The Catalyst Issue #4

THE CATALYST contemporary literary arts magazine

issue 4 // Winter 2015

ART // NINA HEIDEN

COVER ART // MEGAN FISHER

the team EDITOR IN CHIEF

EDITORIAL BOARD

DESIGN DIRECTOR

Natalie O’Brien

Adam De Gree Alex Manrique Alexandra Dwight Ali Van Houten Allie Kent Andrea Oh Audrey Ronningen Derrick Duren Emily Balaguer Emily Hansen Hannah Atkinson Jacob Kirn Jonny Moens Josh Ortiz Kimmy Tejasindhu Leah Bleich Madeline Lockhart Maya Jacobson Michael De Maria Sam Arrow Sam Goff Selena Ross

Julia Marsh

MANAGING EDITOR

Samantha Perez ASST. EDITOR

Alberto Lopez SR. COPY EDITOR

Parisa Mirzadegan ADVISORS

Candace Waid Bishnu Ghosh Rachel Levinson-Emley

Shanthi Guruswamy

ART DIRECTOR

Natalie O’Brien ART + DESIGN TEAM

Annabelle Warren Chinelo Ufondu Cindy Belkowiche Emily Rogers Leslie Zhang Luis Bondoc Madeline Lockhart Max Goldenstein Maya Trifonic Megan Fisher Michael Dayan Natalie O’Brien Rochelle Rebucas Shaina Goel Sophia Barkhudarova

part i :

prose

taBle oF

contents

:Love in The Time oF DuCks: // kenneTh orvaTez : :Phoenix: // kimmy TeJasinDhu

part ii : : :

goLDen DaughTer // eLLen Jane wirTh-FosTer :The ToiLeT: // aLberTo LoPez :whaT is The PerFeCT beginning?: // meLanie keegan :CoLumns: // JaCob kirn TowarDs a DisTanT wesT: // aLberTo LoPez

poetry

:The hyPoTheTiCaLs oF us: // kaLi Deming :mr. b.: // PaTriCk harringTon sunDay morning: // CLaire nuTTaL

:, :a one siDeD ConversaTion: // naTaLie o Brien octopus part 2 // helen irias :eLevenTh DemenTia // aLexanDra DwighT :henry: // oakLey PurChase :Can you see me // Trevor Crown :CarmiChaeL:s giFT // sean mabry :The ToLe mour: // emiLy hansen Funes el BiBliotecario // yiBing guo

We must all // joshua goodmacher This Lazy This young: // CaneLLe irmas :These Days: // seLena ross: :iCe Cream: // maThew JaviDi shaDow memories: // samanTha Perez remember: // yibing guo :rhone aLPes: // aubrie amsTuTz newbury sTreeT: // LesLie zhang winDows: // ryan manDeLL :CaTaL: // saTine iskanDaryan :FLighT: // CassiDy green :sPeaking: // PeTer FoLsaPh

:

letter From the editor Dear Reader,

You are holding the fourth edition of The Catalyst. What exactly is The Catalyst? you ask. With almost two years running, we still couldn’t give you a definitive answer. I hope to keep it that way.

One answer: We’re a collective group of students who dream up ideas, then we figure out how to make them tangible. The Catalyst isn’t just a magazine — we’re an initiative.

Another answer: Art is an investment. It’s a living, breathing, interdependent world that takes nurturing and love. Have you purchased paint before? It will always take more to create art than consume it. The payoff? You, the reader, the viewer, the writer, the poet, the painter. This is a non-profit venture designed to bring you that love. And what is the product we turn out? Well, you’re holding it. But we want you to feel it. We’re not in this for the money, the glory, the resume bullet point. Any ideas about glamour quickly fade away when submissions start to flow in, and deadlines approach.

Here’s why I do this. I have always believed people should share in the wealth of knowledge and experience. You’ve got something great? Tell us about it. It’s worth it to put your name out there and connect. There are so many talented students in Isla Vista who should be given a platform to express their voice, their vision.

Waiting For a train // helen irias :a LiFe-Long waLk: // PeTer FoLsaPh :The Day aFTer raPTure: // seLena ross :aT birTh: // aLberTo LoPez

:

Working with these artists, writers, and designers has taught me that collaboration is delicate work. I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that this magazine strives to showcase a variety of styles and artists, which is why we are submission based. This quarter, we tried something a little different. Our class conducted blind readings to decide on the material for this issue. You’ll see an array of tastes in here.

How it works: We put together and edited this magazine in under a month, and unfortunately we don’t have the ability to publish as much work as we’d like to. If your submission was not selected this round, I encourage you to resubmit every quarter. Keep working on your craft. If you’d like to get involved, we offer a class called The Catalyst Collective Writing Course. Check out our website, get informed, and reach out!

Personal request: This spring quarter will be my last at UCSB. And “what a long strange trip it’s been.” (I never did one of those yearbook quotes). I invite you to join me in the last Catalyst magazine I’ll be doing, ever. Every spring will be The Isla Vista edition. Start thinking about your experiences here. Start documenting. Start asking questions. Start writing.

