BLAM 2014 by Brophy Literary & Arts Magazine

B r o p h y L i t e r a ry & A rt s M a g a z i n e 2 0 1 4

Vo l . 6

Brophy Literary & Arts Magazine 2014 Brophy College Preparatory 4701 North Central Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85012 USA 602.264.5291 blam.brophyprep.org

Editor’s Note by Ryan Frankel ’14,

Managing Editor

Space... the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. -Star Trek: The Next Generation

Soaring Joshua | Photograph | Michael Heiland ’14

As a child reenacting my favorite Star Trek episodes in the backyard, I wanted to believe in the possibility that I, too, could live out those words. But as I grew older, the show’s opening lines seemed more and more like a sham. Throughout history, from our ancestors’ migration from Africa to the Apollo missions, humanity has sought to broaden the scope of what it knows by exploring. Now, the entirety of the world has been mapped. We’ve delved into the deepest levels of the ocean and left footprints on the moon. Yet, many years remain before humans can achieve the space travel seen in Star Trek. These facts pose a bleak question: is it possible for the current generation to explore at all? Perhaps the answer can be found in Star Trek itself. The show didn’t need a real warp drive to reach other star systems. Star Trek demonstrated that exploration occurs whenever we ask questions about the unknown, imagine possibilities, and strive to find answers by breaking new ground. In many ways, all art remains true to this process of exploration. With this notion in mind, the BLAM staff chose exploration as the theme for this year’s edition. Along the way, we experimented with new design elements and formatting, making BLAM 2014 unique from previous volumes. Early on, we realized that exploration goes beyond merely physical ventures into the unknown. Due to the multifaceted nature of the theme, we decided to divide BLAM’s literary content into four sections that represent some integral elements of exploration: “The Spirit of Adventure,” “Exploring Ourselves and Others,” “Exploring Heritage,” and “Exploring Injustice.” This approach enabled us to broaden our thematic material to include a wider variety of plots, subjects, and genres while still retaining overall thematic consistency and structure. As a result, our content ranges from an Anglo-Saxon emulation poem about revenge-seeking warriors to

a story about meeting loved ones through the objects they leave behind. Our features span an interview with a NASA employee to an essay in the spirit of Brophy’s Summit on Human Dignity: Beyond Colorblind about the injustices of representation in the American high school canon. Instead of grouping artwork into sections of similar subject matter, we paired artwork with literary pieces in a way that each might complement the other. To tie the magazine together aesthetically, we relied on graphic and other stylistic design elements to reinforce the theme throughout the magazine. Exploration is visually represented in section dividers, continuation arrows, illustration overlays, and other graphic treatments. Just as Captain Jean-Luc Picard would have been nothing without his crew, I could not have completed BLAM without the exemplary dedication of the BLAM staff. I would also like to thank our navigators, Mr. John Damaso ’97 and Mr. Chad Unrein, for tirelessly guiding BLAM throughout the year. In addition, I give my sincere appreciation to the Brophy administration for their support. Finally, I am truly grateful to all of the students who submitted literature or artwork, as well as the family and friends who inspired them. Without them, BLAM could not have even begun its expedition. For me, BLAM has been a journey of discovery, of piecing together students’ aspirations, their humor, their relationships, their shortcomings, and their strengths. After four years, I’ve happened upon something special: a glimpse of Brophy’s collective voice. In a way, BLAM is the map of that voice. Without it, I could not have discovered the richness that exists in my school and in my peers. As I voyage onwards, I hope BLAM’s next generation will find that same richness as it pursues our continuing mission – to boldly go where no one has gone before.

s t n e t n o C f o e l b a T aration

cl Contents De

Literary

pirit of S e h T n o ti c e S 1. ing Author Title Hatch r ntern Autho le The La Tit

Plea Autho Title Shoe ts Author itle Us An T

2. Section

Adventure

Yes

’14 Alex Keating s ’17 Noah William

Jack Rose ’16 ’14 Alex Keating

gae

kers of Bel Title The See

nly ONE

formation (o

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ust provide th sible artist m on sp re or or ): auth Each arriving ion per magazine required at written declar

Author

4 ffrey Erdely ’1

Exploring Ou

thers rselves and O

Yes

6 Jim Stickell ’1 Title ellini ’17 Anthony Card r ho ut A e cl ir Title A C 6 Jim Stickell ’1 Author ’14 s sk a M Carlos Ochoa Title r ho ut A ry a bitu to Write an O Title How s ’17 Derby Reeve hor ut A ss la G Title This ski ’14 Tommy Salan hor ut A s es e1in Title 1on Ian Gray ’17 Author nga ’14 m u tr S Mason Swiere Title r ho ut A Tablet like a Brophy le Love is Fleet

Tit

Author

No Page

Page

No Page

Page

Table of C o 3. Section Title

ntents

Exploring H eritage

Father’s Rin g

Title

Paper Thin

Title

Don’t Listen

Title Title

The Attic

Author

to Me

arrier

Title

Shrapnel

Title

Paint

Title

My Melody of

Title

Death is My

Features

Author

Jeffrey Erde ly

Jeffre y Erde ly es

Yes

Page

’14

Page

’16

’14

Author

White Glov

Page

in ’17

Jim S tickell

Change

nga ’14

g ’14

Austin Mart

Author

Page

Mason Swie re

Alex Keatin

Author

auley ’16

g ’14

Exploring I njustice

Language B

Yes

Devon McC Alex Keatin

Author

Growth A uthor

4. Section Title

Author

Edward No

lan ’15

Andrew Kis

h ’17

Page

Title

Mill on Mil l Ave. Art ist Kyle Scheuri Title Be ng ’15 hind the Sc enes Interv iewer Carter Santi Title A ni ’15 Journey up the Family Tree Auth or Title Rac Kayvan Sha e Cards msa ’14 Author Various Con tr Title Co ibutors ntent of Ch aracters A uthor Chris Jorda n ’14

Page Page

18 34

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s t n e t n o C f o e l b a T Visual

nd ’14 ichael Heila M t is rt A ng Joshua Title Soari nd ’14 Michael Heila rtist A f el rs u Yo ’14 Title Free Riggs Brown Artist d in M e ches of th Title Bran Nick Park ’15 Artist es g d ri B le it T 5 Greg Vogel ’1 rtist A e ir o r ’15 Title Mém Kyle Sourbee t is rt A l il on a H Title Tree so ’15 Cosme Nava t is rt A tled nd ’14 Title Unti Michael Heila rtist A ex rt o en V Title Barr 5 Greg Vogel ’1 rtist A t is r ’15 eM Kyle Sourbee Title Into th t is rt A in ance of Ra dy with a Ch ’15 Title Clou yle Sourbeer K t is rt A e of Guadalup Title Lady n ’16 Joseph Nguye t is rt A tled e ’14 Title Unti Austin Fritzk Artist ’14 ed d ea e-H Bryan Smith rtist A Title Con e u ’15sq el re Poicgtu togo V e re ust not bG m s re tu ic P le Tit 5 Greg Vogel ’1 ist rt A s ll a eW Title Whit 5 Will Harris ’1 Artist te in o P Title ’14 Bryan Smith Artist ch ea R Title 5 Will Harris ’1 ist rt A h rt o Hayw e ’14 Title Rita Austin Fritzk rtist A t en m led in the Mo Title Wrink ’14 Bryan Smith Artist re tu ic Title A P

Page

Title

Ice the Mind

Title

Piece 67

Artist

Untitled

Daniel Shaw ’14

Page

Title

Artist

Trevor Schlenke

Page

Artist

Title

Naïve

Title

Blurred People

Artist

Title

Phoenix

Title

Power Road

Austin Fritzke ’14 r ’14

Kyle Sourbeer ’15 Artist

Artist Artist

Christian Franco

Matthew Worley ’14

’15

Michael Heiland ’14

Blood on Your H ands Artist Kyle Sourbeer ’15 Title Hosta ge Artist Austin Fritzke ’14 Title Untitled Artist Louis DiMuro ’16 Title Graspin g a Dream Artis t Mark Meshchery akov ’16 Title

Music Title

An Exploring M ind

Artist

Phillip Rapa ’14

BLAM runs seve ral contests each year for both art each contest are and writing. The denoted by this winners of stamp. This year Craft (exploratio , th e contests include n of the mind us d: Mind ing visual artwor essay distilling se k), Race Card (a ntiments on race six -word ), Beyond Human non-human pers (student writing pective), Captur fro ma e Your Journey (d visual artwork), epiction of a jour and Explore (a lit ne y th rough erary work abou t exploring places unknown).

Page

Free Yourself | Photograph | Michael Heiland â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14

Branches of the Mind | Photograph | Riggs‘14 Brown ’14

Hatching by Alex Keating ’14 I. Simuliidae Bites are shallow and accomplished by first stretching the skin using teeth on the labrum, and then abrading it with the maxillae and mandibles, cutting the skin and rupturing its fine capillaries. I went camping for the first time when I was six. After driving ten hours north with my dad in a car filled with gray velvet seats and salty chips and my shoes that I gradually pushed farther and farther under the dashboard on our way to Utah, the place where his side of the family lives, we arrived at a place called Moon Lake. It wasn’t pretty. We stepped down from the truck, and the ground was hard and rocky. Branches with cracking bark littered the floor. Up above, the sun struck the air between the tree leaves and made them glisten under the blue sky. The trees creaked and shifted in the wind. We noticed immediately that there were buffalo gnats in the area. They swarmed and shook in the air and bit at our skin, ripping holes between the pores of our arms and legs where red hills formed. We swatted at them and they flew away only to come back again later. We met up with my uncle and a cousin who

was my age. Our dads pieced together the tent in the forest, and we pounded the stakes into the hard ground with the heels of our feet. My cousin ran into the forest and turned his head to me. I followed him into it. We dove into the series of brush and crushed dead leaves with our steps and ran through the forest under a canopy of trees casting shadows on the ground and jumped off the bark with our Velcro shoes still in sight of each other but too far away to hear each other’s voices unless we shouted. We whispered into walkie-talkies like there were predators in the forest, but there was always only us and everything else around. The night stretched over the trees, and we came back. We sat next to and under our dads’ shadows when the firelight was the only thing illuminating the silence and darkness surrounding the trees. I went fishing for the first time the next morning. We had to push our boat across a layer of mud surrounding the lake and in between the trees. My cousin and I struggled not to get our lines caught in the boat before we even went into the lake. In the water, our dads cast our lines into the still water for us. They plopped into the liquid and sunk before the water reached equilibrium again.

