evidently eager to change the subject. He inclined his head toward the ship.

“Does she have a name?”

“The christening’s for later.”

“Ah.”

“Well—we’re leaving Friday. Do you have lodging?”

He nodded. “I was given a pittance to get by on.”

“All right,” Perpetua said. “Well, I dare say I shall see you then.”

Finn gave a slight bow and turned to go.

Perpetua remembered something. “Finn!” He turned back. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

The ghost of a smile flitted across his face.

“Likewise, Miss Norm.” He disappeared into the

crowd. Perpetua gazed up at the sea birds circling in the sky above and smiled as well. This endeavour was going most interestingly—the best way to go, in her opinion.

A bottle of champagne shattered into a hundred green shards, further polluting the Thames as it struck the hull of the newly baptised Sealander.

“I told you not to do that!” Perpetua yelled at a bewildered Woolwich representative as the Sealander pulled out of Ballingsgate Dock.

“A waste of perfectly good champagne,” she pronounced to a colonist who happened to be walking by.

In just seven days, Perpetua had gathered unto herself the makings of her very own colony: Farmers, fishermen, a teacher, engineers, families, a writer, a vicar, dispossessed nobility, and many more besides. They numbered two hundred and forty-two, all told, and they were a motley crew, but they had one thing in common: The dream of a new, better life for themselves.

For Perpetua’s part, after leaving a cyphered note on her bed for her parents to find and eventually decode, she had turned her face to the sea and not looked back, save to berate the man from Woolwich.

Now they were sailing down the Thames with nothing standing between them and the open sea.

From behind her came the sound of leather shoes clicking across the deck. Turning, she was gratified to see Finn come up to the railing and join her. His letters had shown a keen mind of exactly the sort she wanted for her new country. He was a bit of a mystery for all that, but she was sure there would be time enough for them to become better acquainted.

“A fine ship I’ve picked out, don’t you think?”

“Very fine, miss.” His dark eyes tracked a passing barge, then turned to look at Perpetua.

“I must confess myself curious, Miss Norm.

I may have missed the finer points amid our correspondences, but I don’t believe you ever mentioned just why it is that you want to found a new country. Why not emigrate to a place like America and work within the society to change it?”

“Change!” Perpetua gave a sharp laugh.

“I tell you what, Finn, people talk about change a good deal, but they enact that change much less quickly and frequently. Now if I’m going to change something, I’m not doing it halfway. Instead of fighting societal ills from within the culture, wouldn’t starting a new and improved society be much easier?

The Americans have done something like it, and it’s a fine start, but even they haven’t got it all right. But do you know what they are doing? They’re setting an example for other countries. Just look at South

America and all its revolutions!” There was a wild gleam in her eye as she looked to the horizon.

“I’m going to do the same, only not quite so violently, and once we find a modest, unclaimed island somewhere, I should be able to get by without having to revolt against the Crown and deal with all that bother.”

“And what do you have against the Crown?”

“Ah, shall I lay it out for you?” she smiled.

“Well, we’ll go with the short list. Social stratification, government corruption and inefficiency, and treating people like commodities simply has to go.

Repressive gender roles, double standards, and unhappy marriages are rampant, living conditions in London are grimy and crowded, and...”

Her eyes darted up for a moment as if scanning through a catalogue of grievances. “Also, I’m not entirely keen on things like cricket and Parliamentary democracy sticking around.”

“All that and cricket, too? That seems a bit harsh,” Finn said wryly.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Perpetua yawned. “It’s a perfectly horrid sport.”

America! Such was the talk among those on board the Sealander as they first came into sight of the southern portion of that grand continent. After traversing the Pacific, they had weaved through the Caribbean isles and were now skirting the South American coast. [...]

Perpetua herself had mostly been perusing

Frozen~Kathleen Shaneyfelt

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maps, lecturing the people on Paragonian government, and advising the pilot and crew in her role as captain. It was a constant annoyance to her that practically every place they had visited was under either Spanish or French control, and every island that might have been worth having was already inhabited by other colonists who were most reluctant to move. They had meticulously checked the coasts and islands against their store of maps, hoping for something to claim, but had found nothing of import. Thus Perpetua had decided to push south and not go ashore until they were past the equator.

Today they had just come within sight of an archipelago that was possibly ill-defined, which was to say that not all the islands that were there in real life seemed to be on the maps they had. Perpetua saw a definite possibility that they could claim innocence and blame the cartographers for any error perceived by the Brazilians.

“I say, isn’t that a ship?” someone called. Perpetua extended her telescope and peered through it. Indeed, coming around the side of one of the islands was a naval frigate flying the Brazilian flag.

“Oh, good,” she said tightly, “we won’t have to get out the rowboats.” The frigate drew alongside the Sealander. They were about the same size, but the frigate was clearly armed. A man shouted across to them.

“Prepare-se para ser abordado!”

“Is that Portuguese?” Perpetua asked a colonist whose name she didn’t know. “Do we have anyone who speaks Portuguese?” Perpetua only had a bit of German and French herself. It transpired that Mr. Darkin, a naturalist and philosopher they had on board, could speak Spanish passably well, so she elected to try him out.

The captain of the naval frigate crossed a gangplank to the Sealander and stepped onto the deck, accompanied by four armed soldiers. He strode right up to Mr. Darkin and fixed his dark eyes on the scientist, who to his credit returned the eye contact unflinchingly.

“Que país você é?”

Mr. Darkin bowed and said something in Spanish, and the captain responded in kind. Darkin turned and explained to Perpetua.

“He would like to speak to the captain, who I’m telling him is you.” He shot something at the captain of the Portuguese ship, who stared at her in disbelief.

“¿Una chica?”

Perpetua could guess what he was saying.

“There’s no need to act so surprised about it.” More than a little testily, she explained through Darkin that they were colonists in search of land on which to start a new country, and if they could please have those islands over there that didn’t seem to be on

Bridge Over Troubled Water~ Tina Schik

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the map that would be splendid. The captain explained, also through Darkin, that the islands in question were under the control of the Brazilian government regardless of whether they were on a map or not, and he did not think the government would be very keen on giving them to a boatload of strange English types anyway.

“Are you sure we couldn’t have just a couple of them?” Perpetua asked. Darkin sighed and relayed the question.

“There is a penal colony on the largest one,” he reported back. “If you wish to try your luck as neighbours he will ask his superiors, but he doubts it will be possible.”

Perpetua sighed. “Never mind; it’s not worth the bother. We’ll just soldier on, then.” Darkin communicated this to the captain, who bowed to Darkin and gave an awkward jerk of the head to Perpetua.

He and his men returned to their ship and sailed off.

As the Sealander moved on, Perpetua gazed through slitted eyes at the receding islands. She was beginning to have a slight apprehension that she might have been born a couple centuries too late.

“He had a bit of a fancy jacket there, eh?” It was the colonist she had addressed earlier, now addressing her in entirely too familiar a fashion.

“Oh, give it a rest,” she snapped. “Go and make yourself useful.” The colonist looked taken aback, but did as he was told.

“I’m going to the map room,” she declared to nobody in particular. There had to be some uncharted or unclaimed land somewhere, and she was absolutely going to find it. If there wasn’t, what was the point of all the expeditions that went on out of England?

Pale moonlight spread itself over the water as a band of orange along the landlocked horizon proclaimed the sun’s last stand. Perpetua fanned herself as a meagre breeze limped by. She had just got done telling off a young couple for being wasteful with their food allotment, and it had got her rather more agitated than usual.

They were well past the equator now, and if they didn’t find land they would soon be heading out of the tropical climes and into the winter of the Southern Hemisphere. Nonetheless, the climate was still quite warm, even after sunset, when the sky was a deep purple. Footsteps on the deck announced the presence of Finn.

