MUSE 2019

M U S E

Boston University Academy

2 01 9

Boston University

Academy

MU S E 2019

Editors and Sponsors of The MUSE Members and Editors

Front Cover Art

Max Agigian ’19 Emelie Watkins Valls ’20 Steph Gratiano ’20 Mell Aguiar ’22 Aditi Deokar ’21 Julia Dickinson ’22 Cole FitzGibbons ’21 Caileen Hayes ’20 Saoirse Killion ’21 Sabrina Kogan ’22 Maria Levit ’20 Sarafina Madden ’22 Henry Song ’21 Kenzie Urbano ’21 Rachel Wang ’20

Irene Mitsiades ’21

Faculty Advisor

Special thanks, once again, to Julie Gallagher, for her beautiful typesetting and layout work, and for giving so generously of her time and skills to BUA year after year.

Dr. Lauren Proll

Back Cover Art Jonathan Mu ’21

Special Thanks Dr. Rosemary White Ms. Liz Cellucci

Printer Jay Arthur, ProPrint

Typesetting & Layout

Copyright © 2019 Boston University Academy Boston, Massachusetts

Table of Contents 1

Excursion, Max Agigian ’19

3

District 17, Martin Brunswick ’20

4

Water, Mell Aguiar ’22

5

Water, Kenzie Urbano ’21

6

Night Drive, Saoirse Killion ’21

6

Untitled, Saoirse Killion ’21

7

When Things Lie Too Still, Michaela McCormack ’19

7

The Namesake, Michaela McCormack ’19

8

Sesquicentennial, Milo Simpson ’20

13

Charcoal Box Study, Jonathan Mu ’21

14

Graphite Still Life, Brooke Skinner ’19

15

The Green Line in August, Emelie Watkins Valls ’20

15

El amanecer, Emelie Watkins Valls ’20

16

Senex, Senis (m.), James West ’21

16

Friendly Faceless, James West ’21

16

The Face I Wear, James West ’21

17

A & P, Max Agigian ’19

22

Under the Stars, Julia Dickinson ’22

23

Graphite Sketch of Serena, Angie Zhong ’22

24

Who are you? (Draft #3), Emelie Watkins Valls ’20

24

I Long for Hills, Gabe West ’20

25

Wire Self-Portrait, Michelle Lisak ’21

iv

26

Cookies, Mell Aguiar ’22

27

Pie, Max Agigian ’19

28

Admitting to the Crowd, Emelie Watkins Valls ‘20

29

Pastel Whale Study, Madison Young ’21

30

Between Two Worlds: The Raven’s Point of View, Ashleigh Woolf ‘19

32

Charcoal Portrait of Emelio, Jonathan Mu ’21

33

Soon, Max Agigian ’19

34

[Beowulf Fights Ohthere], Henry Song ’21

36

Soul, Max Agigian ’19

37

Graphite Still Life, Milo Simpson ’20

38

A Sparrow, Dorothy Brown ’22

38

Untitled, Dorothy Brown ’22

39

Somnambulation, Emelie Watkins Valls ’20

40

How Far Gone?, Cole FitzGibbons ’21

42

Graphite Sketch of Kasia, Saoirse Killion ’21

43

Love Letters, Saoirse Killion ’21

44

real, Anonymous

46

what keeps me up at night, Anonymous

47

That’s Just the Way It Is Sometimes, Max Agigian ’19

48

Language Is My Lover, Anonymous

49

Graphite Still Life, Richard Fu ’20

50

The Lucky Ones, Ashleigh Woolf ’19

58

Graphite Sketch of Madison, Kasia Perks ’21

59

Sophomore Sonnets, Saoirse Killion ’21, Cole FitzGibbons ’21

60

Sophomore Sonnets, Aditi Deokar ’21, Kenzie Urbano ’21

61

things once holy, Anonymous

61

self-portrait, Anonymous

62

the beginning and especially the end of all things, Anonymous

63

Watercolor Still Life, Michelle Lisak ’21

64

A Hard Place, Henry Song ’21

v

Editors’ Note Dear Readers: We are proud to present the 2019 edition of The Muse, BUA’s annual literary magazine. Being able to publish everyone’s hard work for your enjoyment is an incredible opportunity, and we hope you enjoy the fruits of our labor as much as we do.

We would like to offer great thanks to everyone who has donated their time and effort to produce this year’s magazine. First and foremost are our contributors and editors, whose hard work and indomitable creativity have been the backbone of this production, and without whom the magazine could not exist. Essential also has been Dr. Proll, who has presided over every meeting, and who has done the vital work behind the scenes that has enabled the club to run smoothly and give you this final product. Our typesetter, Julie Gallagher, deserves our deep gratitude as well: she has put in the time and effort of making sure that each of the following pages is properly formatted, and she has created the beautiful book you now have in hand. Finally, we would like to thank you, our readers. You are the ones who give meaning to the magazine, and your appreciation makes our work worth our yearlong efforts.

This is my third and final year as a member of the editorial board of The Muse. I am happy to say that, throughout my time at BUA, this already impressive magazine has only grown more so, in terms of membership, the number of works included, and the quality of the writing. Though I am sad to be leaving, I trust that The Muse will become even greater in the years to come. Though people such as I may come and go, I feel pleasure and pride in knowing that the magazine will continue to flourish. I wish you many happy hours of reading this and future Muses.

Thank you, Max Agigian ’19

vi

Max Agigian ’19

Excursion Smiling faces, larger than life, greet me as I disembark with a blast of cold air at Boston University East. Neither friends nor strangers, these pastelcolored acquaintances might someday soon decorate my home, or I might leave them behind as I travel to far-removed lands, there to continue my education. But that will be then, and this is now, and I am crossing the street to stand nearer to them. The glowing red hand bids me stay, but the river of cars has parted, and I take advantage of Commonwealth Avenue’s momentary emptiness. As I arrive on the other side of the street, I walk not towards the almost-youths but away from them, in the eastward direction whence I came. Were there rain or snow falling, the awning might protect me; as it is, the bitter chill reaches under it with ease.

I walk along, passing by posters advertising upcoming events, passing by a crosswalk and a green sign entitled BU East, passing by storefronts (much more distinct than those one sees when confirming that one is not a robot), and eventually I come to a Starbucks with a bus stop in front, meaning it is time to turn right. I could not tell you the street onto which I turn, for I know it is not Cummington Mall, but instead some obscure throughway that is the sidest of side streets, bordered on the far side by what is either a very small park or a very large lawn, and on the near by the less publicfacing face of Warren Towers. This is not marked by inviting shops and welcoming murals, but by dark entrances to parking garages with fluidmottled pavement, by sundry signs and traffic cones strewn as if in storage. It feels as though I am seeing something private, perhaps even painful, as if the building is exposing a grievous wound to air and has not noticed me staring.

There are many places on and near Cummington Mall where one feels like an intruder. I have walked through long underground hallways in buildings with no classrooms; I have ascended stiflingly hot stairwells with discarded equipment languishing at the bottom; I have pushed through doors with printed-out warnings reading “CAUTION—FIRE HAZARD— DO NOT PROP OPEN.” There are places whose very atmospheres seem to say that one does not belong, but which have no people, signs, or locks that tell one to keep out. One must step a few paces into an empty garage to reach the desolate staircase that leads into the alleyway separating the backs of the buildings on Cummington Mall from the backs of the buildings on Commonwealth Avenue. As always, I look at the staircase that leads up, wondering what is at the top, but, as always, I take the staircase down instead.

1

The alley feels even less inviting. If it were open at both ends, it might act as a wind tunnel, stealing my body heat and dispersing it into the ether.

Nevertheless, though my surroundings tell me I ought not to be there, and though the cold encourages me to enter one of the buildings on either side of me, I linger a moment. The fact that this alleyway is so hidden and uninviting means that I am alone, and that perhaps I am sharing a secret with myself and no one else. My numbing hands, though, motivate me away from this particular solitude, and I step inside through the nearest door, the first on my left.

My destination is at hand. As soon as I am inside the building, I move a few steps to the other end of the antehallway, and look at the door to the left. This door has drawn my attention again and again, as I have walked through this passage to class, but this is the first time I have come especially to see it. It feels less profane, more like a pilgrimage. I do not know who made the door, I do not know who decorated the door, and I do not know what lies behind the door. Perhaps it is an office, perhaps something more secret. I have never seen it open.

Once again, I begin to read the disquisition written on the worn papers that populate the door. When necessary, I peel back a curling edge to see the words it hides. Some sheets have torn-off portions whose contents may never appear on the door again. Others are covered over by other paper, by images that I might lift but not remove. One page is concealed entirely by a poster for a gathering already hosted. Again the words beneath are hidden.

It feels incomplete, but I must accept it as it is.

I complete the thirteenth and final sheet, and I lean back against the opposite wall. I let myself rest for a moment, taking in the door as a whole, its aesthetic and its decorations, overlaid in black and white on the faded grey paint. I lean in again to look at the smaller, less prominent offerings: the poem at the bottom, the paragraph to the poem’s left. At these I scarcely need to look; I have almost memorized them; they are a comfort, a sort of spiritual dessert, a way to ease myself away from the door. Once I have seen them, my journey is complete.

I turn around and leave the way I came: out the door, into the alley, and up the flight of stairs. I pause before going further. Now would be the perfect time to walk up another flight and see what is at the top of the second staircase. I have the time. It is not my habit, though, nor is it a necessity, and, not knowing why, I depart with the mystery unsolved.

2

Martin Brunswick ’20

District 17

3

Mell Aguiar ’22

Water The lucidity of lies Lies like water in our eyes, Dropping down as we say our goodbyes.

Our faces masked, we have on our disguise.

Their words string on; we surmise Puppets upon a string, lost in a sunrise.

Night is over: that’s my surprise.

The sun is up, and we broke our ties.

Like water we lie, although in the skies.

