Broken Ink
Broken Ink no. 49
the University of South Carolina Aiken visual and literary arts magazine
editors
Editor in Chief Layout Editor Literary Editor Visual Arts Editor Music Editor Events Coordinator
Sydney Herrick Jude Jackson Meredith Grace Hawcroft Haley Dixon Nolan Sinclair Angelica Williams
staff Anna Norris Jennifer Nichols Aubry Melvin Elliott Hudson
faculty advisor Roy Seeger
Broken Ink 471 University Parkway Aiken, SC 29801 Copyright Š 2017 Broken Ink and contributing artists all rights reserved Printed in the United States of America The 2017 issue of Broken Ink was created in Adobe InDesign CC, Adobe Illustrator CC, and Adobe Photoshop CC with copy editing done in Microsoft Word for Mac Set in Source Sans Pro and Baskerville Designed by Jude Jackson
index by artist recognition of honors visual and literary arts music and spoken word special thanks about Broken Ink
2-3 4-5 6-70 71 72 73
Prose
contents
Visual Art
Over the last three years, I have seen this organization grow and continue to produce quality magazines for the USC Aiken student body. Times have not always been the easiest, and sometimes tensions are high in the media office, but we always seem to pull through. This year, I have seen Broken Ink’s editors and staff come together and create another successful publication. Volume 49 has been the best example of USC Aiken’s talent thus far. I would like to congratulate all of the students at USC Aiken for their exceptional work. I only wish we could publish more pieces. Without the contributions of the student body, this pubication could not be possible. On behalf of the Broken Ink staff, I would like to personally thank everyone who submitted and continue to submit. As I pass the torch to the upcoming editorial staff of Broken Ink, I would like to say thank you to everyone who has made this experience as memerable as possible. Without the dedication of the 20162017 Broken Ink staff, this would have fallen apart around me. You guys have been the best group that I’ve worked with during my time with this publication, and I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity you all have given me. And finally, as a staff, we would also like to recognize Roy Seeger, Karl Fornes, Ahmed Samaha, David Bruzina, Vicki Collins, Ed Wilson, Bill Claxon, Jeremy Culler, Steve Sloan, Ginny Southworth, Julie Wise, Michael Fowler, and Becky Crawford for all of their help and support throughout the academic year.
Poetry
a note from the editor
featured artists Beaudry, Rebecca Les Fleurs 47 Benjamin, Jazmine I. My Grandfather’s Memory 7-13 Billue, Brice The Lying Angel 55 Burgess, Brittany Blue Rings 45 Distance 14 Cooper, Kyndall Long Strange Trip 38 Hard Flip 32 Highway Men 10 Corder, David B. Did God Create Dragons? 59-67 Luminescent 41 The Goblin Shed 15-20 Ellefson, Ashley Submerge 40 Shadow 68 Skylight 69 Hatchell, Elayna Under the Chandelier 70 Hawcroft, Meredith Grace Tears Before Breakfast 35 The Moment 48 Jackson, Jude The Elf Who Tried to Steal Halloween 37 untitled 22 Kelly, Hunter J. Moonlight Rite 26 Melvin, Aubry Refreshed 46 Moore, Karla Bootcamp 23 Mueller, Zoë Claire Through the Looking Tree 21
Detail on Portrait
Norris, Anna Him and Her 51-53 Together 56 Nwangwu, Adaora Eve 58 Brainwaves 54 Contemplation 63 Pelfrey, Mark Dresses 71 Falling Backwards / For You 71 Time 71 Quattlebaum, Anniebelle Nostalgia 31 Break Up 27 Waiting Room 57 Robins, Victoria Vulnerability 33 Seay, Kati Preston 28-29 Stinson, David The Center 36 Science of Life 42-44 Tone Deaf babygirl 71 Turner, De’on After Hours 18 Watkins, David Royden The Vision of Joy 71 Wayne, Selin untitled 30 Williams, Carson Deanna Strength 6 Williamson, Sarah Marie Intoxicated 39 The Old Front Porch 49 Blushing Pink 50 Youell, Chelsea Babydoll 22 Flower Child 24 Portrait 24 Sleepybirdie 25
Detail on Skylight
recognition of honors Washington Group award prose
• first place •
Did God Create Dragons?
poetry
Science of Life
David B. Corder
David Stinson
second place The Goblin Shed David B. Corder
Waiting Room Anniebelle Quattlebaum
third place Him and Her Anna Norris
Luminescence David B. Corder
honorable mention The Lying Angel Brice Billue
The Old Front Porch Sarah Marie Williamson
In 2004, Washington Group International established an endowment fund to be managed by the USC Aiken English Department for the purpose of recognizing exemplary student work in creative writing. To that end, all submissions accepted by the student staff each year for publication in Broken Ink are reviewed anonymously by a special committee to see if any meet the qualifications for this additional recognition. It is the intention of the committee to award prizes each spring in poetry and/or fiction; each prize is acknowledged in the magazine and accompanied by a cash award.
Ink Splat award
honorable honorable mention mention
third place
second place
first place The USC Aiken Art Department generously sponsors the Ink Splat Visual Art Award for the recognition of superior student artwork. The winners are selected by Dr. Jeremy Culler in a blind review.
Carson Deanna
WILLIAMS Strength
6
Jazmine I.
BENJAMIN My Grandfather’s Memory “In a way, your grandfather’s death was one of the best things that could have happened to me,” my father sighed as he sat next to me. His bones made an achy groan that he mimicked as he squatted to the low height of the couch I was perched on. He winced with pain and looked around with his wide brown eyes are our surroundings as if he had never seen his father’s house before – the mango colored walls, the numerous West Indian sculptures, the plush carpeted floor, all of it carefully chosen by my grandfather himself. “His leaving bought out the man in me. It made me grow the hell up, real fast. I don’t think I’d be here talking to you if he hadn’t died. It’s sad, but true.” My father had been increasingly absent from my life from around the time that I entered the third grade. He and my mother had me in their early twenties and never married. After I was born, he joined the military and travelled more than I could keep up with. Many times, my mother would ask me if I had spoken to him and I couldn’t even tell her what state he was in. For me, he was a ghostly figure that would step out of the shadows when it was convenient for him. Until recently, at least. My father spoke of my grandfather in an admirable tone. A first sergeant in the United States Army and a Vietnam veteran, he was a stern man who demanded respect from his children and wouldn’t have anything less than his standards met at all times. He retired in his thirties and had my father, who grew to be a man who so closely resembled his father that the two share many of their mannerisms and are often mistaken for one another from afar. My father followed closely in the footsteps of his father – he also joined the military as a young man and took several tours to the Middle East. The duo spent a great amount of time together throughout their lives. Most importantly, my dad was present when my grandfather died.
