Edition 74, Volume 1 by Brushfire Literature & Arts

UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO EDITION 74, VOLUME 1

EDITOR’S NOTE When we laugh at ourselves, something beautiful often happens. Things that seemed huge and overbearing all of sudden become much smaller and much lighter. What embarassed us earlier to the point we nearly curled up into a ball to die transforms into a source of amusement and hilarious insight. So strong is laughter, we may even return to our most terrifying and humiliating moments willingly, ready to relive them again and again, drawn to their strange allure, or overcome by an indescribable sense of gratitude for what they’ve taught us. Somehow, when we laugh—when we find the humor in things—we turn something excrutiatingly painful, awkward, frustrating, or tragic into something restorative, graceful, alleviating, heartening — even fortifying. How is this possible? By what means do we pull this off? Likely, there is no one answer. But I like to think it has something to do with the fact that, when we permit ourselves to laugh, we also allow whatever defenses we’ve been putting up for so long to come tumbling down. We trick ourselves into sitting there, unguarded and vulnerable—if only for a while—with nothing left to do but to feel our feelings and to accept them or express them, however delightful or crappy they may be at the time. And we find a kind of comedic satisfaction in it. We locate something in the fragments and shards of our broken expectations—something strange, something wonderful, something alive within ourselves that we had not realized was there just moments prior. And so, when we laugh, maybe it’s fair to say we not only give ourselves the strength we need to carry on through hardship, but give ourselves the strength we need to re-discover and re-invent who we are and what makes our life worth living. Whether out of joy, or in response to pain, or as a result of some deep-seated sorrow, or inescapable confusion—when we laugh, we bend our perceptions. We break and remake the framework through which we view the world, and in this there is hope that we may become the people we wish to be and live the good lives we wish to live, despite our mistakes, our perceived shortcomings or limitations. In a way then, maybe it’s fair to say that, when we laugh, we partake in a tradition as old as human life itself — one where we help discover, acknowledge and accept the peculiar co-existence of humor and horror as a regular feature of our experience; where we unabashedly open ourselves up to appreciate the full range of beauty and wisdom that life has to offer on the whole in all its absurdity and mystery. That being said, I think it’s fair to say that all of the artworks contained within these pages engage in this sacred tradition in some way or another. They made us laugh, they made us cry— but most times, they made us do some combination of both. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

—Nick Huffman, Editor-in-Chief

BLANK PAGE FOR DESIGN

Image by Adam Gordon

VISUAL ART & PHOTOGRAPHY Samantha Martin Thomas & Marcene Gillaspy Adam Gordon Marian Jeffrey Sandy Wyatt III Zoe Malen Olivia Chubb Ana Perez-Mckay Cade Hoffman Lauren Sapperstein Sarah Cryan Peyton Eaton Jordyn Becker Jeremy Szuder Weining Wang Sara Thacker Edward Supranowicz Julia Blank Krystal Carter Angela Zhang Sarah Cryan Samantha Martin Weining Wang Sarah Cryan Madeline Bennett Danian Arguello Angela Zhang

1 5 6 8 10 13 & 14 15 17 19 21 22 28 30 33 34 36 39 40 41 42 47 49 51 52 54 56 58

Talking 2 Myself Untitled Come Explore with Me Star Gazing Pericoli Di Spazio Profondo A Piece for You Missing You, Oxford How Low Can You Go The Wind in the Willows Koi the Cat Last Train Pieces of Me Fall 2021 David Byrne Red and Black 5 Everyone’s Truth Is the Same Color Quandary 5 35mm Photo Eyecatcher Eden Driftwood Where’s the Charger? Black and White 12 Silhouettes Reminisce Oblivious Harm Eve

PROSE & POETRY Jeff Schulden The Poet MJ Claire Mizner Emily Highland Sanibel Ezterazi Marissa Ahmadkhani Dean Engle Sara Dovre Wudali Irene O’Garden Sara Dovre Wudali Robert Rothman Corey Fayman Ellis Elliot Barbara McHugh Sierra Hixson Patricia Powell Shirley Hilton John Grey Bill Kitcher Kathryn Pope Frank Jamison Maya Kaplan Sara Dovre Wudali

9 11 12 16 18 20 23 29 30 32 35 37 40 41 43 44 46 48 50 53 55 57 59

Weekend with Vu UFOs A List of Perishable Food Items Press Into Me A Most Magical Night On Sundays Peanut Butter Days Started Rich Heydays He Was Asking For It When Lightning Strikes Geronimo’s Cornflakes Almost Did Norman Golden Eagle Loving Algorithms Woods Watching Feet Up The Hole Man Pink House Phantom Dwelling Still New Year’s Eve

Image by Marian Jeffrey

Weekend With Vu by Jeff Schulden

On our last weekend in Maine, Vu and I rented a small, wood-paneled efficiency in Stonington. The first night, we both sat, holding one another, bleary-eyed, on the loveseat, watching an episode of Star Trek. Alien creatures had taken on human form so they could commandeer the Enterprise and conquer the galaxy. But the aliens couldn’t handle it, they couldn’t handle being human. Kirk seduced one of them, a female, who had a cool sixties hairdo that twirled over the middle of her forehead. Her uniform fully exposed the flesh of her human back and gently pushed her breasts upward. Kirk kissed her softly. Scotty got another one of them drunk, a male. They played a drinking game together, doing shot after shot of what must have been rocket fuel, until the alien slid under the table. He couldn’t keep up. The aliens eventually were broken from all this being human. They couldn’t take it. It was too much for them. At the end, the aliens conquered, Kirk offered them friendship. It was presented as their only option. The next morning, Vu and I ate at a diner around the corner. I wondered if the Maine-berry pancakes would be worth the extra two dollars but resisted the temptation of disappointment, instead getting the French toast. I felt bad about ordering a side of bacon, but then Vu ordered something called the Harbor Hog Special. He turned to me after placing his order with the waitress, saying, “We have a long day ahead of us.”

Image by Sandy Wyatt III

UFOs

by The Poet MJ It was a UFO A blip on the radar Unidentified feelings, obviously.