“Good evening,” he said.

“Good evening,” Perpetua returned. “I take it you’re just off your shift?” He nodded. They stood in silence for a moment. Perpetua was not particularly inclined to converse at this time, so if Finn was going to say anything, he would have to do it on his own.

She wasn’t going to encourage him. He cleared his

throat.

“Perpetua...may I be frank?”

“I dare say you’ll find you can,” Perpetua said warily.

“Well,” he said, “with all due respect...it’s just that I’ve been making note of your behaviour recently, and I must say, I think you’ve been...well, deteriorating, sort of.”

“How do you mean?” Her eyes narrowed.

He took a deep breath. “I mean that you’ve acted rather hypocritically at times. You have talked at length about equality in all aspects of life, and while I have seen that you are capable of being decent to other people, when something happens that you don’t like or that you have to really work for, you revert to form. You act like...like an aristocrat.”

“And how am I like an aristocrat, exactly?”

Perpetua’s voice was hard and level.

Finn set his jaw. “Lazy. Domineering. Dismissive. Not all the time,” he said slowly, “but enough that it shows. I believe that letting one’s actions speak for one’s beliefs is by far the better course, and I follow that to the best of my ability. You might consider the same.”

“I can see why your parents disowned you,” Perpetua snapped her fan closed. Finn winced almost imperceptibly.

“Bad form indeed, miss.” He turned and went below deck before she could retort.

Miss. How condescending. She might have expected such judgement from other people on board, but she would have thought Finn, of all people, would understand her. It was really just too much. Piqued in the extreme, she flung her fan into the sea, then just as suddenly, all the fight went out of her, and she slumped against the rail. Finn was right. She was used to getting everything she wanted, even if it wasn’t everything her parents wanted, and now that she wasn’t getting it, she was falling apart. Sighing, she turned away from the sea and went below decks.

[...] Perpetua leaned on the rail and stared at the dark, unbroken coastline. This close to land, the sky was a shining, endless grey, reflected by the rustling water. It felt as if they were trapped in a giant clam shell, with land being the hinge and the sea and sky two enormous halves. If the hinge was not there, she thought, those halves would just fall away and they would be free.

“Brilliant,” she sighed. She had been in a dismal mood ever since her confrontation with Finn.

Though part of her was still holding out, she had to admit that she had been guilty of many of the same follies as her parents. [...] And now she had brought these people with her, promising them a new life

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that now seemed unattainable. She didn’t deserve to lead them, but she didn’t know what to do but to press on. As she gazed down into the water shadowed by the boat, she felt a kindred spirit in the darkness of the depths below her eyes.

A smooth chunk of driftwood meandered alongside the boat as a solitary sea bird swooped down and landed on it. A crest from the Sealander nudged the wood enough to upset the bird, which screeched and flapped its wings. The driftwood bobbed down as the bird pushed off, then righted itself and floated off in a slightly different direction.

An unexpected breeze rustled Perpetua’s hair. She remained in the same position for a moment more, no longer looking into the water so much as beyond it, then she straightened up and thumped the rail. It seemed to be made of good, solid wood. She turned around and inspected the deck, taking in each detail with the appraising air of a realtor who has just walked into somebody’s home. It was better than any of her other options, she thought, but first, there was something else she needed to do. With newly found resolve, she strode across the deck and rang the ship’s bell.

“All hands on deck!”

As she watched the curious people trickle up from below, it occurred to her that this was the first time everyone on board the Sealander had been gathered together on deck. It was a lot of people, and a good way to start, she thought. Perpetua took a deep breath and cleared her throat. If this went over on the ship’s crew like a tonne of bricks, she could well go over the ship’s edge like a petite nineteen-year-old.

“Well. Ah. As you’ve probably noticed, we’ve had a spot of difficulty finding an island to colonize, but I would like to extend my thanks to all of you for being a decent sort of lot in bearing with me and not mutinying so far.” She cringed and immediately wished to retract her statement. Better not to lead them to the idea if they hadn’t already got there, she thought. “I’ve got two items of business here, both of which I think are rather important.”

“Now, I’ve got a new plan, but first, there’s something else. I know this whole venture was my idea and that I’ve had much to do with it, but there’s a bit of a problem. I have been quite remiss in displaying many of the qualities which I ought to expect of a Paragonian leader, and I—I think—” Her voice caught in her throat. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves.

“I have failed to enact change.” The soft whisper of the waves was the only sound on the ship. She sensed nothing coming from the crowd, positive or negative, but she had come this far. She might as well finish what she had started.

“I acknowledge the possibility that I am not

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the best person to lead you all. I think we—or I—assumed my leadership as a given fact. I know I was acting like it, in any event. But my intent really is for us to be a full democracy, so if you want to elect someone else to be our President, please do.”

The continuing silence brought out further doubts in her mind. What would she do if someone else became President? After weeks at sea, she still had only the most basic knowledge about working on a ship, and none of the training that the other colonists had. Her skill set mainly consisted of ordering people around and gleaning abstractions from books. A small sigh escaped her nose. If she had to scrub the decks, so be it. If she didn’t return to her ideals, she would end up with little better than a miniature dictatorship.

“Anyone?” she asked. There was still no response. “Look, just because I’m the one proposing the election doesn’t mean you should act afraid of me.” She decided to let her actions speak for her and walked down the stairs from the poop deck.

Moving to stand among the people, she turned and faced the ship’s wheel along with them.

“I nominate Miss Norm.” A deep voice with a Scottish accent came from behind her.

“I second that!” someone else said.

“All in favour of Miss Norm, hands up!” came a shout from somewhere in the crowd. Looking around, Perpetua saw a sea of hands arise as others pushed her forward.

“No other nominations?” Perpetua paused.

Like her, many of the people had been trained to hold the aristocracy in higher regard. But she could work to change their minds, and if she had to do it as their president, then so she would. “Well, if you insist,” she sighed. “Though I do think a term limit would be a good idea.”

There were some cheers and applause.

“Well, now that we’ve decided on that,” Perpetua said, “I have a new idea about this whole colonization thing. Actually, it’s not a new idea so much as a realization, but I’d like you all to hear me out. I’ve—I’ve found our country. I’ve found Paragonia, and do you know what? It was right under our noses all along! We’ve been viewing this ship as a means to an end—a fine end, to be sure, but what if the ship were the end itself?” [...]

“Most of you came out here looking for freedom, and that’s what this boat is: freedom! Now, I know some of you turned out just looking for work, and we’ll be happy to let you off at the port of your choice, within reason and with compensation. With a little ingenuity, the rest of us can live off the sea.

It’ll take a lot of hard work and some getting used to, but we can do it. We can make this ship our country.”

She paused, breathless, and looked at the

“Where’s our flag, then?” someone shouted.

“Capital notion!” Perpetua said, snapping her fingers. She slid down the railing, hurried down to her quarters, and removed a piece of folded black fabric from its shelf. She went back up on deck, and, letting it fall open, revealed the flag of Paragonia.

Its design had been inspired by some experiments in optics which she had read about: A white ray of light struck a prism, viewed from the top, and split into multiple rays of coloured light. It was nicely symbolic of unity and diversity, she thought. She handed the flag to two young men, who walked over to the Sealander’s central mast and hoisted it up to further cheers and applause.

“It looks like some of them still think you know what you’re doing,” Finn remarked mildly as he climbed the stairs and took the wheel.

“I’ve always known what I’m doing,” Perpetua laughed and followed him. “Just not for very long before I do it.”

“Do we have a bearing, Madam President?”