We caught small fish, barely even worth catching, but it didn’t matter to us; the tug was all that counted. When they weren’t there, the water leveled and reflected the clouds and their shadows and our lines glided through it back and forth. My cousin once reeled a fish into the boat, and another jumped in with it. They were like the two of us. The nights were always the hardest. The gnats

from its resting spot and into the air. Nothing ever changed but the recent pictures of family decorating the refrigerator. We didn’t age until she got new ones each year, but it was nice to see familiar faces. I found a storage room in her basement when I was ten. The door creaked open and the light switch was attached to the bare wall covered in dust. The lights hung from the ceiling and illuminated the

As the night deepened, we fell asleep without noticing. would swarm angrily and bite at our already red skin and cloud in the air. I was always afraid I’d breathe them in. We would swat at the air and crawl into our lantern lit-tent, enveloped in darkness, and tell ghost stories. As the night deepened, we fell asleep without noticing. We stared at the wall of green and shadows from the back window of the truck when we left the next day. We held our hands up to the chilled glass and squeezed the tiny trees between our fingers as they shrank in the distance until they disappeared. II. Theridiidae Webs remain in place for extended periods and are expanded and repaired, but no regular pattern of web replacement has been observed. My grandmother’s house was once shared by her husband and eight children. It’s located in a small, cozy, and worn suburb and surrounded by houses just like it but more lively and filled with more lively people. There are black handrails leading up to the front door. They feel slippery but are randomly freckled with dots under the paint. In the winter, they freeze over and under with icicles. It always smelled thick on the inside; every decoration and inch of carpet seemed to ooze out

untouched, ancient collections of a time long before mine. I walked along the two columns of shelves, trying not to breathe in too much of the air. It was dusty and physical, almost as if the objects inside were peeling off and dissolving into the air. I found a Royal 1930s typewriter sitting on top of a stack of newspapers from the 1970s. The black paint was chipped, keys were missing, and the ribbon was worn dry. The metal was coarse and sanded away at my fingertips as I straightened the machine. I fed a newspaper slit through the machine and slammed down on the “A” key. It pierced the letter into the page. III. Apis Although it is widely believed that a worker honey bee can sting only once, this is a partial misconception: although the stinger is in fact barbed so that it lodges in the victim’s skin, this only happens if the skin of the victim is sufficiently thick. My cousin had a foosball table in the corner of his basement when we were younger. The light barely struck it and made the ball’s soft shadow cast sideways four times its height. From the top, the room’s light carved a curved crescent into the surface of the white, dense plastic of the ball, and

the rest was grey. It stayed this way when we spun it and slipped it through our fingers. We once set the ball between the two front players on each team and spun them at the same time just to see if it would fly. It dented the wall, bursting through the skin of paint. We did it again and again and we laughed. We wanted the sound; we loved the thud that resonated through the wall when the ball ricocheted backwards to the carpet where it turned once and then halted. We loved the dents. We didn’t think anyone would notice, but we didn’t care anyways. The only thing we knew, truly knew, were the insides of walls, and we finally found we could break them. IV. Lampyridae Light production in fireflies is due to a type of chemical reaction called bioluminescence. I went to a planetarium with the same cousin when I was eight. I’d been good at science in school and had had a fascination with the stars since I was little. They were always easiest to see when we were camping. At the lake, the sky was deep and dark with white dot clusters huddled together above us and connected to the silhouettes of the mountains in the distance but nothing else. It existed on its own. This was like that. The inside of the planetarium sparkled with sharp colors wrapped around planets, and heat shone down from the ceiling as we stuck together, most of the room enveloped in pitch darkness but just enough to let the lights shine. The displays showed Earth evolving and changing over the course of millions and millions of years. There were movie theater walls for films on the stars and nature filled with cushy chairs and sticky floors, and, when we went, I could see the dust

swirling through the light as it traveled forward to smash against the screen and into our eyes. I munched on popcorn and swung my feet back and forth over the ground in my chair, traveling through space, absorbing it all. V. Lepidoptera While most butterflies and moths are terrestrial, many species are truly aquatic with all stages except the adult occurring in water. When I was fourteen, for the first time, I saw a picture of my grandma when she was young. Her kitchen was worn and creaky, but the sunlight flooded through the wall of windows facing the splintery, umber planks that made up the backyard porch outside. The image was sitting on a counter in that kitchen, pressed between a picture album and the dark wooden shelves. with streaks of black cutting through the grain, fitting everything around it. It was taken in the late 1940s. She was standing, posing as a young adult. The black and white was soft on her cheeks, and the light hit the corners of her skin and illuminated her delicate features from behind. Her skin was fuller then, less frail, but she still smiled like that—her cheeks welled up over the corners of her mouth and rounded around them. She probably had the same handwriting as she did now—that dark, thin, and slanted cursive writing that somehow crawled out of her hands even when they were as shaky as I had always known them to be. She didn’t have as many stories to tell. Later that day, I found a bookshelf full of fairy tale books published in the 1950s in one of her closets. They fit the closet tightly from end to end; I had to slice my fingers between the hard covers to slide the first one out, and then rolled the others

out over their bottom edges. I flipped through them and saw where she had stopped reading them many years ago. I’d put my finger over the creased pages halfway through the books and pretend to fold them inward like my grandmother must have. I stored them back and slid the closet door shut. VI. Hedylidae

Moths frequently appear to circle artificial lights, although the reason for this behavior remains unknown. One hypothesis to explain this behavior is that by maintaining a constant angular relationship to a bright celestial light, such as the Moon, they can fly in a straight line. My cousin and our dads went to a different lake after those couple of times – Strawberry Lake, located nearby. Its name is appropriate; it’s pretty, nice and organized, we got a campsite labeled out for us, and there were no trees to get in the way of anything they had or anything we wanted to see. Everything was organized. The lake was round and large and it wasn’t muddy. The fish were bigger and there were fewer, but it was still just the tug that mattered. Our tents were larger and the ground was softer. Spiders would crawl into our sleeping bags at night, but it wasn’t the same. The darkness overhead wasn’t as black, and we were too old for scary stories, so we fell asleep quietly and knowingly. We mumbled under our breath about things other than the shouts we used to shout from the gnats biting at us on that old lake. We used to respond to pain without choice and know each other by our shrieks but we weren’t in any anymore. Our shirts and jeans and shoes were lit by electric lanterns, and the light never flickered so everything

looked blurry. At this same site, with the same numbness, during the last time we went fishing as a family, I was fourteen. But the final night, the sun went down over a hill behind our campsite, and my cousin and I decided to climb to the top of it. The sun’s last curve escaped over the mountains behind us and it was night for the last time. The stars

Wrapped in the night sky, the world was tiny again. clustered together again and illuminated that hill. Local beetles and moths took notice of our stillness and landed on our skin. I turned to my cousin first this time. We paused, turned, and caught the bugs in our hands between our palms and fingers, spotting them sparkle under the moon and glowing clouds for a second and then back to blackness. We tripped over ourselves and yelled and laughed when we did. We filled our hands and fists with the bugs and held them up to the moonlight to watch them crawl around and let them go. We watched them escape and flew with them upwards into the darkness where they burst in space and turned into stars, casting a shadow on everything below. Wrapped in the night sky, the world was tiny again.

Exploring

Mind

Composition by Phillip Rapa â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14

Scan to listen to the complete original composition by Phillip Rapa â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14.

Bridges | Photograph | Nick Park â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

The Lantern by Noah Williams â&#x20AC;&#x2122;17 Nighttime sun Travelers flock to the beach Icy mid-winter waters Prickle the toes Of those who dare enter Like stinging bees Foreigners flip open Lighters Ignite lanterns And relinquish them To the winds Dozens of lanterns Swarm the midnight sky Mosquitoes to a flame Carrying wishes The wind howls So the light fades But one lantern Doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t resist The unforgiving sky It bends and twists with every gust And still glistens with the stars

Mill On

MillAve .

A Photo Essay

eur by Kyle Sch

ing â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15,

Visual Editor

The Hayden Flour Mill on Mill Avenue has been titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;a blight on the city of Tempe.â&#x20AC;? What these critics may not know is that Tempe was

built around this mill, and it is the only reason that the town exists today.

Nobody has crushed grain, emptied silos, or even set foot inside this mill in 16 years; however, this does not mean that it has gone unnoticed. Now a popular venue and gathering for events, the Hayden Flour Mill has found

new uses while retaining its rich history. Through its rusted windows and antiquated machines, I have found this mill to be a snapshot into the past.

The creaking shell that stands behind chain link fence is not the original mill that was constructed in 1874.

The mill has burned down once in 1895 and again in 1917. From the charred ashes, the mill you see today was resurrected in 1918.

Former mill employee Bill Mitchell had a chance to work at the mill for 39 years before it was shut down. When asked about the

conditions inside, he could only describe them as “simply miserable.”

Title Goes Here S N ’14 by

tudent

ame

“Pull-out quotes go here. Or wherever.”

With sweat and grime staining the walls, it was apparent that there were, in fact, no cooling systems on the machinery level. The Hayden

Flour Mill served as the engine room for the rapidly-growing town of Tempe.

Producing 100,000 pounds of flour each day, the mill was not only responsible for feeding the

town but also was a makeshift bomb shelter in the â&#x20AC;&#x2122;60s.

Plaques on the outside of the mill display these facts, yet the significance is lost on most people. Taller buildings will stand and newer buildings will fall, but behind its iconic bridges and in the shadow of Sun Devil Stadium, Tempeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s former source of life will remain, entertaining the occasional passersby with the history of Tempe.

Shoe Plea by Jack Rose ’16

Mémoire | Photograph | Greg Vogel ’15

I cannot begin to describe the horror and filth I have been subject to over the course of my miserable existence. Now, I shall recount a tale which must be heard, screamed from the mountaintops, ground into the mind of every person willing to hear a simple plea: laces are alive. I recall Barry. He was a fine, leather-cut lace, upper class, thick and strong. He was my first and only friend, whispering secrets in our cardboard hideaway even when I was a fresh sole and tongue. Oh, how we laughed without a care in the world. We would dance along to that Alicia

your eyes before you try to shut them from the horrid truth. We arrived in a dark, smelly hovel. As I was ripped from my box, Barry clung to me and whimpered as the meat-walk’s tentacle wrapped itself around him. He never heard my screams to him. The meat tentacle took Barry’s opposite ends and crossed them in loops, simultaneously asphyxiating and snapping his delicate neck. He sputtered and gave up his ghost. I lay there silently, best friend-turnedcorpse latched to my body as the meatwalk slid his

He dragged me around with my dead best friend sewn to my side. Keys song that poured in through the holes of our box and laugh at the tone-deaf meat-walks passing us by. Such innocence and youth could never last long, however, and we heard, like thunder, a voice boom and resonate: “CLEARANCE SALE, ALL MEN’S SHOES FIFTY PERCENT OFF.” Homes were torn from their shelves. Friends and families were ripped apart and sent away. I still remember Barry clinging to the hope that we would make it. He always was the optimist. We were taken by a meat-walk about eight treads tall and two treads wide. He had leather color hair and original Vans eyes. Cold and unfeeling, more like. What happens next will hopefully open

fat pedals into my gel inserts given to me by my father – a doctor, mind you. He dragged me around with my dead best friend sewn to my side. Day after day he would poke and prod Barry’s lifeless corpse, jerking him around, tying him this way and that. I relay this to you from the dark recesses of what I’ve heard been called a “clozette.” Barry’s empty eyes stare at me still. His cold pallor haunts me in ways I cannot begin to describe. A soul once vibrant and young grows rotten and unholy in this hell-on-earth. If you can read this, please, I beg of you: tie your shoes before you go walk around. You’ll trip and possibly scrape your knees, which really hurts.

Us Ants by

Alex Keating ’14

Tree on a Hill | Pen and Ink | Kyle Sourbeer ’15

1 The ground was once consumed by rocks and dust and wind until we took it. I was empty; we all were. We ran around and slid down plastic slides onto the sand. We twisted our hands on monkey bars and pulled off the blisters. We craved warmth from our insides and the rushing of blood and needed there to be something new, but nothing new showed itself because everything was planned and plotted and made out of concrete and metal so we couldn’t break it even if we tried. It got lonely only being together, but eventually we found an anthill plastered on the corner of that park of ours inhabited by large, black ants that crawled over our feet. We grew to love them—to appreciate them. They slaved over this hole and fought against us even though they were so small. Their arms and legs swiveled like ours, and they could see and feel and think, we knew, and we wanted to study them. It only made sense that they wanted to be as big as us. But they couldn’t be, so we sat by their hole and stared down at them scrambling over the concrete and smashed them with the butt end of a stick. Their black exoskeletons crunched over the rough cement, popping a clear liquid out of their shells. Sometimes, we pushed through their necks with the sticks, rolled their bodies back and forth, twisted their necks thin, and tore their heads from their bodies. Their bodies littered the floor. We scratched the cement with folded paper from our backpacks to gather the hundreds of remains into a pile, and then

scooped them into a plastic box. The pile of bodies rose as black, solid foam day after day. They were ours. Our blood rotted, but the sunlight still pushed through the clouds and tree branches to search through the air for our skin, where it rested and never flickered. I don’t know why. 2 It seems to be an exercise of curiosity, I tell myself, but children peel away at their skin because they love the color red. We climb trees because we risk falling, and our wrists scrape against the bark half on accident but also on purpose because the pain is different and that’s what we like. A tree once told me it didn’t like to hurt me, so I held onto its trunk and kicked off one of its branches. I liked to hold my hands against the sand in that park and rub them both together to see the dust puff out below and feel the sting of the sharp, fine rocks against my skin and see the white indentations on my hand like freckles or craters of the moon. Once, on the way home from the park, I looked out the window and stared into the sun. My eyes burned, and the corner of my vision blurred to a bright blue, then black, and caved inwards. I snapped my eyes away, but it kept staring at me like it always did. There were no Gods or adults in the sky because the sun consumed them. I knelt at its feet and I wanted to catch on fire and fly up to the sky, but my skin wasn’t flammable. But I never stopped trying.