The hurt begins to crystallize; Never again will we synchronize.

4

Kenzie Urbano ’21

Water We all remember the line From Mrs. Smith’s 6th grade science class: “Water is 70% of who you are.”

Each generation comes and goes with the pull of the tide, And none is ever lost, no, But transformed.

I walk with the tears of beaten slaves, Who cried the streams collected by native women, Whose riptides rained upon bodies lining London, Flowing through the aqueducts of ancient Rome.

And I can have my Nani’s eyes, Or my uncle’s passion for art, But if my blood holds the seas Sailed by the first brave enough to question What lies beyond the horizon, Am I not them as well?

Here there be monsters, swimming in my veins, Every sip a taste of the millions who’ve died, The millions who’ve thrived, The millions who cry the flower lost within a rainforest, The breath of a fish a thousand leagues below, The piss and bile of a neanderthal.

I am the water of my ancestors.

I am the water of your ancestors.

I am the tides of those to come.

5

Saoirse Killion ’21

Night Drive neon cities left brush strokes flitting past my window gliding fingertips that gently subsided into opalescent warmth

Untitled I take the train north Across still waters.

Early mornings are the most beautiful.

Leaning my cheek against the steel Framework, I can see dying moonlight Melt into the river’s dark violet waters.

The sparkling city lights downtown— Neon blue, pale yellow— I’ll be underneath soon enough.

It’s quiet, the seven minutes above ground Through silent neighborhoods.

Rosy pinpricks of apartment lights, The harsh electric glow of street lamps, Flickering, eyelids heavy with sleep— I’m earlier than I need to be, But dawn, as I awaken from a nighttime nap, Is breathtaking.

6

Michaela McCormack ’19

When Things Lie Too Still I am afraid of still earth.

The darkness swallows landscapes of rock And bush, and the trees dangle their wispy fingers near my neck.

I do not know why they chase me; They do so in secret, Their sly movements concealed when my eyes Dart to confront them.

I begin to walk backwards, and, quickly Realizing I am surrounded, I turn again.

My pace quickens, motivated by their taunts.

Nature wears two faces. At present, She shows me one With teeth bared and eyes feral.

Night, her mistress, makes light work of me, Draining blood from my face with cruel instruments.

My heart beats still and fast.

Time plans a temporary escape for me, reminding me That the world cannot remain Shrouded in shadows forever.

I gain courage in oranges and pinks That daub the sky and me.

Night’s creatures keep still.

They are patient and knowing, and If they do not get me this night There will be another.

The Namesake Francis is calling from the other side.

My father fears her—that I’ll inherit Her sickness as her namesake— Convinced that in my mother’s desire to Bundle me in memories and sky pinks I would be swathed in maladies galore.

He fights against affliction Yet cannot keep it at bay.

7

Milo Simpson ’20

Sesquicentennial Teddy Rooke has A Problem. It’s a tiny little thing, he swears, and no harm’ll come of it.

(His head buzzes with an endless procession of one-five-zero is divisible by one two three five six ten—it’s normal. It’s all quite routine.)

There’s nothing to be done, so why waste effort trying to change things?

They’re just numbers, and Teddy likes numbers, those ones especially. He has community college to attend (and a major to actually decide on), and a job to pay for the rent and schooling. He doesn’t have time to worry about trivial things like numbers. Not a big deal.

The apartment he’s looking at near campus has two bedrooms and a living room–kitchenette combo immediately upon entry through the front door.

Its windows look out on an intersection and a brick wall on either side of the building, which is all right, Teddy supposes. The view isn’t ideal, but the kitchen comes furnished with a modest set of appliances, which are fairly nice and recent to boot.

The lowest the landlord is willing to go for rent, however, is a full fifteen hundred dollars a month. As nice as that number is—divisible by one-fivezero—that’s too much for Teddy to afford by himself.

His brother’s a freshly promoted detective making a full sixty grand yearly, and he lives in his partner’s house, which was paid off in full something like a decade ago—so, discounting his half of the grocery and utility budgets, Bryan has plenty of money to spare. He’s always fussing about Teddy’s health, despite having the more dangerous career. He’s always taken up a bit of a parenting role, Teddy supposes. He’d consequently be perfectly glad to pitch in on the cost of the apartment for his little brother, but the idea of that leaves a sour taste in Teddy’s mouth. It hardly seems fair to just take that kind of money, even if it’s from his mother-henning brother.

So he does what any college student in need of an apartment within a reasonable distance from campus would do: he calls for a roommate to split the rent, and, to his surprise, he actually gets responses to the ad he posted on the school’s message board. The third candidate catches his eye. Mikey’s a nice guy who doesn’t seem to do much, so they move in without much fuss and get along just fine.

8

For a while, anyway.

Teddy is acutely aware of the dishes when Mikey puts them away. He likes to do dishes while listening to audiobooks; he finds it relaxing, so Teddy can’t feel too bad about making his roommate do all of the kitchen chores, but he does feel bad about something, and for the longest time he can’t figure out what, until it hits him.

The little dish rack next to the sink can fit their seven plates, stacked on top of each other, and four bowls. Four? Seven? They are Bad Numbers, obviously. They Do Not Fit, and it shreds Teddy’s nerves to a nest of trembling wires, all tangled around his head like an iron band and squeezing. Eleven is Not Good either, but that’s easily remedied. It’s all fine.

If Teddy’s a little extra clumsy just before spring semester begins, it’s just because his allergies are acting up. It’s nothing to worry about. Mikey leaves antihistamines on the bathroom counter, and they speak of it no further.

He breaks two plates in the space of a week, then buys another bowl, and feels the tension he hadn’t even realized was there bleed away at the sight of five plates stacked up all neatly beside five bowls. That looks Good, five and five is ten, which is practical but also a divisor of The Number one-fivezero that screeches through his brain.

It scratches the little itch that crawls beneath his skin, makes it sing and soothes him instead, and nobody’s been harmed by it. So they’re short a few plates? It’s no big deal. The net stress of the household is lower, so it’s actually good in the end.

He forgets about it after that, for a little while. Everybody has a quirk or two, a little idiosyncrasy that makes them special. It’s a good thing. Like how Mikey always draws on the napkins when they go out to eat, or how his brother, at thirty, will squeal and coo at every dog on the street like it’s the first one he’s ever seen. It’s normal.

Biology notes are written in fractured haikus, stanzas of five and ten and fifteen lines that keep him focused, even though they waste paper. He sits in the fifth seat in the fifth row of the lecture hall.

“Mind gettin’ pizza tonight?” asks Mikey on Thursday, looking up from his essay for probably the first time that week. “I’ll do the shopping tomorrow, but we got nothing right now, man.”

9

“Okay, that’s all right,” Teddy replies. He taps his fingers on his thigh exactly five times, then three, then six, three, five again. It’s a new sequence he’s testing out, and it’s perfect, symmetrical. It soothes his racing nerves, a balm that no drug can possibly replicate. “I’ll order?”

Mikey looks at him strangely for just a moment, pale eyes flitting down to Teddy’s hands folded in his lap, but his bewildered expression shutters and falls away as quickly as it came. “Sure,” he says, but hesitates. “You all right, dude? You’ve been acting kinda jittery lately.”

“I’ll get us half onion, if that’s fine.” Teddy bulldozes right over the question, leaning to retrieve his cellphone from where he keeps it in his bag. “Any objections?” He orders the pizza at Mikey’s neutral shrug and feels relaxed, but his roommate keeps stealing glances for the rest of the night.

Everything is okay.

Two weeks later, Teddy panics in the living room. Mikey is in class, so he’s alone in the apartment.

Bryan’s an investigator first and muscle second, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to be running perps down—and getting hurt. All Teddy hears is his brother’s partner saying, “He’s in the hospital—” before the phone slips from his fingers and his legs fold beneath him and everything is too fast and— He throws a hand out blindly; his trembling fingers close around the smooth plastic body of a marker. In a single frenzied motion, every book and pen and loose sheet of paper is swept from the table. Teddy slams the felted tip of the pen down into the false glass surface with enough force for ink to splatter onto his wrist. He writes.

His hand moves without his input and he doesn’t look. He just carves characters into the table, with eyes squeezed shut and teeth cutting into his tongue. His head is screaming, crashing cumbersome and broken against the sonic whirlwind of everything else. Bryan is hurt and he’s in the hospital and there are so many ways this could go, no certainty, too many chances to go wrong.

Mikey’s things—the ones he threw all over—are disorganized. Teddy—he needs something but he doesn’t know what, can’t bring himself to move from the table, to stop writing again and again and again. The action is meant to be self-soothing but it only makes him feel weak and small.

10

He dropped the phone before any details could come through, but Teddy knows enough. Some serial carjacker got caught in the act and decided to put a bullet into him, and he has no idea— Did it puncture his lung?

Could it’ve been hollow point? What about his heart? Teddy doesn’t know anything, and it’s killing him. His breaths come in wheezing gasps as his traitorous imagination conjures all the ways Bryan might be dying right now but he’s too much of a coward to listen and know for sure.

It feels like an eternity, but he must not be there for very long. It’s only a short time before he’s broken from his reverie by the soft jingle of a keyring and the telltale creak of the door swinging inwards. Mikey’s home from class.

“Holy shit!” The other man is on him in an instant, dropping his bag and skidding to his knees to be on Teddy’s level. “Rooke, dude? Oh, um, you’re having a panic attack.” Warm hands come up to cup his face, gently tipping his head up and away from the table. “Look at me, man.”

Mikey’s glasses are slipping, and his eyes are big and owlishly wide. “I need you to look at me, okay? Yeah, like that.”