Cheers, Natalie O’Brien

of in Love the Time by kenneTh orvaTez

Rachel and her boyfriend had relationship issues. Specifically, a duck.

It started with a post on Free and For Sale.

"Hey guys! I have this duck that needs a home. He's a loving pet that needs care and attention. I'm graduating this quarter and won't be able to take him with me. Can anyone provide him with a home?"

While most sane people skipped over the post, laughing at it, clicking the little like button and moving on with their mundane lives, Rachel's boyfriend Chris thought differently.

"I need this duck in my life. It calls to me. It needs help. Look at it! Isn't he cute?" Chris said.

"Um..." said Rachel.

And so it was that the duck came to live with Rachel's boyfriend at the little apartment on Segovia road.

It was then that the issues began.

Rachel liked to cook for Chris.

They would push whatever papers, empty beer cans, and old joints lay on the kitchen table onto the floor so they could have a romantic spaghetti dinner together, alone.

At least, until Chris brought the duck home.

"Isn't this great?" said Rachel, wrapping noodles around her fork. "It's so hard to have a nice, quiet, peaceful time in I.V. Time spent together, with just the two of us. Don't you like it?"

"Hold on one sec," said Chris.

"Morty needs to take a shit."

"Um..." said Rachel.

As date nights drifted away like a boat to the promised land, one that

prose

1

Ducks

left Rachel on shore, wondering what happened—seriously, why is Chris on that boat and why is there a flock of ducks circling overhead—duck nights became the norm.

"Ooooh Chris! Let's take a weekend trip to Jalama beach. Camping is discounted this time of year," said Rachel.

"Sorry, I can't do that. I need to feed Morty every day. And you know how he gets when he's alone. He pines for me," said Chris.

Rachel tried to think of a time when Chris left Morty alone and couldn't. She tried to think of how a duck would pine and couldn't do that either. "Can't you bring it with us?"

Chris looked horrified. The blood drained from his face, turning white with shock. "Do you realize what the seagulls would do to him out there? It's not a safe place for a duck!

He needs to be home where he's comfortable. And don't call him 'it'! He has feelings too. Imagine if someone called you 'it.' You probably wouldn't like that, would you?"

"Um..." said Rachel.

Rachel loved Chris and didn't want to leave him. Chris loved Rachel, but he also loved the duck.

"Why did you name him Morty?" asked Rachel one Saturday afternoon.

"Because I love him," said Chris. "My Grandfather's name was Morty. He died three years ago."

And that was that.

The worst part was when Rachel tried to sleep over at Chris's apartment. When they made love she could ignore the quacking, for the most part. But it was afterward that the duck really got on her nerves.

Chris woke up at 3 a.m. every night. He tried to get out of bed without waking Rachel up, which was impossible, because cuddling post-coitus involves high degrees of entanglement.

"I need around. He around every his pulmonary

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to walk Morty needs to move night to keep up flow or he might

ART // LESLIE ZHANG

"What are you doing?" mumbled Rachel groggily.

"Here we are!" said Rachel, and they turned off the highway, following a barely paved road to a sign that said clearly, FARM.

asphyxiate," said Chris, putting on socks.

"Um..." said Rachel, too tired to say anything else, particularly what was on her mind, which was: what the fuck.

At this point Rachel realized she was in a bit of a pickle.

There was no way Chris was going to let the duck out of his sight. It meant too much to him. She pondered what to do.

She pondered hard.

And so Rachel stopped sleeping over at Chris's apartment.

---------------It was around this time that Rachel decided the duck had to go. Things had gone too far. She called a local farm.

"Why are you driving so slowly?" Asked Chris.

"Hello. My name's Rachel. I know this is an odd request, but would you be willing to take a duck off my hands? It's been causing problems."

Rachel thought and thought. Cogs turned in her brain that she barely knew existed. She could feel her neurons firing away in the great computer that her skull contained, working away at the biggest issue in her life (at least until she graduated).

"What sorta problems? Been quackin' too much?

Hahahaha!" said the farmer over the phone. He had three missing teeth, but Rachel couldn't see that.

"Seriously, we're going like five miles an hour. Rachel, you ok? I think Morty is going to have some wee-wa issues, if you know what I mean."

"It's been causing issues with my boyfriend and our relationship. It's creating a rift between us," said Rachel.

The farmer laughed again.

With this statement, one great thought rang out in Rachel's head, like a gong atop a great mountain, a mystical gong whose sound waves blast all the mist away from the mountain's peak. The thought was expressed in neon lights, with all the thrill of a jackpot at the Chumash casino, with all the power of a booming bassline of Deltopias past: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

"I'm serious! I'm serious! Can you just take this fucking animal?!" yelled Rachel, hoping Chris wasn't nearby.

Fortunately, he wasn't, and instead had taken his duck to the local vet, a small-animal specialist who was very confused.

"Between you and me, honey, you can just drop that duck off at any farm you can see. Everyone's got a nice pond where that duck can be mighty happy," said the farmer.

"Why are you stopping? This isn't the entrance," asked Chris as Rachel brought the car to an abrupt halt.

"Alright, I'll do that. Thanks," said Rachel, and hung up.