3 Ladybugs came out in the spring in that park of ours. They climbed across and up the grass with their soft, black legs underneath their wings of red and black. They flew with their translucent wings and talked to the wind as they spiraled through the air. We leaned against pine trees and watched them. Once, one landed on my forearm. I watched it push across my arm so trustingly and so inquisitively. It crawled closer to my hand and I turned it face up to the sun, and it rested in my palm and tiptoed across the wrinkles in my hand. It was a pretty little thing—so tiny and fragile. As it walked more slowly and slowly over my hand, I saw its black head poking out from its body and looking into the world that seemed so small to me but large

then I pushed the wings off my fingers and to the ground. I stared down at the ladybug, and it told me to stop but realized I couldn’t do much else. 4 There’s a place inside those trees where the wood hasn’t been touched in years; it just keeps getting pushed harder and harder into the inside by the years of bark that collect on the inside. It’s immovable and unbreakable because the light never shone on it, so it never did anything and cried out sap because of it. People live in places like this inside the ground. The Earth’s crust is littered with immobile bodies spread out in the dirt, looking around. They shout to each other but can’t hear each other, and we can’t either. We do the same thing, stuck in the air up here.

I saw its black head poking out from its body and looking into the world... to it because it could fly and run through the air in every direction and climb the sky itself and take itself to places beyond the green and brown but only stayed here because it wanted to hug the grass and climb in my hand and tell me that I couldn’t be like it and never would be. As it screamed this in my face, I pinched it between my index finger and thumb strongly enough to keep its feet from moving and wings from sliding off. I held it for a moment, then pushed my fingertip between its cold, red and dotted shell and its body and took ahold of its wing. I paused, and then snapped its wing from its back. The click twisted through the air and to my ear. I did the same with its other wing and placed it back on my palm, and

Sometimes, I punched walls because I thought I’d be better at it than anyone else. I marveled over my fist’s indentation in the bathroom stall doors and went back to class to do my multiplication tables. It’s expected of us to walk in small steps so we just take them more quickly. Our childishness is a good disguise for superiority because sheep can’t tell dogs from wolves, so I kept adding and subtracting with white knuckles. 5 I took the box of ant corpses from my pocket and held it forward between the upper and lower patches of skin in my palm, then popped it open. I tilted my other hand towards it, and the ladybug toppled inside with the remains of the ants. I

snapped it shut to lock it in. It lay on its back for a moment, and then righted itself above the pile of black carcasses. I held it inches away from my eye. I saw its legs scramble over the head and thoraxes encased by rotting exoskeletons and saw its wings try to expand, but they weren’t there anymore. It tried to escape through the glassy plastic, but the barrier held it inside with the decomposing ants in their calmness. Each step back pushed another ant-third downward and another third up like a lake of charred remains. I popped open the container, spilled its contents onto the grassy floor, and cried. The ant remains sunk into the earth, and the ladybug crawled away through the grass. Sometimes, I wished there were something like that to reach down and snatch up my arms and peel them from me because maybe then I’d know what it felt like.

Instead, the sun kept shining down. It pierced the wall of sky above me and poked through the open air and crept along my skin. I did all I could – all I could ever do – and cried below its gaze, but this was the first time I ever realized it wasn’t going to stop. I packed up my stuff and let time run its course. Things keep changing and molding themselves over and over again. The ladybug’s probably still down there, pushing through the dirt. Up here, everything still glistens and sparks all the time. I wish I could shut the sun off every once in a while. I’d watch it fade away. I’d breathe into the cold darkness and stare outward mindlessly into the void where it used to be. I’d flick the sun back on like a light and watch it flare outward into the nothingness and set it on fire. My eyes and skin would burn, but I’d stare into it, so at least I’d know it’s still there.

The Seekers of Belgae by Jeffrey Erdely â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14

1 Over crashing ocean waves and rolling clouds of thunder 2 came a mighty, oaken sea-wolf whose bow split the whale-way sunder with 3 masts to weather the strongest winds. 4 Indeed, an awesome sight this hunter of men was. 5 Manned by the last survivors of the Nervii Belgae, 6 whose people were wiped out by Caesar, 7 Raven Rock was its name. 8 Gone the warriors were, away on conquest against the Regni, whose 9 people were natives to the Britannia coast. Three branches of fjord departed for 10 their shores. Determined and honorable men slept in its hull, 11 battle-hardened and sharp, seeking revenge against the thievery of the Regni. 12 A Belgae man-price, on its way to the Swedes to make good again relations 13 was intervened and burgled by Regni, who added the gold to their halls. 14 On the twelfth night of the twelfth day, the

15 16 17 18 19

Belgae sieged the Regni hall, making right their wrong. Blood coated the fine hall, tarnishing the gold and revealing the thievery in their beauty. None were spared from the Belgae sword. Dishonest men and womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sins were punished not only by the Belgae sword, but by the hands of gods. Just were their deaths and righteous was the Belgae cause.

20 Alas, the price of justice is heavy, even when the hands of gods are involved, 21 and so the Belgae found themselves with only a third of their fleet for the 22 journey home. Fengar, a thane of the Belgae nation, saw that his 23 warriors had taken the man-price deserved of their people from the Regni and 24 ordered the immediate readying of their vessels. Word had spread to the Regni 25 shore. Rome sharpened her spears for war on a northern nation, Belgae. 26 Concerned for his homeland, he assigned the

Untitled |Pen and Ink | Cosme Navazo â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

men to their oars and gave the 27 command to embark. Raising the colors of Belgae, Fengar spoke: 28 “Battle-weary brethren, lift your ears to the sky so that my words may descend 29 upon you and fuel your aching limbs and tired hearts. O’ points of Darrodor, 30 our Lord of the Plains, with your brothers at your side you fought the 31 deceitful Regni, bathed in the blood of enemy and kinsman alike. With quills 32 and points you have righted wrongs and restored honor to our nation. Like 33 men you have triumphed over darkness. Now revel in the light of our victory. 34 But remain steadfast! Our journey does not near an end. Forces gather beyond 35 our borders and it is to us our people look. Hasten your weary limbs 36 truth-bearers, and pull your oak-swords. Let Thor’s laughter be our shanty, and 37 may no northern kiss stall our progress.” 38 So the victors of Regni, weary as they were, plowed through the weather of 39 wolves. They were unable to make shifts for water-plowing since their 40 numbers now were too few. So each man pulled his share, never resting for 41 sleep. They ate the fish that fell aboard and tilted their heads to catch the 42 rain, but they did not stop for proper refreshment. Six days and six nights 43 it took the Belgae to return to their homeland. 44 When the Raven’s Rock bow came to rest on the Belgae shores, the men were 45 restless with concern for their king and their

families, so they left their riches 46 in the hull, knowing that if they did not return to a whole nation that their 47 gold would mean nothing. 48 So they began their journey to the inland with haste, and when the black 49 spires came into sight, dread struck every man. Indeed, even Fengar was paled 50 by their morbid portents. So running without heed for the wounds they had 51 suffered, they came across a sight horrific to the eye. Their nation lay before 52 them, shredded as if by some great beast, tattered and broken. There were 53 splinters and shards of wood impaled in the earth with scatterings of 54 belongings strewn about. Their halls were raped of their gold and their swords 55 broken into halves. The black spires rose from two towering piles of bodies 56 stacked high, burning with the slow flickering purpose that only fire has. 57 At their sight the men wept and cursed, lamenting their fate and blaming 58 themselves for their greed. For what other reason had they pursued their 59 quarry, the Regni, so recklessly? The men threw themselves into fits of rage 60 and despair, and when night fell they dragged themselves back to Raven Rock 61 to sleep. 62 When the soldiers arrived, Fengar spoke: 63 “Who was the Valkyrie who swept her hand over the entirety of our great

64 nation? Who was the god who forsook our people in this hour of need? 65 Why did the Norns destine the Belgae for death? You look at yourselves and 66 you say that the Belgae yet live, but I say the Belgae are dead. We are the last 67 and there shall be no more after us. What is the purpose of such an existence? 68 Where is the honor in continuing a life that will never live beyond its time? All 69 our deeds and the deeds of our fathers and of their fathers before them will 70 perish. We will become as if we never were. I tell you as the last Belgae that we 71 are finished. Our history dies with us, and we die alone.”

father’s thanes? Draw yourselves 83 up like men and help me as you are bound by your oath to your king to do.” 84 And so the Belgae tale goes, with the Raven Rock leaving shore with its history 85 and future aboard, traveling and searching for the new land that would 86 one day be the host for a new great nation. In all the lands of the earth, there 87 was never a greater cause for hope than the white sails on the dawn of a new 88 day, signaling to the world the noble quest of the Seekers of Belgae.

72 When Fengar had finished speaking, a woman emerged from the hull of the 73 boat. She had seen the men when they had come to the desolation of Belgae and 74 had followed them back to their ship. She had sought the lost men of Raven 75 Rock, and now she spoke to Fengar: 76 “Why do you weep for Belgae, great thanes of Darrodor? Do you not know the 77 greatness that lies within me? I am Wythren, the last shield-maiden of Belgae, 78 and I bear the heir to a new nation. My husband was your King Darrodor, and it 79 is his child that I bring to you now. I hear the whimpering of children and 80 despair of boys in your hull. Where is the leader who would show my son 81 victory? Where is the skald that may sing my child the history of his people? 82 Who will teach him the art of battle if not his

Behind the Scenes I C S ’15, F E nterview by

arter

Carter Santini ’15 called NASA engineer Steve Battell, who has over 37 years of experience working in every aspect of the space program, to talk about exploration in the modern era.

CS: Why is it important that we still explore and continue space exploration? SB: Exploration has many different tentacles. There is the human exploration, and there is science exploration. I’m more involved in the science component through robots and through telescopes. Most people view exploration as a place where humans go and do things, and, in the past, one would think it’s a normal product of the need to expand. There’s one component of exploration to learn new things and discover— but there is a second component of looking for resources. Exploration is starting to show a similar type of stretch to space. At first, it was a new, exciting frontier, and that attracts people itself who are looking to test their ability or just for the thrill. Also, there is an interest in Mars being an inhabitable place, that we can have a civilization there; I’m not one of the people who believes in that. The big reason we explore, though, is the same reason we look through telescopes and go to places. And that’s to find out more about ourselves and the universe. CS: Could you elaborate on human exploration and

antini

eatures

ditor

it’s place in space? SB: In space, there are two modes of exploration: the first is a human in space, going to Mars, the Moon, anywhere. That’s exploration of putting a human where they haven’t been before. Who knows what comes from there? Much of space exploration, though, is done through telescopes and on land, for instance, and you want to look at a black hole and learn about it; no human is going to go into it, but we can gain a lot from studying it. But you can do better at studying these objects that we can’t go to from space, as the atmosphere hampers our ability to study them, so it’s still important to have that human-in-space aspect. We can learn more about Mars by going there and touching the surface than we can by telescopes. There’s value in both human exploration and machine exploration. CS: Why do you think in literature and movies it’s romanticized that we have a second home in space? SB: I think that really a small percentage of humans care about a second earth home; most of people are just trying to survive. There’s a few reasons why we want to go to space, though: to become famous, to do things that people haven’t done before, and to believe that you can establish another presence in another place that is productive. There are a million people in the United States, though… [who]

Barren Vortex | Photograph | Michael Heiland ’14

would willingly go to Mars and live there though. Mars One has 250,000 people willing to go one way because there’s no way to go back. There are a lot of ethical questions and complications with this, especially on the way there, and we have very high values on life now, making exploration difficult CS: How is exploration today different from past eras? SB: Our technology allows us to know and anticipate what’s at the other side. When Columbus floated away from Spain, he had no idea what he was going towards. When we go to Mars or the Moon we know what we are going to find. … Carrying things has also gotten more compact and planned out. In the past, it was just: “We need more ships for this food.” In space, we need to shoot this off the earth. In general, it’s looked at in a risky proposition with human life-value higher, so it’s more difficult. CS: Do your friends, who have been to space, seem changed when they return home? SB: There are three components to this question. First you have to be an extraordinary individual to go to space. They are selected because they are the best of the best, so they are already very accomplished, but the adventure they go on changes

them fundamentally for two reasons: first you become a celebrity, so much of your time is spent answering questions and dealing with the public. It’s part of your responsibility to do that. Almost every astronaut I know comes back as a better person and goes and does extraordinary things. The second part is that they come back and they see the world differently. We call this the forest and the trees. In general, when you’re on the earth you’re overwhelmed by trees; when you step up and look at the earth from above, there’s a spiritual part to that. Even I had this feeling when we worked on Hubbell, when the astronauts turned their heads you could see the earth. Astronauts spend all their spare time looking out the window. CS: How is the space program doing today? SB: It’s healthy but it’s undernourished. NASA has been working on a flat budget for a while. It has to do more with less and less money. So NASA, which used to lead the world in every space field, has started to fall behind. If this continues for 5 years, this will make NASA unhealthy. It’s unlikely to become healthy until people begin to value the accomplishments of NASA. … Every great achievement the space program achieved was achieved at the cost of a latte per day per person, if everyone donated that money it would make a huge difference.