Teddy does as he’s told, mirroring Mikey’s breaths when prompted, focusing on the reedy sound of his voice and how it cracks. “You’re okay,” Mikey promises. Teddy doesn’t quite know whether he believes him. He wants to say his brother’s name, to reach for the phone, but Mikey’s smaller hands belie his strength, and they pin Teddy’s wrists into his lap. “Don’t,” he orders, firm but gentle. “Just look at me. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“I—” Teddy tries, but the word pinches in his throat and crumbles to silence. He keeps breathing with Mikey, screwing his eyes shut and focusing on the trembling hands wrapped around his own. He tries his hardest to ignore the staticky baritone that wafts faintly from his phone speaker, but his face must show that he can hear it.

Something about “graze” and “fine” and “okay” drifts in the air, and Teddy can’t move. Mikey frees one of his wrists in favor of picking up the phone and mumbling into it. The words pass through Teddy’s ears, utterly unprocessed, but he hasn’t the agency to care.

After that, it is silent.

It takes some time for things to become safe and still again, but they do.

Mikey manages to coax Teddy back up onto the sofa, mostly silent and 11

palpably awkward, but trying hard to ensure he’s comfortable and calm.

He puts some tea on, and he pushes some of the things knocked to the floor into little piles approximating neatness. He drapes his jacket over the coffee table, but Teddy hasn’t the courage to lift it and see what marks he made beneath it.

“Do you, uh, wanna talk about it?”

No, Teddy wants to say, but he also knows that’s childish and irresponsible.

“My brother is hurt. I panicked. Everything’s okay now.”

Mikey levels him with a disbelieving glare. “Dude. We both know that’s bull. You don’t have to talk about it with me, because I honestly dunno how to help you, but I’m pretty sure this needs to get worked through.”

“It’s not a big deal,” he insists. “This was a fluke; that’s all. Everything can go right back to normal.”

Teddy watches as Mikey reaches over to the table, pulling his windbreaker from its place splayed across the top—and, okay—wow. His mouth goes slack, and hot tears prick at the corners of his eyes. All right. It’s a problem.

“1-5-0 1-5-0 1-5-0” is scribbled out over and over and over again, manic, like a motif from a horror movie. The numbers all overlap, utterly unplanned and chaotic, but Teddy thinks he can see divisors listed underneath some sets. It’s carved into the table like a religious symbol, occult and desperate and obsessive—unstable—and Teddy doesn’t think of himself as unstable.

“I know,” Mikey sighs, gently. “You didn’t even realize it, man? ‘Cause you’ve been acting funky for a while now, and I think you stressed yourself over the edge of something.”

“Yeah,” Teddy manages. His heart feels like it’s trying to crawl up his throat, but at the same time something buoys his chest, making him feel . . . relieved. “I’m gonna look for a therapist,” he says, numb.

Mikey nods. “Good plan.”

“It’s a start,” agrees Teddy, but he knows in his heart that the road ahead is long and painful. A thought occurs to him. He can’t help but laugh at its blatancy, not to mention its absurdity given the current circumstance; it’s a surprisingly fitting kind of irony. “Think I’ll major in psych, yeah?”

12

Jonathan Mu ’21

Charcoal Box Study

13

Brooke Skinner ’19

Graphite Still Life

14

Emelie Watkins Valls ’20

The Green Line in August Unfortunately, I’m sickeningly sweaty.

I’ve sweetly scampered across campus, So much so that my sweat is no longer salty, But rather sweet. I suppose that, Instead of salt, my body’s using sugar.

So, unfortunately, I am sickeningly sweet-y.

El amanecer I wake up before Superman lifts the sun—again.

Like the last time he and I crossed paths, We meander through YouTube’s faux entertainment.

But today, I think I’ll watch that red cape Raise my light from the water.

The sun’s morning breath burns the horizon.

The sun, my lover, turns around in his sleep, So I cup his cheek with my drowsy hands, And I whisper, “Rise.”

15

James West ’21

Senex, Senis (m.)

I watched my future fade away In tri-syllabic rhyme, The things I’d always meant to say, But never had the time, The things I’d always meant to do, But always did forget, But I have lived in love with you So nothing I’ll regret.

Friendly Faceless I sometimes fear the lonely walk Between the Here and There.

I don’t much mind the company, But shadows rarely share.

The Face I Wear The face I wear, I did not choose; I did not choose my voice.

Each breath I take’s a fight I lose, For breathing’s not my choice.

I wish that I, just for a day, Could someone else replace, And, for a day, could proudly say I chose both name and face.

16

Max Agigian ’19

A&P (A retelling of John Updike’s “A & P,” from a different perspective.)

Now when Daddy is hosting a party with his society friends, Mother is always a good hostess, and what that means is that I have to be a good hostess, and I do whatever little chores she wants me to do, or in other words, the little chores that the gentlemen want her to want me to do. Back in Brookline, it’s entirely too much, even though I have to do less, really, what with schooling taking up so much of my time that Mother takes pity on me. But now it’s summer, and we’re up at the house on Peaches Point, and we’re on vacation, and Mother still doesn’t have me do half the things she’s always saying I should. In fact, the gentlemen are coming over again tomorrow, and she’s at the house tidying like crazy, and Daddy’s making sure his amenities are all in order, and meanwhile I’m down at the beach with Sandra and Joan. I asked if I should help, but Mother said, “Too many cooks spoil the broth,” and frankly, I quite agree with her. It makes me frantic to see them run around so. So I’m at the beach, and I’m out of Mother’s and Daddy’s way, and they’re out of mine.

But soon the young man who greets you when you come through the gate, the one you see in his little booth, comes down the beach, calling up and down that he has a “message for a . . . Miss Bonnie?” This isn’t at all the first time someone has called me “Miss,” but it always makes me feel like they think I’m much older than I am. I don’t know whether I like it. I have to get used to it anyway, so when he starts coming toward us and calls out again I walk-run out of the little waves at my feet and say, “That’s me.

What is it?”

His eyes go up to my face and he says, “Your mother called and left a message with me for you. I wrote it down here.” Now that I’m closer to him, he looks silly, with his cap and shirt and trousers but no socks or shoes on, and his feet all sandy, and the bottoms of his legs and the tops of his feet all hairy. I wonder how he’s going to get all that sand off before he puts his socks back on. He clearly wasn’t ready to go out onto the beach.

“What does she want to say?” I ask. His eyes aren’t on the paper; they’re on me, and also Sandra and Joan, who have come out of the water to join me. I wish he would just answer. It makes me feel creepy when they stare and stare and don’t say anything. I can’t tell if they’re thinking anything 17

when they do that, or if their eyes just sort of wander around while their brains do who-knows-what. Sometimes I wonder if they even have brains.

Finally he looks at the paper. “Ah, let’s see here. Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream. Peabody A&P. All right. So your mother needs you to pick up a jar of the Kingfish, uh . . . ” He looks back at his note.

“Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream, right,” I say in my most “Miss Bonnie”-ish voice. I’m a few years younger than he is, but only a few, and I know what Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream are; he doesn’t. That means I outrank him, and he should be hurrying up and delivering my message. “Peabody A&P?” “Yes. I think she said . . . ” His brow scrunches up, and he looks skyward.

He didn’t write this part down. “I think she said the one in Swampscott never has them, and she doesn’t want you going to Lynn.” He counts off “Swampscott,” one, and “Lynn,” two, on his fingers as he says the names.

“Is there anything else?” I say, imitating Mother when she wants there not to be anything else.

“No, that’s it.”

“Thank you.” I look him in the eyes, which are the last part of him to turn around before he pads back to his booth. We all watch him as he walks, and he looks tiny by the time he arrives and pulls the door behind him. As he’s sitting down, I hope suddenly that he has a magazine or something in there, to occupy his mind.

But I don’t think about that for too long, because Sandra says, “Well, what are we going to do?”

An idea hits me, which I think I had already decided on, but I didn’t realize it until just now. “What if we all go in our bathing suits?”

When neither of them answers, I say, “I don’t want to go back to Peaches Point just to put on a bunch of clothes while Mother and Daddy tell me to get out of the way. And if you two come with me, it’ll be safe, and we’ll be impressive together. Besides, there isn’t anyone saying we can’t.”

Sandra is convinced by my last point, and Joan is willing to go along with what I say under most circumstances, so we all walk back toward the entrance. I’m walking very properly, I think, as Mother taught me, and pretty soon Sandra and Joan are doing the same thing, and we have the 18

proper disdain for the dinky little showers with which we rinse the sand off our bodies, and we make sure to dry off very thoroughly, so as not to get the car wet when we sit in it. The asphalt in the parking lot is much too hot, and Sandra and Joan half stumble, half run to the car, but I merely quicken my pace, so that my soles are nearly burnt up by the time I get inside.

As we drive through Marblehead and into Salem, we talk about Joan’s uncle’s run for the governorship, and after that the conversation sort of peters out, until we pass by the Corwin House, where the judge lived who sentenced all those witches to death, and I say, “Wasn’t it awful that all those women had to die just because someone said they cast a hex?”, and Joan says, “It was!”, and Sandra says, “You know, Jonathan Corwin was my great-great-great-great-grandfather.”

“He was?” I say.

“He was. Nobody likes to talk about it much, but he was. I think that’s part of why my family is in local government.” Then she says, “He would have sentenced us all to death if our neighbors accused us of witchcraft.”

Now I think things are getting a little too sad, so I say back, “But they wouldn’t do that.”

“They did back then.”

There isn’t much to say after that, so we drive on in silence past the cemetery and into the center of Peabody. Some of the buildings look like they’re in worse shape than the three-hundred-year-old ones in Salem, and they’re crammed together as if there isn’t room for all of them. There’s a parking lot in front of the A&P, though, and I find a spot right near the entrance. The store is old, too, and I’m surprised that it even carries Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream.

Sandra, who’s sitting in the front seat, opens the glove compartment, where we’ve put our bags, and Joan pipes up: “Are we buying anything other than the herring snacks?”

“Well, I don’t see why not,” says Sandra.

As Sandra puts her bag around her shoulder, I have another idea. “Ladies, do we really need our bags?”