"Enough. Is. ENOUGH!" yelled Rachel, unbuckling her seatbelt.

Rachel did some thinking. She could either take the duck secretly or convince Chris to drive it to the farm with her.

Taking it secretly, she realized, would likely put Chris into a forlorn frenzy, and Rachel would rather not spend an afternoon putting up "Missing Duck" posters around Isla Vista, nor would she enjoy sitting with Chris as he sorted through all of the random mallards that cash-strapped Isla Vistans would bring to his doorstep with the hope of getting a reward. So she decided to use her powers of deception.

"Um..." said Chris.

Moving with the speed of a falcon, Rachel grabbed the duck from the backseat and flung it out her open window, throwing it with the full force of her strength and rage.

"GO! FLY AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!" she screamed after the duck amidst a cacophony of quacks, failing to realize that its wings had been trimmed and, in fact, could not fly but only plummet headfirst into the ground.

"Hey Chris!" she said one day. "I heard about a cool place we should go! Morty too! It's a farm not far from here. Morty can hang out with other ducks while we have some time to ourselves. Let's do it. It'll be fun!"

"MORTY!" screamed Chris as he raced out of the car, running to his beloved duck, which was now reduced to a twitching pile on the roadside. "MORTY! NO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! YOU'VE KILLED HIM!"

Chris became pensive. He feared losing the one he loved, namely, the duck. He furrowed his brow and scratched the duck's feathers as it slept next to him, dozing in a nest Chris had constructed out of strips of a back-to-school coupon book.

Rachel decided now was probably the best time to leave.

And so she did, peeling away with a screech of tires, leaving Chris behind to mourn his one true love, and setting herself free to find her own.

"Alright," he said after much hesitation. "Let's do it."

The End.

And so the three companions got into Rachel's old Toyota Camry and drove up the 101, past the sweeping coast and mostly green but rather brown mountains, driving until the ocean came out of view and was replaced by dull rural landscapes. prose

3

Phoenix

by Kimmy Tejasindhu

Nix came into my life like arson.

Unexpected, blazing, explosive, criminally beautiful, destructively consuming…

It was like dancing around a raging bonfire, being with Nix, careful not to step on any embers, careful not to get licked.

She devoured every single part of me in one fierce inhale.

I wanted to say, ‘I love you’ almost instantly.

I mean, it was true: I loved this girl instantly. To love is to want to be with a person every single minute of every day; to want to see them under every single phase of the moon and beneath every possible angle of sunshine, against the backdrop of a gorgeous sunset, sunrise, and storm.

▲ “I’m good on paper. I’m damn good on paper.

I’m fucking beautiful. I check all the boxes. I’m impeccable. But when I stand up, when I walk around, when you hold me, I’m paper-thin,” she yelled.

Pacing around the kitchen, she opened and slammed the cabinet doors, and our ceramic plates and cups shivered with each fatal impact.

I wanted to experience life with Nix from the moment I saw her.

Alas, social constraints. She’d run away if I said all of that, right there in the middle of the dirty pub where Mattie introduced us, November of 2010. She’d fizzle out, flicker elsewhere, and leave me standing there amidst the rainstorm I’d hallucinated pouring down around us, losing grip of my suddenly slippery beer pint handle.

I knew that to her I was just another guy.

There were more like me everywhere. To me, she was it. Maybe you’re supposed to stay away from people who make you put the word “just” before who you are.

“I’m fucking nothing. I’m invisible.”

I grabbed her by the shoulders; she avoided my eyes. I held her chin between my thumb and my index; she angrily squirmed to free her face.

She kicked at my legs, screamed in my ears, tears streamed down her cheeks.

“You’re more than a page,” I whispered.

“You’re a book. Nix, you’re a whole fucking encyclopedia set. And I’ll take each and every volume of you. A to Z.”

4

“And that’s it. I’m just on your shelf. Forever. The end.”

“Jesus. I’m only trying to tell you I love you, Phoenix,” my arms released her and fell to my side.

“Yeah,” she replied, her back turned.

I couldn’t say anything right. Nix would twist it. She liked me to be the villain. It made her the heroine by default.

every word, syllable, and sound of doubt, because we only know drought if we once knew rain.

So I gave everything, hoping to fill her full.

Nix needed something more than I could ever give.

More than anyone could.

Maybe it was something only she could give herself, something cliché like that.

▲ Her once beautifully wide eyes were sunken and dark. Her once never-silent mouth now left slightly ajar with her perfect teeth peeking out past her lips.

She didn’t like the taste of the air. She didn’t like the texture of the water. The color of the sky was off. The sunshine wasn’t warm enough. The stars should be brighter. The moon should be bigger. I should be better.

ART//ANNABELLE WARREN

For some reason, she never believed that anyone could love her. It was as if she was born without the capability to be loved.

Stupidly, I loved her the entire time. I adored her through

So we'd both go hungry. We'd both have to starve. ▲ It always seriously bothered Nix that I never wrote anything for her, about her.

Truthfully, I couldn’t find a way to wrangle her essence and trap it within the 8 x 12 confines of paper. Chaining her eternally to the second dimension with ink didn’t seem possible. It killed me to even imagine it.

