Still Waters V, III

Still Waters

A BROOKS LITERARY MAGAZINE

Still Waters

A BROOKS LITERARY MAGAZINE

VOL V, ISSUE III

EDITORS

Dean Charpentier, English Faculty

Ximing Gong 25'

Daniel Jiang 26'

DESIGNER

Kaden Almaraz 26'

PUBLICATIONS

Jennifer O’Neill, Director of Digital Communications

Rebecca Binder, Director of Print Communications, English Faculty

Still Waters is committed to publishing original, exciting material from a diverse collection of Brooks student writers

While we actively pursue short fiction, poetry, and memoir, we will consider any form of writing submitted.

There are no restrictions on word count, and authors may submit multiple submissions at a time

“Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has been cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Table of Contents

Creative Non-Fiction

Anonymous

Daniel Jiang

Fernando Rivas Lora

Rylee Ahn

Poetry

Pages 11 - 18

Charlie Rousmaniere

Gage Blevins

Harrison O’Connor

Kayu Schubert

Kyleigh Matola

Shelley Grant

Tristan Yepdo

Yeejune Cho

Short Fiction

Ady Duval

Bella Mondolfi

Elise Kelley

Emma Nagle

Leah Chen

Pages 19 - 45

Pages 1 - 10

A Still Waters Interview

Emma Nagle

Pages 46 - 47

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Creative Non-Fiction

Through the Walls of the World

by Anonymous

The truck flipped on its side, killing the driver on the spot.

I brought back beer from the accident…He came home with his trunk full of the leftover beer that was in the truck that somehow didn’t spill during the accident…He came home with the beer instead of taking care of his —now dead—friend.

My first memory of my uncle is nothing close to pleasant. Maybe it was this incident that set my relationship with my uncle and my grandmother on a bumpy road. My uncle is now in a psychiatric hospital after being accused of domestic violence. My uncle’s behavior made me question things as a child: I questioned his actions, I questioned why my parents had to pay for his hospital bills, and I questioned why people like my uncle acted the way they did.

Naturally, home was a stimulating place for me to grow up. My refuge from this, and the source of answers to my questions, was reading. I once read a graphic memoir by Liana Finck called Passing for Human, in which Finck tells the story of her life, beginning with her mother, who had a similar shadow that she lost and then found. For me, the title stood out more than the content of the book. My parents had always told my brother and me that in order to grow up to be a good person, we must rise above any situation. So naturally, I believed that humans would always have the ability to rise, because life is what you make of it.

We don’t know what life is or why we are in this world; all we know, all we feel, is that we must protect it any way we can. Even Buddha said it clearly: “Life is suffering.” Life is meant to be challenging, life is difficult because we must strive to earn happiness and success. Yet, my uncle was going down a path quite the opposite of what I had known: my uncle was not technically “passing for human.” But despite all of my questions, my parents despised any conversation about my uncle, so I settled for the fact that maybe my uncle was just not a good person.

Now that I am paying most of my uncle’s bills, I’ve had the chance to revisit the question of what it means to pass for human. I think about how my life, my arguments, my economic status, and my living arrangements are always been a part of my daily routine and concerns while my uncle is having the time of his life, carefree, in the hospital. The unfairness of this all has lead me to two conclusions.

First, being human is essentially about forming your own way of life and giving meaning to it. As humans we are all programmed to live and breathe in order to survive: the basic physical abilities are covered by a natural instinct with which we are born. However, being human isn’t just about our basic physical needs, it is about what other living breathing animals can’t do. The center, the essence, of “passing for human” is the gift of consciousness and thought. Unlike other species, humans possess the ability to contemplate their existence, ponder the universe’s mysteries, and ask fundamental questions about life’s purpose. Our consciousness enables us to reflect on the past, anticipate the future, and make deliberate choices. The ability to experience a range of emissions—joy, sorrow, love, fear—deepens our connection to the world and to one another. It is through our thoughts and feelings that we navigate the complexities of existence and seek to find meaning in a vast and ever-changing universe.

Second, my uncle is still not passing for human. He does not seem to be asking any fundamental questions about life’s purpose, and certainly has left me with little to no time to ask questions about my own life. Thus, he does not meet my standards and definition of being a functional human being in this society. But I suppose he did serve a positive purpose in motivating me to be the most successful version of myself that I could be.

While I was doing research on some possible topics for this piece, I came across a New York Times article titled The Question We Must Keep Asking. This quote stood out to me: “Our self-conceptions are, in turn, responses to conditions that we encounter in our environment, and those conditions constantly change with time and place.” I read through the entire article before I got to work and thought about how even though I rage at how much my family situation has taken from me, I know that I was able to grow and learn from it. Although I would have loved to enjoy my naive and inexperienced life as a high school student for a little while longer, I cannot object to the fact that I have gained some valuable knowledge and experience: I work as a licensed translator/interpreter, I can read contracts, I know how to do my own income report and tax adjustments.

Everything that I have learned and done has been a major part of my life for the past two years, but my work goes unnoticed by most people around me. While I don’t mind working in the background, this lack of recognition has brought me to my final conclusion, about the impact we have on others. I might not be the biggest presence in my brother’s life, for instance, but I want my work to spare him from having to sacrifice his precious time at school. Since our lives and our journeys toward “passing for human” are so dependent on the environment we encounter, my brother should have every minute to explore the world and pursue his passions. Regardless of how much recognition I get, I want to look at my brother in the future and think about how I might have contributed to the person he has become.

Mythologies

by Daniel Jiang

There were tissues everywhere in the house.

Tissues ripped to shreds. Tissues piling up into small mountains. Tissues overflowing from the garbage bin.

Although now I realize how unhygienic this sounds, I didn’t notice back then. Nobody did.

It was eight o’clock when I dragged myself up the stairs to my bedroom. This was way earlier than my regular sleep schedule, and my mom would have checked on me to see if I was okay. But she was nowhere to be seen. I guess she felt even more exhausted than I did.

Showers are good. They normally wash away all the exhausting things I suffer that day, replacing them with calmness. My shower that night didn’t work like it was supposed to.

I sank into bed, pulling my blanket up to my chin and feeling the soft fabric rest reassuringly on my neck. Rather quickly, I started to fall into a deep slumber. I should have felt guilty that I was falling asleep like a normal person while my sister went on creating more shredded tissues.

But I slept and dreamed.

I was in a large, Chinese style dining pavilion. Shiny wooden columns stretched from the corners of the room into the ceiling, where golden chandeliers blinked like stars in the sky. A large, rectangular table was placed in the middle of the room, delicious-looking Chinese platters and dishes taking up every inch of the table. There were so many plates that they piled up on each other, and the table was so full that I couldn’t see its surface. Every seat around the table was occupied by an old man laughing or engaging in intense conversation as they ate. Almost all of them were smoking, and as the smoke drifted into the air, it created a thin layer of mist hanging amongst the chandeliers.

I was not bothered by the smoke at all. I had been in its presence almost every day since I was too small to remember.

I sat at a far corner of the table, feeling out of place. There was an old man sitting next to me. He waved his hand at his friends before he leaned in, as if he was telling them to give us some privacy for a bit.

He had a cigarette in his hand, white and orange, burning at the tip.

I was pretty sure he looked at me before he spoke, but his facial features are slowly fading from my memory. I cannot even remember how his eyes looked when he spoke.

He told me to take care of my mom, my sister, and my grandma.

That was it. He turned away from me and started to talk with his friends again, and I ceased to exist.

Sunlight poured into my room and I opened my eyes.

For a second I didn’t know what to think. Did that really happen?

I had breakfast that day with my sister and grandma. My sister’s eyes were red and puffy as she sat there, staring at her cereal. Normally I would’ve laughed at her and made jokes, but this wasn’t the time for that.

After breakfast I surveyed the empty living room.

A box of cigarettes sat on the table, its familiar white and orange dim in the morning light. I realized that I hadn’t smelled cigarette smoke for a while.

Finally, my parents came down the stairs. Again, they had decided to skip breakfast to get to work.

I stopped my mom by the stairs and told her about my dream. Tears came to her bloodshot eyes like morning dew dripping onto dry straw.