“Well, yes, or else how are we going to carry our money?” I take my bag out from the glove compartment and unfold the money inside to take out 19

a one-dollar bill. I refold it carefully into a little square, and then I smile and tuck it down my bathing suit top, giving it a little push with one finger to hide it from view. Sandra does a little smirk, and then she laughs, and then we all laugh, and then Sandra says, “I’m sure that would earn you a stoning!” It’s awful, but it makes us laugh more. Sandra’s great-great-greatgreat-grandfather isn’t nearly as frightening.

After we get out of the car, still giggling a little, Joan says, “Bonnie, your strap’s down.” I look at my right strap and see that, yes, it’s come off my shoulder. I’m about to fix it, but then I feel something brush against my left shoulder, and I jump! But it’s only Sandra after all, and I look at her, wondering what’s the matter. Her hand is covering her mouth, and for a moment I think she’s trying not to cry, but then I realize she’s laughing even harder, and then I realize my left strap’s down as well. Nothing else is down, though, and it isn’t going to be, so I say, “Here’s to the twentieth century!” and we all laugh even harder. Sandra tells us that we’ll be the best thing that’s happened to the A&P all year, and I remember that that’s how Mother says I should carry myself, so I say so, and once we’re done laughing, we all walk straight as we did at the beach, especially me, across the A&P parking lot and into the store.

The tile floor hurts my bare feet a little, and tickles, too, cool after the hot parking lot. It’s all grimy and made of rubber or something, not like the shiny wooden floors of the boutiques back in Marblehead. As soon as the cashiers see us, they start staring holes into us, not even trying to hide it.

Since I’m the best thing to happen to the A&P all year (I remind myself), I act as though none of this bothers me, and I think Sandra and Joan are doing a pretty good job. We go past the bread and up the snacks aisle, looking out for the Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream. It’s amazing how all the housewives stare at us, especially as they themselves aren’t much of a pretty picture, some of them even wearing pin-curlers. I ignore them too. We can’t find the Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream, so we ask the butcher, who’s even worse than the cashiers— what does go on in their heads?—and he points us to the other end of the store, which seems an awfully long way to go to get Daddy’s favorite snack.

When we get to the register, we have a moment of indecision between the cashiers, but soon a really ghastly old man, the kind you don’t see on Peaches Point, comes to one of them with four large cans of pineapple juice, so we go to the other. He’s very impressed when I produce the dollar from 20

my bathing suit, but before I can hand it over, someone who thinks he’s very important comes over and says, “Girls, this isn’t the beach.”

I try not to blush. “My mother asked me to pick up a jar of herring snacks.”

“That’s all right. But this isn’t the beach.”

Sandra responds, “We weren’t doing any shopping. We just came in for the one thing.” That shouldn’t matter, but I don’t object.

“That makes no difference.” The man has been behaving until now, but then he looks down for a moment at Sandra, and then he looks back up.

“We want you decently dressed when you come in here.”

“We are decent,” I say, surprising myself. Now I feel like Mother, too, knowing that this is just a busybody who has no right to intrude on my decisions. I’m still blushing, though, and I really wish I weren’t, especially since a crowd is gathering.

“Girls, I don’t want to argue with you. After this come in here with your shoulders covered. It’s our policy.” Then he turns to the cashier, who’s a little impressive with how much focus he’s showing, and says, “Sammy, have you rung up their purchase?”

“No.” The cashier further impresses me by punching all the buttons without looking at them. We stride quickly out, leaving behind the big little manager and the cashier, who says breathlessly “I-quit” as the doors close behind us.

“Did he say that to us?” says Joan, at the same time I say, “I hope he isn’t planning on following us.”

Sandra says “I don’t think so” to both of us as we all look back to see him talking to the manager. I’m ready to get out of Peabody so I hurry us into the car, and we drive off.

We’re mostly quiet on the ride back, but as we’re passing by the Corwin House, I notice that Joan, who’s in the front seat this time, is pale, and her eyes are wide. I say, “What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” and, after a pause, “or a witch.”

Joan, still pale as can be, says back, “I think we really are the best thing that’s happened to that store all year!”

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Julia Dickinson ’22

Under the Stars A summer’s night, nowhere near fall At a town gathering, welcoming all, Everyone watches, waiting for the call, And as they appear, time seems to stall.

Bursts of light flood the sky.

We all jump, clap, and start to cry.

Our souls reach up and want to fly— To be like the light, way up high.

It all settles down, still nice and dark, So we start to relax, settling into the park.

The light still blooms, forming an arc, But I hear something new, one lighting—a spark.

Artificial light blooms into great flame, So we sit around and play a game.

They begin to sing, and we do the same, If only daylight never came.

All are tired, ready for bed, But the sun pokes out its little head.

It gleams orange, almost red, And that’s when we know our night is dead.

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Angie Zhong ’22

Graphite Sketch of Serena

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Emelie Watkins Valls ’20

Who are you? (Draft #3) When organizing into this routine, Begin by scrubbing the day’s benign rust.

If nothing else, the faucet’s tears will do— But, I, incompetent, can’t feign normalcy.

Then, I drag my crying hands, adjust them To my face’s undulating terrain below My false eyes, and question their true owner “Where did you two come from? Is it her?”

The friends I treasured bless her shoulders through The mirror—flick her catatonic face.

Thus I’m green, my whispered eyebrows thicken In a harsh fury. What is she doing?

When I gasp, “Who are you?” a blond emerges From the east bathroom wall and places his wet Painted hand on her clean shoulder. He Faintly whispers in her ear, a secret.

Save for her eyes, her body remains still.

Her dim green eyes search for light, yet are stuck On mine. “When will you tell me who you are?”

But I am plagued with a mute reflection.

She may have my face, my hair, my sunken eyes, But I feel no kinship with whom I see.

My reflection is myself, but I don’t Understand who she is, so who am I? Where does she end and I begin? Who are we?

Gabe West ’20

I Long for Hills I long for hills I’ve not yet climbed and places not yet seen, A thousand things that I might find both frightening and serene; And if I stray and lose the trail, I will not cry for help; For though I may have lost the path, I’ll surely find myself.

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Michelle Lisak ’21

Wire Self-Portrait

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Mell Aguiar ’22

Cookies Reminisce.

Recollect.

Relive.

Remember the days In which your nights were unfulfilled, And your heart filled with so much hate.

You swore you could’ve had him killed.

Never forget the times you forged cookies of pain, Chocolate chip cookies Engulfed in your brain: One cup of sugar For every smile you showed, And a teaspoon For every tear that you tore.

Nearing saccharine, Bring back the butter, A tablespoon For every moment you spent in mourning— An oily mess, Don’t mistake it for anything less.

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Flour should flourish, As two cups will be added For every minute you must Mask your malfunctions.

Add one chocolate chip For every night you spent in nether, Locked inside your brain’s bad weather.

Finally, at the crack of dawn, Bake your cookies in the oven, A second for every broken bottle And battle fought burning guile.

When you take them out, Burnt and broken, Cracked and cantankerous, Immature and immoral.

Reminisce.

Recollect.

Relive.

Remember yourself.

Max Agigian ’19

Pie I want a trash collector to appear: Would hot young Hotspur’s gentlemen intrude?

Mendacity! was he too cavalier Upon Abuja’s or Lagos’s food?

The way selected for me, happily, Half-bakèd, maybe, accolading us, Transfers Atlantis from a bumblebee, Untying a potato dangerous, And Launcelot receiveth her instead.

(Aren’t I believable, until released?)

On profligate Samantha’s godlike head, Entwining lies about, going northeast.

No two calamities achieve bullseye: I cannot stop exhausting humble pi.

(Footnote: 141592…)

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Emelie Watkins Valls ‘20

Admitting to the Crowd I feel like someone has died Like a gloom settled on my shoulders And I’m lugging it along Seeing it everywhere I see To describe it feels like Giving away the end of a story But I know that no one has died And I know that everyone is still here And because I know what I know Separate from the world I feel like I deserve the gloom And though I think I understand I wonder why

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Madison Young ’21

Pastel Whale Study

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Ashleigh Woolf ‘19

Between Two Worlds: The Raven’s Point of View ‘Twas a frigid night in that late hour, As I circled on high, a tapestry of spires and chimney pots laid out below, Searching, searching for the house of sorrow.

Silently did I come a-tapping, then louder, urgently! more!

One last message between worlds to deliver before the light: Mortal haste is of no consequence to Eternal Time; If not tonight, another moment will come a-calling.

Presently a spectre glared from the open window, expecting ghosts.

Gliding on the winds of surprise, I settled on a velvet chair and struck a Lordly pose.

The man, his face ashen, shrank away, distrustful of his vision as I spoke.

“You wonder me ghost or ghoul? You may fear my presence, but I have a message from . . . Lenore.”

His shaking hands raw boned-knuckle-gripped the wooden chair, Rattling the silence of his response, yet still, no words were forthcoming.

“If you have no want to hear, I will take my leave of you, sir.”

He gasped, then a gritted-teeth utterance: “Nevermore!”

“Sir, let me assure you that your radiant love hath indeed sent me.”

A shadow of hesitation crossed his brow, but he leaned, entranced, toward me.

“We have much in common, you and I, we admirers of rare beauty.

Our souls uplifted by her feather touch. But while I am released from a life of Purgatory, You, you are wandering damned in the Darkness of Despair. I lie in her soft caress.”

“Nevermore!” hissed his contorted countenance.

Up! Up I flew lest he lunge at me violently!

“I came for her, not you, you vile creature, With her delicate touch I will rise above my lowly station.”

He slumped, slack-armed, defeated, staring at me perched on Pallas.

Unable to smirk, I allowed for an arrogant pause.

“Lenore fears for you, that you shall forever be lost to her.”

“Nevermore!” quoth the coward, his fiery yellow eyes glaring.