But Nix never saw it like that. And it killed her to think that I didn’t love her enough to want her to live forever. Really, I didn’t want to imprison her.

I can write on and on about things and moments that I want to document and remember. But I didn’t just want to remember Nix, like something that had passed and was in danger of being wholly forgotten. That’s just it. I was so sure I would never forget her that I saw no need to write her down like I do my errands, my childhood memories, and my daily observations. I wanted to be with her, not just revisit her. I wanted to have her, not just write about her like I’m preparing to lose her.

But now, as is evident, Nix is gone.

And I'll write about her as much as I have to because she’s starting to slip away from me. I’ll write until my pencil point tears through this goddamn paper, and maybe I’ll find her beneath these pages. Maybe if I keep flipping, she’ll be there at the end of it all. ▲ In the dictionary, “Nix” means nothing. It means the end.

“Phoenix” means freedom, rejuvenation, and power.

Resilience.

She set everything ablaze and then rose from it all. Never looking down.

It didn’t matter who she left behind burning in the aftermath.

So there I was, being eaten alive by fire, watching as she flew up, and up, and up. ▲

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PHOTO // LEAH ARMER

G o l d e n dauGhter

By Ellen Jane Wirth-Foster

I would like to share a particularly moving account of a woman who ended her days in the same Home as my uncle. Before she died, she dictated a story from her earlier years to one of their Carers, and that Carer shared the transcripts with my uncle, and upon his death they were passed down to me. It is an odd recollection, having more in common with a ghost story that a memoir.

“I scarcely saw it at first—Layla was playing outside and I was watching from the kitchen window, elbow deep in a hot soapy dishpan. When I noticed, my stomach became heavy, and I tasted something bitter at the back of my throat. The sun was just beginning to set, and as I watched, the solid form of my daughter was touched by the oblique rays of light—and it passed through her. For a moment I caught a glimpse of the scrubby oaks behind her, and then she faded back into sight, material again.

“When Rob came home I tried to tell him what I had seen, but it sounded so strange that I did not finish but changed the subject to cover my mistake—I sensed a weakness in myself which must at all costs remain covered. It is to his credit that Rob said nothing about my remarkable manner, but remained complicit in the silence.

“Weeks later I noticed it again, the way the light seemed to pass right through her while she painted at the dining table. As her hand passed over the large sheet of paper, I seemed to know what lay beneath it even as she painted, as if I were watching the picture create itself like the spreading stain of spilled water. I looked again and there she was, smiling at me with the sun making golden bursts of light in her wispy flyaway hair, the hair I still hadn’t cut since the day she was born. I never could explain this reluctance to Rob, but the idea of cutting her hair had always filled me with dread, even though all the other mothers did it, and saved the locks in special boxes or envelopes tucked away in their desks, their chests, their closets.

“The horror was achieved one evening when Layla came in from playing outside. I held her in my arms, her legs wrapped sturdily around my hips, and her little head resting on my shoulder. In a paralyzing shock of love I leaned my

head down to smell her hair, to breathe in her soft sweetness which was the scent of my life, and I thought with the clarity of the printed word: “I exist for you.”

“Unaware of my anguished, never-enough, overflowing devotion, she lifted her head and looked right at me with that face which was strangely like mine, only smaller and more beautiful. “‘Kat? Hello!’ Slam. Rob was home from work, I turned to the kitchen door and moved to the front of the house when I was arrested by a gruesome vision: At once, and at the same time, I was staring into the face of my daughter, and my husband’s! As the fading sun gilded her baby face, Layla’s features faded to a hazy ghostly mask fluttering over the face of my beloved Rob. And as he strode across the room the catastrophe of his smile became clearer and clearer as Layla finally faded away, once and for all. “’What have you done?’ I moaned as he wrapped his arms around me. And as I sank to the floor I remembered that this was not the first, nor the fourth, nor even the tenth time he had held me together as I screamed silently into his jacket. I remembered a visit to the dentist in May of the previous year, when my jaw had mysteriously seized, and for three days I could not speak or eat, but only sip warm milk and a thin, salty broth. The dentist had sent me away with normal X-rays and referred me to a psychologist, a series of silent afternoons in a soft office whose intentional comfort set my teeth on edge. Eventually I stopped the visits, and I filled the silence with thoughts of my daughter, waiting every day until sunset to sink into the narcotic embrace of my husband, the man with Layla’s face.”

The End. ▲ 6

E H T

TOILET

By Alberto Lopez

It used to be that thrones were reserved for kings. The toilet is an interesting totem of modernity: simultaneously mechanical and corporeal, an instrument of repression that itself cannot be repressed, beautiful and monstrous like human progress.

I was arguing with Frank, who insisted that I write while under the influence, while his brother went to the bathroom: the three of us had each taken six tabs of lysergic acid diethylamide. He insisted that Aldous Huxley had written The Doors of Perception while under the influence, and I insisted that it had been some time after the mescaline trip he would come to immortalize in his writing.