She only nodded.

Her Hands

by Fernando Rivas Lora

I remember how my mom’s hands felt; they felt big compared to my little ones, strong but gentle. Her hands were always busy making sancocho, folding laundry, or brushing my hair before school, But whenever she took my hand it was as if the world slowed down and all the noise and movement faded. I’d feel her palm warm, a bit sweaty, and I’d know that at that moment I was the center of her world.

Our connection has always felt like that Quiet but strong. My mom isn’t a very outgoing person, she doesn't go around expressing her feelings to the world. Instead, she lets her actions speak. I’ve come to realize that her love is in little things like slipping an extra sandwich into my bag when she knows I’ll have a long day, texting to ask if I made it home safely after a late night practice, or sitting in silence when the words are too heavy to say aloud. It’s a love that doesn’t need to be announced.

Growing up, I didn't recognize these acts of care. When I was younger, I mistook her concern for control. I’d roll my eyes when she told me to wear a jacket before going outside, or sigh when she asked about my day. But looking back now, I see the love behind each question, the intention behind every gesture. It wasn't about being bossy, it was her way of being present, of trying to shield me from the world.

When I was younger, one rainy afternoon, I was upset about something—a fight with a friend or maybe a bad grade—and I sat at the dining table, feeling the weight of my small world’s problem. My mom, who was cooking, sat down next to me and didn't say anything. She grabbed my hand with her warm hands and squeezed. We sat there for a long time, her thumb tracing a slow circle over my knuckles until the heaviness in my chest eased.

At that moment, I realized something about her. She didn't need to fix my problems or offer solutions. She just needed to be beside me, reminding me that I wasn't alone. It was her way of saying, I'm here. I've always been here.

Even now, as I grow older, that connection is still there. It’s different now that I’m more independent, going to boarding school, and don’t need her for everything, but I still feel it. It’s in the little things, like when she orders me food from the grocery store without me even asking.

Her care has shaped me.

There are moments now when I catch myself doing things just like her. When I’m with my friends and one of them is upset, I’ll reach out and take their hand. I find myself thinking of her when I'm making stir fry in the dining hall. I hear her voice in the back of my mind, reminding me to pay attention, to care for the people around me. I know that as I get older, my connection with my mom will keep evolving. But I also know that no matter how far I go, or how much I change, I’ll always have a piece of her with me.

My Grandfather’s Notebook

by Rylee Ahn

As summer’s warmth enveloped the sky, I was drafting a response to my grandfather’s heartfelt invitation to spend the summer at his place. His residence, located at the heart of Yangpyeong, a region renowned for its expansive rice fields, stood as a symbol of our family’s long-standing tradition in rice farming. Rice has always been more than just a basic necessity for us. It has served as a familial thread, linking generations through the shared heritage of cultivating rice. Hence, the arrival of his letter had filled me with eager anticipation, fueled by the warm thought of family ties and the serene beauty of nature.

The evening before my departure, while packing, my eyes caught a glimpse of a wooden picture frame, turned downwards on a shelf. I turned the frame over to discover a photo of my grandfather and me, standing in the very rice field I was about to visit. Thrilled at the prospect of sharing this memory with him, I carefully set the frame on top of my suitcase and went to bed.

Stepping out of the car, I was immediately hit by the tranquility of the vast stretch of lush green rice paddies reflecting the unblemished blue sky of Yangpyeong.

“Wow,” I whispered under my breath as I tried to grasp all the wondrous nature that surrounded me. Time seemed to decelerate as the stresses and strains of the car ride slowly dissolved into the past. The river caught the gentle sunlight shining over the landscape, highlighting the vibrant body of wildflowers.

I spotted my grandfather walking towards me. I couldn’t help but rush up the hill to greet him with a warm embrace, feeling his comfort and wisdom. We walked along the stone path to his house, and with each step, I noticed the old, colorful smudges from years ago. The door creaked loudly as I swung it open and hurried upstairs to the guest room. Although he lived by himself, my grandfather maintained an extra room, which over the years I had come to consider my own, adorned with a panoramic view of the farmlands and the rivers. The wooden walls displayed paintings I had made of him, capturing the summer days he spent on the farm.

In the closet, I found my work clothes and boots, clean and ready for use. That day, I showed my grandfather the picture frame and spent hours updating him on the events that had filled my year.

I was roused from sleep by the sharp cries of roosters and the sun’s bright rays streaming through the curtains. I made my way downstairs and found my grandfather making rice and bulgogi, my favorite meal. I settled at the small, aged wooden table, a fixture that had been in the same spot for as long as I can remember.

“Are we going to the rice farms as we always do?” I inquired as I sat down.

I noticed a change in my grandfather’s expression, and he replied, “No, honey. The rice and wheat fields aren’t ready. I don’t think we will make it out there today.”

Trying my best to hide my disappointment, I asked, “Why not? We always go during this time of the year.” I watched him rise and move toward his room. He returned with a small, thick brown notebook in hand, its pages filled with meticulous, handwritten notes within each calendar square, so dense that they seemed to challenge the confines of the pages, which were worn and frayed.

“What is this?” I asked, thumbing through the well-worn pages of the notebook.

“It’s where I keep records of my farming activities,” he explained. “It includes everything from the seed varieties to crop behaviors and harvest timelines.”

Noting my silence, he suggested I turn to page 97. On the page, I found this year’s record of what he planted and what he observed each day, including weather patterns. While I was absorbing the information, he stepped out and returned with another notebook, which appeared even older.

“Compare it with this,” he said, opening a page from twenty years ago.

I immediately noticed a difference. The same seeds, sown at the same time each year, took longer to mature, with the yields decreasing over time.

“Why is this happening?” I pressed, seeking answers.

His reply was grave. “Many factors are at play, but it’s primarily due to climate change. Increasing temperature causes growing seasons to become longer. And since plants are growing for a longer time, they require more resources like water. Also, the rising temperatures make it increasingly challenging to predict weather patterns. We face droughts when we need rain, floods when we need dryness, and new pests as they multiply and expand into areas previously unaffected.”

“How much are the crops getting affected?” I asked.

He pointed to the notebook. “Each incremental increase in temperature can reduce yield of key crops by approximately 3 to 7 percent.”

“But aren’t there ways to solve the problem?” I asked.

“There are a few. I heard from my friend a couple of days ago that an institution was developing drought-tolerant rice, flood-tolerant rice, and—”

“But that isn’t the same,” I interrupted. “All those types of rice won’t be the same as the original. The one I’ve grown up with!”

A wave of silence swept the room as he closed his notebook and placed it back in his drawer. Then, with a sigh, he said, “I know. The only real solution is addressing climate change. You can’t find alternatives for everything, and there may come a day when a significant part of the world’s population will face food scarcity.”

When it was time for me to leave, I turned for one last view of Yangpyeong. I allowed myself a moment to fully appreciate the picturesque farmlands and the fresh breeze before setting off for the city. After a heartfelt embrace with my grandfather, I climbed into the car. The engine roared into action, and the car started its trip back to my urban environment.

Looking through the window, my eyes swept across the sprawling landscape filled with rice paddies, wheat fields, and various fruit and vegetable gardens. Observing these numerous farms, I realized the scope of the problem. The impact of climate change was not limited to my grandfather’s farm but extended to the whole of Yangpyeong and beyond, affecting the entire farming industry. Decreases in crop yields were evident not only in rice, but also in wheat and corn. This issue of declining food availability due to climate change was becoming a worldwide concern.

After my return from this bittersweet experience in Yangpyeong, I did not immediately become a major climate warrior. Instead, I started taking small steps like joining my school’s climate change club and discussing decreasing crop yields. I also started to pay attention to the crop yields every time I went to Yangpyeong.

I even kept track of it all in my very own notebook.

"Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree."

- Ezra Pound

Poetry

The Fallen Angel

by Charles Rousmaniere

Exquisite and commanding was I, My presence an endowment to the sky, Unsullied by incompetence, I marched alone.

Unearthing solace in my majesty, A rightful claim to a perverted throne. Ascending far beyond your choking grasp With panicked pride, you thrash your hands, and clip my wings at last.