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“As you wish. Alas, she will pine for you in desperation, lost to me forevermore, While you, dragged by your Demons through the Dark Gates, Are vexed to lament the lost love that was Lenore, yours Nevermore!”

A final flourish of feathers lifted me into the icy night sky, Leaving the hollow soul to ponder the trail of his life, the path to his death.

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Jonathan Mu ’21

Charcoal Portrait of Emelio

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Max Agigian ’19

Soon Look, folks, we’ve had some really bad news today, maybe worse news than ever before. And I know you don’t want this asteroid, this giant rock, it’s coming out of space, and it’s coming for us, but don’t worry, because we are working on a great plan, with a beautiful team, and they tell me these are the best minds. This is like if we had a team of Einsteins with us, and they are making sure that we are going to be okay. And it’s tough. I looked at it and I said, well, we can’t just make a deal, which is sad, because I would make the best deal. I could call up the asteroid and say, look, you can’t hit us, because we are making great progress with this country, and we need to keep winning, and you cannot stop that right now, because, because, right? Because we love our country, and we’ve got to keep going.

And it would say back, if it could talk, but it can’t, which is a great shame, and it would say, okay, Mr. Trump, I understand, I’ll come back tomorrow, but it won’t come back tomorrow, or ever, because I have a great team. We love them, and they are working very hard. Not like the Democrats, I can tell you. They want so badly to stop our great people, like they were saying about Jared, and like the “House Intelligence—” and I put it with the little fingers, right? I put the fingers in the air around the name, because they’re not doing anything, they’re also hating Jared and the others, and they really just, they really don’t want us to win! They’re out there saying, oh, Mr. Trump, you shouldn’t use Jared, or you shouldn’t have Mitch, or you shouldn’t have him, and they ignore this, they ignore the fact, they don’t know it’s really bad up there with the rock you can see, and it’s getting bigger, and we need to solve the problem! And the fake news is already saying we can’t solve it, and Jared is bad, and Mitch is bad, and Trump is bad, and soon they’re going to be saying it’s my fault, right? We all know how it goes, the bad thing happens, which the bad things don’t often happen, because I’m around, and I’m keeping our country safe from the terrorists and the illegals—why don’t they talk about how they were all pouring in? They ignore, they ignore that we have really great people, and they will be the best, and all because Mr. Trump likes them. And they don’t give a crap about the country, about America, because they’re Democrats, and I’m the president. I am! And it’s really just a horrible—oh, and the darkness, now, too, you see? It’s all dark because it’s too close, and it blocks out the sun. That’s what they tell me! Can you believe it, this rock is big enough to stop the sun from getting through, but now it’s bright anyway, and just too hot. And loud. Can you even hear me? It’s amazing ho— 33

Henry Song ’21

[Beowulf Fights Ohthere] For fifty frosts the fine king fares, Aging along with his acclaimed kingdom.

A golden age of good and God Seemed to all surely to stay.

But beware, Beowulf, of a great bane, A robust rival that roars with rage.

Overbold Ohthere, offspring of Ongentheow, Agitated angrily by the acts of another, Sought to slay the Geats with his Swedes.

A wearisome war he wages, A challenge calling for the Grendel-killer.

Slowly down he saunters with his stalwart Swedes, Scoffing and sneering at the splendid scenery.

The mighty marching was heard in Heorot, And Beowulf assembles his army for arrival.

The coward comes at the cusp of dusk, Hoping to have a handsome holiday Before battering Beowulf’s bounds.

The warriors wallop the walls wildly, So the simple stockades start to shatter.

Overweening Ohthere offends the other, Grandly gloating, “The great Geats, Known as the keen and kind kin, Before me they bow basely!”

The scathing Swede sets forth boasts sneeringly, His wicked words wounding Beowulf, Making the monster-plague manful and mad.

“Rise!” the raging ruler roars, “These Swedes seek superb slaughter, Hammering our halls, horribly hell-bent.

Death they desire, and death does not deny!”

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Out to Ohthere they rush onward, Ferociously filling the field with fear.

The struggle is savage, surely not simple, For Beowulf beheads the brash braggart, Taking his thought-giver towards triumph.

Soon the sorrowful Swedes scatter, Swiftly scuttling from their successful superiors.

The Geats, granted the gifts of gore, Pile the plains with plenty of plunder.

Gifted Beowulf, grateful to God, Presents his prizes to his prudent peacekeepers— A model monarch for all men to match.

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Max Agigian ’19

Soul I want to write something new. How would I go about doing that? On the one hand, it’s very easy: nobody has ever written before exactly what I’m writing now. On the other hand, it’s nigh impossible: I can’t imagine that nobody has ever expressed the ideas I express in this paragraph.

A new form of writing seems out of reach, too. Poetry, prose, proverbs, plays. All that’s left is screaming—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH— wait, I’m sure that’s also been done.

As I write this in the Notes app on my phone, I realize that I could write all in emoji. That has all the perks. It’s unintelligible, it tries too hard, and it would probably be a headache for the printers (thanks for all your hard work!).

Even if I could do something new, could it be anything but a joke? Would it be a joke by definition? A joke is the subversion of expectations, and I would subvert the readers’ expectations by doing whatever I would do.

What is it I’m writing right now? Probably some kind of prose poetry.

Everything is classified. If you do manage to do something unusual, it’s “experimental.” You can’t write anything that doesn’t fit into a box.

To heck with their arbitrary categories! Frick the system! Down with the status quo, whatever it may be!

I suppose there’s nothing new to write under the sun. Then again, everything must be new in some way. If not, nobody would read it.

Eh, we writers must be doing something right.

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Milo Simpson ’20

Graphite Still Life

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Dorothy Brown ’22

A Sparrow I’d rather be a sparrow, Soaring through the cool gray sky, Than have the brilliant colors of The clumsy butterfly.

I’d rather have a sparrow’s voice, A sparrow’s dull brown wing, Than be a vibrant butterfly Without a throat to sing.

Untitled Would you prefer the eerie calm Of sweet, submissive silence?

Or the fierce, unbridled shouts and cries Of freedom and defiance?

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Emelie Watkins Valls ’20

Somnambulation When flying sea-born breezes buffet me, The apotheoses of wretched, earthly woe, I stroke their contumacious tendrils in Requital for attesting to my presence.

When I grasp the cliff’s lush turquoise hair, I can feel her tremulous rage beneath me.

As every petulant wave hits the cliff In nugatory vengeance, I feel her atrocious Tremors augment into quaking terror.

When nature casts her misty nets to catch My shining master, I hide my snide smile.

Her merciless pillory thwarted, I, below, Begin to look at him, my hurtful moon.

His lurid physiognomy hurts me And obviates my right to silence.

So, I answer his eternal question: “The friend you importuned me for, I have None. No one can bear the ignominy That must come with consecrating the moon.”

Behind a pall, his round face disappears.

The undulating crescendos of rage And solitude drown me, and my knees buckle.

The currents wrap me into the cliff’s hair And watch as each strand rapidly decays.

Thus, I am tied in a violent, sere embrace.

One with the cliff, I am now transfigured.

I take one last breath before unity, But suddenly I wake in the kitchen.

Now, never have I felt more like the cliff.

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Cole FitzGibbons ’21

How Far Gone?

He The man gazes into himself, and finds his dearest again. She had been hidden for quite some time but is now illuminated.

She is an image of another. She bears another’s visage, another’s shape, another’s voice (those of the girl from the dance; but the dance is far gone, and the man knows this). This girl was there for but a second with the man: she left as abruptly as she barged into his life, leaving only her appearance for his memory.

The image was a sanctum. For a while he would retreat to her and discover idyll in her presence. But he grew dissatisfied and unappreciative. He ventured out, disdaining this precious jewel, in search of another. Of course, he returned with an outward solitude more profound than before, a craving for inward sympathy renewed.

So now she is once more conjured up within him, for him. He smiles at her, tentatively, reassured by her apparent forgiveness.

He waits for a return of the gesture, but in vain. Her face, so charming, so clear, is utterly lifeless. And her body, a marvelous work, has no vigor.

The man sees only his empty reflection in his jewel, but he knows she is animated, and he knows she cares for him. She must—how else could he be so comforted by her emergence?

He says to himself: “Her grace is unparalleled, her beauty, incomparable.

My dearest will forgive me and guide me openly and without hesitation.”

The man has built himself an idol, one he can neither fully comprehend nor fully restrain.

“Jewel, craft me an esteem for you so great that I may correct my debt!”

The jewel’s model, the dancer, was a naiad; lithe and light, she waltzed with the easiest, most enrapturing step. She flowed as a zephyr. She spoke as the sea. And for that moment the girl was his partner, she ignited the man.

His solitude had never been as impregnable and absolute as when he was separated from the girl. He burned down, slowly, excruciatingly, until only

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a cool pit remained. But he crafted his dearest from it: she was fashioned stolid and withstanding. His sustenance had been born of his affliction.

As he wonders at the jewel in a daze, the man thinks of the dancer. He wonders whether she could have loved him. He certainly could have loved her. But she’s so far gone now, and his dearest is here in her stead.

She “Hello mother, dear. Yes, yes, I’m holding up fine. Well, you know how intricate these murder trials can be. Oh sure, I’ll call you if anything at all pressing comes up. No, I said she told me they were going to ask me to be a partner tomorrow. Yes, yes. OK, talk to you later, love. Bye-bye.”

Daphne hangs up. She is standing at a crosswalk, urban life racing by.

But she retains her poise. She knows that in order to be a respected professional woman, she must constantly be just that—professional.

Businessmen lust after her delicate form, clients betray themselves, and friends ask for favors. Sometimes it is more tempting to abandon her careful diligence and indulge in pleasure, ease, and kindness. But with the simple reminder, “gone are my days of carelessness and dancing,” she is always able to return to productivity.

The light changes, and she crosses the street. Daphne had been a dazzling dancer. In fact, she was once called “Grace” for her ease of movement.