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Benjamin
My grandfather stepped into my father’s place for me from a young age. I vividly remember him making the eighteen-hour journey from his home in New Jersey to where I lived in Georgia just to pick me up for the summer. He would let me sit in the front seat while we listened to Lenny Kravitz all the way to his driveway, where he would turn the music down for fear of letting my grandmother know that we were there. “Now, if your grandmother asks, where were you while I was driving?” he would whisper in his thick accent. “The backseat,” I would whisper in reply, as if my grandmother could hear us inside the house. We would both laugh our way from the car to the house. It was always our little secret. I would spend the rest of my summer glued to his side, whether it was getting piggyback rides and catching fireflies in mason jars before sunset or making Sunday morning breakfast for my grandmother. We once drove from New Jersey to Times Square, where we ate pizza and visited the many sights. I remember that he would say hello to every person we passed on the street, whether they made eye contact with him or not. They could never walk away from him without a smile. He took me to play soccer at a park near his house. He worked with me for hours upon hours on technique and form, stressing the importance of doing things correctly the first time and always giving 100% at everything. That ideal carried me far beyond those moments on the field. When he bought me back home to Georgia, he would give me “ice cream money” that I would save until I could buy whatever it was that I wanted. My grandfather did some work for the United Nations as well as the FBI. He was always infuriated with the lack of a UN Chairman for his home country, Trinidad and Tobago. Once, when I came to visit him in New York, he told me that he would be the chairman whenever he retired. He had a very chilly demeanor about him that my father inherited and passed down to me. Many people were afraid to approach my grandfather or ask him questions. But once they did, he melted into a smile and easily conversed through the sometimes unintelligible jabber of his accent. Many
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My Grandfather’s Memory
people walked away from a conversation with him with a smile from ear to ear. Slowly, I began to see changes in my grandfather. I didn’t understand it while it was happening, but now it is very clear to me. As I grew older, so did he. His dark brown hair sprouted metallic flecks of silver and the skin under his eyes sagged under the weight of a long life. He couldn’t give me piggyback rides anymore. I began making breakfast alone for both him and my grandmother during the summers because he was too tired. When I got into the eighth grade, my grandfather was a much different man that he was when I was a kid. I remember how contagious his energy was: I could hear his smile through the phone during our short weekly conversations, and I couldn’t help but to smile back. He was very calm and calculated as opposed to how spontaneous he was with me as a child. He had developed diabetes, and he began to administer his own insulin although he was terribly afraid of needles. He awoke and read the newspaper, drank coffee, and had a glass of orange juice. He didn’t eat breakfast. As I grew older, so did he. “He got sick,” my father spoke through clenched teeth and closed eyes. “He just got really sick. That’s all that I can remember. I don’t really know exactly what it was. It all happened so quickly…” I remember my mother getting off of the phone with my grandfather one night and sitting me down. “Your grandfather is sick,” she said, staring at the ground. “They think he ate something that made him sick. He’s at the hospital.” I thought nothing of it. Every time I had seen my grandfather, he was perfectly fine. Or, it seemed as if he was. I went about my life as if nothing was wrong because, to me, nothing was wrong. I figured that he would get better and be back to making breakfast with me in no time. My mother and I sat and spoke again two weeks later. “Your grandfather is being transferred from New York to a hospital in Atlanta. They’ve asked that all of his family come to visit, so we’re going to go see him this weekend.”
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10
Kyndall
COOPER
Highway Men
My Grandfather’s Memory
I got excited. I hadn’t seen my grandfather in almost a year. I eagerly looked forward to seeing him. He called me three days later. He sounded different. He sounded tired. He told me that he would be fine. I believed him. Two days after that, on April 25, he died. I never got to visit him. My father laughed softly as he opened his eyes. “It was sadly funny. He was laying on his deathbed, completely aware of the fact that he was going to die there, but he was more afraid of the needles that they used to give him his medications. He was so small and weak, but he got so angry when the nurses came in. He would curse and throw things around. He could barely lift a cup to his lips any other time, but once someone came in with a needle, he had all the strength of his younger years. He would have sooner died on the spot than have to get one of those shots.” My grandfather’s funeral was scheduled for the Saturday after his death. My mother and I made the three-hour trip to the funeral home in Atlanta that Friday morning to see him before he was buried. When we arrived, I saw my father for the first time in almost five years. He took me around the funeral home, showing me all of the amenities the place had to offer: a bar fully stocked with soda, water, and juice that I was more than welcome to. A spacious prayer room with a massive skylight. I only seemed to notice the drab colored upholstery. The cranberry curtains. The shaggy, hideous forest green carpet. The room that my father was avoiding with the open casket that contained my grandfather’s body. Finally, we entered the room. Not many other people were in it. My father knelt down to my eye level. For the first time in years, I could actually see my father’s face. I have been looking at my feet since we got out of the car. I saw a bit of myself in him, in his almond shaped brown eyes and large rectangular teeth. “Now, you’re going to see your grandfather, okay? He’s not going to say anything to you, nor will he look at you. He’s just sleeping. He’s going to be sleeping for a while. He looks different, too. If you decide that you don’t want to see him, you can leave out of that doorway right there and go back to your mother. I won’t be angry with you and neither will he.”
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Benjamin
I let go of my father’s hand and walked up to the casket alone. I realized that it was dark; my eyes were shut. I opened them to the sight of my grandfather, laying peacefully on the red velvet interior. The color made the pale gray of his lifeless skin extremely vivid. He looked different from what I remembered. I was convinced for a short time that his man wasn’t really my grandfather. This man was small. He was frail, with high protruding cheekbones and sunken eyes and no energy to speak of. His gray suit looked five sizes too big. The fabric almost blended in with his skin. He still wore his wedding ring and his trademark gold watch. I stared at him for a while. I studied the small moles on his face that were so numerous that they resembled freckles. I looked at his short stubby fingers. I fixated on the lack of hair on his head that I later learned was a result of the chemotherapy he underwent for the cancer in his lungs that killed him. I wasn’t sure about what to do. I didn’t know if I could touch him. I didn’t know if I could talk to him. Instead, I stared until everything looked familiar. Until the sight made me sick and I saw it behind my closed eyes. I blindly turned away from my grandfather and went to my mother. That was the last time I ever saw him. The next day started with another viewing. This time, all of my family was there. I was surrounded by aunts, cousins, and other people that I hadn’t seen in years, if I’d ever seen them at all. When we approached the casket, I found that my eyes were closed again. As we sat and listened to the numerous eulogies, I suddenly realized that my grandfather had gotten much older than he was when I was a young child. He died at the age of 60, nearly a month from his 61st birthday. I had grown older and so had he. Then and there, I had to continue growing without him. I went about the rest of the day in a blurry daze, from the funeral home to the cemetery, back to his house. To the exact place that I sat with my father as he told me about my grandfather. I looked around the room again, and I felt surrounded by something much bigger than me. I realized that, at some point, my grandfather had touched everything around me. The walls. The doorknobs. His feet had touched the carpet. He had touched my father’s life and my
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My Grandfather’s Memory
life and the life of everyone else in his home. He was a part of everything around me, and in that way, I could never truly lose him. “In a way, your grandfather’s death was one of the best things that could have happened to me. It made me grow the hell up…real fast. I don’t think I would be here talking to you if he hadn’t died. It’s sad, but true. I realized that I wouldn’t see him again, that my father wouldn’t be there for me anymore. While I’m alive, I don’t want you to feel that way. So I suppose that his death wasn’t such a bad thing after all,” my father said, looking me in the eye as he grabbed my hands. He avoided looking at the portrait of my grandfather behind me. I think he felt that he saw too much of himself in it. I know I did.