A List Of Perishable Food Items by Claire Mizner

1. Strawberries Reminiscent Of Summer 2. Any (Always Uneaten) Vegetables 3. The Doughnuts Leftover From Work, Still Sticky With The Smile Of Sugary Teenagers 4. Borrowed Milk From One Roommate To Another 5. Stolen Cookies 6. Ice Half Melted From The Walk Down The Hill, But God Is This Water Bottle Heavy With The Only Cold Water On Campus 7. The Four Snowflakes That Have Fallen Tonight 8. Scandalous Jokes Said By An Unexpecting Coworker 9. Even Dirtier Jokes Said By A Manipulative Charming Coworker 10. The Burn In Your Lungs From Running Through Giant Sprinklers, Breath Left At The Midnight Clock Chime, Every Nerve Ending Dancing Between The Freeze Of The World And The Heat Of Your Blushing Cheeks As Someone Calls To You 11. Quiet Nights At 2 That Settle Your Stomach Faster Than Sprite 12. Blushes 13. Smiles From A Cute Desk Attendant Who Taught You The Cranial Nerves For An Exam 14. The Idea That One Day You Won’t Exist, That You Will Die Whether It Be A Quiet Sunset Or A Full City Wide Blaze You Will Peri—Did The Professor Assign Us Homework? 15. The Anxiety That Grips Every Inch Of Intestine With Its Clammy Fingers And Sharpened Claws, Ripping Inch By Inch, As You Text A Boy Who Won’t Bother To Text You Back – One Day Your Fingers Will Learn To Ignore The Reflex To Reach Out And Sometimes You Wonder Why You Bother At All 16. The Excitement Of The New Tattoo 17. Friendships That Might Not Have Been Meant To Be 18. Love 19. Stained Cherry Fingers 20. Loneliness Gnawing With Dull Gums At The Back Of Your Throat – Most Days You Wonder If It Will Subside Or Subsidize Your Body For Its Own Backwater Profits

Image by Zoe Malen 13

A List Of Non-Perishable Food Items 1. My Heart In Its Tireless Search For Someone To Swallow It Whole

Image by Zoe Malen

Image by Olivia Chubb

Press Into Me by Emily Hyland

Press into me and I’ll well up and plump amassing in your grasp I am ready to rise to fatten and swell unquenched, I’m thirsty for the texture of your skin for another romp around the bowl so knead me—now please with fingers curled like unsubdued ferocious paws, slicked by oil sheen and murky spume that merged with flour— more please of radio waves of sultry tunes vibration of movement with friction I rouse your palms those long phalanges I don’t know where my tan protrusion ends or where your finger pads begin in the fever pitch of leavening fermenting, I can’t take it let me slide into the oven already

Image by Ana Perez-Mckay 17

A Most Magical Night by Sanibel Ezterazi Wel(l into evening— when crickets rise up in chorus and customers in mouse ears have clustered back to air-conditioned rooms— the occasional rodent scurries past fences —climbs poles— —darts past cleaning crews— —evading all— until alluring sweetness catches his nose that caught his interest until he himself is caught— his body discarded in a fleet of garbage trucks pulling out of parking lots at dawn before the mouse-eared customers start to) come to Disney World!

Image by Cade Hoffman 19

On Sundays

by Marissa Ahmadkhani I feed the cats that sit outside, waiting, half-tamed by a past hand offering easy food. I think of how I am half-wild too. How I could get up and run—to feel the hard ground beneath my soft feet. How I feel that urge to leave, but never do. They cry out, circling my legs as I near, eyes following my hand, teeth bared, hissing, but wanting still.

Image by Lauren Sapperstein 21

Image by Sarah Cryan

Peanut Butter Days by Dean Engle

The day before quarantine he bought forty double-packs of Carter’s Premium Peanut Butter. He filled his cart with jar after jar, throwing them in a giant jumble of shifting plastic canisters. Peanut Butter, he had read, was a superfood. A man could survive off Peanut Butter, water, and nothing else for months. The article had mentioned a man, the sole survivor of a plane crash, living off the stuff for two months until help reached his desert island. There was an ad on TV sometimes, usually between the last boxing match of the evening and the first softcore of the night, of that man, dressed in rags with a long knotted beard yelling, “Carter’s Peanut Butter, it saved my life, it can sure save yours. Carter’s: Peanut and Proud.” And so, he waited in the line stretching to the back of the wholesalers with his cart full of Peanut Butter. Forty double-packs, eighty jars. The woman in front of him, six feet as the law demanded said, through her masked mouth, “Wow, you must really like that stuff.” “Yup,” he said, “I wouldn’t buy this much if I hated it.” “You know they add sugar,” she told him. “I’d hope so,” he replied, “I’d hate to have to add it myself.” “My daughter’s allergic to the stuff, one spoonful and she’d be gone like that,” said the woman, snapping her fingers for effect, although the effect was lessened by the plastic gloves she wore. “Oh,” he said, grabbing the top pack from his cart and tossing it into the woman’s cart. “Here, you should have one, just in case she wants an out.” The woman snorted and turned her back to him. But she did not return the Peanut Butter. Now he only had thirty-nine double-packs, seventy-eight jars total. He hoped it would be enough. *** His father had never hugged him, he thought as he got to the counter and placed a pack of Peanut Butter on the conveyer tray. “Thirty-nine,” he said. There was a huge plastic wall of plexiglass between him and the cashier, so even though the man looked like his father, what with the frown lines and jowls, he couldn’t hug him, even if he wanted to. Which he did. “That’s a lot of Peanut Butter,” the cashier told him. The cashier took the first two-pack of Peanut Butter and scanned it. Then the cashier scanned it again, and again, and again. “Yup,” he said back, “I hope it’s enough.” “Enough for what?” “For the quarantine,” he told the cashier. How could the cashier not realize there was a quarantine happening? Had he not seen the newspapers? Why did he think there was a plexiglass wall between them, preventing them from hugging? “Yeah,” said the cashier, continuing to scan the Peanut Butter, “But don’t you want something else. Like bottled water or vodka?” He shook his head, “Don’t drink the stuff.” “Ok, but like what about bread or jelly. I think we still have some of that left,” said the cashier, still scanning over and over, pulling the two-pack across the red line again and again. “No thanks, just the Peanut Butter.” Looking at the receipt as he left the store, he noticed the cashier had only charged him for thirty-eight packs and not thirty-nine. He had charged him ten cents extra for paper bags