Most of the dances were trivial and unmemorable. Some linger in her memory, including the Lakewood ball. She enters the firm’s building and then an elevator. That dance was years and years ago; Daphne is surprised to recall it at all. Her partners had varied, but her favorite that night was the quiet man. The elevator pings, she gets out, and makes her way into her office.

He danced softly and gently, smiled at her simply and even tenderly. His name she cannot quite remember, but perhaps it was John. The memory is poignant; she catches herself, reckless as her cherished parties, wondering about him.

“Oh well,” she exhales, sitting at her desk and turning on a PC, “that’s all far gone now.”

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Saoirse Killion ’21

Graphite Sketch of Kasia

NEW IMAGE TO COME

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Saoirse Killion ’21

Love Letters You know how, before we were born, love letters were the most wonderful things? They were the sweetest mementoes, every word selfishly claiming a heartstring, tattooing itself in cursive lettering and springtime roses on skin. Ink colors wrinkled sketchbook pages, and hopelessly stained writer’s fingertips.

The words that leave lips are fleeting; they are hopelessly lost to the past.

They can’t feel the world’s strange contours, or taste a sweet summer breeze; they can’t see the autumn sunset, or watch the fading crimson of leaves.

Written word never leaves the tongue, yet never ceases to exist. No longer might they be relevant, but script written in a once familiar hand is beautiful. Can people write love letters again? Memories of warmth, however tinged with sorrow, are comforting in a way. They exist in a strange equilibrium: forever decaying, forever fresh.

If only ink made them forever true.

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Anonymous

real “By exchanging self and object, we can project ourselves onto the other and gain self-consciousness.”

From Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, a wholly mediocre book as i am the object, you are the person—and vice versa— and then we swap realities: i become Real for you and you become Real for me, and together we affirm that mutual Reality. then suddenly, it’s not all in my head! in years of living as barely more than a ghost, where even the air i inhale stands still, and my touch is forever frozen cold, suddenly, i’m made of flesh and of moving blood and of bone; suddenly, the space i pass through shifts, and the ground beneath me bends, and my body really is my own! i’m just so Real now, right? i raise this mirror to see what you have seen, the dual lines of touch and of gaze, both yours, that have set the contours of my face, finally given shape by you. but even as i lift that glass in joy and in hope, i can’t deny, steadily creeping from below, that some latent part of me is still thrown because here’s the horrible, gutted truth i’ve spent so, so, so long trying to ignore— though you can tell me that i’m Real over and over until we both grow grey and old, and though my mind can desperately want that perfect lie to hold, though i have never been closer to embodying such a sacred role, and in a brief moment, i had almost crossed that one threshold—

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it’s impossible to ignore you couldn’t reflect or refract or swap in any of me, for my breath remains dull, and my touch still isn’t warm; dimly, i wonder if anyone will ever be up to the task as i stare into the mirror, darkly revealing that eternal lack of form— still just that constant, stagnating air, nothing but frozen space standing alone— so though we came close to Reality, my friend, i guess i couldn’t help it: i’m that same old, unchanging, ever-barren unknown.

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Anonymous

what keeps me up at night at night things recede into shadow; they disappear, sinking under the ebb and flow of inky dark. and it’s just me, and every molecule of shadow. i see each particle. they hum and clot together and taste like river water, seeping in where it is dark. i stretch my hand upwards through thickened air, feel tons and tons of pressure, press my palm up against the bruise, and it is dark. and i let its steady groan reverberate through my skin. i’m touching something sacred, something deep i was never meant to reach. my hand falls back. hush now, child, just let it go— just think: here it’s safe and warm and dark.

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Max Agigian ’19

That’s Just the Way It Is Sometimes Johnny! you cry out in anguish. Johnny!

Yes, Papa? Your son smiles sweetly up at you. You suspect his guilt.

Your voice is impossible, rife with contradictions: Eating sugar?

You have no time to recover from what you have just done before he replies.

No, Papa.

You must know. Despising yourself, you press on. Telling lies? The youngest and most vulnerable of the eldritch gods cringes slightly.

Your son, unfazed by the words that have just nullified your soul, answers with another falsehood: No, Papa.

You cannot contain it. The words rip through the surface of time, forcing themselves out of your terrified, flailing throat: Open your mouth.

Your son, the last gasp of causality in a universe now crumbling, turns his smiling face towards you and laughs brightly. Ha, ha, ha!

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Anonymous

Language Is My Lover Language is my lover, and I met her in seventh grade.

She was introduced to me by a girl with red hair and shining green eyes, Who wasn’t very good yet, I’ll admit, But two hours of practice a day can change that “exponentially.”

Reading a classic a week rapidly adds “vacates” and “monotonous” to the “quotidian” vocabulary.

I fall in love with her and the words she weaves simultaneously.

Language is my lover, and in eighth grade, she is ugly.

Our girl never warned me about this side of her before.

“Dyke” and “bitch” and “fag” thrown at me, in this place supposed to protect me, Because I loved her too much, and she belonged to axe body spray and khakis, While I wore a plaid skirt and tights.

Language is my lover, but she’s a cheater.

She cares more about being cruel than beautiful now, echoing from behind a stately desk with a rancid sweetness.

Polished and pure and puritanical, Their vernacular reflects only my breasts and the brand between my thighs, The cut of my tongue, and my blood, shining with a rainbow.

She laughs with them at these caricatures of me.

Language is my lover, but she hates my friends.

She laughs as she cuts them to the quick, as hair that took three hours to braid is condemned to the iron.

She turns on my best friend and attacks him as she did me, Except he bleeds blue, pink, and white, With a balm dripping from a needle that convinces his brain not to shut down until next week.

Language is my lover, but she’s always been fickle.

She abandoned me for nuns and preachers then, She ignores my calls for a stranger with an anonymous profile now, And she’ll never stay with me long enough that I might explain What pleading for personhood is like with her many entanglements.

48

Richard Fu ’20

Graphite Still Life

49

Ashleigh Woolf ’19

The Lucky Ones The sharp twig snagged the skin close to her left eye, jolting Cai Deluce sharply back to reality. She winced, rubbed at the stinging pain, and wiped her now bloody fingertips on her pants. The smudges added little impact to the Pollock-like pattern documenting who-knows-how-many scrapes and bruises this journey had inflicted. Cai had forgotten how, in a world that seemed so very distant now, her only injuries had been from falling off the play structure at the park where the cool green grass outlined the brightly painted wooden benches. That past was long gone, but not forgotten.

Cai shook her head, dazed, and her skull collided with a small tree that she was shocked to discover just beside her. Startled, she quickly surveyed the tumble-down village, attempting to make up for allowing her thoughts to take control. She was relieved to detect no lurking threats, which tended to make their unwelcome presence known in some unpredictable manner.

She took stock though, in that moment, conscious of the odd note: she had noticed there was nothing. Not simply no immediate threats, but nothing.

No sounds. No movement. No colors. Nothingness. Cai felt the jolt of sudden comprehension radiate electrically through her body. She stared back toward the beginning of the village; it had seemed moderately intact from the slight rise they had forged, but here, looking down, the eerily silent scene before them was anything but. Almost all the houses were blackened. Carcasses in the harsh sun, their roof beams charred, twisted, and exposed like the ribs on ancient, giant mammals caught in a sudden conflagration and too settled to be able to flee. Extinct.

“This was a village of Immunies,” Blake gasped in realization. His face had drained, life-color and emotion rushing out like a flash flood, leaving him looking like a little boy, bewildered, in its muddy destruction. His hand shook as he raked his matted, curly hair and knelt down to finger the charcoal dust. Cai and Morgan exchanged a look, eyebrows raised. At some point, he looked up at them. His eyes mirrored their pain. “They must have come through here and burnt it to a wasteland.” He left the obvious, unasked, unanswerable question that everyone had already buried floating in the still air between them like some untouchable, winged escapee of Pandora’s box.

What had happened to everyone who lived here? The Immunies who sheltered here, had anyone survived?

50

“Cai, what should we do?” Blake stammered, honing in on her. His voice wavered with uncertainty, just as his hands always shook.

Cai wasn’t certain of much about Blake’s past except that he had had a younger sister who was killed in a raid. She had conjured up stories in her mind to explain the matted tissue of burn scars on the back of his calves but had never broached it with him. But for once, her trembling fingers mirrored his. His earnestness spoke of a desperate need to prove that he was spared for something that would make a difference, something to counter the despair and the memories that shadowed him. An ache, like sucking in your breath too fast when you are crying, burned through Cai’s chest. Her parents might still be alive, although she knew it was more of a fantasy than anything else, but what had Blake witnessed? As far as she knew he had nothing left, but he was still clinging to it, to that thin line, dangling, dangling.

“Cai.” Morgan’s hand squeezed her shoulder urgently and drew Cai out of her morbid thoughts. “We should go. It looks like there’s nothing here, and standing out in the open like this . . . .”

Cai nodded in response, her lips pressed tight, holding back her tears.

Her jumbled thoughts were like a climbing wall. Struggling to forge a way forward, her brain clamored for a secure toehold. She was vaguely aware that Morgan was staring at her, but her focus was shattered shards of consciousness, plans, memories. With tremendous effort, she suppressed the boiling turmoil that threatened her just below the surface. “You’re right,” she whispered in a slow, deliberately measured tone. “We do need to make a move, now, before someone makes it for us.”

Morgan dropped her hand. Her dark eyes drew Cai’s gaze to Blake, whose face was pale and sweaty. He was looking at her, but she immediately understood that he was actually looking through her, abandoned in his own private Hell. “We should leave right now.”

Cai took Blake’s arm, a touch to which he acceded numbly. They had been exposed for far too long, standing in the middle of an abandoned village, which once housed those who could have welcomed them. They were out of place here as living things. Cai realized that this close to him, their target, they were bound to have been followed.