“Head east,” Perpetua smiled.

Everything now seemed perfectly clear to her: Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, James T. Cook, and all their lot had made it so that the only really sensible course for starting new countries these days was to make ones that moved. They might have been giants, and she might be just a young, upstart runaway, but she and her Paragonians—no, the Paragonians—would chart a new course, and in time, who knew? Perhaps they would indeed become a paragon for other countries.

Paragonia’s journey had only just begun.

Trespasses~Nick Porretta

gathered people.

“A ship as a country?” asked one of the colonists. “Aren’t countries meant to stay in one place?”

“Of course not! Whoever said a country can’t move about?”

“Er—no one, I suppose...?”

“Right!”

“And we’re all going to fit on one boat?” another voice called. “It’s all very well for travelling, but for the long term?”

“We can get more boats! A whole archipelago of boats! A floating flotilla country!” Perpetua felt light-headed. This was madness, but then, she had always been a bit mad, more or less. She jumped up onto the railing and put her fist in the air.

“Who will come sail away with me?” she shouted. There was a pause where it seemed as if she might be the only one who still believed in Paragonia, but then Finn came forward, then another person, then one after another until almost the whole crowd was with her. Even Dilettante condescended to come up from below decks. Perhaps fifty people remained, many of whom were the crew she had intended to drop off anyway. Now that the colonists had been trained in shipboard operations, they should be able to manage on their own.

“Well, thanks very much,” Perpetua smiled.

“I expect we should be setting up a Legislature and Judicature shortly. And remember, I may be your president, but I want you to let me know directly if I’m doing anything you disagree with. That’s how democracies are supposed to work.” She found Finn in the crowd and nodded in thanks.

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A Man of Integrity Katie Crowley

Driving the machine is the blood

coursing through his veins.

The smell of the wheat fills his nose,

And the chaff covers his skin.

The sunset seeps into his eyes

As he hears his children laughing and

calling to each other back home:

A dream given him by his father

in a childhood long ago.

The golden wheat of harvest,

the bright eyes of his children,

the warm heart of his wife . . .

These are his dance when he

lays down at night.

On that final day, God will walk

through this life of my dad’s and say,

“Good Job. Well Done.

Welcome Home.”

Angela Nelson

Humidity

In memory of Ronald Lowell Misener March 8, 1949 – December 7, 2010

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Light at Her Back Jordan Kratz

Big brown eyes I’ve learned to love Over many lengthy years A friend to help me though the times And heal my storm of tears He comes and sits down next to me And my mountains turn to fields My spirit stirs as he cuddles close His warmth becomes my shield He never tries to question me He just stays by my side Until at last I dry my face And close my heavy eyes.

Only to awaken to a cold wet nose And my favorite pair of big brown eyes.

Brown E y e s Katie Williamson

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Labor

Jesse Egbert

out, arceled ut. p t r a p of a d sto A piece ck, stocky an leaf sta den A short ave left to gol by reef. le ru Leaves ed red on the e r s And rod

Rodeo ~ Chris Sinclair

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Man mans his statio n to his best Best besets vices, w hich vices his soul.

Lay not late nor lam entate lest You stay stranded on selfish shoal.

Untitled~Elizabeth Szalewski

r why when o he die , e c n e wh al t Which, re to de te find a d r e o fa ed Does th t friendly does ilous brine. e er Fickle y punished in p rsons Poor pe

Stealth is sure to st eal the steel end Which weighs, wreck s, wickifies wretche s, Abandoning armou rless ardent men To tote twice the th ings of the trenches .

So sweat the sweet serenity of labor And find faith to fecundate, to favor That hard, wholesome, healing haven Which work wills man to be saved in.

17

Jill McFee

Foreign

I couldn’t say for certain why it is that I feel so foreign to myself when I speak about the reigns of kings and the mud most often used for bricks in Kenya but each time my mind fights to understand those things I do not know my artist heart can’t help but feel a little lost about itself.

18

Brain Study 1 Elizabeth Szalewski

Jessica Schiffer

Wh i sp

A Day in Napoli…

Sarah Lippert

Sheets, multicolored, snapping Come alive in Naples Socks from thousands’ feet, Hung out in the smog-swarthy air Assimilated houses, apartments--close breathing neighborhoods, Screaming the mean and familial Shops scrape by on hand carved figurines, The wooden aesthetic of the city Kamikaze Vespas and no right-of-way, To live vicariously is a death wish People together, interweaving, interacting Naples requires full participation Stuck in an alley too small for the bus, Provoking passing fists, hands and arms flailing, Gestures are punctuation, spelling and pronunciation Yelling swarms of individuals, but no crowd-cover You are not allowed to blend in, They don’t believe in hiding, They see you

A slick-haired youth eyes back pockets Camped out on the rocks by the harbor, Mangy cats pile near homeless tents, groping-gnawing fetid trash Oil streaked aprons peddle street sfogliata, But pizza is their specialty An expressive smile hands me an espresso, That I watched drip slowly out of stuck grounds Café oozed round the leftovers built up from yesterday, Still as creamy as any Napoli shot, As dirty, And as fierce The bene bene bene of the brazen woman on the phone, Speaks southern The region Rome-and-up tries to ignore, And tourists skirt for lemons and Pompeii For sake of history, they might visit the tombs, Leaving with a catacomb knowledge and no wish to return But in Naples, we walked In the grit and the ‘giorno’

19

Lucky Strike Kathleen Shaneyfelt

Last One... I Promise...

Taking A Breather

Abercrombie Regret Sarah Lippert The texture of her insecurity A topographical map All bluffs and crags Sinkholes and drastic storefront artifices Stained as the lipstick She leaves on five-o-clock shadows Full time defense Half time doldrums Three shifts a week Densely scented Stale Marlboros and sultry bath salts Faux-fur jacket with ruching for class She pops her onomatopoeia gum And clip-clops her wedge heels As she walks away from her latest Last mistake.

20

Marilyn Monroe Laura G’Sell

was simply inedible. If the famers’ market were open, she would go herself and pick out the yogurt. The kitchen staff must be downgrading her dairy and pocketing the rest, which was hardly inexcusable, as Gerald was always late with their paychecks and one of Chloe Donaldson the girls had just had a baby. No one was supposed to know, because she had promised her boyfriend that she had had an abortion, That morning at breakfast, Ellen Prack’s but had really left the baby with her sister husband Gerald said that he no longer loved in the next town. It was perfectly reasonher. She was picking at a crystal bowl of able. plain yogurt and cherries and he had bacon “I hate you, Ellen. You don’t love me anyand eggs. Ellen nodded when he spoke to her more, either. You’re an ice maiden!”

–“My dear, it seems as though I just don’t “I’m sorry you feel that way.” The yogurt love you anymore!”– and took another sip of from the Neilson Farm was the best. Everyher coffee, black and no sugar. thing was organic and clean, ran by sweet“Are you listening, Ellen? I don’t love you faced, ruddy, stocky hippie children who anymore. I’m, I’m incomplete. That’s what it still wore seventies clothes and listened to is. I’m not fulfilled.” recorded albums. Misty Neilson had founded “I’m sorry you feel that way,” she said. it when she was out of college. She had a The yogurt was too runny, too sour, and degree in agriculture and a degree in biolprobably made with skimmed milk. She didn’t ogy and a minor in something silly that Ellen like the way it coated the cherries, and the couldn’t remember. Perhaps romantic poetry cherries bled into it and made pink soup. or sports journalism. Misty had seven sisters She would have to speak to the kitchen and two brothers, and they all lived tostaff, as she had expressly requested fresh, gether with their friends and animals, and it whole, raw-milk yogurt, for her delicate diwas terribly weird and unsanitary, and they gestion. Gerald stirred around his eggs over were poor as anything. But, that was a good his plate, mashing large, greenish-yellow place to get yogurt and milk, and sometimes crumbles into flat cakes against the china. they made cheese. It wasn’t their season The eggs were overcooked. So was the bacon, for cheese, but eventually they may have it. which made grease over the plate and glisMisty was a good conversationalist, if loud, tened on Gerald’s lips and on Gerald’s chin and she worshiped tree spirits and practiced and in Gerald’s morning stubble. sympathetic magic, the mandolin, and Byzan“I do feel that way, and I think you must tine Catholicism. notice. We have no connection.”