I flail out for a savior, but my hands catch only air. A former prince, A fallen angel cursed to stare.

Now ruined in the mud I lie, Fury bleeding from a vengeful eye.

(Inspired by XJ Kennedy)

Charles Rousmaniere

You by

Oh! Green eyes, blonde hair, sunkissed skin! Your beauty rivaled by few. A giggle, A look of concentration, a jump of excitement, A light exhale of breath, the warmth of skin on skin, The glow of a thousand sunsets can't transcend the dreadful abyss of a sun not risen. These things stay with me every day, Through rain, through flowers, through lonesome silence. They do have meaning, As tangible as hand in hand.

(Inspired by Frank O’Hara)

Studiolo

by Gage Blevins

This is my honest work. It always seems to be.

So many lack this honesty, Truly disappointing.

Working through the dark night hunched at a dimly lit desk, Glowing screen, brain foggy, eyelids heavy.

(Inspired by Ezra Pound)

Creatures

by Gage Blevins

Scratching nails on wood, Tufts of hair in corners, Squeaking toys galore, Constant watching eyes, and Stinking, hot breath.

All annoyances that I missed terribly When you were gone, Because without them I felt nothing but absence.

(Inspired by Frank O’Hara)

Spill the Tea

by Yeejune Cho

The green kettle sings. Tea is ready, let it spill.

Lavender swirls in the air, warm and calm, let it spill.

Sister, hear me out.

“Did you hear about Arthur and Beatrice breaking up?”

“No way! What happened?”

Sitting down at the brown wooden table, Birds chirp outside the window. Let it spill.

“I heard that he was texting his ex and lied about it.”

“That’s when it started to go downhill.”

“That’s crazy. But she also was talking to other men at the same time.”

No ticking clock. No urgent calls. Let it spill.

Class on the Brain

by Harrison O’Connor

A class on the brain seemed interesting to me, And it was, but it was also a thief, Stealing away the mystery of the mind, Splitting the soul into compartments and contraptions, Every human function explained and charted, Grey matter replacing gray area.

Lobes and cortexes replacing questions, An explanation for every quirk of the spirit, A machine comprehended by itself, Chemical reactions not thoughts or feelings. But is the known “truth” the real truth? It's hard for me to think that's all there is.

(Inspired by Walt Whitman)

A.M.

by Harrison O’Connor

A million moist fingers on a pane, The sky is muted black and gray. The room is dim and dismal, Vision foggy and hour early. Howl, the air cries cold outside, The red numbers are sharp and bright, Thoughts are not.

(Inspired by Ezra Pound)

The Coal Engine at Home

by Kayu Schubert

Seated in front of the fireplace, Flames dancing on the wood in front of me, Warmth covering me like a blanket, Eyelids heavy, eyes start to close, The crackling fire, like a rhythm, Like the wheels of a train on the track, Flickering light from the flames, Visible through the eyelids. Slowly drifting off under the heat blanket.

Through a Different Lens

by Kyleigh Matola

The present clouds our judgment and shapes our brain.

The skinny girls in the tight dresses are taking pictures on the beach.

I want to look like her! the eight year old yells. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Counter culture shapes the future. Heavier models show on runways, I want to have her confidence! the fifteen year old yells.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Even if our love destroyed me I’d love you anyway.

Love is in the eyes of its beholder— Beauty comes from within. It is taught and it is learned, Our eyes are our perception, Our eyes create and destroy Our eyes determine our humanity.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Human Questions

by Kyleigh Matola

What if it has flesh and can speak words? Our consciousness is our humanity, To feel everything there is to feel, To see and understand what your eyes are showing you,

To express emotions. That is human.

When people pass over Where do they go?

Are they in the grass under our feet or the clouds above our head? Do animals have emotions? Does that make them human? When do we become human? When we cry for the first time?

Who gets to decide If humanity is human?

Dreams

by Kyleigh Matola

We are told to reach for the stars, but my arms are too short, too short to keep lights on, too short to put food on the table. What if the stars are out of reach?

Can I grow my arms long enough to be pulled up the ladder?

I picked up that piece of trash on the road, I helped that elderly man across the street, I gave my last two dollars to the little girl selling lemonade. Yet my arms are still too short.

I see people walk by me every day in fancy suits. Were they born with long arms?

If my parents can’t bring the stars to me, how will I ever get to hold them?

I wonder if the stars make people happy.

Does anything else matter when the stars are in your hands?

Tristan Yepdo

Timid Love by

A crescendo of thoughts bouncing off the wall. Her outsole hits the marble floor. In stillness, I only hear my heart. Can she see me?

(Inspired by Ezra Pound)

Three A.M.

by Tristan Yepdo

1,2,3.

Counting to myself until I can fall asleep. 4,5,6.

Drifting off into space, hopeful, this is it!

7,8,9.

My eyes shoot open— I need to smoke.

10,11,12, the number of steps it takes for me to reach the kitchen.

She sits there in her white robe, it looks similar to mine. It probably is mine. We talk, laugh, and cry—how far we've made it in life together.

(Inspired by John Sloan)

What Makes You

by Tristan Yepdo

Wow! Her Lips, eyes, and hair. You really are beautiful! Smiles, laughs, giggles. All the stuff that makes you, you!

You hear gunshots, You get robbed, You see death. These are the things that raised you. They do have meaning— They are what make you, you.

(Inspired by Frank O’Hara)

Dear Dumb Diary

by Shelley Grant

ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?

I want it that way. Love is embarrassing, my tears ricochet.

Let you break my heart again one last time. The night we met, I knew I loved you.

Love me now, think later.

When the party’s over can we pretend that we’re good? Is it over now?

(Can we be friends?) no.

(Inspired by John Ashberry)

Strangers with Secrets

by Shelley Grant

My eyes try to find your face in every room, my stomach aches at hearing your name. You haunt me like a ghost.

My mouth dries at the thought of you, my heart grows heavy from the thought of you, who we used to be.

You weigh me down, a lump in my throat that no cough can clear

(Inspired by Ezra Pound)

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.“

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Short Fiction

The Beauty We Seek

by Ady Duval

Each flapped its wings, synchronized with the bird in front of it.

Each at its own rhythm, but all at the same speed.

Each slightly out of place, but never out of line.

Each drifting in the tailwind from the crane in front of it, each following the front to stay with the flock, each taking turns to lead, to choose the direction.

“They kind of act like humans,” said the child, enthralled by the cranes after discovering his love for birds.

“Don’t be silly, Lucas,” Catherine said. “They’re birds, not people. They’re not intelligent enough to be human.”

Lucas thought about a line written by Robert Frost. So I took the road less traveled by and that has made all the difference. It had randomly crossed his mind, which was strange considering most of the time he liked to think about Walt Whitman.

The birds flew across the sky, continuing in a straight line. Suddenly, the leader of the flock and another crane switched places. Their new leader turned slightly to the left, a change hardly visible to the eye. They didn’t know this now, but with their new trajectory the cranes’ new destination would be thirty miles east of the original.

Lucas continued to contemplate the poem that had popped into his head.

Catherine continued, “The birds might notice the slight difference in their direction. But they choose to follow the bird that is leading them. Their low intelligence doesn’t let them do anything but follow the crane in front of them. It’s simply the easy route. It takes less energy to flap their wings by following the path of the bird in front of them.”

But Lucas still watched as they flew across the sky, forming an uneven V across the blue. He watched as they all sped in the same direction, following their leader. He thought, Is intelligence really what makes someone human?

It was like how humans’ instincts don’t let them go against their pack. In the past, that would get them killed. Yet, every once in a while, a person goes astray. The change that one person makes, even if they stand out in the moment, inspires more to follow.

Lucas couldn’t help himself from blurting out, “Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.”

He and Catherine continued to stroll along the path, listening to the noises the dirt made with each step. Catherine had always wondered what had caused Lucas’ involuntary habit of abruptly reciting lines of poetry. While they walked in silence, both of their heads were filled with noise. Lucas thought about the new leader of the flock. He used to think that humans were unique for their ability to go against their own community, although he now realized that there were plenty of animals that lived without a pack. He refused to believe that it was simply intelligence that made somebody human.