24 though. Everything evens out in the end, he supposed, as he began to fill the trunk of his car with jar after jar of Premium Peanut Butter. *** As he drove home, the jars of Peanut Butter rattling in the back, he noticed a dead dog at the side of the road. He wondered if the dog had been hit on the side of the road or if someone had hit the dog in the middle of the road and then drug it halfway off the street before giving up and leaving its corpse in the bike lane for some stupid cyclist to deal with. He didn’t like dead dogs. He preferred them alive. His father had hit a dog once when he was a boy. A golden lab darted into the road and his father hadn’t swerved or braked, he simply smashed into the hound. The dog was flung forward onto the pavement and crumpled into a lifeless heap. “Dad,” he screamed. His father nodded, “Listen, son. I know you’ve always wanted a dog. Make you a deal, if you can bring this one back to life. He’s yours.” He had run into the street, other cars flying by his father’s stopped one. The dog was clearly dead, or about to be. Its big brown eyes open but unseeing, its legs twisted like a great big mustard pretzel. He pounded on the dog’s chest, the quick rhythmic pushes he had learned at summer camp when that boy from Cabin 3 had said he could swim but couldn’t. The dog’s fur was soft but the chest did not rise or fall. Instead, he turned to the dog’s snout. Its jaw was open and its fangs, white and large, were sharp. He held the dog’s nose, wet and black, and breathed into its mouth. It was like trying to fill an already full balloon. He slumped down and began to cry. The dog was clearly dead. This was no Lazarus hound. It was dead, dead, dead. “Well,” said his father, peering over the car door, “No dog for you, I guess.” *** On the first day of official quarantine, he ate about a third of a jar of Peanut Butter and watched cable. He always liked when those ads with the abused dogs came on, even though the sad music was sad. He knew the dogs were hurt, but well . . . those particular dogs in the ad were fine. They had been rescued. Or else they were just dog actors. The whole thing was fake. Some people thought the virus was fake, that there were no doctors or nurses, just actors pretending to be doctors and nurses, and the whole thing was a conspiracy by Big Electricity or Big Internet or maybe even Big Government to keep people indoors while they did shady shit outdoors. He knew that wasn’t true. The doctors were not actors, they were too ugly. He had seen enough medical shows like I See You in the ICU and Guess Who Has Malaria and Scalpels where the doctors were all hot and sexy and constantly having sex with each other usually in their beds but sometimes in the waiting rooms and once in a pickup truck. He hadn’t had sex since the night of Senior Prom. Not his senior prom. It had been about two years ago. He had met someone in a bar, and they had hooked up, and it wasn’t good because quite frankly neither of them, what with the Long Island ice teas, had been sober enough to enjoy it. Plus, you have to practice something for ten thousand hours to get good. He had maybe logged fifty hours. The next day he had driven her home and passed the smoldering wreck of a three-car collision smattered and mushed into the guard rail by some teens who had been too drunk to drive sober and too dead to crawl out of the wreckage. That was sad, sadder than the abused dogs that weren’t even really abused. He took another bite of Peanut Butter and cried. Extra-salty. ***

On day seven of quarantine, he had eaten two full jars of Peanut Butter. One had been extra creamy, smooth and soft down his throat. The other had been chunky. It was harder to eat but cleaning the nut residue from behind his teeth gave him a sense of purpose. On cable news anchors sat ten feet apart in the studio, avoiding each other like kids had avoided him in second grade when that little fucker in Mrs. O’Hallahan’s class told everyone he had crabs on his head and warts on his ass. The anchors said things like, “We can’t get too close or we’ll die.” By day fourteen they were no longer wearing suits and ties but giant hazmat suits that wrinkled when they moved and sent the microphones into an overdrive of crinkling. It was hard to hear what any of them said through the masks because he couldn’t see their faces or hear their voices, but he got the gist. Things were bad. But he was only on his fourth jar of Peanut Butter. By day twenty-one they were no longer in the studio. One of them—the weatherman who sometimes wore a green tie even though he was on a green screen, back of course when they wore suits and not hazmat suits—had died, and so everyone on the television was reporting from home. He liked seeing their houses. All the reporters had white painted walls. He had wallpaper that was curling like his mother’s perm the day she shot herself. It had been a Tuesday because Wheel of Spinning was on. He never missed an episode, not even then. He was on his eighth jar. By day twenty-eight, he missed his first episode of Wheel of Spinning because they had run out of pre-recorded episodes. He ate an entire jar that night. *** He had Peanut Butter dreams all night. He was on Wheel of Spinning ready to spin the wheel, ready to turn it around and around and lose himself in its hypnotic twirl. His mother was in the audience, her perm covering most of the hole in her head. His father was the host and had even grown the mustache with the little upward curl. “Spin the wheel of spinning,” his father said, “and if you answer the question right, then you get the prize.” “What’s the prize?” his mother asked, cheering from the audience. “Spin and see,” said his host father. He spun and saw and landed the great whirring wheel on the first question. “The prize,” said his father, “Is for a lifetime’s supply of Peanut Butter.” His mother, who was now the assistant dressed in a flashy red gown, the same color as the blood dripping from her skull, pulled a sheet off a large lumpy lump to reveal a giant pyramid of Peanut Butter. “What is your favorite type of Peanut Butter?” “Carter’s Premium,” he yelled into the microphone. “Correct!” his father smiled! His father was smiling. He had never seen his daddy’s teeth, though he assumed they looked like any other pair of teeth, almost white and almost straight like that bisexual Spaniard on Scalpels. “Bonus question,” his father announced, “And it’s for a double prize. If you get this right, you get both this puppy and a hug.” A beagle bounded out onto the stage, its tongue lolling outside its mouth. He would name it Darwin, a good name for a beagle. “Are you ready?” “I’m ready,” he said. “What is the one superfood you can live off of forever in a quarantine?” He knew the answer! It was right there, a mountain of jars in front of him. He tried to speak, tried to answer, but he could not say a word because somehow his mouth was