“You are, Ellen? Because, right now, I “Perhaps not. Do you think the farmers’ don’t feel we are communicating. Ellen! Elmarket will be open today?” len!” And then, much lower, like an audition “I don’t even find you attractive anymore. for a television commercial about secrets in You’re skin and bones. In fact, in fact Eldental hygiene: “Ellen.” He waited as she len,” and he leaned forward, his black velvet lit up a cigarette and then took one of her housecoat dragging in the bacon grease, his hands. “Ellen.” graying hair flopping limp over his eyes, “in “Gerald.” fact, I despise you, Ellen.” He grinned, biting “I might have an affair. Maybe go with down on the word and hissing it through his a brunet this time. Warmer hair color than teeth. Ellen took another sip of her coffee blond. Icy, cold, fairy queen blond. Hitler and folded her napkin in her lap. The yogurt loved blonds, you know.”

Breakfast

22

“Hitler had dark hair.”

“But he loved blonds.”

She blew a long stream of smoke out.

There were cobwebs in the corners of the gothic dining room windows. It was very Old Hollywood vampire thriller. She could imagine Bela Lugosi in an opera cape, gliding like a shadow along her dining hall and saying that he doesn’t drink… earl gray breakfast tea.

“Ellen, you didn’t reply. I’ve upset you.”

“Don’t fret yourself.”

And now Gerald rushed from his chair, knocking over the salt shaker, and knelt beside her, clasping her housecoat sleeve and her hand. “I’m sorry already! Oh, Ellen, you’re the light of my life! Together we are like, like, like those great loves of old, in literature and song and epic poetry, Ellen, sweet, fire-queen! Oh, if you want to

be cold, be cold, Ellen, just look my way.

Look my way, you distant… distant… distant star…? Yes, star! I live for you!”

She stubbed out her cigarette in the cherries and turned to look down at her husband, who had begun to murmur snatches of Yeats and Wordsworth, mixing up lines with Shakespeare and rhapsodizing poorly. She patted his hand and then wiped off the bacon grease residue it left on her fingers on a napkin. He remained a few minutes, sniffling and making groaning sounds and trying to cup her breast now and again, which she stopped by slapping his fingers. Eventually he stood up and went back to his chair, smiling like a schoolboy who had just lost his virginity. She glanced at her watch.

“I’m glad we had this conversation!” Gerald said.

Bittersweet Addiction Kathleen Shaneyfelt

23

Freedom~Nick Porretta 24

Conflagration Cynthia Jensen

I could feel the warm glow reflected in my eyes as I gazed into the dancing flames. The fire twisted itself into amazing shapes, constantly changing and shifting. The only steady thing about it was its incessant movement. The light it cast flickered uncertainly across the darkened trees, the shadows jumping from place to place as if evading some hidden enemy.

Smoke billowed in a drifting spiral towards the stars, which glittered back with their own faint burn. The way the firelight dimmed and brightened, the colors smoothly flowing into one another as it grew, entranced me with its beauty. It was the fire’s constant energy that somehow made it so calming. Finally, I sighed contentedly and turned away. I swung my flamethrower over my shoulder and giggled to myself as I headed farther from the burning building. That therapist was right; it had helped to find a hobby.

25

e g n a r O Anna Wills

26

O R A N G E

Ithoughtyouwereanorangesycamoreleafoncrackedpavement stillliving,flexible,fierce,butitwasafront.Ithoughtyouwere orangebutyouwerebrown.Youwerebrownsowhenthedirty, thick-soledsneakerlandedonyou,youcrushedcrunchedstuckto thegroovesonthebottom.Little,dry-veinedtrianglepiecesofyou mashed between the hard rubber treads.

Younevernoticeshoessteppingonleaves.Nooneevenlooks.

Ididn’tnoticethelight-headedsmellnearyourroomshuttight or the front door creaking after we were all in bed.

Ididn’tnoticethecigarettesinyoursleevewhenyouwavedatme andIdidn’tnoticethepillbottleinyourleftpocketwhenyou grabbed your keys, left for school.

I wasn’t even looking when the shoe stepped on you.

Iheard,though—Iheardthecrunchofyourbrownveinscrackling broken,stuck,yourlittlefragmentsheldtogetherbytheshoe.

You looked orange to me. den a

Leslie N

27

Over

Leslie Naden

My bland heart is pleading a case it doesn’t believe in it only wants to stop the waves in your forehead and the way I have to watch you crumple when I say I’m sorry but you know I really mean I’m not sorry enough to change and I care about other things and I’m not the same, not yours. the click and clench of your teeth tells me you don’t believe me, but the shake in your hands tells me you know you can’t fix it because we’re not broken, I’m a car door and you’re a vase and you wanted me to still be a flower.

Simple Kathleen Shaneyfelt

28

Jordan Kratz T i m e T r a p

Mirror of Memories Matthew Bang

As the image hits my retina I am left spiraling With vague recollections of a distant era When you enchanted me, an intense appeal Long peeled off by the musty hands of time Revealing a far less glorious, less vibrant visage Than I had ever imagined you could be, A distorted specter of your former light And the image so lustrous and vivid in my dreams— It was no more—no, it had never been You have always been like this, only appearing So much brighter then because I myself was So much brighter then, enamored with the mirror So as I turn to you now in my tumble toward earth, As to the object of a distant past, grasping vainly Toward a happiness I have so long been lacking, I only see, perfectly reflected back at me My own gloom

A b s t r a c t F l o w e r

Jordan Kratz

29

Cynthia Jensen

A s s a s B s i u n g

Cynthia Jensen

L u c i n d a

Walls of pine green like phalanx stand On either side of the path of hard land.

Wild grass scouts ahead to see If hard land’s prisoners can be freed.

Now after the clouds have mourned and cried And drought and thirst have gone and died, Silent are the greens as they contently drink And with roots, to the depths they sink.

Cocoon drops of water cling to underbellies of branch and bar, Resembling prisms that sing And shine like celestial star.

The elder magi of silent plains Beckons all to hold their mental reigns To listen to his daughter, Thought, aSilent fish tickle Lady Lake With soft kisses on the surface To relieve the annoyance for her sake And smite the flies that swarm her face.

Her brother Beach minds not, The sun who makes his face hot Nor those who on his face deface and trample For the joyous children laughs are ample.

Jessie Egbert 31

The Minor Tragedy of Mayor Hoffstudder

Running Through Smoke Laura G’Sell

Ann Heschmeyer

Another November dawn, an unambitious patch of pale orange pulling itself above the dead treetops and losing its way in the lowering clouds. Janice stepped outdoors, bow saw in hand. Seeing her white puffs of breath reminded her of the jacket hanging on her chair in the dining room, but she rolled her hands up inside the sleeves of her old, grey flannel shirt and strode to the woodpile.

Janice needed a job.

The woodpile was under a lean-to with a corrugated metal roof. She tugged a long, thin branch off the shifting stack and dragged it over to the sawhorse. It was chilly. She sawed quickly. ***

Past the stumpy, peony bushes in front of Janice’s chain link fence, across a yellow vacant lot, sat a tidy brick ranch in a well-manicured yard. A white, baby barn dominated Janice’s view of the yard.