•
about the artwork, Highway Men: “I have made drawings for almost everyone in my family. Around Christmas time, I was pondering on what to get my little brother, and I realized that I had never drawn him anything. He is really into old country music and bluegrass so I decided to draw his four favorite musicians and put their heads together like they were on Mount Rushmore. I drew it from left to right, so first came Willie Nelson, then Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and finally Kris Kristoppherson. Back in the day, these boys formed a little group called The Highway Men, so I felt that was a fitting title.”
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Brittany
BURGESS
Distance “Experiencing depression always adds some distance between one’s self.”
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David B.
CORDER
second place | prose
The Goblin Shed In memory of Mary Givens and Helen Corder Keisler. When I was a child and visited my grandmother’s house, I always steered clear of her garden shed that was in her backyard. It resembled a small house, with a tin roof and wooden makeup, with a huge wooden door that possessed a long slender door knob, and two windows that peered out into the yard at my grandmother’s garden and stone statues of gnomes and angels. From the doorknob hung old cowbells, and on the side of it was a rusty farm bell. There wasn’t anything particularly foreboding about the old shed. It wasn’t its appearance that kept me away; well, not exactly. Rather, it was what my grandmother said about the shed that made me so fearful of it. She claimed that a goblin lived in there, among her garden tools, old furniture, and pieces of junk that had belonged to my grandfather that she had never bothered to throw away after his passing. The goblin wore old clothes to cover his thin, green body. He fed on roaches and lizards and the occasional mouse that found its way through cracks and crevices into the shed. She told me that he could hear the slightest noise with his large pointed ears, and his bright red eyes with slitted pupils could pierce the darkness around him so he could spot his prey. Once he latched onto it, he devoured it with his sharp yellow teeth. Though she never said that the goblin ate children, and she never mentioned it emerging from its den, I was always sure that there was a good distance between me and the shed. Whenever I was in the backyard, especially if I was alone, I made sure I was carrying a large stick to use as a weapon in case it jumped out of nowhere. As I would run past the shed, at least ten feet from it, I would cast a cautious glance at it. I fully expected to
15
Corder
see an ugly goblin head pop up into the sockets of the windows and leer at me with a wicked grin. Every time my mind conjured up such an image, I would feel ice water spill down my back, and I would run as far away as I could, my heart pounding in my chest, trying to escape. Aside from her tall tales of goblins, my grandmother was a kindly woman. Her laugh was sweet and infectious and her hugs were always warm. Her house smelled of cinnamon and an old moldy scent that was somewhat unpleasant, but I still loved it anyway. Her house had a silence about it, a kind of calming peace, the only sound the eternal ticking of a clock that rested on a mantle. I would lay for hours on the soft, cool blue carpet, drawing or playing with blocks, listening to the rhythm of the clock and the creaking of the rocking chair as my grandmother knitted or read from her Bible. She had such treasures in that house, a whole shelf full of them. There was a bell from her days as a school teacher that I would ring again and again until she gently rested her hand on mine which signaled me to stop. There was a metallic fish, colored with scales of blue and bronze. A polished rock that she said was millions of years old. So many objects that I could examine and touch with my own hands, feel their smooth and rough textures, smell their ancient scent, and marvel at their various colors. My favorite treasure was a music box. Carved into a small house, I would twist the key then sit the house down. I would then lift the roof of the house and as I peered inside at the intricately moving parts, beautiful music would pour out. A little spindle would revolve, covered with little bumps and tiny teeth would scrape against them and let out a vibration, each with its own individual sound. The sounds melded together to create a lovely tune, something that you could sleep to. Each time the tune ended, I would twist the key again. Over and over. When she wasn’t scaring me with tales about goblins, my grandmother would tell me other stories. Old stories. Stories about my grandfather who was a pastor, stories about my dad, her son, who was more of a trouble maker than I had been or ever would be, and incredibly entertaining, out-
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The Goblin Shed
landish tales of her father. One I especially loved was about her father when he came home one night with a newly bought piano. It would have been fine, she supposed, to have a brand-new piano, except for three things: my great-grandfather had blown his entire paycheck on it, he was drunk when he had bought it, and no one in the house had played a piano a day in their life. So, the family had to convince him to take it back and to have the money returned to him. Eventually my grandmother did learn to play piano. She had one in the house, but she never allowed me to touch it, probably because she knew I would bang on the keys incessantly without any musical comprehension whatsoever, and she didn’t want her hearing aids to go haywire. She would let me sit with her while she played though, and she would sing. She only played hymns, and I didn’t know most of the words, so when it came to the point where I couldn’t sing anymore, I would simply hum. That was good enough for her, and she smiled as she played. As I grew older, I paid her fewer visits. School became more complex, girls suddenly became more interesting, I developed a love for soccer and guitar, and the peaceful calm of my grandmother’s home turned into stale boredom. I seldom saw her outside of family occasions and holidays. The treasures became dim in my mind, the melody of the music box silent, and the fear of the goblin shed became nothing but a silly childhood insecurity. One day we had to go to my grandmother’s house to give her bad news. She was getting old, my dad said. She was forgetting things and getting confused easily. It was time to put her in a home. The look on her face as my parents explained to her what was going on was painful and confused, like a child who has been told they have to leave somewhere that they loved with their entire soul. I can’t remember exactly, but she may have cried. She turned away from my dad midsentence and walked into the kitchen. My dad followed her. “Momma, momma, please understand…we love you.” I stayed behind. She was put in the nursing home, and I rarely visited her. Every time
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De’On
TURNER
After Hours “Who you are after hours will inevitably begin to show no matter how strongly you try to hide it.”