With every step they took, the sun dropped lower and lower until it was just above the horizon. Catherine stopped walking to get a better look at the sunset as they reached the top of a small hill.

“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” It was quite gorgeous, Lucas silently acknowledged. The hues of pink and purple across the sky gradually blended in with the bright oranges and yellows in the west.

More flocks of birds soared above, squirrels scrambled across the grass, and rabbits munched on leaves. What good would gazing at the sunset do for Lucas and Catherine? It had no impact on their lives.

Lucas asked Catherine if she really thought intelligence was what defined humans.

“You’re still thinking about that?” she responded.

They continued to admire the sky and the horizon in the distance, pondering the question. They didn’t realize that they were looking directly at the answer.

A Major Infraction

by Bella Mondolfi

It was wrong, I knew it.

The clock ticked past 61, then 62. The hour hand, too, moved past 13. Time wasn’t behaving anymore. Nothing was. In the classroom, we sat in silence, monitored by cold machines that tracked our every move, punished for the smallest mistakes. I was supposed to be working on my assignment, but I got up to use the bathroom instead. It was so hard to concentrate when nothing made sense, and the world around me stopped feeling real. When I got back, my teacher marked it as an infraction.

At the front desk, our teacher sat motionless with its cold, sharp, piercing red eyes. Mr. Bradbury had been our last human teacher, but he was replaced last year.

“Twenty minutes left,” the teacher said in its metallic voice. “Finish your work now.”

No one dared to speak. We all knew what happened if you didn’t follow the rules. One of the major rules was never coming to class with a dead laptop, but I remember a couple weeks ago, my best friend Bella did exactly this. Our teacher had stared into her soul, pausing just a bit too long, as if searching for something hidden. The next day my best friend didn’t show up. Rumors spread that people with many infractions were sent to a Correctional Facility; no one ever came back, and no one knew what really happened in there.

The silence in the classroom had grown more intense from that day forward, dripping with the fear of becoming the next to vanish. I stared at my paper, pretending to do the math problems in front of me, but all I could think about was the uncertainty around me.

It wasn’t just the weird clock—it was everything. The hallways were deadly quiet. A few years ago, you’d hear laughter, conversations, normal school chaos. But now, all you heard was the hum of surveillance drones and machines, and the clank of metal footsteps.

“Lunch time,” our teacher blurted. We got up, pushed in our chairs—another major rule—and filed out in a perfectly straight line, no one making a peep even when we reached the dining hall. Lunch was no longer prepared by humans. Machines now served tasteless, cold meals, erasing any homemade touch. The food was too neat, served on identical plates, the same portion size for everyone. I grabbed my plate and sat down. No one spoke. The food tasted like cardboard: no variety, no flavor. I glanced at the clock. The minute hand crept past 61 again.

We ate in silence. The bell rang again and just like that, my thirty minute lunch break was over. We stood in unison and walked back to class. Another broken hour, another silent lesson, and more empty hours after.

Later, at the end of the day, I visited my locker. I turned the lock left, and right, then left again. It opened. I couldn’t help myself—I quietly opened my forbidden book and began to read when the surveillance system spotted me. Before I could even look up, security was there to drag me away, their metal claws gripping my arms tight, and I tried to hold onto the book, but they ripped it from my hands.

Maybe I would be joining Bella.

I struggled to look up at the broken clock once more, and I saw the minute hand reach 63. It was as time itself had given up, just as we had.

Last One Standing

by Bella Mondolfi

One morning, we all woke up and checked the Life Timer app, only to find that our countdowns synched to the exact time. How could this be?

I turned on my radio to hear the daily forecast: Sunny, high in the 80s, with some overcast. Opening the door to leave my comfortably large room, I stepped into the quiet hallway, feeling the silence around me. I went downstairs to the kitchen, hearing every creak of the stairs, to make some buttered toast. I checked my phone again—it still showed the same countdown.

I took a deep breath and stepped outside for a peaceful drive to the grocery store. But when I arrived, it was complete chaos. People threw things carelessly into their carts: eggs, milk, toilet paper.

“Have you seen this?” one person asked as they approached me.

I turned my head and looked at her. “Yes.”

I headed to checkout, where lines wrapped around the whole store. After a long thirty minutes, I finally got to the front of the line.

“Did you find everything alright?” the cashier asked.

I sighed. “Yes,” I said, eager to get home. The parking lot was overflowing, cars even parked on the grass and sidewalk.

At home, I unloaded my groceries, stocked up for at least two months, and checked my phone again. Error loading. I tried to log back in. The software was crashing, probably because of the amount of people on it. I crawled into bed and turned on the T.V, hoping to hear something, but it was just static. Angry, I grabbed my journal and began to write about the people I missed and about my cat, Adele, who had run away.

As the evening rolled around, I tried to log into my app once more. This time it told me I still had time left, but there was no exact countdown. Strange.

I grabbed my journal once more and began to write:

Diary Entry 763

Date: not sure

I feel more lost than ever My T V still don't work I just want to talk to someone I miss Adele more than anything Ok, bye going to bed

Maybe a month had passed since that chaotic grocery store morning. I found myself constantly checking the app, hoping it would show some positive message. Each time, though, it read You have time left with no details or other information. It felt like a waiting game. I began to forget the sound of laughter and simple human interaction. I strolled through my empty house, each room echoing with silence. I thought about my playful cat, Adele, who seemed to have had her own Life Timer app, disappearing without a trace.

Each day felt longer than the last, and the world outside remained silent. I was scared. The food was running low, my house was getting colder, I’d started having weird nightmares. I hadn’t seen anyone in weeks. The countdowns on everyone’s app must have all hit zero at the same time, and I was all alone, maybe.

I checked my app one more time and this time time it read: You are the last one standing.

I left and roamed the quiet streets alone but there were only empty parks and shops. A ghost town. I returned home and reached for my journal again.

Diary Entry 764

Date: not sure

Well, here I am, all by myself How did this happen? I keep talking to my cat, but she's not here either Hope someone shows up soon though Ok, see you later… or not!

I guess I’ll keep writing and thinking. Maybe tomorrow will be different.

Fade to Black

by Elise Kelley

The hot air brushes my face, sweeping away any sweat that had formed. My hair rustles in the wind, tying itself in knots that I can’t fix.

There are times when I feel ashamed of the way I live, although, it's not my fault I’m stranded on the street. I blame my parents for this, due to the fact that they were the ones who kicked me out. Now I sit on the sidewalk begging for money and praying that one day I’ll get out of this mess. Most days, when lunchtime comes around, I pack up my stuff and walk around in stores, so I don't overheat. A lot of places these days have air conditioning. If they didn’t I would probably be dead by now. Arizona heat has no mercy. It burns through skin and makes a person feel sick.

I’ll never understand why my parents moved here. We were perfectly fine back in Virginia, and it wasn’t nearly this hot. Sometimes I think that this was part of their master plan to make me miserable. I like to think that one night they huddled together in their bedroom and plotted the best way to get rid of me. They never really loved me anyway. I was never social enough, smart enough, or pretty enough for them to consider me their daughter.

The wind picks up again. It’s illogical to dwell in the past, I remind myself. I look up and watch happy people walk by. The sun illuminates the cardboard sign next to me: “Please help, I was kicked out of my home and I have no money.”

The words are written in my handwriting. I wrote it after my parents kicked me out. People occasionally drop a couple of coins or a dollar bill in the cup I have conveniently placed under the sign.

As the day goes by the heat dies down a bit, although it never goes below 70˚. I pack up my things and head toward the CVS that sits about a block away from me. It’s probably around 7 pm right now and the street is mostly empty. If I stay I probably won’t get much money anyway.

When I arrive at CVS, I make a beeline for the bathroom. It’s my daily routine. When the street empties, I find a store and wash off a bit in the bathroom. I like CVS the most because it's a one-person bathroom, so I can just lock the door and not worry about people coming in.

I hear the click of the lock as I twist the knob. Safe! The sink is automatic and takes a while to turn on. When I finally feel the cool water trickle down my hands, I let out a sigh of relief. This is my favorite part of the day. I lift the water to my face and scrub it. All the dirt and grime from the day washes away with the water. After my face is clean, I spend time observing myself in the mirror. My knotted brown hair looks like a bird's nest. The leaves and sticks add extra effect. My skin is pale and at the same time burnt from the sun. I look like a mess.