26 already filled with Peanut Butter and could not open. It was glued shut, the lips to the gums and the gums to the teeth and the teeth back to the lips. “Meeenut muhhhm,” he said. “I’m sorry,” said his father, “The answer was Peanut Butter.” The mountain of Peanut Butter jars fell, toppling in a great brown avalanche crushing his father, his mother, himself, and Darwin the beagle. He woke up screaming and couldn’t stop, so he filled his mouth with Peanut Butter to dampen the sound. *** It didn’t matter that there were no more new episodes of Wheel of Spinning because a few weeks later they turned off his cable. To be fair he hadn’t paid the bill what with his being unemployed and all, but still it seemed personal even though the newscaster, replete with oxygen mask and ventilator whirring in the background, told him that things had gotten much worse. Stores had been looted; hospitals were full. Anyone who went outside would probably get the virus and anyone who didn’t go outside would probably starve to death. The reporter coughed eighteen times before adding that this would be the last broadcast. Most people felt it would be more useful if there simply wasn’t news, and they had run out of money, and resources should be better spent, and they were cancelled, plus the newscaster really didn’t have too much longer left anyway. The newscaster coughed another eighteen times and died on air, then the television went blank. Those poor fools he thought. Dying because they didn’t have enough Peanut Butter at home. He was on jar twenty. *** The Peanut Butter was nourishing enough to keep him alive, but he was losing weight faster than he was losing hair. Every day he checked the scale, always a pound or two less, and always a few wisps of head fuzz that had abandoned his scalp. He didn’t understand why his hair preferred the floor. He was the one who shampooed it every month and combed it every full moon. What had the linoleum done for it lately? But if that’s what his hair wanted, that’s where it could stay. He looked out the window, peering past his own reflection to the rusting cars and piles of rotting garbage bags strewn across the street. The mail had stopped, the garbage had stopped, even the sounds of ambulances screaming out their presence like a man at a party with a guitar insisting that he be noticed, had stopped. The world was quiet, save for the baying and howling of the strays. Packs of dogs charged up and down his street, mangy mutts covered in mud and caked with dust, probably crawling with plague-addled fleas, rooting through the garbage and sniffing around the doors to boarded-up houses. He was sure the dogs were somehow breaking in and eating the dead owners. Well, maybe they hadn’t broken in. Some surely had come from the houses in the first place. Some maybe even had keys. In the movies it had been the apes who took over, but that was wrong, it was the dogs. It had always been the dogs. He wasn’t sure how long it had been. Without cable or paper he only had the Peanut Butter to go on. In his living room a pyramid of jars, Peanut Butter caked to the sides, rose like a great Egyptian tomb he had seen on a postcard once. He wondered about the woman he had given his Peanut Butter to. Had her daughter escaped? Was she even now being devoured by dogs who had broken into her home, only to find her anaphylactic throat swelled shut? He hoped it had been a quick and painless

death for that girl. That her throat closed instantly with sweet beautiful peanuts and not the prolonged hack of a virus that didn’t have any fucking taste or nutritional value at all. *** Day after day after week after month went by. Every day was peanuts and nothing else as spoonful by dirty spoonful he finished his jars. When the howling army of dogs did not keep him awake, he dreamed. And as the jars of Peanut Butter grew emptier and emptier, his dreams changed. He was the nut, ground and mashed and smashed and spooned into his own cavernous, black hole of a mouth. Every night he ate himself over and over again. He had no one to eat him, to hug him. He had cried for that possibly dead girl but who would cry for him? Who even knew his name? *** “I love you,” said the man on the Peanut Butter pack. “Who are you?” he asked. “I’m Mr. Carter,” said Mr. Carter, smiling his leathery smile, his words dripping with the southern charm of an antebellum carpetbagger. “And I’m the peanut man.” “Are you the president one?” “The president of Peanuts,” said Carter, wrinkly face contorting into the most pleasant smile lines. “And I’d like to give you a Peanut Butter Hug.” He reached his arms out but Carter shook his head, “You know what you have to do.” *** He only had two jars of Peanut Butter left. He didn’t want to starve, to waste away once his nourishment was gone, fled like his hair, like his mother, like the dog he never had, like the girl with allergies, like the dead teens, like the woman at the bar, and like his father going out for cigarettes and never coming back, even though he had a twenty-pack on his desk. He stripped and slathered himself from head to toe with the final two jars of Peanut Butter, both creamy. He opened his door for the first time in maybe months, maybe years and stepped into the world, leaving a nutty residue on the handle. He breathed air deep into his lungs, it tasted sweet as added sugar. He couldn’t taste the virus, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there, that it wouldn’t burrow into his lungs and devour him. That’s not how he wanted to go. He lied down on the street, the pavement still cool from the night, the sun just rising overhead, and let the dogs come. The dogs came, beagles and labs, Pitbull’s and retrievers, mutts of every shape and size, galloping toward him at full trot. He loved the feel of the dogs, their fur, and their tongues, and their teeth biting into his flesh, pulling Peanut Butter from skin, and skin from bone. They rose above him in a great pack, and he was at their center. They were his dogs and he was their boy. He closed his eyes and the dogs devoured him, Peanut Butter and all.

Image by Peyton Eaton

Started Rich

by Sara Dovre Wudali I keep losing my great aunts. I started rich with seven jangling in my business telling me how to bid and what card to play next. I dropped one in the leaf litter on the way to school and couldn’t find her. But six, I said, six is still plenty for picnics and I was careless with my riches. And when I forgot to take one out of my ear and lost her in the Wisconsin Dells wave pool I didn’t worry. I left the hotel a note and thought she might turn up when they cleaned the drain. Five is enough, I thought. Five had husbands and children and grandchildren—plenty for softball. But then I kept misplacing one. I’d find her in a pile of papers, or buried under the laundry. Once she showed up inside my gardening shoes. Maybe the cat was dragging her around. Four wasn’t enough to fill the park shelter. It echoed of caramel rolls and deviled eggs. So careless, I didn’t even know I’d lost the next—I had to learn she was missing from a stranger. After that, three fell quickly to interest and fees and unpaid bills. I’m clutching at the last two now, but too late, too late. Attention will slip, and Time will worm its way into my threadbare pocket, nibble a hole, leave me destitute.

Heydays

by Irene O’Garden I like a Tuesday— distinct as cardamom. Give me a Tuesday anytime.

Of course, I love a Monday too. Solid. Square-shouldered. Opaque.

And good brown Thursday— trusty in the best domestic way.

Oh, but Wednesday’s wingspan— iridescent. No comparison. Friday has that velvet lap and those whimsical shoes.

Then Saturday’s wide field of loam and grassy motion.

But oh, the skies, the skies of Sunday.

Image by Jordyn Becker

He Was Asking for It by Sara Dovre Wudali I bit my dentist. I did it on purpose. His hand was juicy and fat and warm. I couldn’t help myself. He was asking for it. The smooth latex gloves slid around my tongue. What did he think would happen When he stuck his hand in my mouth as if my teeth weren’t right there begging to be used? Light fur on his wrist tickling upper lip, Clink of instrument on teeth. Small talk. He didn’t really want to know about vacation plans. Obviously, he likes it rough. I was careful not to break the skin— didn’t leave a mark. No harm done.

Image by Jeremy Szuder

Image by Weining Wang

WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES by Robert Rothman

Because the ninety-foot redwood is the highest point in this flat neighborhood it was struck. The crown was lopped off as if a barber took a long razor and sliced off in a horizontal swipe a man’s hair and part of his scalp. Then it slid down the trunk like a thick scarlet, spotted snake, searing the wood a volcanic black which stands to this day. When the lightning reached ground, there was an explosion that people a mile away said they could hear. The leaves and fallen flowers at its base and nearby were thrown up in the air and floated down in the scorched air. Windows and door shook and nobody said a word. This happened again, but there was no tree that scarred and burned and rocked. It too endured.