A gentleman in a dark, green jacket and white khaki pants walked from the brick house to the barn. Meticulous Mr. Hoffstudder, former mayor of the small town. Beneath his ball cap, Janice knew, his white hair was VO5’ed into a perfect wave.

She remembered sitting in a meeting with the rest of the Sentinel staff, the day after incumbent Hoffstudder lost the mayoral race to Harris Goode.

The head editor said that election

32

marked the end of an era.

A month later the Sentinel was bought by the big city paper.

Janice bent over to pick up the three log sections she had cut already. The rough branches stubbed her cold fingers. She laid the wood in a milk crate. Fodder for the stove.

Her right arm ached. She walked around the sawhorse, putting her back toward the Hoffstudder homestead. Now her left elbow beat the tempo for her saw.

She heard Hoffstudder’s rider-mower growl to life.

Hoffstudder was a patriarch in the little town. He had occupied most city council positions, gradually easing his way into the mayor’s seat. He sat there five years straight.

The man’s yard was perfect. No dandelions. He had a pond. In the summer his grandchildren hunted frogs on the bank. In the winter Hoffstudder fought the messy, migratory geese. ***

“The Great Bench Debacle” precipitated Hoffstudder’s downfall. The town ordered six red, wrought-iron benches for the Main Street sidewalks. Janice recalled her opinion column: is pedestrian traffic on Main Street sufficient to justify more than a single bench?

The benches were finally installed— backwards. They faced out toward the

street, instead of toward the storefronts.

Hoffstudder acknowledged the contractor’s mistake, but pleaded for understanding.

“Let’s just wait a while before we drop another pile of cash to fix this,” Hoffstudder said. “Who knows, we might like it this way.”

But in rolled the heavy clouds of revolution. In October Harris Goode, the rising businessman in the city whose young family lived in town, won the mayor seat with the promise of “different leadership.”

Hoffstudder’s lawn mower still grumbled in the distance.

Janice pushed the saw back and forth as she reviewed her options. She was reluctant to leave writing. The Sentinel job had actually found her, a brighteyed journalism student, fresh out of college.

The log dropped. She bent over and tossed it into the milk crate.

Scrape, scrape, scrape again. It was tedious, but she was warmer.

Over the saw and distant mower, Janice heard another, harsher sound. An indistinct chorus of barking? Woofing?

Squealing? A bad horn? A cacophonous crescendo. She turned and looked across the yard.

A frantic gaggle of Canadian geese streamed out from behind Hoffstudder’s shed. There were twenty or thirty of the panicked birds waddling as fast as they could. Hard upon their tails was the green lawn mower, breathing fire. Hoffstudder rode, brandishing a baseball bat above his head.

Driving into the middle of the crowd, he swung left and right with wide sweeps of the bat. Mr. Hoffstudder’s wordless shouts and snarls rose over the confused fracas.

The geese began tumbling upwards, a confused mass of wings, bodies and necks. A vortex of honking, flailing grey arose around the mower. Rising higher in the air, the geese spread and flew. Glory. Valiant Hoffstudder sat. The mower paused. He watched the birds retreat. The bat twitched. With a final, defiant swipe at the receding geese, Hoffstudder turned his charger and drove to the shed.

Janice McConnell stood, convinced not all the stories had been told.

Colorado Cabin~Nick Porretta

33

B

Grand Tetons

Kathleen Shaneyfelt

o

da n u

rs e t a ry W

The sheen on Superior Reflects ordered form The sole untouched rhythm Beat, the lakeside song Where wind instrument is literal And Loon sings lead Where sun sets and rises Oblivious to season Wonder what the rocks wonder What secrets the treetops keep Questions posed of silence Are answered in the ease With which the sun sinks today.

34

t

r e p p i L h a r Sa

Everything

Miguel Rangel

A sweater like yours Is shown off by another, The green one you wore on that night At the beach.

We made castles by moonlight, Raced waves by the moonlight, Kissed once by the moonlight.

You see now, that Everything’s you when you’re gone.

I see you in all While yet nothing is you.

For nothing is you except you.

Irish Reflections

The ocean pretends to have Given your eyes its own shade, But Neptune can’t show Their sweet smile.

My coffee, meanwhile, Attempts a rude farce Of your hair.

But nothing shares quite the same lustre.

A girl there walks somewhat like you, One flicks her hair quite like you do, One sneezes like you, And there, the audacity!

Jill McFee 35

Firebird Earth Miguel Rangel

Yellowstone Mystery

36

“ B r i n g t h e s n o w, Bring the snow!”

Is the the stout battle cry O f t h e d r y, b r i t t l e l e a v e s As they leap from the trees And the mad, driving wind W h i p s t h e m a l l t o a c r a z e, Till their brown, hollow moans Broach the skies Dark and gray: “ B r i n g u s l i f e, Bring us life!”

Fo r t h e y k n o w T h a t t h e s n o w i s e a r t h ’s Deathly redemption.

Annie Palmer

It’s Not a Tumor Cynthia Jensen

It always began with a dull throb. A little twinge in the eyes, a little ache in the neck. Lindsey reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose, pushing higher with her two fingers to put pressure on the hollows under her eyebrows. The tightness dwindled a little bit, and she let her hand fall.

Migraines…Lindsey knew migraines. She had suffered from unusually strong headaches ever since she was little. Her family was not worried since the headaches were not constant, and they always seemed to have explainable causes: she held her neck funny all day, she overslept, she spent too much time staring at a computer screen, or stayed squinting in the sun instead of putting on her sunglasses. What made Lindsey’s headaches unusual was that they seemed to happen a lot more frequently than with anyone else she knew. As far as she could tell, they were also a lot more painful. No one else had headaches so bad that simply smiling hurt.

Lindsey leaned her forehead against the soothing coolness of the wall next to her desk, wishing that she had stayed home from school. Wishing that she could stay home. She had friends who were able to get excused absences for as little as a cold or a cough, but nothing short of death would convince her mother to let her miss school – and even then she would probably be rolled there on a stretcher. The only time in her memory that she was allowed to skip due to illness had been when she caught pink-eye. Only then, when she could have gotten someone else sick, did her mother relent.

Lindsey’s ear began to itch again like it had been all day, somewhere deep on the inside, so she reached up to tug on it a little and hoped that would help.

The fluorescent light on the far side of the room flickered sporadically, as it always did, since nobody ever bothered to fix it. Lindsey closed her eyes against its pulse, turning her head slightly to find a cooler piece of wall. Her eyes felt tight.

There was unrelenting pressure in her temples, like blunt sticks were being jabbed into either side of her head. A ringing soreness crawled down the back of her skull and into her neck, knotting her muscles with tension. After building all morning, the pain seemed to be reaching its crescendo.

Her parents might not have been concerned by her migraines, but Lindsey was, especially in the recent months.

Her headaches had been getting more and more frequent since summer ended. For the last few weeks, she had been in pain almost every other day. Her parents blamed it on the stress of school beginning, or the fact that it was her senior year and she still had not decided on a college yet. Lindsey knew, however, that she was not dealing with enough stress to cause her so much discomfort. She was a lot less worried about her future than her parents were.

Besides, her headaches no longer behaved like regular headaches. Sometimes she felt an odd, twitching sensation at the base of her skull, near the top of her neck or the base

of her ears; or otherwise she would feel tremendous pressure on the back of her eyes and a strange itch in her sinuses that lacked explanation. The weird feelings would end as abruptly and causelessly as they began, and Lindsey had yet to discover a pattern to them. She mentioned them to her parents once, but they had not thought it was significant enough to look into. After a while, Lindsey just stopped telling them things.