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The Goblin Shed
my parents went, they would ask me to come along. Guilt would tug at my heart to go with them and see her, but I didn’t like going. I didn’t like walking through those stark, white halls, odd and unpleasant smells filling my nose, old, decrepit people looking at me with eyes filled with loneliness and devoid of hope. We would go into my grandmother’s room, and she would be there. She said little, and would often stare into space, her mouth slightly open. I would stand in the corner as my parents tried to have a conversation with her, bored and uncomfortable. When at last my parents decided to leave, I would eagerly hug her good-bye and head out the door, ahead of my parents. Sometimes I forgot to say I love you. As the next couple of years passed by, she only grew worse. She couldn’t walk anymore and had to be wheeled around in wheel chair. She couldn’t remember any of the stories about my grandfather or my dad. She couldn’t remember the story about her father and him being drunk and buying the piano. Soon I stopped going altogether. My sophomore year of high school, my dad picked her up and brought her home for Christmas. As she was wheeled in past the Christmas tree, a huge grin spread across her face as she saw everyone. My parents, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, my maternal grandfather, and me. I smiled as I came over to her and she smiled back. She looked me up and down, and a kind of cheerful awe came over her face and filled her voice. “Woo Wee, you’re tall.” I laughed and hugged her. That was the last thing I remember her saying to me. She died a few months later. I didn’t cry when I heard, but I stared out the window for a long time. We had the funeral, and it was the first time I had ever served as a pallbearer, but I knew it wouldn’t be the last. My mother’s father would follow. My aunts and uncles. My own parents. There were a lot of people left to be pallbearer for. About a week after she died, my parents, along with my aunts and uncles went to her house and went through her things. We hadn’t disturbed
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Corder
anything since she had been moved to the home, and we had kept it clean because that’s how she wanted it. But now it was time to sort out what was to be thrown away, what was to be given to Goodwill, and what would be kept and by whom. I wanted just one thing. As soon as I entered the house, I went to the shelf that contained all of her treasures. The school bell, the million year old rock, and the music box. It was just as I remembered it, but in the years since I had last heard it I had completely forgotten the melody it played. Turning the key on its bottom and opening its lid I listened. It sounded like cinnamon and old mold. It sounded like soft, blue carpet. It sounded like home. As my family started going through things in the living room, I ducked out into the backyard. The chill of the air kissed my face as I walked over gray, decayed grass and stopped in front of her old garden shed. The wood was chipped, the roof rusted, the glass windows glazed over with condensation as if it had been asleep. I didn’t see a goblin. It was then I noticed how much the music box looked like the shed. Two windows, a door, a roof, square-shaped. One held the phantom malice of a vicious goblin with sharp teeth, leering at me through the windows, sending shivers down my spine. The other was filled music that soothed my soul. Both contained the memory of my grandmother.
•
20
Washington Group award winner
Through the Looking Tree
MUELLER
Zoë Claire
above:
Karla
MOORE
Bootcamp
facing:
YOUELL Jude JACKSON
Chelsea
Babydoll untitled
24
25
Sleepybirdie
Portrait Flower Child
clockwise from top left:
YOUELL
Chelsea
“This piece is composed entirely with photographs that I took, including the poem (written with light) that uses every letter in the alphabet.�
Moonlight Rite
KELLY
Hunter J.
Anniebelle
QUATTLEBAUM Break Up And then you stand as I sit against your sapphire walls, the thick air choking me into silence; you reach out to hold on, I hold my tongue and myself back by force of determination. Three years of photos litter your walls, soon to be crumpled, I am sure; soon nestled against Pepsi cans, receipt paper, and gum wrappers. My eyes wide open, your words piercing, though I hold the dagger. Out in the halls, your family bellows in laughter, oblivious to my murder of Us. Then you close your eyes, as if in memoriam of the person who saw my empty promises as full of loving intentions.
27
Selin
WAYNE untitled Pollute me with kindness, Let your love be clear oxygen in my dirty lungs. I would write on paper, The words of my love, But to do so Would be to destroy the very thing that lets you Breathe.
previous spread by
Kati
SEAY
Preston Senior Portrait Session
Ink Splat award honorable mention
“Styling and shooting Preston’s senior session was a dream. Such personality from this incredibly driven, smart, and beautiful young lady made for an extraordinary styled senior portrait session.”
30
Anniebelle
QUATTLEBAUM Nostalgia And sometimes, before I retire for the night, I take out the small, scarlet velveteen box you left, and I fear that nothing will ever feel so right as two seventeen-year-olds huddled on a rock that frozen February the 10th The warmth, created only by us as we swore to Forever—a friend— as familiar and welcoming as those misty Sundays at the creek by your Grandpa’s house. ‘Remember John and Dara’s vows—on this rock?’ you would say, ‘That will be us, now— maybe next Summer, next Fall or Spring.’ But as night fell but mourning broke— and as dreams played on, but I awoke—you held my hand as we ran through firefly paths—but the flight of youth left us breathless. Now I hold letters and silver rings in dusty casings—those ashes of time embracing the velvet. Well, I suppose that our love is strong enough to hold onto, maybe forever— even if it was never strong enough to fight for.
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previous spread by
above:
Kyndall
COOPER Hard Flip
Ink Splat award second place
“Modeled by T. J. Wright”
below:
Victoria
ROBINS Vulnerability Meets Beauty
Ink Splat award honorable mention
“Model, Lauren Howard, explores her vulnerable side; indeed, it is the most beautiful part of being human.”
34
Meredith Grace
HAWCROFT Tears Before Breakfast Deep, mournful lowing, A sound so sad, like something dying. The despaired orphaned calf wailed Trying to come to grips with the lateness of his breakfast. I pulled on my purple, polka-dotted, manure-proof rain boots Then tramped through the neutrality of the tall, swaying grass that ached to be baled Until I saw the newborn calf corralled in his pen, Barely bigger than a golden retriever, Fur the color of deep mahogany except for a splash of white down his face, Reminding me of vanilla ice cream peeking through hot fudge. I unwound the rusty chain from around the ramshackle fencepost. The antiquated gate swung open with the slightest touch. I opened a bag of cold, chalky milk substitute and clumsily poured it into a giant bottle. Rubbing the baby’s tiny ears – velvet between my fingers—I felt them perk. His snotty nose brushed my body, delightfully cold and wet. In the closeness, I drew in a long, content breath to savor the odor of home. I kissed him between the eyes. The delightful mix of fresh hay, dried milk, and clinging manure grew stronger. I dripped some of the liquid into his mouth, so he could taste. The milk hit his tongue thick and sweet like whipped cream. He began sucking in earnest. The lowing ceased.
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David
STINTON The Center When I approach you, the world shifts. It might be nerves, or an earthquake, but There’s rumbling below my feet. Do I only imagine that our flow of sharing and trust Bumped into the wall and spilled? My balance is unsteady and I don’t know where to stand. You’re close by. I smile and lean toward you. I’m giddy until you stumble away, gripping the countertop With feigned nonchalance. We stare, breathing, reluctant to move. You turn away and walk to the porch. With no invitation that I should follow. The wine in your glass swings and splashes red on the floor. The room spins as you leave and my brain is flailing. I bumble after you, quickly, As if the gravity of the world centers on you.