Antonio, Frank’s older brother, had been gone for what seemed like hours but was really only five minutes, give or take five minutes (a peculiar quality of Time (and it must be Time with a capital T for it has a conscious and identity of its own and therefore belongs to the realm of the proper noun, unlike for example a slave or group of slaves, which is what we are, at least in relation to Time) is that it tends to pass more slowly when one is waiting and expectant). This was not surprising however given our tendency to begin a new action without finishing a former act (I have been known to begin composing a poem before finishing sex, and even that is usually begun before finishing a film or book or a sentence) — where was I? Right, our tendency to interrupt ourselves whilst in the process of interrupting ourselves; this tendency towards discontinuity meant that it did not surprise us when Antonio had been gone for quite some time: he had gone to urinate, but perhaps had decided halfway instead to brush his teeth. In fact he had been trying to deal with a clogged toilet that had begun to overflow, ultimately admitting defeat and calling us for help.

We found him in the bathroom, standing in the bathtub, trying to avoid the bathroom floor which was covered in toilet water and shit. As we approached he looked up at us and said, This is not how I wanted this experience to begin! Of course it never occurred to us that this might be how it all started, or perhaps how it all ended, because it is much easier to imagine the singular way in which it can all go right and not the myriad of ways in which it can all go wrong: success is a continuum that must be sustained, while disaster is the singular event.

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If history were a map it would contain a single path, a single black line moving towards a plexus of lines, of possible directions this single path might take, that would disappear into a void of white once the trajectory rendered them obsolete.

I laughed at this thought. I laughed at Antonio, stranded on a cay of white tiles. I laughed at the toilet, at its uprising.

Frank laughed too. Our laughter had the effect of angering Antonio.

I ran to the bedroom and pulled a camera out of the closet.

I wanted to isolate that instant from everything that preceded it and everything that was to follow it, to pin the moment to film like a vivisected frog pinned to a tray. I don’t remember why I wanted to do that, I only remember that I did. What I do remember is that the sight of the camera angered Antonio more. It was unusual to see him this angry.

Frank was in the process of crafting a makeshift snake out of a wire hanger and Antonio was cursing under his breath.

The smell was unbearable. After taking a few pictures I ran to the kitchen to retrieve some Mr. Clean from underneath the sink.

I ran back to the bathroom. I poured the entire contents of the bottle just as Frank started snaking the toilet with the undone wire hanger: he did this vigorously, with much gusto.

Antonio screamed at the top of his lungs at the sight of Frank assaulting the toilet with the wire hanger. He implored us to stop: You’ll fuck the porcelain up, he exclaimed. Frank and I looked at each other for a moment before bursting into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. This is it, I thought, and this is the way the world should end, not with a bang but with laughter.

I closed my eyes only to find not darkness, but an array of stars, a universe contained on the inside of my eyelids, exploding into existence in a display of colors cascading and colliding with each other, I was witnessing a kaleidoscope of supernova: I realized that only our creature death is unsightly,

the decay of stars is more beautiful. I opened my eyes, imagining it all swept away, lamenting how whether it all ends with a Big Rip or a Big Crunch we will have ceased to exist eons before this ultimate fate.

I realized Antonio was sobbing, all the while complaining about the nauseating stench mixed with the pungent scent of Mr. Clean and profusely apologizing for being a terrible human being. His brother’s distress only caused Frank to laugh more. I told him to shut the fuck up and threw a plunger at him. I turned to Antonio and assured him that he was good, told him not to be so hard on himself, reminded him it was just the acid speaking.

Good and evil are a Mobius strip, or else an ouroboros, except the snake has heads on both ends, good and evil, and this gives rise to the eternal battle, the question: which head will devour which in the process of devouring itself. I assume the answer is inconsequential as long as the snake has devoured itself, but Antonio is one to lament the death of both.

Just as Antonio was calming down Frank started plunging the toilet as vigorously as he had snaked it, splashing toilet water in the process. Gagging, Antonio launched into a renewed barrage of curses.

I pushed Frank out of the way and flushed the toilet. It was still clogged because instead of disappearing, the water and shit began to rise and the toilet bowl overflowed.

Frank and I cursed while Antonio continued to gag as he tried to wipe himself clean on the shower curtain.

It was all too much. I closed my eyes and when I opened them it was as though I was seeing the world through a fish eye lens: Antonio was sobbing and gagging, Frank was cackling uncontrollably and the toilet continued to overflow, spewing everything which it had been forced to swallow. The fumes had my head throbbing, but above all else it was a thought problem that left my head pulsing with pain: my mind simply could not reconcile the image of exploding stars with the image of an exploding toilet, it refused to conceive of a universe in which the 8

two could exist, and simultaneously at that.

I decided something else must be done. I ran to the hall closet where I kept my snorkeling gear. I put the diving mask and fins on but left the snorkel behind. I walked backwards toward the toilet, pausing when I felt the rim touch the back of my legs. I looked at Frank and Antonio, gave them a salute, took a deep breath and allowed myself to fall backwards into the toilet.