Image by Sara Thacker

Geronimo’s Cornflakes by Corey Fayman

I got a fire going. Pinyon and juniper, they’re easy to burn, the dead stuff anyway. There’s heaps of it lying around. You build a little pile, structure it so there’s an open space underneath, then pull out your Zippo, flip it a couple of times where there’s some splintery stuff hanging down, and whoosh. It’s easy. Geronimo’s cornflakes as Eddie would say. He stole five hundred dollars from me. It wasn’t my money. I didn’t go into work today. I couldn’t face Mrs. Wheeler and tell her I lost the money, that there was a long line at the bank, so I decided to wait until morning. Eddie came by my apartment last night with some beer. I don’t drink anymore, but it was just beer. When I put on my pants this morning, I remembered the money. Five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills that looked like they just came out of the Mint. All gone. I know Eddie took them from me. I might’ve told him about the money last night. I don’t remember. I wish I’d only drunk one of those beers. The five hundred dollars came from Radio Shack. A guy came into the shop yesterday, one of those Land Rover Ray-Ban Las Vegas types. He paid cash for a new cell phone. Mrs. Wheeler—she owns the store—she put the money in an envelope and told me to deposit it at the Wells Fargo on my way home. It was supposed to be easy. Geronimo’s cornflakes. But stuff like that isn’t easy for me. Mrs. Wheeler says I have an attention span problem, that I’m all over the place. Sometimes I get nervous, talking to customers. I say whatever comes into my head. The customers don’t seem to mind. Except when they’re in a hurry. The guy yesterday was in kind of a hurry. Those guys always are. Mrs. Wheeler says Jesus is Lord and that he can help me do better, stop me from saying all the dumb stuff that comes into my head. Jesus helped me with the drinking, but Mrs. Wheeler says I need regular churching if I want to get right. She talks about her husband, how he stopped going to church, and a month later that steel beam fell on his head at the construction site, how he couldn’t work anymore after that. Mrs. Wheeler took the money from the insurance and bought the Radio Shack, out on Highway 19, so she could support him. She needs help with the store. That’s why she hired me. I’m smart about electronics and stuff. It’s people that mess up my head. People like Eddie. The buttes and cliffs are just big ugly shadows at night. The colors are gone, replaced by blackness, deep purple, dark gray. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of stars staring down from the sky. The Milky Way spills down in the nighttime and flows down the sides of the canyons and into the river. The river’s chalky water gets diverted into the cornfields. Geronimo’s corn. It’s the milk from the stars that makes it so sweet. Eddie told me that story one time when we were up here smoking weed. He said Uncle Fred told it to him, but I know Eddie likes to make up stuff sometimes. Corn. That’s what Uncle Fred grows in his garden. And peppers and zucchinis and weed. The weed wasn’t his idea. That was all Eddie. Uncle Fred figured if it kept Eddie busy, got him to help with the gardening work, then he’d be okay. Uncle Fred says Eddie’s got something evil inside him since he came back from the war.

38 It’s cold out tonight. I’ll add some more wood to the fire. Shadows dance on the red wall of rock behind me. They call it Kayenta Formation. Red oxidized dirt on the ground. The pinyon and juniper trees make it hard to see this place from the trail below. Or from anywhere. Eddie and I used to hang out here all the time when we were in high school. It was our hideout. I’d bring my guitar and Eddie’d bring beer. He brought some girls up here one time, with the beer. Those girls made me feel funny inside. I started talking the way I do when I get nervous, randomly philosophizing on the nature of the universe. I guess it scares people sometimes. Like those girls. They left and went back to their hotel. Eddie was pissed. He said if I didn’t talk so much, we coulda got laid. Those girls lived in San Diego. By the ocean. We used to talk about going to visit them, but then Eddie signed up for the war. He said he was going to kill terrorists. When he came back his left ear was messed up. It looked like it had melted into his head. The first time we came out here after Eddie got back, he said we needed to set up a perimeter, like he’d learned in the war. He said there were people looking for him, black ops motherfuckers who worked for Obama. He said the terrorist attacks were all bullshit, that the Bin Laden guy was on the CIA’s dime. That’s why those black ops motherfuckers were looking for Eddie. He’d seen things he wasn’t supposed to see, photos and documents. Eddie showed me his gun, loaded and unloaded the M17 a dozen times. He said he needed to keep his skills sharp, that he was going to make like Geronimo, disappear into thin air when the black ops showed up. He said he was going to stash MREs and ammo all over the canyons and live off the land, raid parking lots and campsites when people weren’t watching. A modern Geronimo. Eddie talks like he’s Indian or something, but I know he isn’t. Not really. Uncle Fred is maybe one-quarter Apache, but that was on Eddie’s father’s side, and they had two different moms. Eddie’s dad lives in Yuba City. He’s been married four times. Uncle Fred took care of Eddie after his dad left, all through high school. I don’t know what happened to Eddie’s mom. Uncle Fred made Eddie do chores on the farm. After Eddie explained his idea to me, I helped him set up a perimeter. It was just some old beer cans at first, from our empties. We put them in places where they’d get knocked over and make noise if somebody tried to come in. Then Eddie brought in a couple of rusty old coyote traps he found in Uncle Fred’s barn, the kind that snap shut and break the coyote’s leg. We set them up too and made a secret entrance between a big boulder and the edge of the rock wall so you could steer clear of the traps and get through. If you knew it was there. It got me thinking about what I could do with some of the stuff they got at Radio Shack, how I could build a real security system with infrared sensors, some strobes, and a siren. I’d connect them all to a battery, add a couple of solar cells to keep the battery charged. Those black ops motherfuckers would never see that coming, not up here, on the side of a desert canyon. It would totally mess up their fancy equipment. I explained my idea to Eddie, but he didn’t seem all that interested. One time, back in high school, Eddie tried to pull down my pants. It was up here, after those girls took off. He said I was a sissy, that I was one of those guys who liked having a dick

in his ass. He said it was my fault those girls dumped us, then shoved me onto the ground and started pulling my pants down. I got away though. I grabbed a rock and threw it at him, opened a cut above his left eye. Eddie sat down and cried. He said he was sorry. I started a fire and we stared at it all night. It was a week later he signed up for the war. Mrs. Wheeler gave me an employee discount on the stuff I bought from the store. It worked really good. I even figured out a way to turn the system on and off with my cell phone. Like I said I got a technical mind. I was going to tell Eddie last night, about the strobe and the siren, but I guess I forgot. The beer makes you do that sometimes. Eddie’s here by the fire. He hasn’t moved for a while, but I think he’s still breathing. There’s a big, ragged hole just below the front pocket of his denim jacket, wet and bloody. He shot himself with his M17. After he saw what he’d done. Uncle Fred’s out on the perimeter, past the edge of the firelight. He must have come looking for Eddie. Our secret place wasn’t a secret to him. Uncle Fred didn’t know about the perimeter though. He got his leg caught in one of those coyote traps and set off the alarm. The siren went off. The lights started flashing. Eddie woke up and started shooting, I guess. He thought those black ops motherfuckers were closing in. I’m going to call the police soon. I’ll tell them what happened. The way I see it, the black ops guys did this, one way or the other. Eddie stole that money from me. He thought it would be easy. Geronimo’s cornflakes. I never did understand what that means.