After packing up my almost non-existent stuff, I exit the bathroom and get ready to settle for the night. My nightly routine is to wash up, find a cave or somewhere to sleep, and pick a place to beg for money the next morning. The first thing on my list is done. Time to find a cave, which really isn’t as hard as one would think. I usually go to the same cave anyway, but today, I’ve decided to sleep in an alleyway about a block away.

The street is dark, illuminated only by my flickering lights that aren’t even that bright. Honestly, it's kind of creepy, but there’s not much that I can do. It’s not like I have a home to go back to. I turn the corner toward the alleyway and suddenly feel a lump growing in my chest. A dark figure looms about ten feet away, holding something in their hand. My instinct tells me to run, but I can’t. I’m frozen in place. Fear washes over me as the figure takes a step forward.

”Hello?” I call out, in hopes it's just another person trying to find a place to sleep.

No answer. Only more steps forward. “I’ll free you from your misery,” a man's voice says.

My heart skips a beat and the lump in my chest grows bigger. If I was a normal 17-year-old girl, I would have screamed, but my parents raised me differently. They taught me that screaming is a sign of weakness, and a person should never be weak.

They tested this theory on me many times, by throwing me in pools when I didn’t know how to swim and hitting me with anything they could find in the house. If I screamed it would always get worse. They never did anything like that to my siblings. Instead, they raised my sister and brother as if they were royalty. I grew up feeling inferior and weak. Most of the time, I think my parents wished I was never born. I was the oldest of the three of us. My siblings were both significantly younger than me. I’m 99% sure that I was an accident and the way my parents treated me only proves my point.

There is a scraping sound and the dark figure is only about five feet away now and I can identify him as male. The sound was his knife being scraped across the stone wall of the alley. In an attempt to escape, I turned and raced across the street, my heart beating hard in my chest.

I trip, do a half-somersault before hitting my head hard on the sidewalk. I hear the man’s breath in my ear, then a sharp pain in my back.

Finally, it is black.

Lessons from Being Stuck on an Art Project

by Leah Chen

December 5, 1952

A knock on the door made Charles glance up. The door creaked open, and in stepped his grandson, Felix. He had a nervous smile on his face as he came closer to Charles’ desk, his features growing more clear in the light from the fireplace.

“Hello, Felix. What’s the matter?” Charles asked gently, muting his radio and adjusting his red straw fedora.

“I just need some help, Grandpa, please,” Felix said, furrowing his brow as his eyes flicked about the room.

“Of course, come sit,” Charles said and Felix sat in the wrinkly leather chair opposite his own. The chair was far too large for a boy as spindly as Felix. “So, what is it?”

Felix did not respond at first, but kept looking around Charles’ office. After all, Felix and his siblings only visited every other holiday, and it had been seven months since the last time they were here. Charles followed his grandson’s gaze. The ceilings were low, and there were great rectangular windows that overlooked the snow-covered streets. Books with peeling spines were stuffed into the wraparound shelves. However, it was not the books that had caught Felix’s attention. Stretched around two of the office’s four walls were at least twenty wooden ship models, all in the style of explorer ships used in the 16th century. Small golden plaques at each base read Charles G. Davis.

“I like your models,” Felix said, finally making eye contact with Charles. “They’re very detailed.”

“Thank you,” Charles smiled. “I try my best. But is that why you came?”

Felix hesitated, then looked up at Charles again. “Grandpa, I have an art piece I have to make for my homeroom class.”

“Oh, interesting. What are you going to make?”

“That’s the problem,” Felix paused before the words tumbled out. “I don’t know. But it has to be good, because I only had two days to do my last project, and I could’ve made it so much better,”

“You’re trying to make things up with this piece?”

“Yes, but I’m not good at art, not like you. I tried painting once in class and it was a disaster. It’s just…I don’t know how to make it perfect if I don’t know where to start.” Felix clenched one fist.

A laugh bubbled out of Charles’s chest, and Felix looked up, startled. Charles’ red hat bobbed up and down as he chuckled.

“Felix, do you think everything needs to be perfect? You know, Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in an insane asylum after he cut off his own ear. What do you think he was thinking as he touched his paintbrush to the canvas? Was he striving for perfection? Was he thinking of how accurate the clouds were, the precision of the village proportions? Or was it his natural instinct to do what he did best? To create, to paint whatever vision he pictured in the moment?”

The boy stared, listening intently.

“Van Gogh looked beyond the miserable space around him,” Charles continued, “and envisioned the landscape of The Starry Night instead. John Ruskin was the name of a great philosopher, Felix, and he once said: ‘All things are literally better, lovelier and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.’”

“So you’re saying it doesn’t have to be perfect, then?”

“Yes, and more than that. I tried to sail the English Channel once, you know. It was the one thing I wanted to do the most in my youth. That was my perfect dream, the thing that kept me awake every night. I never made it to England nor France. At first, I didn’t have the money to make the journey, and then when I did, the Great War struck. Too much time has passed, but I still wonder what it would have been like if I somehow followed through, if I got on that ship. You had a vision for what you wanted to create for that last project, didn’t you, Felix? But Time caused the end of whatever that was. You don’t need perfection, Felix, you just have to create whatever it is you find beautiful to yourself. And try and find some joy, even if it’s only for a moment. It might be hard for you to imagine, but we’re only human after all, and Time is coming for us. Think of something beautiful, Felix. Then create your own beauty.”

January 20, 1953

Felix entered Charles’s office again, this time with a smile and cheeks tinged red from the cold outside. Charles stood up from his desk in surprise at the unexpected visit. He shuffled past his ship models over to the door.

“I finished my art piece, Grandpa, look,” Felix exclaimed, thrusting it in Charles’s direction. “It’s one of the ships that the Navy uses!”

Charles looked down at the ship model balancing in Felix’s skinny arms. It was incredibly detailed. Felix had even painted each ‘steel’ plate a different shade of gray. The side of the ship read USS Bairoko. But Charles had seen pictures of recent Commencement Bay class ships, and they only had one flight deck tower. It seemed like Felix had added another. Charles scanned the model, beaming, as Felix reanted in his ear about the advantages of having an extra flight deck tower and how he wished that in the future, naval ships might have two.

But what caused Charles to stop listening in shock and delight was the small figure taped to the helm of the ship. It was made of straw, wore a bright red fedora, and had bits of messy straw sticking out of its body and legs, but it stood on the ship anyway, its little dotted eyes looking away from the ship and into the distance.

Larger than the Sky

by Emma Nagle

In a small flat in a city at the center of the world, there lived a painter, a poet, and a preacher man, and each thought the others fools.

“Staring into mirrors all day, copying likenesses with paint… Why, I’ve never seen such vanity. Besides, why bother copying what can plainly be seen?”

“All that scribbling, all that thinking, just for some maze of gibberish.”

“Building and hiding in churches, what have we come to?”

Just when their quarrels seemed about to reach an exploding point, there came a loud rap on the door. It was the worker man from downstairs. Such a cacophony this late at night made rising early the following morning somewhat difficult.

“Why do you rise early?” the painter asked. “To observe the nascent, predawn colors?”

“To join the birds as they jubilantly sing their praises to the glorious new day?” the poet queried.

“To sit in solace in the morning tranquility?” The preacher seemed confident.

All three were quite knowledgeable regarding the business of rising early.

“No,” the worker man returned. “To build.”

They were rather taken aback. “Build? Build what?”

“This city. Tall and taller apartment buildings.“

“What in heaven for?”

The worker blinked. He’d never been asked that before. “I’m not entirely sure.”

What a queer man; for once, the three of them were in agreement. But his queerness was fascinating to them, and the painter could not help himself: “Might I come along?”

“And I, too?” the poet and the preacher asked together.

The worker frowned but consented, “So long as you all keep quiet.” And the sun rose the next morning to find the painter, poet, preacher, and worker man standing in contemplation at the city’s edge, gazing at the insatiable immensity that was the horizon.