The going was slow as visibility was non-existent in the murky water. I had to use the pipe walls caked with years of shit to guide myself, no trace of the actual walls left under the

ART // LUIS BONDOC

grime which collected like sedimentary rock (histories of this apartment’s inhabitants traced back to its origins with each layer). Then suddenly my forward progress was halted by a barrier: this must be the blockage, I thought.

It took some time but I was able to break on through to the other side. All the while I wondered how I was able to hold my breath for so long.

Suddenly I was flushed away on a monumental tidal wave of shit, an eternity of feces, dragged through stinking rapids which all flowed into a Nile of filth. This river is fed by tributaries that originate at every toilet in every world in every plane of existence, a trans-dimensional serpent which in theory can take you anywhere. So it was that I ended up at my grandparents’ house, shot out of their toilet like water from Old Faithful, shit like curd sliding down the bone white tile walls, toilet water dripping from the ceiling. I stood up and listened intently: I could hear the clinking of metal against porcelain, it was almost musical, a quotidian symphony, muffled voices, slow chewing — what I heard and what I imagined I heard one and the same. Yes, I could even hear my grandmother’s heart murmuring, I’m too old for this shit, but she would never say shit (unless it was an extraordinary situation). I gathered myself, took a deep breath (bad fucking idea) and gagged: it was the smell of decay, stagnant waters of the Bog which filled my lungs. I quietly exited the bathroom into a hall, the bathroom being across from the dining room.

Katia mentioned an unpleasant smell and, just as everyone began to sniff the air in that same way you expect a hound dog prose

9

to (their noses high in the air not low to the ground however), she turned to me, smiled and ran to me only to hesitate (midsqueal and all) as she noticed I was dripping wet and filthy.

Hello everyone, the words faded to a faint whisper. Everyone was there: grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, and their extended families (their strange faces contorted in disgust).

And all I could think was how the hell do they all fit. It was a multitude of strangers. I almost expected to see Christ turning water into wine while his disciples handed out bread and fish among the crowd. This explained the symphony of utensils at least. But then there was a silence unnatural for a crowd that size. All I could do was try not to laugh.

Suddenly I realized: The camera was still around my neck.

My mind began to wander: how do you assimilate, at the ripe old age of twenty-three, the fact that you are a failure and have an entire lifetime ahead of you to regret the mistakes you didn’t know you made, you’ll never know you made, you’ll just keep traveling down a river of shit as you watch the many possible lives you could have had drift past you on either shore, unable to swim against the current.

The multitude spoke in unison. I was assaulted by the monolithic voice of the masses with a single question: Where is Maru?

She was precisely what had motivated this trip, or rather her absence from my life.

I told them I felt dizzy, weak at the knees, nauseous, cancerous, syphilic, bubonic. I have to find a toilet, I moaned as I stumbled back to the bathroom I had emerged from. The

so that it lay between us. Who is that, I asked wordlessly. That is Tadzio¸he responded, though upon closer inspection I saw that it was the face of Maru, with lips so voluptuous I had the urge to kiss them. Please don’t, he said. I looked at him startled, then smiled. Do you always carry that with you, I asked. And before he could answer, Why do you have it with you?

This was his answer: I carry a bust of my lover since the realization that I do not love him, but the idea of him. You could say that if love is a sin I love the sin and not the sinner. If love is a wild strawberry I love the juice but not the pulp. If love is Hell I love the heat but not the fire. If love is Heaven— love is nothing like Heaven, except perhaps in the way that the promise of Heaven is much more pleasurable than Heaven itself. He sighed and looked toward the invisible horizon, the one that must exist beyond the thick curtain of fog.

I was able to decode two hieroglyphs on his face, or at least make out their general meaning if not their exact cause: fatigue and despondence. Now it was my turn to speak: Do you ever sit next to someone, wishing you could say the exact thing, that perfect configuration of words, to make them smile or, at the very least, make them understand that if you could you would help them with their burdens, yet knowing that anything you did say would pale in comparison to what you wish to say?

He sat in silence for a moment, then shook his head. An intention to act does not feed you when you are hungry or clothe you when you are shivering or fulfill your libidinal desire.

True, but solidarity nourishes the soul.

He stood up, shook the sand off himself and looked at me through his camera’s viewfinder before picking up his marble bust.

You didn’t take a picture.

No, this camera has no film. In fact it no longer works, it fell in a toilet, but I carry it with me because I find that life is more beautiful when framed. He turned away and began walking in the opposite direction of the one he had come from, disappearing into the white void just as he had appeared from it.

I noticed the flock of gulls again now that my attention was no longer on that familiar stranger. I thought of how birds experience flight different from man, theirs is a constant negotiation between their will and the forces of nature, while ours is something more akin to slavery. As I contemplated their movements, out of the white void of fog emerged a tall and hunched man carrying a marble bust, his silhouette an amorphous mass which took form as he neared. I had chosen this beach for its solitude, a solitude so total that to match it one would have to be a comet tracing a hyperbola through the cosmic void. As he approached he lifted an arm and waved, and I, reluctantly, waved back, hoping he would not take it as an invitation for conversation. I noticed a camera hung on a leather strap around his neck. A marble bust and a camera: peculiar items to have on oneself on a lonely stretch of beach sequestered from the rest of the world by a thick blanket of fog heavy as chainmail and similarly impenetrable. Did the camera show him the way, like a mystic’s third eye? ▲

monolithic voice of the masses shattered into many lesser voices like a vulture which disintegrates into a flock of crows.