Into the Mist | Photograph | Greg Vogel â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

Cloudy with a Chance of Rain | Oil Canvas | Kyle Sourbeer â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

Fleet l

ll ll ll ll ll ll ll ll ll ll ll ll ll ll ll

by Jim Stickell ’16

I attached myself to you with an iron chain, Hoping you would sail me away. But when you sank, you became my anchor So that I had to drag you across the ocean floor. Even as far as my oars can extend, My wingspan still falls short. It would take a fleet to rescue you From the depths of these seas and The crevasse even deeper. You’ll only get heavier As your hull fills with water. One little sail boat With one little sail Will never be enough. Steamers, your kind, Are supposed to rescue sail boats as we drown. It’s never been the other way around.

Lady of Guadalupe | Monotype Etching | Kyle Sourbeer â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

A Circle

by Anthony Cardellini ’17 Another Thursday in London: Her wheelchair fought Through the congested street. Something caught her eye. Her hand made its way To the cold, hard pavement. Two tickets to the Wheel. “I’m lame,” she said. “I should give them to the blind man. “Twelve o’clock on a Friday,” Said the bells of Big Ben. His cane led him through the sidewalk. Thoughts shouted for attention. He appreciated the stranger’s gift; It was time for one of his own. “I am blind and cannot see,” he said. “I should give them to the sick woman.” Needles poured On this rainy Sunday. She watched from the window Of her hospital bed, Contemplating the slips of paper. “I won’t live to keep the memories,” she said. “I should give them to the deaf woman.” Click, went the door

Upon her young neighbor On a breezy Tuesday. As a draft came through, She examined her gift and Decided what to do. “The sounds of the city won’t reach my ears,” she said. “I should give them to the elderly man.” Another Thursday in London: The roughness of her hand Struck him as he shook it. He muttered, “Thank you.” She didn’t seem to hear. The tickets brought memories Of past rides. He realized what to do. “I’ve been on the Wheel plenty of times,” he said. “I should give them to the lame woman. She’d enjoy them much more than I would.”

I've never seen your real face. It's always behind that mask, The one stuck in a grin. Or whatever you need it to be.

Masks by Jim Stickell ’16

It's a pretty mask, Don't get me wrong. But I think I'd like your real face more. Not that it's pretty, or strong, or smart, But it would be you. It would be the perfect you that no one gets to see: The one too into comic books, even though you don't read any, The one that forgets whether or not You put on deodorant this morning, The one who hates playing devil's advocate, Even when you're not sure you believe in God yet. Besides, Your mask has a couple holes in it. They're called eyes. They ruin the façade Since they are windows to your soul. But they're also mirrors so I can see my own. So let's take our masks off and talk for once— Face to face.

Untitled | Oil | Joseph Nguyen â&#x20AC;&#x2122;16

ObituarY How to Write an by

Carlos Ochoa ’14

Cone-Headed | Pastel | Austin Fritzke ’14

[Name], [age], of [some place], died [some day]. He was born to [Mom] and [Dad], on [some randomly arbitrary day that people designate as the only day to show that we truly appreciate someone], in [this place within some other place that doesn’t matter]. He graduated from [high school] in [X year that is given so much value, and yet no one has control over what year they will have, but they are ready to shed blood and scream and taunt anyone who isn’t a part of their arbitrariness], and received a [piece of paper] from [some place where crooked bodies shove themselves into empty rooms that are supposed to make them think, but ideas and creativity never really blossom once they step out of the classroom door] in [X year]. He married [someone whom you either know or you don’t know, and if you don’t know, then you really should’ve kept up with him and not just disappeared because you think you don’t have time to stay in contact with people who supposedly leave a mark on you forever] in [some year that is used to keep count of all the years you have been with your soulmate, but if you really thought you were soulmates, that number wouldn’t matter as much as seeing that person every day and thinking to yourself, “You are beautiful”]. They lived together for [forever and ever]. He was [either a dot on your life canvas or a drawing soaked from being left under the rain, but you don’t mind because the smudges and irregular patterns and colors that don’t make sense still look beautiful enough to hang up on your wall] for [X number of years; what does this have to do with his dead body?]. His accomplishments consisted of [yada yada yada yada blah blah blah. Most likely you will notice those accomplishments and completely

forget about them like when you go walking on a beach and take a step and notice your footprint firmly defined in the millions of grains of sand, yet, in that moment, you don’t realize that you’ve left a trail behind you with footprints just as unique but decided to ignore them]. He won [X award from X tournament] and was [X happy because, you know, that piece of plastic or chunk of polished wood that’s sitting in your lifeless room collecting dust defines who you really are]. He was an active member of [do you know? If you don’t, please stop reading]. His hobbies consisted of [Really? Give me a break. Oh yeah, it’s definitely okay to just be born and grow up and die and have people read your obituary and think: Oh wow, he loved to read, swim, and hike. That’s nice. I’m glad he enjoyed doing that. Do we all need to have only one day left to live to realize that this life, this one and only life, is so precious that the moment you know you are going to die is the moment you realize, “I really did love those moments. I wish I could experience that just one more time.” Too bad, because when it’s too late, it’s too late. Death is sudden. Death is a separation from the now to the never. And the never is simply a black hole with nothing in it. Maybe that’s why the light is so comforting?]. In lieu of flowers, the family is requesting that donations be made out to [We Do It For Less Funeral Services, Inc.]. An open casket viewing will be held at 7 p.m. Friday and will end [whenever you believe you’ve talked enough about some piece of meat that will be thrown into the ground, soaking up the water from estranged clouds rather than the water from your dried up tears and going back to your boring life].

Pictures must not be too Picturesque | Photograph | Bryan Smith ’14

This Glass by ’17 by Derby Reeves

Broken glass cannot accept apologies. For what use have they? Apologies are not glue; they cannot adhere pieces. Apologies are not tape; they cannot bind parts. Apologies are not soft hands that take care, that can pick up pieces. Apologies are not the smile remembered with pain, where every angle and curve gives off another degree of warmth, melting your worries. Days of love dissipate â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the silencing crash of shattering glass tries to keep quiet. Heartfelt remorse tells it was futile to try to conceal.

These words fall soundless, cold as the once warm hands â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a fate brought by fault. This broken glass knows the harm, can see where it erred. So it shall stay. Jagged bits bite gravel. It is easier this way, thinks the glass. So it shall wait once again to feel warmth of heart. But as for these words, nothing but air is equally as useless to the glass.

Apologies cannot fix nor heal the broken. Apologies are the broom that sweeps shards aside.

White Walls | Photograph | Greg Vogel ’15

1one1iness by

10 48

Tommy Salanski ’14

Loneliness is a 10 letter word. 10. One and zero, One person and no one else. One cannot fix loneliness by One’s self, just as One line cannot leave the first dimension without the help of another. Loneliness is not a disease or illness or disorder but a state of mind. It is not contagious or genetic, but the opposite: It is created by being apart from anyone who may or may not have it. One learns to see One’s self through One’s own i’s. “i am the only One i have left. i wish i had another, but i only have myself, and therein, essentially, lies the rub.” What makes the i distinct is that it is separated to be on its own as well, nestled between two spaces. Two zeroes. “Wherever i look(s) i find(s) nothing.” Loneliness is a story narrated in first person. It is a longing for someone else to tell the story and change the point of view. Loneliness is a self-created prison, and I, for one, am still trying to find a way out.

Pointe | Pen and Ink | Will Harris â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

Vibrating my spine Filling my mind Might meeting craft But stuck In my inadequacy Strum Fighting to groove Pattern scattered phrases But I am failing To capture To comprehend Treading holes in the studio His voice breaks through “Play with courage Play with hope” Tinkering with clarity My anthem finally flows Vibrating Piercing The note soars true Harmonizing with roaring crowds Echoing their dreams Now realized

Strum

Marooned in fantasy Aspirations not my own Now heeding advice Not about tomorrow Trusting Just strumming

by Ian Gray ’17 51

Love Is Like a Brophy Tablet by Mason Swierenga ’14

Do you know the importance of my love? It is as vital as the wings to a dove Without it we could not fly to our greatest heights Or lie in the moon together on a cloudless night You crave my tender, yet piercing stare Even though it appears you don’t really care I know better than to dwell upon your apathy Though it doesn’t help for you to constantly laugh at me Even still, my love for you is like the sun Difficult to watch for forty-eight straight months

Oh how I think now of your bodacious body And imagine the two of us getting down and naughty Isn’t that what love is all about? Exercising imagination I believe that our love has no expiration Our love is like space: vast and largely unexplored We’re always coming back for more Remember that time you were in the girls locker room and I was hiding in oneof the lockers? Well now you do. You were preparing yourself for a game of soccer

Which I did when you commanded it of me After I hid under your bed the whole night to say you looked lovely

You told your teammate you were creeped out by the guy who always followed you through town

Oh the sacrifices we have made for one another I now wish to caress you as a lover

I feel sorry for that guy. Some people just can’t figure out when they’re not wanted around

Yes, our love is like scotch tape, one-sided But I will toil until our love has united

Enough about that pervert, let’s talk about us And our hard-hitting love like a school bus

Can’t we just call this thing by its right name? A lover and a man who can spit mad game

Our mutual love is like a black hole: you can’t see it Oh but it is as powerful as the sarlac in episode 4 of star wars in that giant pit

Senior English Bad Poem Contest Winner

yan Smith â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14 Reach | Photograph | Br

Rita Hayworth | Pen and Ink | Will Harris â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

Me and you we’re kind of like Luke and Leia Not in the we’re related this would be weird kind of way

But who’s to say who the judges and juries of our society should be? Do you remember the first day we met?

But in the end we’re both good-looking maybe something will happen from this way Something will. You’ll realize what it is you’ve missed My gentle hand racing down your spine Like a kindergartener who wants to be first in line My love for you is like the food in your refrigerator Not really what you’re looking for but if you lower your standards you might find something later

And I laid down that killer opener, come here often? Even though I already knew you didn’t because I’d been paying close attention to you for the previous 3 years at that point Anyway, what a night... I think we can all agree we had a good time Now back to the rhyme

A love like ours needs to be visible for the whole world to look Which is why I liked that photo of you from 3 years ago when you were at summer camp on Facebook

My only rule is this: lots of touching of the hair and face What do you really mean when you say you want your space?

I wish that I could replace my television with you Because then I could stare at you for hours out of the blue

How far is 1000 feet to those who are in love? Is not distance only a construct that the mind thinks of?

I love you so much I’ll ditch my rhyme scheme

If I started to casually refer to us as dating Would that speed up the process of mating?