36
38 “This drawing was inspired by Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”
Long Strange Ttrip
COOPER
Kyndall
Sarah Marie
WILLIAMSON Intoxicated I can still taste the rosé on my lips-It spilled down my throat and burned A sparkling waterfall of wine and bliss. The tip of my tongue still tingles, as if From a bee’s sting rather than its fruity kiss-Yet, I savor the flavor of its nectar’s bitterness. I wonder if the color has flushed My face, certain my cheek Might match its faded, floral tint; Stray drops of smooth indulgence Linger like lust on my lips, But I brush them away with a stroke Of stained fingertips; I wonder if enough remains To kiss a man and help him fall Drunk in love with the taste Of rosé and intoxicated ecstasy.
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Ashley
ELLEFSON
Submerge 40
David B.
CORDER
third place | poetry
Luminescent Wind tossed our hair around carelessly. We were in a dark, luminescent world, where the clouds were opaque and grim and the entire sky glowed electrified blue with sudden, furious bursts of light in the distance. Thunder rumbled like a dragon disturbed by dreams of thievery and the wind roared along with the waves, ravenous and mad. Salt scented the air, along with seaweed and water. And sand, scattered by the wind, stuck to the bare skin of our shins, made sticky by the salty water. It felt like bee stings, or as if a hundred cat tongues had licked, and licked, and licked our skin until our legs were raw.
Washington Group award winner
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David
first place | poetry
STINSON Science of Life It’s just biology. Cells grow and divide, Sometimes logically and sometimes Erratically. LuLu’s tumor grows and begins to push through her chest until She can no longer walk. Miss Firecracker, Big Lu, Honey Lamb… Best dog ever. Eleven years, and now she’s a bloated sick Lab. For two weeks I carry her back and forth from house to yard So that she can keep her dignity on the lawn. The end comes on a sunny autumn day. I place her blanket on the mowed grass, In her favorite spot for a warm nap. I cover the blanket with flowers and then Lay her in the center. “There will be dog angels,” I whisper to her, “You’ll be safe.” LuLu’s tail thumps happily when her vet approaches. Cindy opens the black bag and Brings out a needle.
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Science of Life
Fear can trigger a release of adrenaline From the adrenal medulla: It’s just biology. Adrenaline opened LuLu’s air passages, Made her heart race, And for the first time in half a month She lifted herself up and limped quickly across the yard. “Let her go where she wants,” The vet said, “We’ll come to her.” A voice of kindness as LuLu & I both panic. Later, I would recall this as the ironic part of the day. LuLu wobbles to the bottom of the porch stairs, Wanting to hide in her bedroom. My eyes flash a signal to my brain that sends A message to my muscles until I am stooping, Lifting her to my chest. I can’t remember walking with her in my arms, Or carrying her onto the porch, Or the vet tying off her paw, Or the needle, Or Cindy’s quiet departure. It’s just biology: Transient global amnesia, Or some other complicated psycho-emotional protection.
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Stinson
LuLu collapses like wet sand in my arms, A bag of heavy wet sand. She is in deep silent forever sleep. Her limbs dangle lazily over mine. Her yellow hair is soft as I press My clenched jaw to her neck. I look up and away, just as a puppy does When caught doing something terrible, And in the blue blue sky of fall Hundreds of LuLu angels shimmer boldly Above us. And I know this hallucination can be explained As some pattern of grief Stirring my brain. It’s just biology. The neurologic force of my despair interrupts Retinal messages to the visual cortex In my occipital lobes As I pant and howl Causing a vision that looks like the sky has angels For my LuLu. And soon, as my body’s tonics dissipate in my pulsing blood, And my retinas reclaim my vision, I look at my girl - lifeless on my lap – And I marvel that two gametes once joined to create a canid cell That divided beautifully for a decade For me and with me. It’s just biology.
44
Washington Group award winner
Brittany
BURGESS
Blue Rings “Live on the edge even if it is dangerous.”
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46
Refreshed
MELVIN
Aubry
47
Rebecca
BEAUDRY
Les Fleurs
Meredith Grace
HAWCROFT The Moment Sometimes I think of the way he looked at me across the bar that night with his eyes distractingly somber and beautifully amber, his hair slightly sticking up from the way he ran his fingers through it when he was nervous. In that moment, seeing him with her, I knew our love was gone. Then he took me home and immediately went to sleep in our oversized mahogany bed while I stared at the stars through the skylight and wondered who he was dreaming of. Her name was probably something like Jessica or Ashley. I’m sure she lacked all traces of integrity and modesty because that was always the type of woman he liked before he settled for and down with me. He lost interest quickly and didn’t like to put much effort into relationships. I always thought I could change his mind and make him close the revolving door of women who passed through his arms. I pretended not to know, and he pretended that I was content in our relationship even though he saw my eyes were red and puffy at the breakfast table. I ran my hand along his cheek, momentarily content in my desire to be in denial. I pulled him towards me and tried to remind him why we were so good together— all the while wondering which of my flaws had driven him away. The years spent together made it hard to let go. My illusion of him not completely dissolving until the day he said goodbye and left me for good.
48
Sarah Marie
honorable mention | poetry
WILLIAMSON The Old Front Porch Rocking chairs and wicker seats Outline the old front porch; Chips of paint from boards and panes Blanket the old front porch— No better debris than peeled memories Lie in a pile of dusty snow. Each etched initial flaunts the fame Of names and lives from generations ago; My mind’s impressions are weathered and worn, But so is the family front porch.