They all cried out to me, demanding explanations for past mistakes and grievances as well as future ones, brandishing their cutlery like the torches and pitchforks of an angry mob.

It was all too much!

I leapt into the toilet and flushed it, not knowing where it might transport me, but relieved that it would be anywhere but here.

A beach’s sand is its fingerprint: the composition of sand at any given beach is unique to that beach alone. It so happens that the sand of the beach I was now standing on was very similar to that of a beach from my past: the key was in the clay; that beach had clay, qualitatively no different, in quantities similar to that other, distant beach which produced a smell similar to that experienced on that other, distant beach. The aroma produced by the sand was a Proustian conduit to a time before, a past experience which for an instant existed in simultaneity with the present one: imagine two photographs, each of a different location, overlaid to form a composite image of a place that does not exist, except in the instant in which it is produced by the overlaid photographs.

I was contemplating the movements of a flock of gulls when out of the white void of fog emerged a tall and hunched man carrying a marble bust, his silhouette an amorphous mass which took form as he neared.

I had chosen this beach for its solitude, a solitude so total that to match it one would have to be a comet tracing a hyperbola through the cosmic void.

As he approached he lifted an arm and waved, and I, reluctantly, waved back, hoping he would not take it as an invitation for conversation. I noticed a camera hung on a leather strap around his neck.

A marble bust and a camera; peculiar items to have on oneself on a lonely stretch of beach sequestered from the rest of the world by a thick blanket of fog heavy as chainmail and equally impenetrable. Did the camera show him the way, like a mystic’s third eye?

When he was close enough that I could see his face I realized that underneath the sagging flesh, the deeply etched lines of old age, the distorted fabric of reality in constant flux, underneath it all was my own face staring back at me.

Hello stranger, he said. Only I would never say that, I would never approach a solitary stranger on a desolate beach. My name is Aschenbach, and he extended his hand toward me. His hand hung there, a part of a greater whole yet isolated from the rest like a moment out of time, a page out of a compendium of this particular self, or perhaps an entire chapter, each wrinkle and scar and mole and hair an inscrutable hieroglyph. Imagine that! A book that only its writer can understand, or perhaps not even he for the book is life and it writes itself upon the body. That hand seemed to have a life of its own, one that the rest of the body was unaware of.

I smiled and reached for his hand after what seemed like an eternity or, more precisely, after a suitably uncomfortable span of time.

He dropped the bust next to me, then sat down next to it 10

What is the

Perfect Beginning?

ART // LESLIE ZHANG

by Melanie Keegan

prose

11

my collarbone, a reminder that what I hold in my arms is precious and pure. I am not going to destroy her, not this one, please no. When our lips meet, I am lost. I fall through to a place that is new to me and it scares me, shocks me. I am tentative and stretched out, balanced on a wire that trembles in the simmering wind. I am without control, and for once I don’t care. I embrace it and welcome her confidence.

Is it a word, a phrase, or a sentence? Does it stop when the middle cuts it off, or when the words no longer have that new, edgy feel to them?

Is a beginning a definition, or a defining of starts?

Is this a beginning?

She reaches forward slowly and, almost hesitantly it seems, the metal touches warmth.

A beginning should be solid. A dense wall of assured compromise. A great wall with no break and a pinky promise sealed with a kiss. Beginnings need to hold their own, they need to have the simplicity of a water bug and the strength and tenacity of an Armenian warhorse. Beginnings should strike the spine with a dull echo; resound within the chest cavity as if a Trojan soldier has delivered the deathblow to a skeletal drum.

If this were a beginning, another sentence would follow it and then another, like toy soldiers. They would fit perfectly into place like gadgets on a rotating assembly line, pieces and lumps of a pristine build. If this were a beginning, a climax would become faintly visible, creeping over the horizon.

She reaches forward slowly and, almost hesitantly it seems, the metal touches warmth. Although it is natural for a young doctor to be a bit apprehensive, I am nevertheless wary when she places the shrill blade inside my beating skin. Her eyes are sharp, but for all the wrong reasons; there is no trace of compassion and I wonder if she notices my discomfort at all.

Despite my qualms, the minor surgery is a success and I no longer have to worry about the strange pains that frequent my hand. The white skin heals fast, and a bright scar has soon etched itself across my wrist like a pale shadow thrown into the breeze.

Beginnings do not imply an imminent ending.

Can this be a beginning?

She reaches forward slowly and, almost hesitantly it seems, the metal touches warmth. I am surprised she has followed through with her wrists, her thin, slender, feminine bones, issuing a command I never believed, until now, she could perform. The metal is my Kirpan, a sharpened Punjab relic morphed from forgotten stories. The warmth is me. Completely human, perfectly punctured and now, readily dying, dripping blood onto the disgusting puce carpet. It’s all I can think as I sink back against the couch, like a weathered tiger, an old samurai sick of violence. The poor, pathetic carpet, such an ugly, ugly color. It does not deserve to be decorated by such perverse atrocity. My body falls forward as if unconscious, plastering my unworthy skin all over the ground. Where the red meets the puce, liquid warmth envelops the carpet. A sunset weeping the tears of an orange. She hovers above me, unmoving, and as I breathe her name, caress the soft syllables, I feel an overwhelming sense of abruptness draw its blindfold across my eyes. An end, before it truly began.