Because a love like ours breaks all the rules Mostly strictly legal rules put in place by several district courts in the states of Oregon, Arizona, Montana, and Michigan

If you believe in one thing, believe in this I will not rest until I have received your kiss

A Journey up the Family Tree by Kayvan Shamsa ’14,

Literary Editor

I’ve only been hit by an elder once, which is either surprising or laughable, depending upon your culture. Said elder was my grandfather and, in my youthful arrogance, his action filled me with such resentment that it marred my relationship with him for years afterward. By the time that I came to forgive him, he was suffering from dementia and unable to recognize me. I’d known him only as a cranky old bat, so imagine my surprise when, upon his death, Iranian websites and news agencies lit up with his face and name, Shams Ale-Ahmad. For most of my life, I’ve been content with living without knowledge of my heritage. The past of my pugnacious grandfather didn’t interest me in the slightest. My annual summer trips to Iran were only a couple month-long periods of boredom which I could endure. Now, however, my grandfather’s death sparked a curiosity in me I was eager to quench. I began by talking to my uncles, who were responsible for taking care of my grandfather in the last dementia-riddled decade of his life. As his caretakers, they were witness to the numerous visits made to him by his extended family. My uncles revealed that he was born of an incredibly Islamic family, and his father was a prominent Ayatollah. This fascinated me because I’d always known him to be a secular man, a former Communist who occasionally went on verbal tirades against the current Islamic regime. What they related next shocked me even more: his adoption of communism cost him the love and support of his heavily religious family. Communism rejects religion, and so, in turn, my grandfather’s family rejected him and forced

him to seek out a living with his Communist peers. However, when the Islamic Revolution occurred, my pragmatic grandfather suddenly chose to reject communism and, much to the dismay of his peers, support the Islamic right, intuiting that religion was the only force capable of uniting his country. His secular friends abandoned him on the spot. Then, when the new Iranian regime under Ayatollah Khomeini proved just as autocratic and repressive as the previous regime, my grandfather rejected it as well. In the end, he was left to live the last few decades of his life in solitude – devoid of his friends and the regime he helped elect. I can’t even imagine the abject loneliness my grandfather must have felt, abandoned by his family, friends, and then the Islamic government of Iran. For me, abandonment from friends entails petty grievances and hasty apologies, but, for him, it characterized emotional privation and the last remaining years of his life as a sane human being. Looking back, myself an aspiring writer, I curse myself and regret such a wasted opportunity, a squandered relationship. A simple misunderstanding wasted the few remaining years I could have talked to such a brilliant, intelligent, and hurting man. In history classes, I used to distance myself from the texts and works we read, consigning them to the distant and irrelevant past. It made no difference to me whether the actors of history had nuanced motivations or complex emotions; they were simply words in a book. Because of my grandfather, I now see the motions of history for what they truly are: human beings borne on the tides of individual motivations and backgrounds.

Wrinkled in the Moment | Acrylic | Austin Fritzke â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14

Father’s Ring

by Devon McCauley ’16

Father was a good man, Good in strength and steel. He said to me one gloomy day, “To justice thee must heel.” And in his last speech, Encumbered by the quilt, He gave to me his sword And blessed me with his guilt.

I raged a tyrant’s terror, Which menaced feeble men. I dipped my hands in blood, Forgetting nation’s end. A vigorous rebellion, Zealous with defeat, I cried upon the hearth And bled into my sheath.

Whispered near the fire With honor’s holy breath, He wished on my desire And kissed me on his death. So forth I drove the captives, Drove out the beastly breed, Ignored the blatant suffr’ing To serve my pride and greed.

As I lay in bed, Encumbered by the quilt, I returned to my poor country And buried all my guilt. My hands grew cold and lonely; My face grew cold and blue. I shouted for my country; Now my country shouts for you!

I fled to my desire, The iron rule of kings, Remembering the fire, The curse of father’s ring. And so inside my kingdom, My glory’s dearly bought. I peeked into the coffer To which the breed then fought.

My son by his right shoulder, I pulled him warm and near. I whispered soft as wind, “To justice they must heel.” But now alone in darkness To where my soul is kept, I looked upon my hands, Fell to the hearth, and wept.

Pa p e r Th i n

by Alex Keating ’14

My dad collects some layers of dust, Above that white and fading shirt, Those chair legs press against the wall, He rests, his niece upon his lap, Click and snap, and decades passed, but Long ago this ink was breathing.

His niece is sprawled across his lap, Her skin, so soft and still, contrasts, Between his muscles strained in stress, Her gentle figure presses in, Frozen at a simple age, her Tiny fingers blur the coarseness.

He stares; the lighting strikes his form, A darkened glow surrounds his skin, Against the whites are umber eyes, A straightened line beneath his chin, Still and stiff he stays, his Body stuck between a heartbeat.

Indeed, he’d work his bones to burn, But there they’d melt against the wood, And briefly, sewn together there, The world beyond the walls has left, Ageless, staring through the ink, their Forms suspend between a white space.

Where ends of papered walls collide, There stands this throne of beaten oak, Upon it, like the wood within, His muscles, skin, and bones, so rough, Weigh him down against the ink, his Elbows rest atop the edges.

A second lost in waves of time, They’ve lived through days in months and years, But lines and tones, to me, remind, The wrinkles worn are working near, Smashed dimensions, still, against the Printer paper is a person.

A Picture | Photograph | Bryan Smith â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14

Don’t

Listen to

(Don’t read this) I was going to tell you to go outside and look at some trees or rivers or whatever is out there nowadays, but Thoreau already spent time doing that, and it doesn’t look like you listened. And I won’t waste my time telling you to seize the day because you’ve already seen how miserable Jim was without Pam, and you still haven’t done a thing. And I was going to tell you to calm down and unite

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by M

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yourself with the world around you, but evidently Hesse’s ideas were lost in translation because the words of the Buddha himself weren’t enough to make you think at all. And I would tell you to toughen up a little bit, but if Hemingway hasn’t even convinced you to do that, then why should I bother? And I thought for a minute to tell you that everything that seems awful now will be better soon, but Plath’s suicide hasn’t changed much for you, has it? You see, everything you’ve read and seen has shown you what to do. You’ve had the wisdom of geniuses on all your bookshelves, but if even they can’t change you, why did you waste your time reading this?

Ice the Mind | Pen and Pastel | Austin Fritzke â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14

Piece 67 | Pencil | Daniel Shaw â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14

The Attic

by Alex Keating ’14

Kylie leaned against the wall and swayed back and forth. She stood in the center of the hallway with her feet crossed over each other. Her white dress hung over her knees, unmoving in this breezeless and quiet portion of the house. Every once in a while, she could hear dampened sounds echo up the walls or strained laughs crawl their way up from the group of aunts and uncles and various relatives downstairs. She grazed the carpet carefully with her glossy shoe. She always wondered why the threads

things created structure, and at such a young age it only made sense that the world be nothing other than unmoving. Above her, a white string hung down from the ceiling, attached to the attic door. She saw it sway the slightest bit to the left, and then back to equilibrium. “You just gonna stand there?” said someone suddenly at the end of the hallway. Kylie jumped and nearly tripped over her crossed legs.

it only made sense that the world be nothing other than unmoving. didn’t just rip out of the ground when she walked over them or peel out over time. She didn’t like their flimsiness; they couldn’t hold anything but themselves, and she knew of very few things in the world that shared this quality. Instead, she had a liking for solid things: the maple, sofa legs that pressed themselves into the living room floor, the locks on the windows that snapped into place, or the plaster that joined red bricks together and felt cold against her hand. These

“Why are you up here, Ben?” she replied, pushing her dress down against her legs. Her cousin stood a few feet from her. Although both were eight years old, Ben was inch higher taller than Kylie’s. He wore black pants that flowed over his socks onto the cream colored carpet. Beneath the sleeve of his over-sized, white dress-shirt, there was a scar from the time he pushed Kylie out of a tree, and the spike from a broken branch nearby slit through the skin on the backside of his wrist. It

healed thickly, and he would rip off the scabs as they foamed up. He knew it was all her fault; everything was because of his little cousin Kylie. “You should be down there crying with them,” he replied. “You were the one who was always his little ‘pumpkin.’” Ben snickered as he said the name. “You’re just mad because Grandpa doesn’t like you.” Kylie clutched her own arm. “He never liked you.” “He liked you because you act like a baby, Kylie,” said Ben, waiting for her response. “What are you doing up here anyways? You trying to go up there?” Kylie looked up to the attic. “We’re not allowed.” “I bet there’s cool stuff in there.” “There are spiders up there, and you’ll fall through the ceiling if you don’t know where to walk,” she replied. “I know how to walk.” “That’s not what I said, Ben.” Ben looked at her with peculiarly raised eyebrows-- a look he’d exercised far too often. He walked forward, jumped up, and came down with the string in hand. “Ben! Stop it!” Suddenly, Ben swung his other hand up to grab even higher on the string, then pulled down on it, exerting his entire weight onto the board in the ceiling through the string. The board swung around its hinges with an extendable ladder on top and dropped down to a forty-five degree angle, pointing directly at Kylie. The dust-covered metals scraped against each other, pulled downward with extreme force. The light finally caught the ladder’s surface as it escaped into the air, cutting it in many directions, shimmering outward. Kylie saw this as more and more escaped from the attic, the individual spokes making their way down and the tremendous weight rushing towards her. The rubber ends of the ladder

came inches away from her face, and she jumped out of the way, allowing the tremendous heap of metal to slide into the ground and snap into place. Kylie breathed heavily. Ben stared in shock. Kylie stared back. “Why’d you stand there, idiot?” he said. “What?” “Never mind, let’s just go up before you start crying.” “Stop it, Ben. We can’t,” she muttered. “Yeah, right.” Ben put his hand on the metal ladder, shuffled around to place his foot on it as well, and climbed up towards the attic. His hands, head, torso, and then waist escaped into the blackness until the rest of him disapeared. Kylie stared up, put her tiny hand on the cold metal of the ladder for a moment, and then followed him upward before pulling herself onto the dark attic floor. She reached out aimlessly and snagged a wooden two-by-four support with her hand, then clamped her hand down on it so that her skin wouldn’t slide into its slivers. “Ben?” she cried out. “I can’t see anything,” he replied. A thud surged through the attic from where he was standing. “Ouch, ouch, ouch.” His feet scrambled over the floor in what sounded like a series of hops, scraping against the splintery ground. “Ben, are you okay?” “Stupid thing!” He let out a hushed whimper in that black corner of the room. “Where are you?” Kylie said as she stepped forward, releasing the plank from her arm. Almost immediately, a small, wooden ball tapped against her forehead. She reached up and jerked it down quickly, and the single, dim light flooded the room. Cardboard boxes littered the back and side edges of the attic, all covered in a very thick and

unevenly spread sheet of dust. Ben sat on the ground, leaning back and holding his right foot closely with his hands. Kylie realized Ben had stubbed his barefooted toe in the darkness of the attic. She rushed over to him. “Get someone! It hurts, Kylie.” “We’ll get in trouble, Ben,” she pleaded. Ben sobbed and squeezed his toes tighter. “They’re all talking; they’ll get mad at me. Please, Ben,” she pleaded. “I didn’t even want to come to this house. It’s all because of stupid grandpa. Why did he hate me?” “I don’t know, Ben.” “I don’t even care he’s dead. I hated him too.” Ben looked down to the splintery flooring and let a bit of his tension slip away. He bawled into his arm softly. Kylie froze. Deep inside her was a heart, one so delicate and fragile under its own pressure, but that pulsed blood through her twig-like veins which spread apart and grew thinner and thinner, and this, those words, that sentiment, tore through all of that and into that heart that made her so willing to nestle against life and the warmer things of the world. If he’d triggered that force within her that was dying to explode, just waiting to burst out and say “no” at last because she’d forgotten how to say it too many times, she’d scream and yell at him and kick him in the side once and probably apologize but dare to think about doing it again and again and again -- but she didn’t. Something pushed this desire down to her feet and out into the floor. It escaped her like a sliver of wood being cut and curled away from a block of wood-- forcefully but somehow expected because, inside, she knew she understood him. So she let him cry beside her, to let him remember their grandfather however he wanted to. And she noticed what it was that Ben had

jammed his toe into. It was a black box made up of two foot by four foot rectangles, pushed against the wall by the long side. A small piece of metal poked out from the box and pushed through the latch to keep it shut tightly. She’d seen it before, before her grandpa went to the hospital. It had been in his closet, too far up and heavy for her to explore. She’d only seen him go to it once, a couple of weeks before he passed. Kylie wedged her fingers beneath the box’s lid and swiveled it open. Inside was a pile of assorted items, each apparently organized at one point but now haphazardly sprawled over each other, likely from being pushed into the attic. Ben’s sobbing faded as he looked up. “What’s in there?” he said. “Grandpa’s old stuff,” she replied, picking out a few various items in the box and holding them in her hands. She held and felt the edges of a velvet wedding ring box, tilted sideways and placed at the corner of the chest. She also found a bruised, silver lighter pressed down deep into the box. She picked up and felt the plastic around a deck of playing cards, decorated by red, French letters on the front. A worn-down pocket knife rested among the mass of various items. The hill expanded into a pile of now lost and half-broken memories of a lifetime long before hers. She let her fingers trickle over the tops of them. She felt something. Sticking out from the very center of the box was the corner of a frayed and peeling photograph. She lifted it out. It had been taken sometime in the late 1930’s near an old forest, as evidenced by the gray pine trees extending upwards into the sky over the single-roomed school building in the background. Sitting on top of a small wooden bleacher were seven individual students, all in the second grade.