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Her thoughts were suddenly shredded, ambushed by an ominous growl that ripped through the village like an unwelcome chainsaw ready to destroy miles and miles of undisturbed forest trees.

Cai jerked, then froze, the blood roaring in her ears, her limbs flooded by sudden heat. She remained exceptionally still, though burning with fear, and inched her fingers unconsciously toward the dagger hidden in her boot. She already held a knife, forgotten in her other hand by habit, but she knew that if she threw it, it would be lost uselessly for the remainder of the fight. If there was even a fight. Two weapons were no match for whatever had produced that sound, but it was better to feel like she had a chance, right? Her chest felt like it would split down the center as a second shattering growl broke through the suffocating silence of the village.

“Wh-what was that?” Morgan whispered, her normally sure voice gone in an instant. Locking eyes, another shot of adrenaline coursed through Cai. Morgan gripped her dagger, her knuckles pulled white. As she was about to step forward to investigate, an enormous cougar emerged from the tinder brush, stood stock-still, and stared at them. Its primal gaze scanned them, their eyes met, and, for a few seconds, they were hypnotized by pure terror. Its urgent, deep growl shattered the preternatural spell. Glistening vampire canines the size of Cai’s thumb would be indelibly etched on each of their memories forever. The cat’s ribs stretched under its ragged, tawny coat like a sagging tent, while calculating yellow slit-eyes regarded them intensely.

Somewhere inside her primeval core, Cai found the energy to act.

Breathing raggedly, she prepared for the fight like a cornered champion knocked down in the first round, arms pushing against the canvas even as she went down. “Run,” Cai whispered urgently, her tongue suddenly no longer sluggish in her dry mouth.

Morgan and Blake didn’t argue.

They spun simultaneously and scrambled through the village; Cai kicked up dirt as she sprinted blindly. At the edge of the gnarled brush forest, they were confronted by a wall of thorns, the cougar in full pursuit. Cai’s gaze darted left, right. She hurled one of her daggers, but in her panic she missed, the blade glancing the cougar’s side. The cat yelped, more incensed now to pursue them. It was just as desperate for food as they were but driven by instinct, not rationality, and an unexpected lucky meal. The 52

sun seemed merciless as they ran frantically like an insignificant earthly experiment the gods wanted to torment to its very end. Cai fought herself as much as the animal, almost tempted just to give in. To allow the cougar to sate its hunger and devour the meager skin and bones of her body, put their souls out of their misery. They were starving, just like the savage animal hunting them; unlike the cougar, they could give weight to the hopelessness.

But Cai had a mission, after all. Something to survive for.

Cai weighed her other dagger in her grip. That was how they lived this life. They stumbled from disaster to catastrophe to even more dire circumstances. The time in between just blurred into non-existence, pure survival untainted by thought or enjoyment until Cai wasn’t sure she actually had a life outside of running.

Suddenly a rock flew past her ear, jolting her out of her thoughts. She turned to see Morgan and Blake heaving rocks at the cougar. It growled, cowered, and bared its terrible teeth but backed slowly away. One last rock struck its ribs, opening the bleeding knife-wound. The red slash on its tawny hide flashed at them as the animal turned and fled. They breathed in gratitude when the cougar was out of sight. But Cai was unable to take her eyes off its receding trail. Her whole body shook as she wiped sweat from her eyes with the back of her hand.

Slowly she stood, willing her racing breath to slow down, and her thoughts tumbled out like baby babble: “It will be dark in a few hours. Dark. Who knows what’s out there? We should start a fire here for safety—for the dark—start to set up camp.” She knew they must be close to his camp, after months of travel and its dark companions. Her heart was still beating too fast in her chest, but this time not from fear. She sighed quietly. “Maybe we’ll find his camp tomorrow.”

Morgan and Blake nodded numbly in silent agreement. No one wanted to risk leaving the relative safety of the village now, even though it haunted them, and they wanted to wash the memories away, bury them and move on. They gingerly explored the remaining dwellings and eventually found a small intact hut on the edge of the village, one of the few not completely burnt. Tentatively, Morgan prodded the flimsy wooden door, afraid of unpleasant surprises inside. They were relieved to find only pots and pans scattered on the floor, dilapidated chairs knocked over, decayed bedding 53

mats damp from recent rain that had leaked through the roof. A child’s small wooden horse lay in the corner, its once pristine chestnut paint scratched and peeled, the only evidence of the vibrant family that had called this home. It’s true then, she realized. Immunies did inhabit this village until quite recently. Cai found herself pondering what happened to the people who had lived here just a few years ago. Where had they fled when the virus eventually reached them? Was that before or after the Raid? She felt guilt and regret spread, not unlike the feeling of shame, knowing that there was once a family that had loved this house, and they had disturbed its sanctity. They had nowhere else to rest, though; with everyone here gone, the village was all theirs.

They set up the few things they could call their own, along with sleeping bags taken from another village months ago. These had begun to disintegrate due to constant wear, and Cai felt her heart sink when she realized it was unlikely they would be lucky enough to find more. Blake started a fire in the hearth with dry kindling they collected. Cai pondered their objective in the relative safety of the fire and walls. They had known for days now that Dr. Piot’s camp was located somewhere nearby, but Cai had realized, without sharing her doubts, that its exact location was more difficult to find than she had anticipated. She chewed her lip out of habit, and Morgan caught the movement.

“What are you worried about now?” She insisted, her voice low.

“The camp—” Cai began.

Morgan nodded sharply. “I’ve asked myself the same thing.”

Cai slipped her dagger, which she had been clutching in a death grip until now, back into her boot. The cougar had run away, but they had lost more: they had not found food and they were down a weapon. And it was only sundown. What would the dark throw at them?

When she looked up again, she knew Morgan had been watching her.

“Don’t worry,” Cai mustered, and put a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. Cai drew herself up, as Morgan and Blake waited for her guidance. She spoke with a mock confidence, for all of them, but wondered who was fooled.

“We really are close. I’m sure we’ll find it tomorrow.”

The bright light of the rising sun streamed in through a high window and yanked Cai out of an empty sleep that had provided no relief from the 54

constant throbbing of hunger low in her stomach. Her head ached as she struggled to orient herself. She sat for a while in the early morning chill, hugged her knees, and wondered how they were going to find the camp.

Scavenging in the abandoned village the evening before had yielded nothing except a new appreciation for the havoc wreaked by desperate animals. Groggily, she shook off the calm amnesia of sleep. Cai realized they needed to get moving, again. Again. And again. As the chirping of birds entered the broken window, Cai filtered water for their herb tea— hardly a breakfast—and shook the others awake. They rose, resigned. It was a harsh routine, this life.

“How long can we go on like this?” Morgan questioned no one in particular as they left the village. This unnerved Cai; she knew, she had felt, that they were hanging on, one step from the precipice. Cai tried her best to ignore Morgan, who was irritated with her for her silence, but it was better than facing defeat. They cautiously approached the area where the camp was rumored to be. Cai motioned for Morgan and Blake to scout the area silently. Silently, desperately, they searched for signs that meant he was there. They searched until both their water and patience were running thin.

Cai finally turned to her companions in exasperation, just as an older man materialized, as if an apparition, near an outcrop, and signaled their group.

Tense and drained, she gripped her remaining knife tighter, but he strode toward them, signaling with his deep-sea blue eyes that he was in charge before they even had a chance to indicate their status.

The strange man held up his arms, palms open. He smiled reassuringly.

“I’ve been tracking your movements for days, Cai.” Cai floundered as he directed his words toward her. “Who are you?” she hissed, her muscles locked in fear, resisting the urge to run. She knew she should but curiosity held her in place.

“Don’t you recognize me?” He seemed taken aback, a fleeting hurt in his eyes.

Unexpectedly, Cai had a flashback to a ViroMed unit, where a caring man in a white lab coat with the same unusual blue eyes had given her an urgent warning that she should leave her home, and quickly. “Gabriel?” she uttered in disbelief. Against every instinct in her body, she ran up and hugged him recklessly. Unexpected relief swept over the group. If Cai trusted him, he must be on their side.

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“He is here,” Gabriel murmured in her ear, careful not to mention his name. He grasped the power of that name. He was the one who taught Cai, albeit briefly, to embrace this new identity, to forget her old life and move forward with assurance.

Because she would never get it back.

He pulled away and looked at her with grave eyes. “There was a recent attack by an incensed, dying victim.” Cai gasped; graphic images of past victims’ emaciated faces caused her knees to give out. She shook her head and pushed the images out of her mind.

“Is he alive?” she whispered and looked up at Gabriel with renewed fear.

Gabriel nodded his head. “One of the Immunies who was staying with us, he—” Gabriel’s soft voice faltered, and he swallowed hard, “—he sacrificed himself so we could use all his plasma, his white blood cells, to try to prolong the cure.”

Stunned gasps exposed their sudden comprehension: one of their own had sacrificed himself to save this great man. Cai ran a hand over her hair and pulled at her short strands. If that was why he wanted them, Cai would do it, but she hoped they were there for something more than a sacrifice that might not even work.

Gabriel’s face suddenly cleared, and he surveyed the rest of the group. “Of course we will give you all shelter.” Cai nodded. Guilt rushed through her as she realized she had forgotten to introduce Morgan and Blake in the intensity of the moment.

They followed Gabriel stealthily into the camp, carefully covering any trace of their path. A small group of camouflaged tents had been erected near an outcrop, netting carefully arched over the whole enclave. Cai noted the armed sentries posted around the camp on higher ground blended into the brush. They wouldn’t be found unless they wanted to be.

Gabriel led them into a tent. A technician washed them down with a solution, and they were given a change of clothes. They left their belongings in the quarantine area.

Morgan frowned, looking at Cai quizzically.

“It’s for their protection, not ours,” she explained under her breath.

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If they unwittingly carried the virus, they would endanger everyone here, and none of them wanted to be responsible for that dreaded consequence.