The worker took up his shovel and tore away at the dirt, rearranging the earth into obedient, manageable piles. The painter made a sketch. The poet took up his pen and scribbled:

We harness the earth –trap the wind in our sails, push against the edge of the world. Fight the sky with  metal and imagination.

The preacher looked upwards, but heard no cry of protest. Unsettled, he closed his eyes and swayed. The poet’s pen continued to search.

We see  how the tall grasses are stirred into dance  by a billowing wind, and we learn from what we see, and we, too, are moved  in the presence of invisible things.

The shovel never hesitated. It drove onward and onwards. It punished the soil and the worker’s bleeding, leaking hands. The painter, poet, and preacher were horrified: What on earth could have possessed this man to torment himself and the earth so? The worker looked so entirely human, but he was also like a skyscraper, a gear, an engine. The scene could not possibly be right, yet never had the three seen something so natural, and it confused them and made them uncomfortable, as things often make one when morality and instincts collide.

At long last, the sun began to tuck itself away beyond the horizon, withdrawing its light in splendid trails that shafted down through the downy field of clouds. Truly, it was hard to tell where this world ended and heaven began.

All four looked on with reverence.

The fatal blessing of comprehending the vastness of the mystery into which we were born combined with an accursed stubbornness, – a refusal to be hindered by our own fragility and dependencies –that whisper of nothing’s enough, never enough.

Always, never enough.

See, the problem with humans is our happiness never stays.

Why surely, there is no species more doomed.

A droplet splattered upon the poet’s paper and he looked up to see the sunset reflected in the tears in the worker’s eyes.

“Why do you cry in a world of such marvelous wonders?” the preacher seemed rather aghast at such a display of insolence.

“It’s just so… so…beautiful,” the worker sobbed. “And I…I forgot to write a Mother’s Day card, and the mirror above the sink is cracked beyond repair. I must get on with replacing it one of these days. The world just moves so awfully fast and yet so awfully slowly, it gives a man a headache is all.”

The only things larger than the sky are the individual humans who behold it.

So much room for love, so much room for hate, we spill over a bit of ourselves onto paper, canvas, clay.

We pause and gasp at sunsets. Tears flee our eyes for no reason other than that we are fearfully and wonderfully alive. We pause to stare at our reflections. We write Mothers’ Day cards, wish on stars, celebrate an arbitrary, construed new year all while stewing in loneliness so deep, it’s a wonder we don’t get lost.

“I must be getting home. I hope I was of help to you three.” The working man made as if to leave.

“No, please stay,” the preacher cried. “Let the sunset have its final say.”

So the worker watched the dissipating beauty hanging in the sky, and the painter, poet, and preacher watched the beauty that was the worker man. None of these men were particularly wise or particularly handsome—really, all four were rather mediocre, a fact of which all were scared and preferred to brush aside—yet there was something awesome and entrancing in the way the sun brushed their outstretched faces. Something despicable and gorgeous. Treacherous and magnificent.

Humans are poems and poets;  art and artists;  miracles, prayers and  hopeless cases.

The poet showed his paper to the other three, and all nodded in agreement.

Fissures

by Emma Nagle

My mother told me to watch out for people who say I love you. But people never listen to advice, least of all their own.

My mother has perfect eyesight but wears cloudy glasses—cloudy like the sheets of mist that gather before the ocean to worship, stealing the stars from sailors on their way home. My mother wears glasses because she doesn’t trust her eyes. She’s afraid they aren’t enough.

I don’t think my mother knows what I look like, the shape I make in the doorframe of her bedroom as I choose between the light outside and the darkness within. She tries to read her Bible, but cannot see beyond the words, so she traps the impression of them with memorization.

We live in winter in our house by the sea, and it is always winter. I collect sea glass for my windowsill and walk along the jetty towards the lighthouse that shepherds sailors to port. No one ever quite reaches the lighthouse.

Roseanne knows this—she used to race the jetty with her father. He would whisper in her ear, Last one to the lighthouse is a rotten egg, and her little legs would gallop beneath her school uniform jumper, until her father declared wherever they were to be close enough, and it was time to turn back. They did this until the day her father decided to walk the jetty alone.

My best friend is made of glass. She used to cut to the bone, but now she has a burden like a stone. Roseanne decided she was to be my best friend in the first grade. She was gracious enough to give me forewarning. She whispered in my ear, Last one to the seesaw has to beg.

Roseanne gives me advice because it's the best she has to give. She tells me to wear my skirts short. To blot my lips red. Undo that button. What are you trying to hide? But Roseanne is always hiding—behind hollow paints and powder; behind curses and contempt; behind the smoke of her weeping cigarettes. She doesn’t run anymore, she hides in plain sight.

The nuns cluck their tongues; the priests avert their eyes.

Roseanne is brave enough to swim but has swam enough to fear. She’s afraid of girls, afraid of boys, afraid of the absence of girls’ whispers and the absence of boys’ stares. She fears salt water—fears tears for their insinuations, their truth, and the shame their truth brings; fears the ocean for its refusal to reconcile. Roseanne is so scared she lies to God. She avoids His eye. Her Confessions are extemporized.

Several years ago, an altar boy burned down the church. Some say the calamity was retribution for his negligence—he was young and thoughtless, so guileless as to be ignorant of consequences. Hope, peace, joy and love: three purple candles, one pink. I think he just loved the prettiness of their light against the life of the wreath and wanted it to endure. I can’t blame him for that.

But light and life don’t mix, and when Christmas came, St. Brendan Parish was a shell with its holiness coughed out, soulless and attenuated. And Jesus was born again amidst the destruction that momentary beauty bore.

Roseanne was stricken. Look what a match could do.

One morning, when we could still love, Roseanne knocked on my door, a box of matches in her hand. Be my witness, please. We walked out along the jetty and halted, firmly astride the sea. It met us meekly with outstretched palms, but we avoided its gaze.

Amidst the numb gray of the unfurling dawn, Roseanne lit a match, and we pondered its dignity, the wondrousness and impossibility of its being—please, God—until Roseanne let it slip from her fingers toward the sea. We waited for Jesus to stroll across the next swell, for a rupture, a conversion to light inaugurated by a drop of fire.

The sky looked on dispassionately. Two girls in a tundra of craters and ridges. Alone with the mindless determination of the throbbing, thrumming, thrashing sea. In the meanwhile, we lit another match, just in case.

One by one, prayer after prayer, the matches were lost—lost to a city of shells and skeletons and shipwrecks. A city of remains pounded by the darkness.

We were waiting for the matches to run out. The ocean was resolute.

In flutters and drops, our hearts were rewritten to match the ocean’s beat. I held Roseanne and swayed with her, swayed as the ocean swayed, so that it would forget we were standing there, but the ocean stole our tears anyway.

That day, Roseanne’s heart washed up on the sand. I kissed the carved glass and put her on my windowsill with the other reminders. Water can fill your lungs, starve your heart, and then toss you back out again. Light can’t do much more than caress your skin.

Some days my mother won’t leave her room. The ocean is swollen and unknowable outside her window, so she draws the curtains to choke the light, and, rather than risk tripping over the truth, she lies in bed with her eyes wide open. I call the hospital, tell them my mother is in no condition to work today. She’s feeling unwell; you understand, don’t you?

Of course, the voice is edged. But there is a policy. Please ask your mother not to miss any more days this month, or else it may be out of our hands.

I don’t know how to undraw the curtains, or how to pry my mother’s glasses from her eyes. I read the Bible aloud to her scrubs, dangling like skeletons in her closet.

I talk to God from my windowsill. When the clouds are negligent and there are fissures in the vaulted gray, light from beyond smiles and kneels so as to ripple through the line of sea glass on my windowsill, and I believe in love. These days it is always raining, and the only light available comes from the windows lining the street—each home a comrade in arms against the impossible and the obstinate. The new St. Brendan proffers a shining cross.

Water seems benign as dewdrops. A companion of the light.

Roseanne gives me more advice, but it is more incoherent than the ocean. She can’t understand my mother, can’t see that she is just like her. She hates my mother like she hates herself.