Kylie saw a group of kids like her, all with their own classes and cousins and attics, and she knew one of them was her grandpa. “Who are they?” Ben said, noticing the picture in Kylie’s hand. Kylie stared down at it. She pushed the frail edges inward as she studied it. “I don’t know,” she replied. The children all looked into the camera. She scanned the old picture, knowing but not fully recognizing that one time, long ago, their blood rushed. They felt the humidity in the pores of their skin and felt the grass beneath their feet as they stared into a camera. Ben pushed himself up onto his hurting foot to look at the picture with Kylie. He wanted nothing to do with that old man who had ignored him. He was bright for an eight year old, honest, and, if anything, understanding. He didn’t want his grandfather back as much as he wanted a simple explanation for the years of cold looks and mean assumptions. He stared down at that photo somehow thinking he’d find it. But Kylie did want to find him again. She wanted to see him again because she loved the way he saw her as the most important thing in the room when she walked in and the way he’d nearly strain his back to sit down on the carpet to show her magic tricks, and she didn’t want it to go away any longer. So she dove into the photo, looking for any trace of him, student by student. She looked at the boy sitting at the top-right corner of the bleacher. She would never know his name, his voice, or anything other than his body from the torso up. This she knew. She would never know of the times that he and her grandfather walked into the forest when they were younger and built forts with the dead tree branches after they fell down from above. Nor would she know that they

once got lost in the forest and nearly burnt down a two-hundred-year-old oak tree with a broken lighter they found out there. She would only know that he had blonde hair and his shoulders rose to different heights when he sat down. Kylie saw a girl sitting at the bottom-right corner in the picture with a ponytail pulled back way too tightly behind her head. Kylie wouldn’t ever see her steal a brand-new box of pencils from another student and run out the door with it, slipping on a puddle and landing on her back, or help her back up like her grandfather did, watching the water drip from her clothes as she said, “Thank you,” walking off. Kylie noticed two boys also in the front. They were brothers—this much she knew. The two brothers were a grade apart, but studying at such a small school made them the same age in effect. Kylie’s grandfather watched them in class sometimes as they whispered to each other and laughed together. Kylie wouldn’t know what it was like to press her feet against the ground in that old classroom and realized she wouldn’t ever be closer to them. Her grandfather only once heard them talking, and it was about their plan for escape. They were going to France, they said. It was where they needed to be. Peeking up above the brothers in the middle row of the bleacher was a particularly special girl. Her hair hung down above her shoulders, and she wore a white dress in the picture. That much was obvious. Her cheeks were gray in the photo, and this is all Kylie would ever know them to be. Kylie would never have the memory of walking next to her in the rain and watching the water fall sideways, crashing against the school building and trees like catapulted rocks. She wouldn’t ever know what it was like to accidently slip and fall at the same time in the misty grass and just lie there, rejecting any

urge to stand up and do anything other than look up at the rain clouds clustered in the smoky sky above them and no one else. She wouldn’t know what it was like to pretend to read that girl’s palms just to feel her fingertips and guide her own along the veins in her hand, or just once to look out the window of the school, alone and together, watching the storm clouds shake in the distance, and to hear the thunderclaps press against everything they could see. She wouldn’t say goodbye to that girl with the short, brown hair, but neither did he. Her grandfather left without one. She wouldn’t ever sit in a classroom and stare at the empty chairs and years later stare at others as if to wonder what it would be like for her to come back then or any time afterwards. She wouldn’t have to accept years later that her memory was as much as she’d ever find of that girl with the short hair. A boy sat in the top row, closest to the teacher. His eyebrows curled inward in the photograph along with the corners of his mouth. She could see his hands at his sides but would never know that those same hands kindly extended themselves outward to see a small piece of wood Kylie’s grandfather tried to carve into the girl with the short, brown hair’s face from memory with an old pocketknife. She wouldn’t know that he hurled it into the lake behind the school and laughed when he did. She didn’t remember that boy walking away, or then being able to do nothing but kneel at the edge of the lake, shins in the mud, and stare down into the murky waters with glossy eyes to search for her lifeless body so that he could finish carving away her eyes and finally bring her back. She finally saw the child in the center of the image wearing a brown, beaten up jacket. His thin hair slid down the sides of his head, and it was darker back then but still the same. The way he looked at the camera was the most familiar. He

looked like he was in the middle of an exhale, but it seemed permanent. His eyes were relaxed but were squinted just enough to squeeze out a passive smile. She looked at him, and her grandfather looked back as if to tell both her and Ben, as he became as lost in this tiny world as she did, that he was not yet gone. Then, even for a second, sitting in a dusty attic while her family told stories about her grandfather downstairs, she knew what it was like to be sitting on that bleacher seventy years ago. She shared his age and blood and realized, truly realized, that he was once as curious as she was. She could feel what it was like to sit under the rain as it fell because she knew what rainclouds looked like and they weren’t any different back then. The sun still shone down outside, and she knew what it was like for the rays to fall on her skin and know that the same sun was there in the picture. With both tiny hands clamped around the edge of the picture, she instead felt the cold metal of the bleacher on her palms and fingertips as she looked just slightly over the camera to see the pine trees in the distance and felt the air surge with mist as she waited for the storm clouds to come to wash away the sticks and slivers of wood in the grass. She felt the world wear away at her slowly, but not enough to ever forget what it felt like to hold that girl’s hand with the pretty, short hair. She slipped the picture back into the box and closed it shut. The rain would still come. It would fall from the sky and seep into the grass down into the Earth, where Kylie and her grandfather would eventually be waiting, together, in their little box of memories.

Untitled | Pencil | Trevor Schlenker â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14

by Austin Martin â&#x20AC;&#x2122;17

Gr wth

Small seed Dives beneath rich soil Encased in moist dirt Silence for days Sudden growth explosion Roots stretch deeper Taller Skyward tower Sun collectors branch out Choked by limited space Fighting for Sunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s embrace Competition surrounds Struggle for nutrients Growth halted Danger Gusts Showers Battering smashing Though protected Anchored beneath Standing firm Alive

Naïve | Monotype Etching | Kyle Sourbeer ’15

Language Barrier

by Jeffrey Erdely ’14

Hell had nothing on Arizona during the summer. The city of Phoenix was a clogged and slow-moving city, filled with pollution from the thousands of cars making their way from the east side of the valley to the west and back again. Air was thick on the highways, filled with the fumes from shabby cars spewing billowing clouds from their exhaust. Streets were clogged from six to nine, with traffic going every way it could. Friday’s rush-hour began on Thursday morning. The land itself was an eyesore, and the foliage that wasn’t already dead was dying. Lawns had to be watered at night or in the early morning. The droplets of water flung from sprinklers evaporated at any other time.

Despite the appalling weather and frantic lifestyle, Arizona prospered, owing much of its expansion to the vast and growing number of immigrants who called the shimmering flats and polluted highways their home. Phoenix was always under construction, using the immigrants from the border to fuel its growth. The aliens especially were sought after. Possessing no work experience and facing the threat of deportation, they were willing to provide pairs of arms to work in the grueling heat, especially since a job of any kind held the opportunity for a green card.

Blurred People | Photograph | Christian Franco â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

Red brick and dirt mixed with dried sweat to form a crusty coating on the back of Dean’s sunburned neck. Throwing down his shovel, he picked up a bottle of water and tossed his head back, taking in the clear liquid with great gulps. Tossing the empty bottle aside, he picked up another, taking off his hard hat and pouring the water over his sweat-drenched head. His hair was cut short, and the water dripped all the way down his back, relieving his neck from the punishing glare of the sun. He took off his orange-and-yellow vest and tossed it with his hard hat and tools in the back of his grimy 1970 Chevy pickup, leaving his two empty bottles in the dirt where they had fallen. Around him, men dressed similarly were abandoning whatever projects they had been working on—digging this hole, shoveling this rock, hammering this nail—and making for the cars in a dirt parking lot. Dean climbed into his pickup and turned the car on, taking a moment to relish the sudden rush of air from its vents on his face, and then it was gone. Forty-something-year-old cars didn’t usually have great, if any, air conditioning. Dean didn’t mind; air conditioning cost gas, and the darn thing was a hog as it was. Most of the men clambered into vehicles already overflowing. The ones that didn’t have a car or a ride had to take the light rail to the nearest stop, and then walk the extra mile to their destination. “Hey, hombre, you got room in there?” Dean looked out his window into the face of one of his co-workers, a slight Mexican man with a pitiful scrap of hair on his upper lip and an honest, if a bit vague, face. “I’m tryin’ to get downtown. You live that way, yeah?” Dean studied the man—no, boy. He must’ve been seventeen years old, most likely an illegal, working whatever odd-job he could to bring in

some money for the rest of his family. It was the only explanation he could find for a kid that age to be out working construction the entire day. “Sorry, ese.” Dean rolled his windows up. “I’m not heading that way.”

* * * Downtown, wedged between 7th street and Camelback, a grimy, brick wall with a doorway a little to the right crumbled in between a 7-11 and a pawn shop, giving the effect that it was abandoned. Óscar’s. It was all the description the shabby brick wall had ever received and all it ever needed. Óscar’s Place, or even La Ramada, were acceptable replacements depending on whom you spoke to. Never busy but always full, that little door saw more action than its rusted hinges suggested, and yet, no one who ever passed it on his way to work in the morning could say he had ever seen it open. Dean opened the door after parking his truck in the back, locking it, and bringing his tools in with him. He shifted his wide frame to accommodate the narrow doorway and sidled in, banging his shovel against the wall as he did. “Hell, man, take it easy!” Dean muttered an apology under his breath as he moved through the small common room of the motel. The man who had spoken was none other than Óscar himself, and he looked every inch as sketchy as the building he ran. “Hey, Dean, try to wipe your feet or something okay? Hell, man, construction ain’t clean, you know?” Dean paused a minute to take in the compact lobby Óscar lorded over. It looked like something out of an old spaghetti western movie with cracked and decaying cattle skulls to boot. An old Philips TV with askew rabbit ears, bringing in whatever corny

game show it could, squatted stoically against the wall across from Óscar’s front desk. Two wooden chairs flanked its sides with a rough couch plopped in the middle of the room facing the TV. A radio playing banal country music sat on the counter, separating Óscar’s front desk from the rest of the lobby. Óscar himself was a very nondescript man, as far as Mexicans went, with dry, shriveled skin that clung to his small stature. He wore clothes that were

assigned a twelve hour shift to end the week, but the darn Mexicans who ran the show decided he wasn’t done just yet, so they kept him working with the night shift. Every member of the team and project was Mexican: foremen, workers, engineers, all of them—all running across the border, all running from the patrol, all running to get some jobs to feed their fat wives and chubby children they’d brought along with them. Dean wasn’t mad at them by any