Ducking through a plastic-sheeted opening, they found themselves in a long underground passageway that led into a dimly lit shelter. Walking barefoot, they were shocked to find him reclining on a faded camp-bed. A plasmapheresis IV dripped steadily into his chest port. His thin, pale frame belied the passion and determination this icon had inspired in so many to save humanity from extinction. Cai was gripped by anxiety; bile, bitter and intolerable, flooded her throat. This is what the virus does; it makes no distinction. It takes great men, and it grinds them down.

Only fate had spared the chosen few: the Immunies.

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Kasia Perks ’21

Graphite Sketch of Madison

58

Saoirse Killion ’21

By Moonlight’s Hes’tant Glow By moonlight’s hes’tant glow, you whisper truth.

Confessions pour, so shy, from starstruck eyes.

If I could trace with ink your dewy youth, Time primrose petalled lips would dare defy.

Tears drip in melancholy hush! Are you So scared of your soft, shimm’ring image now?

You think I paint with oil of opal hue, Yet love might fade with golden sunset’s bow.

But never could your beauty I forget, You are my one true muse—my stolen heart.

This moment will endure, time touch us yet.

Entwine your hands with mine; my love is art.

Your kiss so sweet will always linger near— Much more than image is a drawing, dear.

Cole FitzGibbons ’21

Venus as the Star Do rouse and reinvigorate this frame, O Star of Morn and Eve, O Venus, Love’s Own Liege, as dams to newborn foals proclaim Their love, more full than even His, the Dove’s.

Just as the happiest expires, his keen Love lying in his arms, so bless tonight My slumber. Hasten, though, capricious Queen; I cannot yet discern your lambent light, And if you fail today, I will not rest.

For dawns and days I can endure your leave, But when to bed I must go uncaressed, The fear of solitude I can’t relieve.

The happy birth and sleeps of this here husk Reclaim if for your presence at my dusk.

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Aditi Deokar ’21

Beauty Is Prized by Women Beauty is prized by women, it is true.

It is a means to gain men’s hearts, they say.

The tales begin, men glimpsing ladies who To their eyes are the very light of day.

Yet what does “beauty” genuinely mean?

A starry sky, a sweeping field of dew, Have nowhere as much beauty as the clean Pure virtues honesty and kindness do.

If ugly ducklings grow up to be swans, Then should appearance matter still to us?

What counts is not if cheeks are pink or wan, But the real virtues that lie inside. Thus The tales are only tales; sight cannot bring Together two who will swap wedding rings.

Kenzie Urbano ’21

Luna For you, my love, the sun lays down his head.

And though most men sleep sound beneath your beams, Right now is when I choose to shirk my bed, So as to watch you send them to their dreams.

The day you die will always hurt the most.

For though the mind knows of your cyclic ways, The heart still hopes you’ll dwell a moment more, If just to calm my frenzied, senseless craze.

Although it pains me that you vanish so, The waxing state reminds me nothing ends.

Now young again, embrace us with your glow So I may meet my new, decades-old friend.

Within my soul, your presence never wanes.

My beastly self your radiance has tamed.

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Anonymous

things once holy i dust off old relics from all of my past lovers, museum artifacts pulled out of closets and bookshelves and bed mattresses. i brush over them like fleeting scars on my skin, still warm and once alive, now nothing but dead wood and dead bone and dead practices. i feel the light as it shifts around me in golden inches, and i give one more pulse, lend one more thought to this moment of silence, before i finally put them back laid to rest in the closets and bookshelves and bed mattresses.

Anonymous

self-portrait on the subway all my ears hear is its steady beat that goes: tha-thum tha-thum tha-thum tha-thum tha-thum it echoes through my chest like the inside of a drum that goes: tha-thum tha-thum tha-thum tha-thum tha-thum and there is nothing there but empty, vibrating space that goes: tha-thum tha-thum tha-thum tha-thum tha-thum and from that deep, ballooning hollow comes a sense; it tells that, in the end, though you may think the ride has some conclusion, this is all just the same goddamn illusion 61

Anonymous

the beginning and especially the end of all things is it too blunt to say, it’s never her or him or you, never one emotion, no soulmate’s love, no law of nature or religion or of art, not even time itself or suffering or any god above. maybe it’s blunt, but i don’t care, for it’s truly always been “I,” and nothing else: brushing away the sweat and the blood and the tears, washing the grease and the grime from my skin, clothing myself and smoothing my face and unfolding my bones and finally laying myself to rest when the light begins to thin. the day is slipping, so here it is, even blunter, that dull ache: I opened my eyes in the morning and I closed them at night; it’s Me who greeted the world and Myself who later said goodbye, and there’s deep comfort knowing that when everything else dies, the only thing left to exist will be I.

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Michelle Lisak ’21

Watercolor Still Life

NEW IMAGE TO COME

63

Henry Song ’21

A Hard Place The smell of sawdust and raw wood was overpowering. Soft light shone through the open window, giving a tawny glow to the hammers and chisels scattered over the sculptor’s tables. In the middle of the room sat a large block of stone, cold to the touch. A man walked around the block, occasionally prodding it here and there. Of short stature and with a scruffy beard speckled with bits of marble, he wore a hat to cover his bald head.

The man grumbled to himself as his work sent dust flying into the air.

After the air had settled, the stone’s maroon shine reflected the splendid sun’s rays. He paused for a moment before leaving the room. The workshop was deathly silent except for the occasional gust of wind. Soon, the flaxen shine of the room dimmed until a silver sheen replaced it. The stone sat still.

The sculptor’s face was the first thing it saw when it woke up. It did not even realize it could experience being awake until a toothy grin had suddenly appeared on the face it was looking at. While the stone was still confused as to where it was or what was going on, there was a sense of comfort in staring at the face. Soon, it heard the soft breathing of the person in front of it, the chirping of the birds outside, and sounds of chipping as well.

“Ah, so I am a statue,” it realized. “He has completed my ears.”

He could not feel anything below his neck, so he imagined he must give the utmost trust to the man holding the chisel. And so, the statue was content watching his creator work. These idyllic days lasted for six months.

When the sculptor put the final touches on the statue, his grin reappeared.

The statue felt happy watching his creator be so carefree, but at the same time feelings of dread and trepidation came over him as he wondered what would now become of him. Over the time he had spent with the sculptor, the statue had come to learn that he was to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of a certain town ten miles from here. The statue had been fashioned in the image of the town’s founder, Gerald Fitzberg, a man of impeccable stature who exuded authority.

The clicking of heels against stone was unbearable. The heat was unbearable. The worst of all, though, was the stench of the people surrounding him. The sights and sounds he thought he would enjoy were overwhelmingly tedious. In fact, it was only in the wee hours of the day 64

that the statue was engulfed in silence. Even then, his respite could be interrupted by a drunken buffoon making his way home at far too late an hour. One hot night, an angry yell interrupted his reverie. Two men were arguing. The statue’s interest was piqued instantly; it had never witnessed a fight and did not want to miss out. One man was a little portly but welldressed in a slick suit and a tie with a fresh stain on it. The other man was taller and lankier, wearing a simple t-shirt and shorts that gave him an air of slovenly laziness. Upon closer inspection, the taller man was carrying a beer in his right hand while trying to pacify the man with the other.

Those who had fallen asleep hours ago noticed the commotion, emerging from their homes and directing their attention to the two men. Suddenly, as if the heat had made the man reach his boiling point, the porkish man charged, without warning, at the taller one. The statue’s excitement quickly turned into horror as the taller man easily avoided the attack. The portly man’s miscalculation led him directly into the statue.

The statue had expected to feel pain radiating from his cracked leg and was surprised when he felt nothing. He looked down at the man, whose head gushed blood with considerable force. The statue could not tear his eyes from the crimson pool at his feet. Much to his disappointment, people in yellow vests arrived to tend to the man’s wounds. No one looked at him once, completely ignoring his broken state. He was, quite literally, a pillar of the community—the thing that attracted people to this obscure backwater town. Yet, he went unnoticed amidst the commotion. No one tended to his wounds.

A tarp was laid over him, as if he were the marble casualty of a drunken brawl, until a suitable sculptor could be found to tend to his maligned leg.

The statue was horrified when he overheard the townspeople discussing this. A whole week in which he could not see anything? The impending boredom would surely be so much worse than his broken leg. His leg he could not feel, but he could feel the longing for daylight. Alas, the statue cursed the stocky man, the wanton beast. The following week was even worse than the statue had imagined. The tarp was sturdy material, made to let neither light nor sound through its texture, and engulfed the statue in total darkness.

What could the townspeople possibly be doing on the other side of the tarp? How was the old lady who had complained about her back? Or the little girl selling the flowers she had picked on a walk? The dog at the 65

corner? He recalled the small details of the village, of the people who lined the streets. A feeling of sorrowful impatience filled his chest. The statue was confused; why was he so attached to the people of the town?

Somewhere along the way, the extensive time he had spent observing them had made him their guardian. It was useless pondering when this had occurred, as the damage had been done.

He felt an ache in his leg for the first time. He wondered, for a brief moment, if he would become alive and move among the townspeople. But no, the future did not hold that for him. He realized the pangs of loss had traveled down to his cracked marble; his feelings of tedium and boredom over the months had distorted into an ugly pleasure at the expense of the townspeople. It made perfect sense to him why he was now undergoing this ordeal.

This was his second chance, a wake-up call from his creator. With his oath renewed, the statue felt more at peace. Beneath his tarp, he began to look forward to the bustling sounds of the town he once so detested. The tarp suddenly shuffled, and the statue heard voices yelling outside. He held his breath; he would not be in this darkness for much longer. The birds were chirping, children were laughing, and the clicking of cameras was ever present. The routines of the townspeople were the same. But if one were to look up from the bustle of the daily life, a hint of a smile could be seen radiating from the marble under the sunlight.

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