Eventually she began to think of her headaches as a separate entity from herself, as if the pain was a malicious, sentient being of its own. She saw it as an enemy that plagued her relentlessly, attacking when she needed it least. It mocked her from its safe haven inside her head, where she could reach it only occasionally through extra-strength, fast-acting painkillers.

It was as if some horrible, insubstantial fiend could reach its fist through her skull and squeeze her brain until she cried mercy. One day it would use that power over her to issue demands, and she would slowly sink under the will of the beast and become its obedient slave. Lindsey came to think that perhaps she did not need a doctor after all – perhaps what she needed was an exorcist.

The class bell drilled nastily into the back of her head and out through her eyeballs. Lindsey grimaced and waited for it to stop, moving her face from the wall to cradle her forehead in her palms instead. Her inner ear itched.

“All right, settle down,” came her history teacher’s routine opening, despite the fact that his lethargic students could barely muster enough energy to generate a dull murmur.

Lindsey could never remember his name. It started with a G, or maybe a P. Lindsey wished that the nap-inducing atmosphere of her history class would work its magic today and drag her into sweet unconsciousness. Unfortunately, since her first attempt at sleeping away the pain had failed, she doubted that a second try would do the trick. She had excused herself earlier to the medical office, hoping that an hour or two of sedated rest would banish the brain-fiend, but it was too late. It was at the point when it did not even help to lie down. It felt like her brain had come loose and was floating, swollen and sore, and whichever way she laid her head it would drop and bruise against her skull. It was a lot less painful to just sit up and try to avoid straining her neck.

The other night she went to bed with a headache slightly smaller than this, and thankfully it was mild enough that she slept soundly until morning. She woke up feeling fine besides that annoying itch in her ears. It must have gotten bad while she was out, though, because before she left for school she found large spots of dried blood on her pillow. She surmised that her nose had bled during the night and the medication had kept her from noticing.

The thought frightened Lindsey, and she was con-

37

Mosquito Nick Porretta

vinced there must be something seriously wrong with her. She was certain that this was not a normal way for a headache to behave. And, as she should have expected, it did not take long to start up again.

Lindsey leaned her elbows on the desk and pressed her fingers into the hollows of her eyes again, trying to pay attention to what Mr. G/P was saying. Although she was as heavily medicated as she was allowed to be, she still hurt increasingly worse as the day wore on. She hoped she was not going to be sick. Once or twice in her life, her migraine had gotten so bad that the pain actually made her throw up.

Well, she thought, at least if that happens, maybe I’ll finally be allowed to go home.

Her teacher finished passing out graded quizzes from the other day and began to prepare for his lecture. There was a shuffle of papers from all sides as the students nearby put away their quiz results, grumbling about the scores. Lindsey opened her notebook and took up her pencil, hoping to take some notes. She thought that maybe if she paid enough attention to the lecture, she could distract herself from the agony in her skull.

Her ear still itched. The worst kinds of itches were the ones she could not reach directly, and this one was driving her crazy. She wanted to just take her pencil and scrub around in there for a few minutes, but not only was that sure to fail, it might aggravate her head enough to make her black out from the pain. She tugged on her earlobe for the last time – which no longer helped – and resolved to leave it alone and wait for it to stop by itself.

Her face had become hot, as if she had a fever. She could feel each heartbeat in her head, in her cheeks, and behind her eyes. She strove to move very little and to breathe softly and evenly, keeping her pulse as gentle as possible. Any sudden movement or irregularity in her breath made her brain throb again. She felt her face flush and go pale, and hoped she was not going to vomit or faint.

Breathe, she thought. Just relax and breathe.

Lindsey could again hear a quiet murmur begin to swell among her classmates; their attention was fading quickly from the lecture. She did not care enough to look for what was

38

distracting them this time. It took very little to divert their attention.

“Dude, what is that..?” someone whispered very softly behind her.

Lindsey was mildly curious, but lacked the effort required to look. She merely continued to cradle her face in her hands. The pressure was building horribly and she heard a deep ringing in her head. Her brain gave such an insistent throb that she could not help but whimper quietly.

Her ear itched like crazy. Maybe it was her imagination caused by her efforts to ignore it, but the itch felt magnified now, focused, almost sharp. Then the inside of her ear twinged so viciously that it actually hurt, and she winced at the sudden sting. She squeezed her eyes shut and resisted the urge to cup her ear with her hand.

Owww.

After a moment of eerie silence, a new flurry of gasps and murmurs rustled through the classroom. Annoyed, in pain, and still curious, Lindsey raised her head to look around at what all the fuss was about.

She blinked. They were all staring at her. Their eyes were wide, and now that she was aware of them, they all stayed very still. Even the teacher had stopped speaking. Remembering to breathe evenly, she frowned at them, feeling a little dizzy.

“What?” she asked impatiently, unnerved by the whole situation. Her ear tickled insistently. Irritated, she raised her hand to tug on it and brushed against something wet.

She froze.

Slowly, with all eyes on her, she brought her hand back in front of her face and gaped at the shining redness on her fingertips. She shook slightly.

“Why am I…?” Her voice trailed away as she caught her reflection in the glass doors of the cabinet across the room.

Pale and greenish, her own frightened face stared back at her with a long stream of blood trailing out one ear, but that was not what stopped her breath. Also coming out of her ear were two very long, stiff, hair-like things, sticking straight out from the side of her head.

Horrified, Lindsey saw the things twitch.

She suddenly remembered waking up last night to a warm wetness on her pillow and a sting in her ear. She remembered, vaguely, the way her headache seemed to move inside her skull, like it sometimes did, and how she always felt like it was something separate from her, feeding off of her pain.

She saw – and felt – the antenna things twitch again, and she started to scream, long and shrill.

The other students watched in revulsion as the thing in the girl’s head began to move again, pushing out other, slightly thicker appendages – spiny things that looked horribly like legs. Lindsey continued to shriek and clutch at the air beside her ear, as if afraid to touch it. The legs scrabbled at the side of her face, leaving thin, red scratch lines.

A few other students took up the screaming. The classmates who were seated next to Lindsey scattered and tipped over their chairs in the effort to get away.

Walking on Air Angela Nelson

Lindsey began to convulse and her screams suddenly became staccato. Then there came a loud, sickening crack, and her voice died in a long wet gurgle. She fell forward, face to her open notebook.

The frozen onlookers heard the click and crackle of something moving inside. They saw the girl’s skull split and flake apart like an egg as the creature pulled itself farther out.

Blood and certain thicker substances pooled on her desk and dribbled onto the floor. A moment later, the thing – now obviously some kind of insect, about the size of a large rat – was finally free.

Its legs were black and spiny, but its body was somewhere between a worm and an earwig, with wicked looking pincers poised at the rear. Two large eyes nearly engulfed its face, with a number of smaller eyes scattered on what was left of its head, and sharp mandibles protruded from below. It had a crumpled mass of translucent material clumped on its back, which was slowly twitching and unfolding like the wings of a butterfly fresh from its cocoon.

A few of the children were still screaming or whimpering. The History teacher had fainted behind his podium. Surprisingly, no one had yet thought of fleeing the room. As awful as it was, none of them could bring themselves to look away.

They were trapped with the spectacle like startled deer on the road.

The insect had a little tube-like tongue, which it was using to lap greedily from the pool of gore. It made small, sticky noises that would haunt the nightmares of many for years to come.

As it drank, the crumpled tissue on its back unfurled to reveal large, translucent wings. They were tinted a brilliant, blood red and shimmered like sunlight through stained glass, disturbingly beautiful in the carnage.