Image by Edward Supranowicz

Almost Did by Ellis Elliot

I am in the bathtub for the third time tonight. It’s 3:00 a.m., and what feels like a dense, spiked fireball has wedged just below my ribs, undecided which way to escape. My only relief is below this rising water. So hot steam rises, my back presses to the cool white curve beneath, and I think of Marge and Tom Porter, our neighbors in Georgia when I was five, and their four dirty kids: Joey, Jeff, Russell, and Jenny, all under eight. The boys liked to fight by the creek behind our house and seemed to always have something stuck in their hair and Kool-Aid mouths. The story goes that Marge fell asleep in the tub one night with her lit cigarette in the ashtray and whiskey neatly balanced on the edge (and as a child there was a certain horror here) and I imagine her lulled by her own quiet breath after the bedtime struggle and now finally alone with her melting breasts and flaccid belly, maybe the scent of lavender, her eyes growing heavy, weighed by surrender and release, and her chin dipped to her chest. She drifted under, then sputtered back, awake. Nothing happened to her except that it made for a good story the adults liked to tell, and it followed me here after fifty years. Nothing happened, but it almost did.

Image by Julia Blank

Norman

by Barbara McHugh To them, his life was a disturbance in a mirror hung in an empty room. Looking at him, they felt something fall past and never reach bottom. Although handsome, he reminded everyone of all the wrong people.

In short, they saw him as taking place elsewhere, except his eyes, which were cheers in their empty coliseum. His death they will feel as a walk in the garden at the wrong time of year.

Image by Krystal Carter 41

Image by Angela Zhang

Golden Eagle

by Sierra Hixson I put my sunglasses on So you don’t see me Watch your eyes in the rearview While you sing us Up this mountain road. It feels so intimate Almost like I should look away Almost too intimate Like an invasion of privacy To watch you sing like that. Each golden eagle note pouring From your chinked visage Straight from the soul. Do you know how badly I never want to see you hurting? Do you know I would do anything to protect you From me? And do you know This is the first time anyone Made me feel this way? I like to roll in the sheets With beautiful bodies As a Thursday night pastime On a Monday afternoon To scratch an itch Or satiate a whim And you are solid-state humanity You are a belly laugh and a glass of iced tea So tangible in that seat An arm’s reach away While I am here with the rising moon And gone with the rising sun. 43

LOVING ALGORITHMS by Patricia Powell

My husband and I were watching TV with my mom late one night when my phone rang. It was her doctor calling to tell me we needed to take her to the hospital—now. “She needs a blood transfusion. Her bone marrow has shut down,” he said. “I don’t want to die,” she said fearfully, gripping the edge of the couch. That was my mom, always the melodramatic one, but after a lifetime of her overreactions, I could respond by rote, even as I shoved my own panic aside. “You’re not going to die. We’re going to the hospital so they can make you feel better, and we can learn more.” Learning more is how I solve everything—how I love, even. Gather data. Connect the dots. Draw a conclusion. Apply the data-driven solution, taking comfort in the certainty that it will provide relief, if not happiness. This was my scientific training in action, reimagined as a life skill. Solving problems was the main way I knew how to show my mom I loved her. Wielding information to destroy her uncertainty and allay her fears had worked my whole life. Especially after the Internet matured, I could address any of her concerns almost instantly. I could google her tech problems and help her troubleshoot her way to a missing file or a more cooperative printer. Disconcerting email forwards were my specialty. She once worried that because of the new “Doorbell Tax” someone was going to show up and hand her an enormous bill from the government. A quick search on Snopes banished that boogeyman. From squirrel warfare tactics to self-care tips, I was always just a phone call and an Internet search away. “You always make me feel better,” my mom would say, and I would know she had received my love. But that tool for loving was about to be taken away, leaving me without a replacement. With my reassurances about the hospital that night, she relaxed and let me throw some things into a backpack and bark some orders at my husband. I could see through the data like Neo looking at the Matrix in code, the path forward obvious: I would take her to the hospital, and he would stay put and take care of her dog through morning. We would fix the immediate issue by getting her the blood transfusion and finding out what was going on, then define a course of action and get through this so we could get back to helping her live the best life she could, given her dementia. Alzheimer’s—now there’s a problem you can attack with information. There are currently few treatments and no cure, but unless the person becomes violent, there is a treasure trove of occupational therapy and other accommodations you can learn to help your person balance autonomy and safety, all while increasing the quality of your time with them. You can remodel their bathroom to prevent falls, encourage grooming, and minimize toileting accidents. You can buy an automatic pill dispenser with a lock on it that will remind your person—and you—when they need to take their medicine. You can take photos of the outfits your person assembles each day to make it easier for them, and later, for you. I was never so naive as to expect that journey to be easy, and it wasn’t, but the comfort I could get from data, the speed with which I could get it, and the comfort I could give to my mom from the solutions lulled me into a sense of complacency. I had gotten so spoiled using Google and YouTube to help myself and my loved ones map the world that I was ill-prepared to face the powerlessness that was about to arrive. During what turned out to be more than a trip to the ER, we got the terrible news that my mom’s clock was ticking in overtime and had maybe three weeks left on it. I choked on those words as she burst into tears, but I still had faith that the right information could keep her alive.