Washington Group award honorable mention
49
Sarah Marie
Blushing Pink
WILLIAMSON
Anna
NORRIS
third place | prose
Him and Her I’ve never known God. There was a time, for quite a long while, that I thought I did. But it passed, and with it gone a terrible sense of confusion overtook me and stole the place where God and the Virtuous Mary had, in my childish imagination, previously resided. They were, so to say, evicted without much notice. The last time I thought I knew God was the Sunday I heard about the car accident involving my best friend Brody and my worst friend whose name is – and I am not joking – Jesús. I went to church twice that Sunday and to the hospital between services. I had never noticed the chipped paint on the walls of the church or how Mother Mary’s blue dress was mysteriously losing its bright color. As I gave my weekly donation to the church, I wondered what they were using the money for, if not to improve a house of God. The thought didn’t last long, however, as I passed a framed photo of our youth group. Brody stood in front of everyone, shaking the hand of the new owner of the house we’d just finished building. The owner’s family had lost everything in a fire on New Year’s Eve four years earlier. I remembered that house vividly; it was under the porch that I shared my first kiss, and put Adam and Eve to shame, with him. I’d just turned fourteen, and he was twenty-three, but it was love, he said, even God would understand. By the time Monday rolled around, Brody was dead, and Jesús was awake from his coma. He’d been resuscitated twice on the table. It seemed God was playing favorites, and I was much too far down on His list. I sat on the green chair with crusted mashed potato smeared over its arms and looked at Jesús from across the white-washed room. “What did you see?” “Nothing. Just… Nothing.” He didn’t make eye contact with me, and I’m still not sure whether it
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Norris
was survivor’s guilt or sheer and genuine depression that made him stare at the wall. Either way, his answer upset me. If he saw nothing, if he didn’t even feel the sting of flames against the bottoms on his feet, what happened to my Brody? I left the room without saying anything else. As I started towards the wide double doors of the hallway, a shrill cry stopped me in place. I looked in the direction of the wail just in time to see Riley running into Brody’s room. I’d been a bridesmaid at their wedding two weeks earlier, and saw Brody fully for the last time that same day. She’d never deserved him, and yet she was the one who was allowed to mourn so openly. I turned to walk away, to hide my grief, before she could see me. I threw my beautiful pearl and white gold rosary, the one I’d gotten from him the Christmas the year before, into the trash bin on the way out of the hospital. The clang of the heavy cross hitting the bottom on the metal bin followed me all the way out to my car. I knew that Riley would fall to her knees next to his empty bed and pray her sadness away. I would have maybe done the same, but I knew the truth now. Nothing. Just… Nothing. God had abandoned me. And how could Mary, my beautiful Mary, listen to me if her own son did not acknowledge me? I took her loss worse than His. The Virgin Mother could never comfort me again, except in the pages I’d highlighted and dog-eared for years, and even then, every word and verse took on a different meaning. Never again would I lie awake at night praying to Mary, and to God, but mainly to Mary, about my life. I thought back to the porch from three years ago, something I’d only allowed myself to do right before a Sunday confession. A hot stream of tears finally left me as turned on my car engine. Brody was wrong: God didn’t understand. He understood nothing. As I looked at myself in my rear-view mirror I knew that I would never know God and that God had never known me because a character in a novel, even one as long and complicated as the book I’d been raised on, can never know its reader. Heaven and Hell are just settings and Moses and Joseph are just characters. Mary and God are the main characters, and the
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Him and Her
Red Sea and the Ark and the Tree of Knowledge were just plots and plot devices within bigger plots. Nothing is or was real. Nothing. I let the nothingness consume me, and it hasn’t abandoned me yet. Maybe it never will. All I know is that They have not asked for me to come back to Them, and Jesús is driving again. And all I have of Brody is a tombstone made of cold marble and the memory of a porch.
•
Washington Group award winner
53
Adaora
NWANGWU
Brainwaves 54
Ink Splat award third place
Brice
BILLUE
honorable mention | poetry
The Lying Angel Oh, sweet Angel of Virtue, Please show me all that is good and true. Heavenly to me but evil to some, From what you have now become. Oh, what a feeling of tranquil bliss, From your sweet and tranquil kiss. Now during the encumbering storm, I see what you are as you transform. You love to put me in constant danger, With your raging, painful anger. From what you have now become, Evil to me but holy to some, Please stop as my pain starts to show. Oh, terrible Angel of Woe. (now read bottom to top)
Washington Group award honorable mention
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Anna
NORRIS Together I still remember Your aged-cheap- sweet-alcohol perfume, The swell of your black-brown hair, The down-turn of your nose – Which to others looks like the beak of a bird – But for me hooks – hooked – me to you And drew me closer, andcloser, So close that our bodies touched, And s h a t t e r e d each other. And we cradled each other, And wept. I’d almost forgotten how we wept: As one unit, Like how wet-wandering shoes can chafe against a catatonic hardwood floor, And the two – different as they are – screech together into open air. You are the shoe, I am the floor; Together we screech.
56
Anniebelle
second place | poetry
QUATTLEBAUM Waiting Room Surely he would not bring grave news under flickering florescence beside violet, polyester begonias.
Not today, when morning has just awakened sunlight breaking through your pane, the heat enflaming your veins, would he put you to sleep on such icy sheets. Surely not after a last supper of lemon ice and bile. Not breathing in antiseptic, which cleans yet erases. Surely these sunshined voices will not deliver darkness. The spectacled man, clipboard out of hand, suffocating from the weight of empty words.
Washington Group award winner
57
Adaora
NWANGWU
Eve 58
David B.
CORDER
first place | prose
Did God Create Dragons? “Was she ever beautiful?” I had asked Granddaddy this probably a hundred times. Every time I did, he would lean back in his rocking chair and sigh; then he would suck long and hard on his pipe, his cheeks flexing. Finally, he would blow out a smoke ring that rose up into the air and dissipated in the day’s sunlight. “She was at one time. She was a very pretty girl; the boys were always after her.” “That was before she got sick?” He nodded, his blue-gray eyes staring into the woods that sloped up the mountain in front of our house. “That was before she got sick.” We would both sit there for a moment, the silence hanging between us like a heavy curtain. That was the end of the conversation. Every time. I never prodded him after that, and I accepted what he said as truth. After a while though, Granddaddy would start rocking back and forth in his chair and ask, “Did I ever tell you the story of the moon-eyed people?” He had told me that story hundreds of times. The moon-eyed people were small, pale-skinned, bearded, and used to live in the mountains. They fought against the Cherokee Indians and lost and were driven underground. “No,” I said. He patted his leg, and I crawled up into his lap. He hugged me close, and I nuzzled my head into his chest. He started telling the story, his voice gentle like spring rain, lips smacking on the wooden end of his pipe, and the steady rhythm of his rocking would always lure me to sleep. Granddaddy’s stories are what got me into reading, and I read everything that I could get my hands on in our school’s measly library. I especially liked books about fairies, and knights, and giants. But my favorite thing to read about was dragons.
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Corder
“Come on, Dalton,” I said to my cousin one day as we went climbing up the mountainside in front of the house. Dalton lived with his momma and daddy about a quarter mile down the road from me and Granddaddy. He was lazy and didn’t like to do anything but sit in front of the TV watching the same video tapes over and over again. This devotion to a single activity made him large for his age, and if he walked around in the sun for more than a few minutes, he would start to sweat profusely, even if it wasn’t hot out. But since I was older than him, I was always able to force him to do whatever I wanted. “Where are we going?” he complained. “We’re going to find dragons,” I said simply as we made our way up through the mountain woods. The canopy above us was an explosion of color, like nature’s own display of yellow, red, and orange fireworks. Leaves that had already fallen crunched beneath our shoes and sounded like papers being shuffled as they slid over one another. There was a cool stillness in the air and a kind of calming presence that hung around us as if God filled every space and every pocket for hundreds of miles around. “Dragons ain’t real,” Dalton said, slicking his blonde hair back from his forehead. “How do you know?” I asked. “Have you ever seen one?” “No. But just because you’ve never seen one doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Is Africa real?” “Yeah.” “Have you ever seen it?” “No, but Mrs. Cullen told our class ‘bout it.” “So you believe it. You chose to believe it because someone told you about it. And because a book told me that dragons might be real, I’m going to believe that they are.” “Did God create dragons?” he asked sarcastically. I turned around and looked him in the eye. “Did God create Africa?” We were never able to find any dragons. Granddaddy never let
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Did God Create Dragons?