When the creature had its fill, it scrabbled to the end of the filthy desk, causing the students to begin screaming again. Most of them scrambled to the back of the room or hid under their own desks. With one or two flutters of its ruby wings, the thing lifted away from Lindsey’s corpse and made for the open window.

39

Mother Theresa

Laura G’Sell 40

Ask and ye shall receive Leah Blair

But my arms are not strong enough To be held up in the necessary benediction “Seek and ye shall find” But my eyes grow tired from straining Tears cause my sight to darken and blur “Come and I will give thee rest” But my feet are tired from the journey Bleeding and bruised from the road.

41

S t r a n g e r s Shine~Johnny Severson

o n

Separation~Kathleen Shaneyfelt

a T r a i n Sarah Lippert

“Psychologist Zick Rubin identified the aptlynamed, “stranger-on-a-train” phenomenon, in which we disclose personal information to people we don’t know and probably won’t see again. We can talk about ourselves without worrying that it will get back to the people closest to us.”

I was sitting with homework on a Starbucks corner couch when a mother walked in with a toddler and a newborn in a car seat. She was young--very young to have two, but she was composed and, established? Perhaps wealthy?

This wasn‘t a high school mamma. We smiled at each other as she unbundled her snowsuit babies, and when the older boy ran for my legs, I broke the ice and politely inquired about names and ages. She was more than eager to share.

She asked me if I minded her nursing--I come from a family of ten, nursing babies don’t bother me in the slightest. That piqued her interest. She wanted a big family. She loved being a Mom. She wanted a girl for sure, but had to convince her husband first. Quietly--she didn’t even know him anymore. I didn’t know what to say. How does one respond when a stranger reveals a broken heart in Starbucks? I never got her name, but I know that she strongly believes in breastfeeding, and I know where her kids go to daycare and where her husband works--and that they are growing apart. She never got my name, only knew that I liked coffee…apparently that was enough.

I have never understood why she chose to talk to me that day, but I still think about her story often. She was my first of many “strangers on a train”…

I got onto the light rail going from the Mall of America to downtown Minneapolis.

There was a 50’s-ish man talking at people in front of him--a crazy in a stocking cap, with a large mustache and a coat you’d find at Goodwill. Or was he? Maybe he was just one of those extreme extroverts who didn’t see they were making other people uncomfortable-It was hard to tell with this one. I made my habitual small-town eye contact and smile of acknowledgement, instantly becoming his next target. He talked to me the entire trip. He was animated. I heard about where he grew

up, about the raccoons in his backyard--oh, yes, even in the city. I heard about childhood struggles and he became angry, but assured me that that mom was a good mom. He respected her. She was always good to them. His sibling blamed her, but she did her best--then back to being angry, and the raccoons in the yard, and the places he had lived, and the times he hadn’t. Fascinated with his ramblings, yet still trying to figure out if this was a street crazy or a mid-life crisis, I heard my stop announced and bolted off the train. I felt badly for having to leave him mid-story, and that he was now talking at somebody else who was decidedly reading Cosmo. I had gotten off a stop too early and was standing in an industrial yard, absolutely nothing around me but an extensive flat lot. As I stood alone and waited for the next train, I began to wonder if Mr. Stocking Cap knew this cement-solitude well.

These faces and stories started to appear frequently. They want to talk, they want to share, they want to unload to someone…who doesn’t know them?

We were both testing plums--and he asked how to tell if cantaloupes were ripe. My wife always did the grocery shopping, he said. I made some sort of joke about getting stuck with the job today and his face fell. He had been married twenty years, had a beautiful family, and she had just left. He had never had to do the grocery shopping before. He was shaken and the kids were struggling and there he stood in his business suit on lunch break, trying to figure out life between the melons and the broccoli. Needing to go and not being able to respond more than a nod here and there, I tried to listen. I was still standing there fifteen minutes later and this guy was having a mental breakdown and bruising the plums and I didn’t want to see him cry. I wanted to say something, but the grocery store aisle wasn’t a good source of inspiration for me. His family was real and his life and he was losing it, and I won’t ever know what happened, because I don’t know his name.

I don’t know how his story ended, and I don’t know how he even finished his day, but I know that he had loved his wife and worried about his kids. I know that he was in shock and didn’t

know how to pick out fruit…and that a business suit, clean shave and a brief case are human, too.

I will never cease to be surprised at when and where these faces find me. When I least expect it, someone throws me a life-story with no conclusion. I am always left trying to form and interpret imaginary endings…

We were in a summer play together--he was popular, talented, and I had heard the girls whispering and therefore usually avoided him at risk of being thought another groupie. We fell into step when leaving the building one night. He seemed down, had a bad day. I engaged a conversation, and he took the opportunity to talk. In high school he was a wild kid, he mentioned getting caught with girls, sneaking out and substances with a grin. Things had changed once in college, he had met her and they had a great relationship. She recently broke it off and now he didn’t know what to do with himself. His seeming self-confidence was a show since the one serious girl couldn’t give him reasons. He was bitter--loved her, but bitter. He told me stories of how she was a hypocrite, and how it hurt because he was at the point where he would say yes, yes, yes, to her, whatever might happen, and she got up and said no. We were still sitting on a bench an hour later. I never had a serious conversation with the guy again. I saw him around, we had mutual friends, but he never alluded to the conversation, never explained himself, never offered another serious word, actually. He was always the joker--one of those magnetic personalities that people loved, but I know that just before Senior year, the player got his heart broke. I know the reason behind his new life perspective…and why he went back to his experimenting.

“Of course, we are more likely to open up to those closest to us, but relationship researchers find that we are also inclined to offer up bits of our private selves when we’re set apart from others, when we feel safe, and when we feel like we can get away from the other person if we need to.”

I barely knew her--both freshman at col-

lege, we were hardly a month into the school year and had never really talked before. She was crying outside, and I sat down and wasn’t put off by her “I’m okays.” I joked, we laughed, I suggested a walk, and tried not to not pry. She didn’t want to talk, but she ended up spilling.

It came out--all about a skinny jean boy, one who wasn’t Catholic but she assured me he was great. Her parents didn’t like him, tattoos and piercing, and she was really afraid for him. He’d been trying stuff. She was stuck on him, but he couldn‘t be trusted--couldn’t get over him either. She was confused and scared and I didn’t know her major, or where she was from, but I

Enlarged Key~Laura G’Sell

know that she felt vulnerable and had low self esteem, and that he had given her the attention that nobody else had. I’ve seen her many times since then, and I have always wanted to know what happened, but we’ve never been close enough for me to inquire into her personal life.

When writers sketch their characters, they have control. They shape their stories’ ends and can draw sanity-needed conclusions. I cannot make sense-of or ever know where my fleeting characters end up--they fade into mid-crisis memories and unresolved plots…

I was on a bus leaving Brussels, on the way to an outer-city airport. Two young men got on last minute and tussled playfully for who would sit where--there were two seats left open, one with me, and one with a guy in back. The one that sat next to me was well dressed, well groomed. I could tell he was outgoing and happened to have a lot of energy at the moment, but I was more than usually withdrawn--traveling alone in a foreign city and didn’t know a bit of the language. It didn’t take long for him to start a conversation, though. I can’t remember how he began, but his English was perfect and he was in a talkative mood. Peruvian by birth, but his dad was from the U.S., which he had visited multiple times growing up. The guy said he was a surgeon who was currently working in Barcelona, and he and his buddy (being beer connoisseurs) had hopped a RyanAir flight to Brussels for the weekend--the beer capital of the world, I was told. I was a bit wary of his story, but I warmed up as I sensed a lack of an agenda outside general conversation. I inquired about his job and he excitedly jumped on the topic. He was passionate about working in Peru--explained the people, their culture, and how much he loved them and wanted to work with them. But there were catches--money issues. This job in Spain was a good one, and he wanted to travel around. He talked easily at first--had been through this small-talk before.