Hombre. Ese. Mexican. What was he supposed to call these people anyway? too big for him, emphasizing his thin frame. A swirl of black hair sprouted like a weed from his scalp and conformed to his head, perpetually making him look like he’d been wearing a bike helmet. Faded tattoos flowed down his forearms, and a pack of cigarettes sat unopened in his front shirt pocket. “I know construction ain’t clean. That’s why I ain’t worried, ‘cause this place ain’t clean neither!” “Hey man, my niece cleaned an hour ago. No joke, she and her sister both scrubbed where you’re standing. Have a little respect, will ya?” “Your niece, yeah? Was she the short fat one or the mustached maiden?” “Okay, funny man, your rent just doubled! You hear me? Doubled!” Dean gave a dry chuckle and proceeded down a short hallway and fumbled for the keys in his jeans. Unlocking the door, he dropped his equipment on the floor and stumbled into his bed, falling facefirst on the mattress. He let his left arm dangle off the side of his bed and reached for the miniature refrigerator beside his bed. He withdrew three beers clutched in his hand and immediately set about emptying them. It was around seven. Construction had ended a whole two hours later than scheduled. He had been

means. At least he wasn’t mad at them differently than how he got mad at any other group of people. Hell, he got mad at blacks and whites just as much, and this wasn’t any different. What got him really mad were their words. Hombre. Ese. Mexican. What was he supposed to call these people anyway? Dean remembered a heavyset Mexican woman getting mad at him at Wal-Mart because he’d called her that: a “Mexican.” Lying on his back in his bed, he closed his eyes and remembered how her eyes had bugged out of her head and the way she’d brought her hand up and moved it around while she yelled at him. “No! No way! What the hell did you just call me?” “Well, hey, calm down. I just mentioned that you were Mexican-” “Nuh-uh! No way! I am Latina! I’m not from Mexico you moron! What, you think just because I am Latina, I’m from Mexico? You racist!” Dean shrugged. “Well hell, lady, don’t get all bent out of shape. It’s just a word.” It hadn’t ended there, but Dean had gotten tired of the fat woman’s tirade and just left. He didn’t like being the center of attention, and the woman’s rants had drawn people over. An employee

had hustled down and asked him to leave, and Dean left because a fat lady was sensitive about the word Mexican. Dean was starting to get sick of the word altogether. Mexican. Didn’t even sound like a real word. He laid on his back with his hands behind his head, saying it over and over and over. “Mexican…Mexican…Mexican…” He slurred his speech and said it slowly, then let his mouth hang loosely and said it slovenly. He said it so many times that it stopped having any meaning to him, just becoming a noise he was making with his mouth, like a toddler who had just gotten hold of a new word—saying it over and over and over. “Mexican…Mexican…Mexican…” Dean eventually drifted off to sleep. His fourteen-hour day had been too taxing for him to stay mad for long.

his room, feeling his anger growing at being awake so late at night. He looked to pinpoint the cause. His dirty equipment and sparse bedroom were all that met his gaze. His ears, unlike his eyes, had never gone to sleep and began picking up noise coming through his wall and out his door. Mariachi music was playing, and he heard voices, although he couldn’t pick out any words. Dean felt heat rush to his face as he stumbled to the door, letting the three empty beers fall to the floor with a clink. Flinging the door open, he hollered down the hall. “Hey! Shut the hell up! I’m trying to sleep!” Laughter answered his shout, and Dean felt blood pounding in his ears as he made his way down the tight hallway and towards the source of the music. There was an empty doorway halfway down the hall, and Dean made for it.

* * *

One a.m. Dean’s bleary eyes could barely make out the time on his clock. He rolled over and looked around

Fridays were terrible for Luciano, or as his American counterparts called him, “Lucky.” The night shift on the highway construction was tiring,

one of these exchanges between his parents was overheard by his friend that Lucky’s nickname was coined. “Jesus, ese. Don’t you ever get tired of your parents always telling you how lucky you are?” Luciano considered this. “I haven’t really paid much attention to it. I grew up with them talking like that. What’s wrong with it anyway?” “Man, they sound like old Mexicans—back when everyone thought America was the greatest and that this place was gonna be freakin’ El Dorado.” “Well, how the hell do you know this place is the same as Mexico? You were born here just like me!” “Whoa, hey, all I’m saying is that your parents sound funny, man. That’s it. Sometimes it sounds like lucky’s your freakin’ name!”

Phoenix | Pen and Ink | Matthew Worley ’14

miserable, and hot. During the summers, the city took advantage of the cool nights and worked the men double-time, throwing up some floodlights and creating a night shift in order to finish the new highway ahead of schedule. His cousins in California always made fun of his complaints. Hot? At night? ¡No me digas! Lucky didn’t believe the same laments his father had told him when he’d stumbled through the door at five in the morning, staying awake just long enough to eat dinner while Lucky and his siblings ate breakfast and got ready for school. School. Lucky missed it. Growing up bilingual, Lucky had spent a lot of time reading books in order familiarize himself with English and Spanish. His mother was insistent upon his Spanish roots, even though she herself was a second generation immigrant. “It’s who we are Luciano! You’re lucky to be in a country who lets you keep those roots!” she said, to which his father usually chuckled and replied, “You’re lucky my padre made it as a foreman, or we’d never have met!” It was a privilege to be a foreman if you were illegal—it usually meant a green card or at least a work visa. It was when

Luciano usually didn’t mind the nickname, but today it seemed to mock him. He didn’t usually work the night shift, but he got stuck. No one would give him a ride home. Everyone was speeding home and kicking up dust at the end of the Friday shift, and he was left in the rush. Unlucky. He wished that man had been going downtown. Couldn’t blame him though; Lucky knew the price of gas, and if he’d been in the man’s shoes, he’d have done the same. His luck changed once again though, when the generators for the floodlights conked out at around eleven. No one could figure out why, and, at eleven at night, who the hell cared? Aside from the foreman, no one did, so when one of the workers drove by with a truck full of hombres looking to celebrate the short shift and the long weekend, Lucky got in.

* * * Luciano had never been the kid in high school to go to parties. The only time he ever had experienced them was when his parents threw them and invited every relative and friend they could think of. The scent of cheap beer and pico de gallo hung in the air as people talked, drank, ate, and gossiped—just people having a good time. Old Spanish mariachi played somewhere in the background. The party Luciano found himself at was just the same, except, this time, he was drinking. Having had the strictest parents in the neighborhood, Luciano had trouble getting away with most teen shenanigans. His dad, determined to be as American as he could, took the drinking law seriously and wouldn’t let his son touch the stuff. Once Luciano started working, he had much more freedom than he knew what to do with, and he was no longer questioned about his whereabouts after

dark, if at all. So after such a long day and, with little else going for him, Lucky drank as deeply as he could. Sitting on a couch in a friend’s cramped apartment room surrounded by his amigos, Lucky smiled into his glass—an apt name for a lucky man. A commotion by the door disturbed his thoughts. A couple of hombres were hurling insults at someone standing outside. He looked at their faces and saw how red they were getting, a combination of alcohol and anger. He recognized it from the way some of his uncles would get at the parties. Lucky took down the last of his beer in two gulps, then got up and walked across the room.

* * * “I’m serious! You’re all dead Mexicans if you don’t shut the hell up!” Óscar hung off of Dean’s arm, trying to dissuade him from entering the room and at the same time yelling at the young men living there to shut up. The veins on Dean’s neck stood out as he shook off Óscar for the second time, taking a step into the room. It quieted as soon as his large frame filled the doorway; only the mariachi music playing on the radio broke the silence. “Heeeey man, hombres calm down! There ain’t no problem here!” came a squeaky voice from inside the room. The small Mexican kid that had asked Dean for a ride stumbled over to the doorway. His gait was sloppy and he had a bit of a smirk on his face, as if he found the whole situation funny. “Easy eses, this honky’s my carnal brother. We’re co-workers!” The rest of the room regarded Dean uneasily as the boy staggered up to the doorway. “Hey c’mon now, hombre. Come join the party! We’re all doin’ the same job, drinkin’ the same beers…” He began tugging the crowd away from the doorway as he spoke. All emotion gone from his

face, Dean simply stared at him. The drunken group eventually left Dean where he was and went around the room, muttering about how gringos always ruin the fun. Óscar tapped on Dean’s side. “Hey, go to bed, man. I know the primos are loud, but they’re young guys. They got a lot more in them at the end of the night. Just go to bed.” The young boy caught Dean’s eye and sauntered over as Óscar walked off. “Watch’oo standin there for, man? C’mon, it’s all over now, hombre! Look at them.” He gestured towards the room. “They’re drunk! They don’t care anymore man, come on in and drink with them-”

Power Road | Photograph | Michael Heiland ’14

“No,” came Dean’s abrupt reply. “Aww c’mon. They’re really neat guys once you-” “No. Please…” Dean finally looked at the young man’s face. “I just…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He stared at the young man, unblinking. He stepped back, shutting the door and walking away, leaving Lucky to return to his party. Dean locked his door and sat on his bed, listening to the mariachi music playing down the hall but not really hearing it. He sat there listening to the music late into the night. Sometime early in the morning it shut off, and only then did Dean lie back in his bed and go to sleep.

Race Cards

Each year, Brophy holds a two-week Summit on Human Dignity, designed to examine a pressing issue in modern society. This year, the Summit Committee elected to discuss the prevalant issue of race. In order to discern the Brophy student body’s sentiments on race, BLAM decided to emulate National Public Radio correspondent Michele Norris’s Race Card Project. She designed the project to “help foster a candid dialogue about race,” through a sixword sentence. In a similar fashion, we asked the Brophy community to distill their thoughts and sentiments on race into six words.

d w n o a h l f e t v a h t m i d o e p o a c s h e s e d r a u o m y n m a o h h e w v 84

Blood on Your Hands | Oil | Kyle Sourbeer â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

s S hrea w l p b n i e s e l s r o o p t m l e n p a s e r d h a n e r o g l f d n t a h t ' s Names are live hand grenades Thrown into trenches already dug too deep. When they explode, shockwaves of insensitivity Throw shrapnel made up of words— Words that weigh a gram and are smaller than pennies, But tear holes in something worth more than gold. Now blood that flows Like oil from the pump of the heart Has made slick this trench’s walls. Walls meant to save us, Walls that instead trapped us, Walls that made escape impossible.

by J im Stic ke ll ’1

I slip in my comrades’ blood As I hurl my own grenades. Yes, I’ve used my own names! Some days, They’re my only defense.

Because there never was a Geneva Convention For the schoolyard, Never a UN saying, “You may not be spraying Your poisoned words at your own people— People you neglected, People you didn’t have time to mention, People... who your shrapnel tore apart.”

Hostage | Pen and Pastel | Austin Fritzke ’14

Paint

by Jeffrey Erdely ’14 “This is just so hard, y’know? And I’m not saying I was expecting it to be easy—every relationship has its hard parts—but, I mean, we’re just in high school, y’know? I’m committed to you… but even you have to admit that what we’re dealing with is… a lot.” She stared at me with those big brown eyes, a somber expression on her dark face. “I get it,” she replied. Rain dropped steadily all around us. I tried a change of scenery. “This is stupid. Let’s get out of the rain.” “It’s fine.” “We’re getting soaked.” “I don’t mind.” “You’re being difficult.”

“Maybe.” “Why?” “I want you to finish.” I sighed, feeling the frustration building up in me. “Look, I’m scared, alright? Don’t tell me you didn’t feel afraid—haven’t felt afraid—every time this has happened.” She lowered her head, allowing me to see my car behind her. The white paint was beginning to dribble off due to the rain, but the words were still legible. I tried a different tactic. “This isn’t what I thought would happen. At all. No one seemed to care at school, and our parents didn’t even mention it. But out here,” I gestured towards the car, “in the

real world, people do care. They care immensely. They hate what we are, and that scares me. I never thought I would have to fear for my life—for our lives—just because we wanted to…pursue each other.” She looked at me intensely. “That’s what we’ve been doing? Pursuing?” She laughed. “I could’ve sworn I had you.”

“Then prove me wrong! Prove me wrong instead of just saying I am. Prove it!” “Proof?” I pointed at the car, infuriated. “You need more proof than this?” “What does this prove?” She shrieked. “It’s nothing! It’s paint on a car; it doesn’t mean anything!” “Stop romanticizing this!” I was yelling now.

“Somehow...somehow I wanted to believe that it was worth it.” I wiped the rain from my face. “I’m just trying to get words out, alright? Look, the bottom line is, aren’t you tired of things like this happening?” “No.” “What?” “I’m not tired of this at all.” “Why the hell not?” “Because this,” she gestured a soaked arm to my car. Paint was rolling down the windshield. “This makes me happy. I had insecurities going into this just like you did. I didn’t know what was going to happen either. When this first started happening, yes, I was afraid too, but I was also happy. I felt like what we were doing was right. And now you make it feel like it’s wrong. I know it isn’t wrong, but when people see you walk away from us after white men warn you about being with a colored girl, they’re gonna think that they did it – that they changed your mind, that they convinced you what we were was wrong.” “You know that’s not it at all.” She was getting herself worked up. Her eyes were damp. “I thought that was ridiculous too, but see, I also thought that this wouldn’t be a problem. That you wouldn’t leave because of something so stupid.” “I keep telling you it’s not like that.”