She remembers the lighthouse she could never reach and her father’s sandy, one-way tracks towards the jetty. Her father walked into the ocean knowing he could not walk on water. I wonder when the day will come that she sets herself on fire and leaps into the froth after her love.

Sunday mass, and the congregation shivers in His pews. Now that it has known fire as a friend, St. Brendan is colder than ever. Roseanne scuffs her feet a few pews in front. Beside me, my mother is very small. I could blow her out with one puff.

I think it was just bad luck. If the handmade wreath hadn’t been quite so robust and the flame quite so ardent, if their proximity hadn’t been quite so unpropitious, the glow would have gone quietly from the church like a wave departing the shore. A silent, requited falling out of love.

My mother is not sitting beside me in the pew that bears our name. Not really. My mother is peering in through the stained glass. She has forgotten love and wonders where the door is. She must have known once, or else she would not have learned so well what sadness is.

Soon it will be Christmas. I string lights. I wrap empty boxes with gaudy paper and arrange them beneath a plastic tree so that I, at least, can pretend. The air is red and green and tight. The hearth sits empty. The crucifix hangs heavy above the doorway, but we don’t have a nativity scene. Why don’t we have a nativity scene? Mare. My mother says my name and I crack like glass.

God, is she blind.

She does not ask, but I tell her. Love is you and it is me.

You exist behind your glasses—on your boat, indifferent to the stars, following the inkling of a prayer.

I tell her, Love is the ocean.

We contend with its passion, its volatility, its folding and fleeing, tapping and repressing and lurking.

I tell her, Love is me holding your hand despite the ocean. Love is the lighthouse we will one day reach. Love is Mary holding God in a manger. Love is the candles I have placed in all the windows. Love is a choice.

People never listen to advice, least of all their mother’s.

Onwards

by Emma Nagle

Everyone has a cage and lives in it. The keys were buried a long, long time ago, swallowed by the Earth.

You cried when you were born because you knew this—but then you grew distracted and forgot, but are reminded from time to time by long lists, pain, birds, and your lack of wings. It is only when you die, when your bones and your bars are weakened and withered, that you can swing your chest open like a door, slip out of your skin as you would slip out of a coat, and rejoin the sky.

You see, time usually wins. It is the bigger cage.

Two women lie side by side in a room of dust. One old, one young. One on the bed intended for two, the other on a cot.

Their bones are like timber; their blood is thicker than oil. The younger lives in the cardboard boxes she sends home to her family; the older has long since fled from her body, but she returns to Taipei and the apartment once in a while to look at the pictures on the bureau.

The colored pictures are of grandchildren and great grandchildren, placed there by their subjects so that maybe she wouldn’t forget them because visiting once or twice a year isn’t enough. Those were long ago wishes—now, the old woman can grasp only the threads of voices, her eyes are foggy windows. There are only the occasional flickers: her eyebrows furrow when she is touched; her mouth will open with an effort, but that is all, for the thoughts and the words run too fast for her to catch. For the most part, she is vacant. She knows no one.

The only black and white picture, the only one she placed there herself, is of a wedding. Two bodies, arms linked: a statue and his corpse bride. A tear of poison burns a scar down her guileless face.

Determinedly tragic, many called her. Overdramatic girls amount to no good. Her father threatened her, her mother slapped her, so, when the question loomed large and foreboding over her, she said yes. Yes, I will marry you

And the statue was never unkind to her, never raised his hand or his voice. His love just remained stuck inside his chest, until those moments when he would sneak out the backdoor and she would pretend not to see.

Why say yes? Why did he even ask? Indeed, the younger woman asked this many times, back when the elder could still hear and speak. We are all trapped; you, of all people, should know, the old woman would respond. There is not much satisfaction in getting an answer like that.

The young woman is dreaming. In her dreams she sees a woman—no, she is the woman—chased by a rabid man with desire like fangs. She moves through rooms configured like eternity—there is no beginning, no end, only the struggle. Endless walls made from boxes numbered one through infinity, each box made from messages waiting for the teeth of a key and the freedom to unfold and stretch their papery wings. The woman longs to take one of the larger boxes by the handle and pull, lie down inside, and wait for her soul to go on. Her delivery. Or deliverance.

But the man is chasing her, and there is no time. He has a tin body painted with a uniform, an emperor’s little boy soldier. Here, the Rising Sun said. Take this gun and put the world in bondage. Fear nothing but the shame of death.

The woman runs. Her body is a virgin lake with floating stars and dignified trees. Her body is a feeble white dress and whirring legs. She will run until she is caught, and after she is caught, her ghost will run on.

Then she wakes, and her soul is in her body once more, in the room that cannot breathe. The room whose fine clothes that have long since grown stale, generations out of fashion.

The drapes have shoulders, and their shoulders are drooping. They do their utmost to hang as sunlight pries its way between the stiffness of the fabric. The river of light, a forest of desiccated pussywillow and ancient oriental table legs, the open expanse of television—this has been her life the past five years, this stuffy, stuffy room that she can never completely rid of dust.

A list of what the young woman must complete today: she must bathe her mistress in water precisely 38 degrees centigrade. She will place packaged foods, some soap, teabags and a shirt in a cardboard box and bring it downstairs to be shipped. Then her body will growl at her to eat, but the food still needs to be bought, the dishes still need to be washed. The fan in the corner needs to be repaired. And all the while, the TV will speak and never grow tired, and she will look into the eyes of faces she does not know. Always on the watch. But he never comes until she is asleep.

Still, for the most part, she bears the confines of existence well—far better than we ought to expect— with reluctance, of course, but also with a sense of quiet expectation. Time will barricade the past from the present and the present from the future, by which time her wings and her freedom will have been bought. For now she needs only to follow the money: move from here to there, do this or that, let the days pile up. She slips into the crevices between the tasks and the hours, sending whatever money she catches home to Manila—a more practical sort of love letter—along with the boxes and packages to which the ache of her being is confined.

Sometimes there is a response: a drawing, decorated with hearts, the stereotypical four-year-old representation of a house with massive flowers in the yard beside two immense bodies. Mother and daughter. Sticks for hair, stones for eyes. The young woman can feel hot little hands on her cheeks, the small body with the precious thumping in its chest, with skin so soft and vulnerable. The baby girl on her phone had teeth like little pearls and black hair that reached down her back. She was growing strong and healthy on the diet of her mother’s distant love and labor. Umuwi ka na, Mama.

Soon, my darling, soon. Mahal kita. I love you.

All the while, she tries not to think about Miss Lee. She calls her Miss Lee, has called her Miss Lee throughout her employment, because it used to make the wrinkles around the old woman’s eyes crumple into joy and nosegays. Her smile was just another pretty thing time had taken.

Miss Lee had done what the young woman—for a long time—has wished to do and left the confines of flesh. But where is she? What is a body with no apparent soul, and why does it stay and pretend to live? Why does her heart not stop if she is no longer there?

A picture from the past that never made it to the bureau: a wooden stage, an audience poised, and a woman who was many women all in the same raucous evening. From under the blue headdress infected with charlatan pearls, an opera came fluttering and quivering like a butterfly.

After the blue headdress was the green bonnet. The unassuming frills trembled atop her distressed little head as she wept and pleaded, pacing the stage in ladylike distress with feet frightened of hurting the floor and a voice that bowed to the wood. She wore desperation and anguish, but she was dying to wink. She fell to her knees so that she might resist the urge.

In the black tricorn she was a pirate, with a leg that was chopped and wooden but utterly hers. Her eyes were shinier than freedom. Her voice was gruff like power.

When the clapping had run itself out, she found the man in the back and her money. It was a pitiful sum, but it fed her soul. Thank you, she said, I’ll be back next week, and that was all.

Except, she was not back next week. She was wearing a veil and propriety before a very different sort of congregation. She was beaten down until she bore the son she would be remembered for.

The young woman tries not to look at the corpse bride—it all makes her want to cry. Skin once so soft and fresh hangs from the boney, jutting frame like chains. The seconds are slapped one on top of the other, like slabs of dying meat.

As broken birds flock to a tree, so the letters begin to fly jaggedly from the past to her hand.