Dalton and me go farther than a certain point up the mountainside. I always thought that if I could just go a bit farther I would find one, or maybe a nest, where I would find three or four eggs. Then I could raise my own dragons. Or even if I couldn’t find any dragons, or nests, or eggs, then maybe behind the thick veil of trees, in the deepest reaches where the forest’s shadows were darkest, a unicorn was drinking from a brook. Or unseen underneath my feet, on the very earth I treaded on up the mountain, were the moon-eyed people, just waiting to see if it was okay for them to come up now that the Indians had gone away. All of these daydreams filled my mind and heart to the brim with hope that anything was possible, and I would lay in the grass, staring at the mountains rising up around me as if I were the center of their universe, while I waited for them to reveal to me all of their secrets. I started writing stories as a child. The first story I ever wrote was after Dalton tripped me up one day when I ran around the house. He scurried up a tree to get away from me (despite his large size, he could scale a tree faster than a fox squirrel). I couldn’t reach him, so I kicked the tree and chucked rocks at him. It did no good though, and he just taunted me and called me names, so I gave up and stormed into the house. I sat down at the kitchen table. I breathed hard with my fists clenched in my lap thinking about all the ways I wanted to get back at him. I stared hard at the table and saw a yellow note pad and pen. I looked at them for a minute then picked up the pen and started writing on the pad, pressing down so hard that I made holes in the paper a couple of times. When I was done, I felt better, and I went into my bedroom to play with my Barbies. I called my Barbies Daisy and Lulu. Daisy was naked because I had only one dress, and Lulu had her left arm chewed off by a Jack Russel that wasn’t around anymore (I figured that it was only fair that Lulu should wear the dress since Daisy had all four of her limbs). About an hour after I had left the kitchen, Granddaddy knocked. He leaned against the doorframe, looking down at the yellow notepad in his hand. He started reading out loud. “Dalton was in a tree, laughing at Marcy
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Corder
because he had just tripped her over. All of a sudden, a purple—” He squinted and looked up at me. “What’s an O’laron?” “Dragon,” I said. He continued. “All of a sudden a purple dragon came out of the sky and picked him up and flew him to the top of the mountain. Dalton cried and cried and asked the purple dragon to put him down. But the purple dragon shook his head and said, ‘Not unless you promise to be nice to Marcy.’ Dalton promised and the purple dragon shook his head again. ‘Nope. You’re fat and stupid.’ And he dropped Dalton and Dalton fell and he was dead on the rocks.” Granddaddy peered up at me. “How much of this is a true story?” “Just the first part. I’m still waiting for the dragon.” Granddaddy nodded and left the room. The next thing I heard was Dalton screaming in the living room and the sound of leather slapping against the flesh of a buttock, Granddaddy yelling that you were never, ever supposed to hurt women. Granddaddy always told me that I was a smart girl. He told me that he knew God had more of a plan for me than just staying around the mountains my entire life. “But I like the mountains,” I would say. “I want to stay.” He would smile at me sadly and bring my head to his chest so that I could hear his heart beating underneath the rough cotton of his shirt. I inhaled deeply, loving the smell of pipe tobacco that always permeated his body. He would stroke my hair and say softly, “No, Baby. You don’t want to stay here.” She would come around sometimes. One time she came, and I could hear the creaking and coughing of an old red Ford pickup truck as it made its way down the dirt road towards the house. The man got out first. He was a tall Indian with a long, greasy braid and a cigarette in his mouth. He glared at me playing in the yard with Daisy and Lulu. He had a tattoo on his arm that said “Only God Can Judge Me.” I saw the passenger door open and my blood turned to ice.
62
Adaora
NWANGWU
Contemplation 63
Corder
“Marcy, Marcy! What’re you doin’ girl? Come give me a hug!” I didn’t move. I just sat there with my hands clasped tightly around Daisy and Lulu. She clicked her tongue and made her way over in a kind of hobble. “Come on, sweet pea! Give me some lovin’.” She scared me. Her skin stretched over her skeletal frame like thin rubber, her cheek bones sharp and her eyes sunken deep within her skull. Her blonde hair was lank and dirty, and her teeth were this kind of rotten green. When she touched me, her hands rough and fingers bony, it made me want to cry and run. My body tensed up, and I had to hold my breath because she smelled so bad, like a fish that had been left out in the sun for days. I felt like one of the witches in my books had come to life, jumped from the pages, and appeared right in front of me. “I hasn’t seen you in such a long time. I missed you!” “Pamela!” Granddaddy had come on to the porch and was looking at her, his blue-gray eyes like cold stones. Her grip loosened, and I ran up the steps, dropping Daisy and Lulu. I hid behind Granddaddy, clutching his pants leg as hard as I could. She stared at me as if she couldn’t believe that I had run away from her. She knelt down and picked up Daisy and Lulu in one hand and came closer to the porch. With each step she took my grip on Granddaddy’s pants got tighter. “Here you go, Darlin’,” she said. “I don’t bite.” I buried my face into Granddaddy’s back. I didn’t want to look at her. “What do you want, Pam?” I heard Granddaddy ask. “I need some money for the rent.” “You mean for more snuff. You’re not getting any.” “Please, daddy. I promise it ain’t for no snuff. I hadn’t had any in weeks.” “The hell you haven’t.” “I promise. Michael over there, he’s a paster’, and he’s showing me God’s Light. I’m a changed woman.” There was a brief moment of silence, and I could feel Granddaddy’s
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Did God Create Dragons?