“There isn’t anything noble or courageous about what we’re doing, alright? We were just two people trying to have a relationship when reality got in the way.” She shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, you just think that what they’re trying to force on us is reality. And it isn’t!” “It is.” She looked down, holding sobs and looking very small. “Just let it go. This is the world we live in right now. Don’t you understand that we could get hurt? Seriously hurt, just because we’re together like this?” “Oh, God!” She got as close to my face as she could. “You think I don’t know that? You seriously think that hasn’t crossed my mind every date we’ve been on, every dirty look we’ve gotten? Yes, I know we could get hurt! I know! But somehow… somehow I wanted to believe that it was worth it. That I could have had or made something with you that would’ve been worth whatever hurt those people threw at us.” She searched my face as the rain fell around us. “I really thought I loved you.” The paint streaked more.

Content of

Characters “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.” When you read that line, it is impossible to not immediately visualize the dark, British street lit only by the dim flicker of light posts and to hear the vroom of an oversized motorcycle oddly accompanied by a soft, baby’s cry. However, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao” does not conjure images that are as recognizable. The style and format of the former quote, obviously the opening line of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone, stands in stark contrast with the latter, the opening line of the Tao Te Ching, the classical Chinese work that served as the foundation Chinese philosophy and Buddhism. This work is one of a long list of significant cultural works that is often overlooked by the West. The list of what is counted as “good literature” is generally referred to as the “canon.” The justifications for what ought be in the canon have been debated since the dawn of postmodern literary criticism in the early 1970s. Coincidentally, it was also around that time that College Board began administering the AP Literature test, which requires students to have a base knowledge of what College Board considers to be “high quality literature.” Each year, College Board makes public the works referenced on the AP Lit test, and there is perhaps no more salient or relevant summary of the canon to a high school student. A simple review of that list and the frequency

by Chris Jordan ’14 with which each work has been referenced over the past few decades reveals a pretty glaring problem: almost all of the literature that “matters” is written by DWEMs: Dead White European Males. The value of literature is that it allows the reader to enter into a new world with a new perspective. If the purpose of English classes, therefore, is to educate students about different perspectives, it is nonsensical that most of the literature studied be from one monolithic perspective. There is no denying the exclusivity with which the West treats literature. Of the one hundred works of literature most often referenced on the AP Literature test, ninety percent are works written in English by authors from either the United States or England. Most of the other ten percent are Italians, Greeks, French, and Russians, whom we view as just European enough to be acceptable. A miniscule minority of works referenced come from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. Even the books from the various parts of the world that do get mentioned appear to be nothing more than token picks. Chinua Achebe and Cormac McCarthy, contemporaries of the latter half of the twentieth century, were both critically acclaimed authors. However, Achebe’s lone work recognized as of “equivalent literary merit,” Things Fall Apart, is outmatched by three works from McCarthy. The justifications for this exclusivity, while far from malicious in intent, appear to be inherently racist. The structure of novels and plays was created and developed in Western Europe. In that light, every work, regardless of geographical origin,

is judged by the standards of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. College Board even cites a poll taken in the early 1900s asking librarians to rate works from all over the world on a scale from “sixth grader” to “Shakespeare” as an explanation for what is and is not high quality literature. If the litmus test for great literature is Shakespeare, who was formed by and worked in a European paradigm, then what room is there for any work that was not created by that paradigm? For example, Achebe was often criticized for writing in an almost primitive manner, even though his style was based on Nigerian oral tradition, which was just as developed and culturally significant as any written European language. As for Asia, the only author frequently referenced is the Japanese novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who was raised, educated, and worked his whole life in Britain. Even though written languages there predate those in Europe, because of a lack of interesting fiction, no Chinese works are referenced. By its actions, the West has created and defined its own form of literature and then demanded the rest of the world play by its rules. Even here at home in the West, though, there is still exclusion of minority voices. Just ten of the most often referenced books on the AP test, ninety percent of which are American or British, are by non-whites. Three of those books are Toni Morrison, who has come to be the ultimate “two birds with one stone” token pick by College Board. Even still, most English classes will read numerous works by Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and McCarthy before they read a Morrison book. The explanation for this exclusion is similar to the same phenomenon on a global scale. Toni Morrison herself explains that African American literary works have been treated in an number of different ways: “(1) there is no Afro-American (or third-world)

art; (2) it exists but is inferior; (3) it exists and is superior when it measures up to the ‘universal’ criteria of Western art; (4) it is not so much ‘art’ as ore - rich ore - that requires a Western or Eurocentric smith to refine it from its ‘natural’ state into an aesthetically complex form.” Morrison says that there is a greater bias against African American literature because it was born as a reaction to the historical oppressions that African Americans have been subjected to at the hands of the very same white people who write the literature that is considered “better.” African American literature, therefore, stands as an objection to the racism and oppression that exists in the status quo. The way that English classes are generally taught, then, suppresses literary objections to existing structures of racism and oppression. The importance of this issue is often understated. One of the largest takeaways from this year’s Summit on Human Dignity on race was that the solution to a large amount of racial issues comes with larger amounts of intercultural education and understanding. Obviously, not everyone can go on immersion trips, and, even then, the problems others face are still viewed from a third-person perspective. Literature, though, gives each individual the opportunity to participate in the first-person experience of another individual. If stopping racism comes from learning about other people, then it must start in the classroom. The status quo of our understanding of literature is too narrow to confront larger problems of race and class issues in society. Through an exploration of literature from a wide variety of cultures and regions, the foundation of a society that is beyond colorblind is laid. Hopefully, one day books will be judged not by the color of their authors’ skin, but by the content of their characters.

Y M HANGE C ELOD OF

by Edward Nolan ’15

I am naught but trapped in the middle, Trapped like a pebble— No control over whatever might come to be. In the middle one can never stay; Either to rise or fall is my fate. Yet, all I am is envied by those below As all I do is envy those above. I could be one of those. I could be lost in a breeze. On top of its whim is where I may land, Trapped or tattered, drenched or dried. Only my prayers could follow me Through the unending writhe I would ultimately lead If I were caught by a flutter.

Untitled | Photograph | Louis DiMuro ’16

I could be one of those, Mocked by me as they are nothing but “special” leaves. Mounted on their walls, they watch with knowing eyes, Making men proud as they sit upon their glass thrones, Jealously guarding their secret with the sky. As I watch with spite, I turn away with longing As faces fixed on walls look down from the heavens. I am one of those. I am the many, the unsure of what is to lie, Of whether or not I lie flat or fly. Uncertainty eats me as I wait for what is next. Will I be bombarded with others like me? Or left alone, lost under a bed? For now, I wait, folded in my place. I have seen every hand of every day, Touched by candy, by soda, by the oil-stained thumb. All I have done is wear along. I have heard your secrets. I have watched my friends aid your subversion. I am passed along, used, defiled like a useless nothing. I sit in tedium as the days move on. You reach for me as I see my new master. You pull at me, and by chance, my strings of hope. Will you free me from purgatory or singe me like Hell? My countenance, creased and crinkled, anticipates the change. You hold me, and I listen up as you hear what she’s to say. One last look, your hand reaches out, and I get a glimpse of day: “Sir, that’ll be one dollar please,” is my melody of change.

Death is My White Gloves by

Andrew Kish ’17

His white, crisp gloves met the book with an elegance that no man could possibly possess. Yet, here the Redeemer stood, being perfectly human, but doing everything thought impossible. The gloves lifted the cover of the book. The Redeemer lifted the book so his feeble eyes could read the text, even though the text was engrained in him. Every word and syllable was etched in his mind, reminding him of his life and all his deeds. He took a long drink from a glass of crystal, filled with icecold water. Then, he began to read. “May we stand a village mighty and strong. May we know our place, where we belong. May we stand in peace and possess no unrest. May we always pose

“May the rains that cleanse us of our lesser brothers endure.” to others as our best. May the rains that cleanse us of our lesser brothers endure. May we internally be good at the core. May we be as pure at heart as the Redeemer’s white gloves. May the sole purpose for our punishment be out of love. May we live forever more. We are and shall always be Atulldor.” “Do you know what that anthem means to me?”

spoke the white-gloved man with a cool, calm voice. “Sir, of course I...” “No! I do not want your premeditated answer that you were spoon-fed in your elementary school. I want your soul to tell you what it means. I know that this is hard for you, since the education that I installed in the schools does suppress the inner thought, but give it a wild shot.” “Well, sir. I...I believe that it...I believe that it shows how strong our community is?” “Is that a question or an answer?” “An answer, sir.” “Get out of my sight, you dumb heathen. Guards, take this man away. He shall be admitted to the rain tomorrow evening, and let’s make it a town event. The town crier will be alerted by me. As for you, good gentleman,” said the white-gloved man facing the beaten man, “I hope you are not afraid of a little rain.” “No, you can’t! I can’t go back into the rain, you sick man! Let me go,” the man screamed as the guards dressed completely in black carried him out of the room. Scan to read the remainder of this story by Andrew Kish ’17.

Grasping a Dream | Photograph | Mark Meshcheryakov â&#x20AC;&#x2122;16

Staff

kel ’14 Ryan Fran Editor g in g a Man

Kyle Scheuring ’15 Visual Editor

’14 Alex CheynEditor it c li b u P

Jared Balbo Layout Editonra ’14

Bryan Thorpe ’15 Managing Editor

’14 Kayvan Shamsa r ito Ed ry Litera

Chandler Hall ’14 Graphics Editor

Carter Santini ’15 Features Editor

Alex Giolito Visual Editor’15

Literary

Committees

Jacob Anderson ’14 - Assistant Editor Anand Swaminathan ’15 - Assistant Editor Seth Harris ’14 - Copy Editor James Crnkovich ’14 Asher Enciso ’14 Alex Keating ’14 Phillip Rapa ’14 Brian Loh ’15 Jose Cardenas ’16 Tarun Suresh ’16 William Ludwig ’17

Graphics

Austin Fritzke ’14 - Assistant Editor Carlo Davalos ’16 Grant Gillem ’16 Tommy Zachar ’16

Visual & Layout Ryan Opila ’14 Kyle Sourbeer ’15 Gregory Vogel ’15 AK Alilonu ’16 Quinn Fairbourn ’16 Samuel Jacobs ’16 John Kelly ’16 Jake Lee ’16 Patrick McGovern ’16 James Moore ’16 Brady Wheeler ’16 Eduardo Blanco ’17

Publicity

Sam McGehee ’16 - Assistant Editor Maanik Chotalla ’16 Jim Stickell ’16

Colophon

Designers used Adobe InDesign CS5.5 and Photoshop CS5-Extended to create the 2014 print issue of Brophy Literary & Arts Magazine. The dimensions are 8 inches by 8 inches. The body copy font is Miller in 11 pt. font with a 13.2 pt. leading for prose and a 14.2 pt. leading for poetry. The attribution for all pieces is Verdigris MVB TF in 22 pt., while the default title font is Verdigris MVB SC in varying sizes with varying leadings. Printed by Prisma Graphic.

© 2014 by Brophy Literary & Arts Magazine, 4701 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85012. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without permission. All images and literary works are property of the respective artist, reproduced with the permission of the student.

Philosophy Brophy Literary & Arts Magazine is a student-run publication that seeks to be a platform for student talent, a catalyst to further mutual understanding among peers, and an amplifier for the collective voice of the student body. The BLAM staff works to add permanence to student artwork and creative writing both in print and digital media, as well as through on-campus events, contests, and readings.

Policy Throughout the year, BLAM solicits submissions through a combination of contests, author readings, and class assignments. All submissions are submitted via email to blam@brophyprep.org by the annual deadline in late March. Contests winners and final publication lists are determined by the visual and literary committees, who evaluate and select according to weighted rubrics and score averages. No more than five works are published per artist or author. BLAM reserves the right to edit content for appropriateness and aims to communicate any changes to the author. Notable works are published periodically at blam.brophyprep.org.

Awards National Council of Teachers of English 2013 Highest Award 2012 Superior窶馬ominated for Highest Award 2011 Highest Award Columbia Scholastic Press Association 2012 Gold Medalist

National Scholastic Press Association 2013 All American 2012 All American 2011 First Class 2010 First Class