The young woman is running again. The white dress flits through the galleries—a spirit with a perilous heartbeat and assailable flesh, made conspicuous in a world of darkness and sin. She recognizes her body splattered on the walls—every gift her body has ever coughed up, mopped up, washed up, cooked up—with the soldier only moments behind, separated by the nuance of seconds. His boots grind their presence into the post office floor. His uniform is an impervious wall.

He does not bat a mechanical eyelash at the letters who beat their wings ferociously to reach the young woman. Beaks scratch at her innocent skin in desperation, warning of men who build staircases of bodies and step on their spirits so that they might plant a flag in the sky. There is the Spaniard with his horse and his whip—the Conquistador who harvests humanity to feed his God in heaven, his king across the ocean, and the fatness of his own self. There are the liars with the banner of stars and stripes, who own freedom but keep it in a cage, only for themselves.

The souls of the conquered watch the birds fly free and know that they are somehow less. Their letters chase the woman, and now they bring her down. They weigh on her—heavy as a million starving bodies—until she is their ghost, and her body drags to a halt because it is nothing in the face of a man with stupid faith and a weapon that turns bodies flimsier than paper. The past is never far away—it’s right here, right now. The soldier’s boots stop in front of her, and she closes her eyes, waiting.

Did she fall asleep? Because the earth has spun her back around to the same spot. The same sun has climbed, nonchalant, into the same sky, and here she is again, folding the laundry, dusting the china, changing the sheets, fighting her unending war against the dust. Like a rock in a river, she remains still despite the flow of time—stuck within all the motion, legs running to nowhere.

Only when the last line of her list is reached does she waver. She shrinks away from the mailroom floors below her in the basement and hides the back of her hands. There must be some other chore she can do instead, but the list is loud—it orders her—and what is a body in the face of what ought to be done?

So she marches downstairs to the designated box and removes from it a letter with no postmark. It perches in the palm of her hand, and the woman breathes easier knowing that this little paper bird is a gentler sort of friend. Still, she waits until she is back upstairs to open it.

The ink that curls into her name is still wet.

Conchita,

Thank you for watching over me until I am ready.

I suppose you have wondered all these years why it is you alone, why my children frequent my bedside only in a polite show of pity. At the core of their love, they despise me.

I allowed my eldest son to splinter under the weight of his birthright and let his younger brothers cultivate forests of spite. I told my daughters their failures didn’t matter because they were girls, afterthoughts. They think I cemented a stony husband and hence a stony father with my negligence, but they do not know I once sang opera and my favorite hat was a pirate’s. I love them, and I love them all the same. I was confused in how to tell them, how to love them, for I have never been able to see past the walls of my own body or anyone else's. That is why I have spent all this time away.

You and I are different—from different worlds and different times—and you are much stronger. Born into a graveyard of possibilities, you have constructed a life and willingly locked yourself in it because of a little girl at home who is now able to go to school and wear clothes with no tatters or holes.

I have seen her, Conchita, and she is well, but she will not be a girl forever. Time will confine her in womanhood. I want you to go to her—but I do not have much to offer, I realize. Only this: in the closet of this bedroom is my wedding dress, and in its hem I have sewn all the money I saved from my performance days. It’s a meager amount, but you know that it is a fortune.

Regarding the past, the villains who chase you, I am sorry for what you have endured. All we are given in life are our bodies, and sometimes they have scars. I believe, however, that I have found a solution to your troubles, which brings me to the one last service I must ask of you. It is simply this: send this piece of paper home.

You will feel a lot lighter afterwards. And I will reconcile with time and my body, hence why this marks the end of your heavy list.

Miss Lee

Suddenly everything is swollen, enlarged, obvious, and Conchita knows what must be done. She lies down as she has done thousands of times before, beside the body that she must dislodge and return to the earth, and closes her eyes.

She is running in the dark void of the post office, never reaching, never arriving. She does not look back to see the soldier, and she does not bend under the flock of letters that still chases her, alighting on her body like an infection.

She can do this because she knows now that she did not need to breathe—such a desperate action was only her body’s desire, food for the most primitive of cages. So she stops running and fulfills that other desire that has always been stifled behind mountains of flesh and rivers of blood. Choosing a box on the wall, she lies down in her casket.

What is the sky if not a question above our heads, heavy but light as air? It is every laugh a child has ever laughed, every tear a mother has ever wept. It is the world with the trees and the hills and the bodies wiped away. It wears a pink flower for sunrise and a sundress for midday.

Send me home. The letters follow Conchita, so does the soldier, but all disperse once she reaches the sky. Everything that is in the sky is part of the sky, after all. Conchita takes Miss Lee’s words and lets them spill over and watches them take flight.

A Still Waters Interview

Emma Nagle ‘26 is in her second year at Brooks. Two of Emma’s works in short fiction appear in this issue of Still Waters, and she is currently working in an independent study course where she is compiling a collection of short stories. Emma considered herself a writer long before she arrived at Brooks, and the Still Waters staff recently sat down with her to talk about her development, her influences, and her passion for her craft.

SW: When did you first realize you were a writer?

EMMA: Each night in fourth grade, I would sit at the kitchen table and pound out my required English homework. I only had to write a paragraph each day, but even this simple task posed a daunting challenge for me. The words didn't flow. I was incoherent and logical, and when I showed my work to my parents, I was frustrated and irritated, but they tried to help, and they did help.

But even with all this attention, I didn’t become a writer overnight—my first breakthrough was in 5th grade when I wrote a simple personal narrative about going to visit my grandparents for Christmas in Taiwan. I wrote it without struggle. The story was already inside me, accumulated sentence by sentence, Christmas after Christmas, so I already knew everything I wanted to say and all I had to do was write it down. After my mother read it, she gave me a hug and said I "finally understood."

SW: What is it about the craft of writing that draws you to it?

EMMA: I am drawn to writing because it is an art form in which the artist is speaking directly in your ear without using an abstract medium such as paints on music notes. Still, writing retains depth and subtleties and interpretations unique to each reader. Writing is about catching your epiphanies and translating your revelations onto paper in an intelligent format. Just the turn of a phrase can twist something inside you. I admire how writers are able to summon pretty words onto a blank page and make something staggering, sincere and heart-felt.

SW: Who were/are the people in your life who have encouraged or inspired you to pursue this passion?

EMMA: My parents weren't afraid to tell me the truth: When I was young, I rambled and my writing was distracted and uninteresting. They sat with me and prompted, guided and corrected me until the paragraph on the tear-stained paper was deemed acceptable. Every night at the kitchen table, my parents instilled in me the virtues of patience and deliberation and the understanding that I would be turning in nothing less than what my utmost dedication was capable of producing. I could be a writer if I was willing to be thoughtful and assiduous.

SW: You have two pieces of short fiction in this issue of Still Waters. What is it about this form that appeals to you?

EMMA: Story telling is fundamental to human nature, and it is, to me, the most natural way in which I can convey my ideas. Storytelling allows for self expression in a manner that is fun for me to tell and fun for others to read. It’s a gateway through which I can speak to the world.

SW: Your story "Larger Than the Sky" reads as a type of fable. What inspired this story and your choice of that particular form?

EMMA: I was attempting to answer a complex question concerning the fundamental nature of humanity, and I wanted to do it in an original way. So I chose to personify the instincts and inclinations of humankind with nameless characters and their interactions.

SW: The story "Fissures" is rich with meaning and metaphor. What inspired this story and were you trying to communicate any type of message?

EMMA: The story "Fissures" was inspired by short stories written by Melanie Rae Thon and collected in her book "First, Body." I tried to model her use of pointy expressions and her dreamlike yet real and dramatic prose in my own story. I was not trying to communicate any type of message—I only wanted to create something beautiful and something that would make readers think or do a double take. I just wanted to make art.

SW: Do you see writing playing a role in your life after Brooks? What might that look like?

EMMA: Yes, I will always write, and I will always write creatively. I write to understand myself— getting things on paper is a difficult task, yes, but once I have written what I have been struggling to say, the world gets that much clearer. I don't think I will ever keep a journal, though I have tried and failed in the past. Sometimes the best pieces are simply the results of pent-up feelings. Most of the time, writing just comes to you.

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."

Henry David Thoreau

“It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth.”

Gao Xingjian