eyes roving over the Indian man. “If he’s a pastor, and you’re a changed woman, then I’m Paul Bunyan.” There was silence for a minute. “Just give me the money,” she said. “Pamela, I’m going to tell you this once. Leave now before something bad happens.” I heard a gruff voice that belonged to the Indian. “What are you going to do?” I heard his footsteps coming across the grass closer to the porch. I felt Granddaddy’s body shuffle and heard the cracking of his pistol as he cocked back the hammer. I pictured a snake rearing its head back right before it struck. “I’ll blow you both away. Then you can both find out if you know God’s Light.” I felt my heart skip a beat into my throat. I was afraid any moment I was going to hear gunshots or that Granddaddy and I was going to get hurt or killed. All I heard though was her spit. Then she started shouting. “You son of a bitch! You can go straight to Hell!” Something made a loud noise as it hit the porch, and I knew she had thrown Daisy and Lulu. I heard her stomping across the yard, then a truck door slam. She yelled again, “Just go to Hell!” Another door slammed. The truck started up, wheezing, and I heard it pull away. When I couldn’t hear it anymore, I brought my face out of Granddaddy’s back and looked. There was nothing there; they had vanished, like some sort of nightmare after morning’s first light. “It’s okay, Baby. They’re gone now. You can let go.” He had put away the pistol and was looking at me, smiling sweetly. I let go of him slowly and looked around. Lulu looked okay, but Daisy’s head had popped off and shot to the other side of the porch. I felt my throat close up, and I started to cry. Granddaddy knelt down and picked up Daisy’s nude body and then her blonde head. He pressed them together, and Daisy’s head popped right back on. “Marcy. Marcy, look, it’s okay.” He held Daisy out and I took hold of her. I couldn’t stop crying though, and I fell into his chest.
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Corder
It wasn’t even supper time yet, but I felt like I had cried every bit of energy out of my eyes. Granddaddy put me in bed with the last rays of sun shining through the cracks in the blinds of the window. I looked at those rays as they kissed me warmly, drying the tears that had stained my cheeks. Slowly, my mind cleared, and I could feel fresh air rush into my lungs. I closed my eyes, the gleams of sunlight on my eyelids making me see orange. The sheets were wrapped tight around me and the pillow was soft. In only a few short minutes I had fallen completely asleep. It was dark when I woke up to yelling. I sat up in bed, groggy, not sure what was going on. Granddaddy was shouting something, and I heard furniture being overturned and things shattering as they fell to the floor. Then another voice was screaming. It was her. “Get it away from him, Michael! Get it away!” The next thing I heard was the loud pop of a gun. It ripped through the entire house and made me jump. There was a heavy thump as a body hit the floor, and I bit down on the blankets to keep myself from screaming, praying to God that it wasn’t Granddaddy that had made that thump. “You bastard! I’ll kill you!” I heard her scuttle across the floor, and another shot rang out. There was another heavy thump, though it wasn’t quite as heavy as the first one. Then all was quiet. After what seemed like a hundred years, the door opened. I couldn’t see him completely because it was still dark in the room, but I knew it was Granddaddy. I felt a little bit of relief flow through my body but I still held on tightly to the sheets as if I were to let go, I would fall forever into empty space. “Marcy, are you okay?” Granddaddy asked. I unclamped my mouth from the sheets and wiped the spit off my mouth with the back of my hand. “Yes, sir.” “Good.” He was silent for minute. I could feel him looking at me, his blue-gray eyes looking straight into mine. “Stay in here, Baby. I’m calling the police.” I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
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Did God Create Dragons?
I stayed in my room the entire time. I played absentmindedly with Lulu’s dress as a pretty girl police officer sat next to me on my bed and talked to me. I could hear the police talking to Granddaddy in the next room where Uncle Ben, Dalton’s daddy, was sitting with him. I guessed that Dalton and Aunt Jenny were still at home. After a while, I heard the flapping and zipping up of the black plastic bags. After what seemed like forever, the girl police officer left, and I heard the cars drive out of our yard and down the road. Uncle Ben talked with Granddaddy for a while, then I heard him leave as well. The sound of his truck’s engine faded away, and all was quiet again. I walked into his bedroom. He only had one lamp on, and the light under the shade cast broken shadows across the room. He was sitting on his bed crying, his cracked leather Bible open on his lap. He didn’t look at me. His head was bowed, and I saw tears spilling from his eyes and rolling down to the tip of his nose where they fell and splashed on the pages. I put my hand on his. I looked at him a moment and said, “I love you, Granddaddy.” I felt bad because that made him cry even harder. He hugged me and held me so tight that it almost hurt, but I didn’t care. I hugged him back as hard as I could. He had held me when I had cried that day. It was my turn to hold him. He held me for a long time, just crying. Through tears and clenched teeth he said, “This mountain. This damn mountain. If she had just gotten off this mountain, then she wouldn’t have been like she was. She wouldn’t have been like this at all. None of it would be like this.” He pulled back and looked into my eyes. His blue-gray eyes were hurting. They were tired. They were sad. “Promise me, Marcy. Promise me you won’t stay here.” I looked into those eyes and nodded my head. “I promise, Granddaddy.”
• Washington Group award winner | prose
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Ink Splat award first place
Skylight
Left
Shadow
Above
ELLEFSON
Ashley
Under the Chandelier
HATCHELL
Elayna
70
music & spoken word These pieces may be heard at the Broken Ink website or on Soundcloud by following the QR code included
Mark
soundcloud.com/broken-ink-2
PELFREY Dresses Time Falling Backwards / For You Tone
DEAF babygirl
David Royden
WATKINS The Vision of Joy The Rollover Beethoven Music Award is awarded to a student of USC Aiken for an audio submission to Broken Ink that displays meritorious quality. The winner of the award was selected in a blind review conducted by Professor Steve Sloan of the USC Aiken’s music department. The Rollover Beethoven Award was sponsered by an anonymous donor in tribute to the Joseph T. and Mary H. Usher Music Program Endowment.
special thanks to
whose support has helped us reach the greater art community of Aiken, by providing the venue for our release show and displaying these works in their public gallery space.
Aiken Center for the Arts 122 Laurens St SW Aiken, SC 29801
about us Broken Ink is produced yearly by a staff of USC Aiken students. The magazine accepts and reviews submissions of student-created works of visual and literary art and compiles the best, based on our review process, into one magazine. All students are eligable to join the Broken Ink staff regardless of year, major, or experience. We have weekly meetings in the Student Media Office located in the Student Activities Center. For more information, visit our website at www.brokeninkusca.wordpress.com or email your questions to us at brokeninkusca@gmail.com.
our mission Broken Ink endeavors to accurately and objectively feature the literary and artistic achievements of USC Aiken students and to raise awareness of the literary and visual arts throughout campus and the community.
the review process All submissions are reviewed blindly and rated on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the highest) by literary and visual art panels assembled from student volunteers and staff. In order to supply an accurate and objective representation of USC Aiken’s artistic community, we ask all panelists to recuse themselves from rating their own submissions, should they have any, and any works that they recognize. Accepted works are determined according to the highest average rating. Due to space constraints, the Broken Ink staff occasionally must determine between two or more equally deserving works, both by average rating and artisitc merit. Ties are resolved based on the current publication’s concept or “voice” and Broken Ink’s misison to represent a wide variety of student work.
brokeninkusca.wordpress.com