In the spirit of the most targeted Google search in human history, I pictured a flurry of tests followed by my mom’s team of doctors hurrying into the room immediately to tell us what the findings meant we should do. But unlike my high-speed Internet connection, the corridors of the hospital couldn’t deliver information that fast. The lab was closed for the weekend, so the flow cytometry test my mom needed to verify blood cancer would have to wait. It would take another day or two beyond that to schedule and complete the bone marrow biopsy that would help clarify treatment options. All told, it would take about a third of my mom’s remaining time before the hematologist would have the data needed to determine the right starter regimen, time counted not in hours but in units of blood that might carry my mom to the starting line of treatment. I could, with some difficulty and frustration, translate this information for my mom, show her how much I loved her and how I was fighting to get her answers that would help her fight too. But she had her own information to provide: data in the form of her wishes. Her dementia was not yet advanced; while she could no longer understand the layman’s version of cancer biology, she could tell me she wanted to enjoy the time she had left. She could express that she absolutely did not want to undergo testing and chemotherapy, consistent with her years of vehement support for a person’s right to die. And she could also tell me that she did not want to beat the cancer only to face certain decline from dementia. “When I go to be with Ralph and my baby and all my little animals, I want to leave knowing who you are,” she told me. With those revelations, all of human history’s acute medical expertise became irrelevant. I would no longer be able to consult an expert or reason our way out, no longer be able to Google-care for her. Our data-driven preparation for her long journey with Alzheimer’s became a short sprint into death. I drifted untethered into the unknowable, giving up my go-to method of expressing my love. Except not everything was unknowable. I still had a search engine, and she was my mother. What was important to her for me to know before she slipped away into the gray space between life and death and could no longer tell me? That was my query, and she slowly compiled the search results, little by little, over her remaining lucid days. “Please tell the Senior Center I can’t come back.” “If people want to make donations, please tell them to give to hospice or St. Labre’s Indian School.” “Please keep Grandma’s dishes. Please keep my dog.” “I would like to be buried in South Carolina instead of Florida.” “Could we put my teacup collection out so I can see it from my bed?” “When I’m gone, would you re-cover the rocking chair I never got around to restoring?” “Here are the people I would like to say goodbye to, and I might need your help to get to all of them.” “Oh, and I want to be buried in a new dress. Could we look for something online?” While I grasped and flailed in a free fall, she became the one connecting dots, compiling data as an anchor for me while giving me tasks I could complete to show my love for her. And by being my search engine, she was using my original method to love me back, sifting her own life’s database to aggregate a list of what was most important to her, because she knew I needed to know.

Woods Watching by Shirley Hilton

When autumn is so crisp the dew can’t decide between water and ice, this is the time to head for the woods. It is wise to take along a companion, one who refuses to talk to you, a thirteen-year-old stepson will do. Smile and hum as you pack binoculars, one oilcloth seat, your gloves, a thermos of boiling coffee. Suggest, but only once, a sweatshirt, warm socks, boots. Discomfort is a good teacher. And misery does love company. There will be plenty of both. By the river, in the tall grass, lean back on a tree and wait. Be very still. Let his cast of evil eye slide off you like rain. Remember sticks and stones. Remember yourself at his age. Be very still. Wait for his anger and fear to consume each other. Raise your field glasses to the far shore. Raise your hand in a gesture of hush to the huff of impatience that threatens to become a word. Shush the ensuing grunts that would be questions or complaints. Wait until something worth seeing appears across the way. Or doesn’t. We all, after all, see in this world what we choose. Enjoy the silence, your choice now. Your choice too, in due time, to nudge the boy, to offer him your glasses. Pour coffee then, and sip and wait. Wait and wait and wait, while he searches and searches and searches.

Image by Sarah Cryan

Feet Up

by John Grey Let me look at you. How many years has it been? The three of us. Climbing stairs. Running for the bus. Hiking. Pacing up and down. You’re bigger, hardier, than when we first met. Remember how problematic it proved when I first tried to stand on you. Physically that is. Metaphorically, the feat (no pun intended) came later. There are some who would say I haven’t mastered it yet. I have done my best to provide for you – hardy shoes for long walks, warm socks in winter – just as you have always been there for me, providing a foundation for all my other parts. You even dance. At least, you once did. Remember. Those times that you, right foot thought you were my left. I suffered my partner’s scorn. But I didn’t blame you. And now, they say, one of you is in the grave. Nonsense. I keep a close watch. You’re both on the ottoman.

Image by Samantha Martin

The Hole Man by Bill Kitcher

On our usual morning walk, Charlie led the way and turned onto First Street. I could see down the road that there was now a large hole. Two people passed it, looked down into it, then continued on. Charlie pulled to the end of his leash and stood at the edge of the hole, his tail wagging frantically. When I reached the hole, I saw there was a man sitting at the bottom of it, about ten feet below street level. “Hello,” I said. “Good morning,” he replied. “Do you need some help? Can I get you a ladder?” “No, I’m fine,” he said. I was a little confused. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be better if our mouths and eyes were in each other’s places?” Seeing my blank look, he continued. “I don’t mean just you and me. I mean everyone. If you’re trying to have a nap and there’s too much light, you want to be able to cover your eyes with your blanket. But if you pull the blanket over your whole head, then your mouth is covered and it’s a little difficult to breathe fresh air. So, if your mouth was where your eyes were, and vice versa, you could cover your eyes to block out the light and your mouth would be free to breathe in cool air.” He made a good point. “But if your mouth was above your eyes,” I said, “food might drop out of it and land in your eyes.” “One problem at a time,” he said. “You’ve certainly given me something to think about,” I said. If I’d been wearing a cap, I would have tipped it to him. “Good morning,” I said, and Charlie and I continued to the park. Charlie ran around for a while, looking at squirrels as if he’d never seen one before, and we returned home, passing the hole. The man in the hole and I nodded to each other. On our evening walk, we passed the hole, and the man was napping, a blanket wrapped around his head so only his mouth was exposed. It rained heavily that night so I wondered what had become of our hole friend. Charlie and I got up early for our walk and went to the hole. It had completely filled with water, which was lapping over onto the street. On top of the water was our friend sitting in a rubber raft. He had only one oar so he was going around in a circle. “Good morning,” I said. Charlie wagged his tail. The man scratched Charlie on the head. “Good morning,” he said. “Are you all right?” I asked. “Sure is a lot of water.” “It’ll go down. It always does.” “That’s curious,” I said. “I’d never seen you before yesterday.” “Oh, I used to live in a hole on the other side of town. But I’m a wanderer. I thought I’d come over here to see how the other half lives. So far so good.” He became thoughtful for a moment. “Do you ever wonder why we don’t have eyes on the backs of our heads, and feet that come out of our heels backwards as well as forwards?” “It certainly would eliminate a lot of unnecessary turning around,” I said.