He progressed and became frustrated, though, struggling to know if he actually wanted to continue with his profession. He really wanted a family someday and the hours were horrible.

He couldn’t decide what he wanted to do--stay in Europe, go back, or maybe start something

entirely different? He laughed and seemed to surprised to be saying all this to me. Now, I wouldn’t be able to pick him out in a crowd, and his name might or might not be Eduardo, but I know that he was wandering for purpose and enjoyed a good beer, that he loved Peru and the people, that he wanted to raise a close family like he hadn’t had as a kid. When we arrived at the airport he thanked me--he told me I had spirit and then ran for his flight.

I remember, replay and try to ingrain the details and the surroundings, the key words and their expressions--their voices, their faces. Why? The facts have now blurred with my impressions and I sometimes wonder if I am writing false stories?

Why have they become so important to me?

I was on a double Decker in Glasgow and was elected as PR person to get directions.

We didn’t know what stop to get off on and it was cold and rainy and January--a typical night in Scotland, but our first in Europe. We were daunted and wanted to make sure we found our bed that night. I opted for the old woman-she looked harmless. She was, and talkative, and although I could barely understand what she was saying because of her brogue, she more than gave directions. She started by introducing herself and talked about the area--I didn’t get up and move away, and she took the opportunity to tell me more. Before she had guided us off the bus at the correct stop, I had found out about her little brother who had drowned at age ten, and that she was from a big family-about how she had children and grandchildren that didn’t come around very often, and that she knew the religious Sisters we were going to stay with. A shoddy bus, a typical sweet beigewearing grandma with sponge-curler hair and interesting things to say. All she knew about me was a big piece of luggage and a pea-coat, that I needed her for directions, and that she needed my ear.

“Psychologist Zick Rubin identified the aptlynamed, “stranger-on-a-train” phenomenon”…And I wonder what I’m supposed to say or do when someone reveals their broken heart in the corner of Starbucks.

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M

g n i end

Sarah Lippert

I straighten coiled threads And begin to weave, Repeating patterns in varied colors and Then force myself to undo them.

I snip the clinging ties And hem my first mistakes, Tucking frazzled edges Underneath.

The threads are woven tightly, But there is always a hidden fray Each corner contains a few loose threads.

That fray will snag and catch, Separating what was once sectioned off.

The opposing strands mix, Black with white, white with black.

And I’ll be left again with dull string to weave and undo.

These patterns never finish Or sit wholly mended on the shelf.

I’m always hemming corners Of memory.

s r e n Cor Lightning~Nick Porretta

46

The Underdog~Kathleen Shaneyfelt 47

Jordan Kratz

Liesurely Travels

Exodus Jill McFee It would be easy to lay down our lives like spades after plowing and walk away with nothing but the stories on our backs the vein maps to everywhere we’ve already been I would walk away with you our hearts in hobo sacks we trade and sling over our shoulders as the dust of the road paints our faces we’ll know we’re there somewhere far enough from anywhere it is where we will plant a flag and lie in the grass without wondering where there is a washing machine 48

Table of Co nt e nt s

3-4 Silent Conversations - Joslyn Marko Ocean - Leslie Naden Adam’s Eyes - Cynthia Jensen La Playa, El Salvador - Nick Porretta 6-7 Paragonia - Ean Henninger Early Traveling - Johnny Severson 8-9 Frozen - Kathleen Shaneyfelt 10-11 Bridge Over Troubled Water - Tina Schik 12-13 Trespasses - Nick Porretta 14-15 A Man of Integrity - Katie Crowley Brown Eyes - Katie Williamson Light at Her Back - Jordan Kratz Humidity - Angela Nelson 16-17 Labor - Jessie Egbert Rodeo - Chris Sinclair Untitled - Elizabith Szalewski 18-19 Foreign - Jill McFee A Day in Napoli - Sarah Lippert Whisp - Jessica Schiffer 20-21 Abercrombie Regret - Sarah Lippert Lucky Strike - Kathleen Shaneyfelt Taking a Breather - Kathleen Shaneyfelt Last One... I Promise - Kathleen Shaneyfelt Marilyn Monore - Laura G’Sell 22-23 Breakfast - Chloe Donaldson Bittersweet Addiction - Kathleen Shaneyfelt 24-25 Conflagration - Cynthia Jensen Freedom - Nick Porretta 26-27 Orange - Leslie Naden Orange - Anna Wills 28-29 Over - Leslie Naden Mirror of Memories - Mathew Bang Simple - Kathleen Shaneyfelt Time Trap - Jordan Kratz Abstract Flower - Jordan Kratz 30-31 Strong Characters - Jessie Egbert Assassin Bug - Cynthia Jensen Lucinda - Cynthia Jensen 32-33 The Minor Tragedy of Mayor Hoffstudder - Ann Heschmeyer Running Through Smoke - Laura G’Sell

Colorado Cabin - Nick Porretta 34-35 Boundary Waters - Sarah Lippert Everthing - Miguel Rangel Grand Tetons - Kathleen Shaneyfelt Irish Reflections - Jill McFee 36-37 Firebird Earth - Miguel Rangel It’s Not a Tumor - Cynthia Jensen Yellowstone Mystery - Annie Palmer 38-39 Mosquito - Nick Porretta Walking on Air - Angela Nelson 40-41 Ask and Ye Shall Recieve - Leah Blair Mother Theresa - Laura G’Sell 42-43 Strangers on a Train - Sarah Lippert Shine - Johhny Severson Separation - Kathleen Shaneyfelt 44-45 Enlarged Key - Laura G’Sell 46-47 Mending Corners - Sarah Lippert Lightning - Nick Porreta The Underdog - Kathleen Shaneyfelt 48 Exodus - Jill McFee Liesurely Travels - Jordan Kratz

Acknowledgments The Loomings staff and advisor would like to convey their most sincere appreciation to those who have graciously given their financial support to the magazine. We truly value their generous donations, which help immensely in the production of Loomings.

We deepest gratitude, we thank: The BC Foundation: Howard Westerman, Jr. (Chairperson), Kitty Belden, Mike Easterday, Jim O’Brien, Bob Reintjes, Carol Shomin, and Tom Wessels.

Prose

Readers

Sean McGuire; Rachel Golden; Matthew Gregor; Cynthia Jensen; Brandon Boesch

Po e t r y

Theresa Kelly; Kirsten Antonacci; Sarah Lippert

49

Photography

2nd

Cynthia Jensen

3rd

Judges Prose Dr. Daphne McConnell Sr. Judith Sutera Prof. Matt Ramsey

Poetry Dr. John Bunch Dr. Chuck Osborn Wilma Dague Sr. Diana Seago

50

ARt Dr. Daphne Mcconnell Dr. Jamie Blosser Prof. Michael O’Hare Prof. Ryan Morehead Andrea Sloan Megan Bickford Mary Asher

Adam’s Eyes

Light At her Back Jordan Kratz

Elizabeth Szalewski

Lucinda

Playa, El Salvador Nick Porretta

1st

Untitled

Rodeo Chris Sinclair

Studio Art

Cynthia Jensen

Patricia Hattendorf Nerney Poetry Writing Award

Sarah Lippert

The Sister Scholastica Schuster Fiction Writing Award

Ean Henniger

The Thomas Ross Award for a Promising Young Writer

Leslie Naden

A w a r d s

52