Charlie and I continued to the park. Charlie tried to follow a squirrel up a tree but didn’t get very far. On our way home, we passed by the man in the hole, who was bailing water out of the hole with a tin can. We nodded to each other and Charlie and I went home. On our evening walk, we looked in the now waterless hole. The man was damp and slightly muddy but he looked content. The following morning, Charlie rushed to the hole. I caught up with him and looked down. The man had built a small fire and was heating up a can of beans. There was a cabinet on the other side of the hole. He looked up. “Good morning.” “Good morning,” I said. “Looks like you’re set up pretty nicely.” “Sure am,” he said. “That cabinet fell into my hole last night, and it’s the perfect size for all my things.” “Looks good to me,” I said. “Do you ever wonder,” he said, “why we make pets out of dogs and cats, and, I suppose, the occasional goat? But hardly ever pigs. And pigs are at least as intelligent as dogs.” Charlie looked at me and I nodded to him in agreement. “Doesn’t seem right to me,” he continued. “Sheep I understand ‘cause they’re not that bright, but I don’t get it about pigs. Hippos, elephants, giraffes, they’re too big to be pets, but pigs are pretty good.” Charlie and I went to the park. He stayed pretty close to me and we sat for a long time on a bench, looking at each other. I went shopping that afternoon. On our evening walk, we reached the hole about sunset. The man in the hole looked up at us, and he smiled. “Do you think that if you go into a restaurant and order two fried eggs, and they ask, ‘sunnyside up or over-easy’, you have the option of having one of each?” Charlie, the fellow pig I bought for him to keep him company, and I clambered down into the hole and stayed there for a while.

Image by Weining Wang

Image by Sarah Cryan

PINK HOUSE by Kathryn Pope We all know this house should be pink. Before the chaparral landscaping the fence’s lean lines, the fingernail polish cars in the driveway— this house was pink. Not a thin pink like carnation or the tip of a tongue. But true magenta like jelly bracelets like glitter a coral reef in full bloom. Now it’s like the others, a beige box with a seasonal wreath on the door, aspirations from a magazine. But we remember you, pink house. We still see you under there.

Image by Madeline Bennett

Phantom Dwelling by Frank Jamison

Basho said, “In the end we all live, do we not, in a phantom dwelling?” Early mid-February morning. Cool wind and moon-glow on the water. Gemini at sixty degrees and Scorpio rising. No bird wings yet ruffle the air. No sound save water ripple. This isn’t loneliness; this isn’t heartache. This is the joy of being in a phantom dwelling, breath visible on the air, heart surge and lung heave, the sweetness of wandering alone through the countryside of self, lost in the hushed wilderness of thought.

Image by Danian Arguello

Still

by Maya Kaplan Take your body to the sea. The distant sunset will hold you like a mother Holds a newborn child. Look over the waves to the horizon And remember that they were wrong About the edge of the world. There is no distant end to everything, No fall-off-the-side, No secret drop wreathed in clouds. The edge of the world is right here. Take your body deep into the earth. In the darkness, Listen to sounds of stones shifting Like they are the world’s heartbeat. Take your body into the night anywhere And look up. And remember that they were wrong: There is no up. There is only away. First, feel the tether of your feet to the earth And then, look Away Into the huge infinity filled with glittering suns, Strange and remote mothers. The sky will touch you with gentle hands, It will pluck your hair, your clothes, your skin. It will pull as you Stand at the edge of the world. Don’t worry, you’re safe. You won’t fall into the sky. You are held: Call it the embrace of gravity. Call it God holding onto your ankles. Call it your sheer love of the earth, Your refusal to let go.

Image by Angela Zhang

On New Year’s Eve by Sara Dovre Wudali

I had so much to do. The quickest route to the dairy case led through produce. All I needed was a pint of half and half, so I juked to the left avoiding the toothpicked crowd sampling blood oranges. All I needed was a pint of half and half, but, surrounded by celery and cilantro, spinach and spring onions, I made a little gasp and paused. Right in front of me was the most opulent pile of avocados, deep dark green. Beautiful, round, and full, they held the promise of a new year. Of redemption the morning after indulgence. Of avocado toast and resolute beginnings. All I needed was a pint of half and half. And one avocado. But green, too green, they did not yield. All I needed was a pint of half and half and maybe one avocado, so I stood there and searched. Behind me, a man swerved around the oranges. He also gasped and stuttered to a halt at my side. Our fingers worked the pile in tandem, searching for the perfect fruit. I turned to him and said ruefully, “A good avocado is hard to find.” “Yes,” he said, squeezing one and then another. “All I needed,” I said, “was a pint of. . . but I had hoped. . . these avocados. . .” I sighed in mourning for my New Year’s toast and made ready to move on. Just as I took a step, his hand found the perfection, dark and full of promise, yielding just slightly to the touch. He lifted and held it out to me, an offering. “Here,” he said, “I found one. All you need is one avocado.”

STAFF

Nick Huffman, Editor-in-Chief

Phoebe Coogle, Literary Editor

Jillian Briare, Visual Arts Director

Johanna Guerrero, Audio Producer

Sabrina Cesana, PR Manager

Special thanks to Jaqueline Martinez for her continued support, thoughtful feedback, and positive presence throughout the rigorous process of review and design. Your effort and kindness are greatly appreciated. Also, special thanks to Sam Martin, the cover artist, for going out of her way to help us capture her work at its highest quality. We wish you all the best in your creative endeavors, Sam — and we look forward to seeing what you will do next!

The Brushfire is the oldest literature and arts journal at the University of Nevada, Reno. Established in 1950, this nationally recognized, biannual publication provides an opportunity for emerging artists and writers to publish and share their work. With each iteration of the Brushfire, we strive to represent the diversity, originality, and interests of our community. Athelas is the body copy throughout the book. DIN Alternate and DIN Condensed are used for the headline text and page numbers respectively. Greenerprinter San Franscisco & Oakland printed this FSC-certified, 8.5 x 5.5-inch book on 100-pound recycled paper with soy-based ink. As a UNR organization, we also strive to be the creative outlet for our student body. Our priority is to connect with the various art communities throughout Reno. However, anyone may submit to Brushfire. While we focus primarily on student and Reno-based work, we continually receive and publish art from across the country. To all of our submitters: we greatly appreciate your creativity, dedication, and love for the arts and freedom of expression. You are what makes Brushfire unique. Thank you. Brushfire recieved the 2016 ACP Best-0f-Show Award for Literary Magazine, and recieved an honerable mention for the 2017 Pinnacle Awards.

WANT TO HAVE YOUR WORK PUBLISHED? Brushfire publishes bianually. We accept all printable forms of art. Our deadlines for the spring and fall semesters can be found online. To learn more about submitting, visit us at unrbrushfire.org Have beef with the journal? Let the Editor know! brushfire.staff@gmail.com or brushfire.staff@unr.edu Copyright © 2021 Brushfire and its individual contributors. All rights reserved by the respective artists. Original work is used with the expressed permission of the artists. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. The opinions expressed in this publication and its associated website and social media are not necessarily those of the University of Nevada, Reno, or of the student body. Brushfire is funded by The Associated Students of the University of Nevada.

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: The Brushfire Staff : Talking 2 Myself : Samantha Martin

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