Is that a beginning? Or, because it dives into the story it is not a beginning at all, but a broken middle. Beginnings imply a fresh start. A freshness reserved for French breads and pescado. A beginning is a messy dive into trembling waters. Ripples of malleable liquid begging to be touched and made alive. Beginnings define creation; they are creativity’s first defense against the restrictions of predictability.

Through this perspective, must not a beginning be fresh and innovative?

She reaches forward slowly and, almost hesitantly it seems, the metal touches warmth. There is no other way to describe how we meet halfway, how our heartbeats intertwine so willingly. The metal pendant strung about her pale neck hits

“Aleya.”

12

columns

by Jacob Kirn

T

he columns had small little fissures in them, all of slightly different width or height or length. Little valleys and ridges that made a web that stretched from top to bottom. The posts weren't uniform in size either, some were shorter or fatter than others. They split near their tops and became more and more spindly before skimming the sky with wispy flakes. Some had spikes that jutted out far below the top, relics of a time when the pillars were not yet complete. They did not appear to be weight bearing. If Tom was a year or two older, he may have not believed his father when he had told him that Oak trees held up the sky. He would see that they didn't do that great a job, as bits of the sky slipped past their papery scales and settled on the bushes below. He would climb up the trees to try to reach and touch the sky. He would grasp at the air above the leaves and wonder why the trees existed at all, since the sky seemed to be weightless.

“Dad, did there used to be more trees?”

“When I was your age, there were so many trees you could not see the sky at all.”

“What happened to all of them?”

“Most of them got tired of holding up the sky all the time.”

“Where’d they go?”

prose

13

“Nobody knows.”

“Oh.” The dirt footpath swerved through the bushes and fallen logs in a way that seemed infinite. Tom thought that if he were to keep walking, the path would keep growing, stretching away from his human presence. The end of the path was forbidden to human eyes. It was where all the trees hid from the sky. As he stumbled down the trail, he was on the lookout for deer, a bear, or any other indication of the life that his dad had promised in the wilderness.

Birds hovered far above the highest leaves, as if afraid to come down into the rift of stillness. The only life he could see was large, bloated flies that buzzed around his head and termites who feasted on dead trunks that were strewn across the ground, splintered and disemboweled. The sky sifted down through the trees, and the grasses were stunted and twisted under its load. The forest seemed sterile.

“Alright, we’ll take a break here,” George said to his son as he sat down on a log. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” Tom replied as he eyed the dead wood his father had sat down on suspiciously, looking for insects. George reached into his backpack and handed Tom a bag of trail mix, then resumed his scanning for animals among the trees. Tom accepted the bag and began to pick the raisins

allowed to visit his father during the week.

“Are you sure you want to go? We’ll probably see a deer if we keep walking a little further, they like to stay away from the roads.”

“I’m tired, and hungry.” Tom guiltily glanced at the half eaten Trail Mix, afraid the remaining cashews and almonds would out him as a liar.

“Alright, fifteen minutes. Let’s just go fifteen minutes more up the trail, maybe we’ll see something cool.” He took the trail mix from his son, curled up the top, and put a rubber band over it before stuffing it back in his bag. He stood up and squeezed his son’s shoulder before continuing on up the trail.

“Okay,” Tom said as he walked after his dad unhurriedly.

They walked up the trail further, and Tom saw manzanita, coyote bush, oak trees and no deer. Eventually, Tom’s complaints claimed victory and the two turned around and began to walk back. On the way back they saw the same manzanita, coyote bush, oak trees, but no quail.

Eventually the red Civic was in sight and Tom broke into a run, racing an invisible opponent to be the first to reach it. George meandered slowly back to the car, throwing glances backwards in the hopes of seeing some sort of animal life.

“No front seat.”

“Why not? Mom lets me ride in the front seat.”

“Well, I’m not your mother.” His son seemed to not think this was a sufficient answer, so George continued, “We’re not going anywhere until you get in the back seat.”

“Fine,” Tom said as if he had never wanted to anyway, and held his head high while climbing into the backseat.

George inspected the dirt on the sides of the car before getting in the front seat. He fumbled for the keys before sticking them in the ignition, an action that had recently begun striking him as erotic. At first he thought of it as chance, one of those thoughts that never bothers you until you think of it the first time. Now he allowed himself to admit it was most likely because he hadn’t had sex in half a year. This struck him as interesting, because his opinion had always been that one thinks about sex less if they aren’t getting it. And he wasn’t getting it. He hadn’t gotten it since his girlfriend had broken up with him seven months ago.

With feelings of sexual frustration, he aggressively pulled out onto the highway, almost causing a pileup as drivers scrambled to make room for him. He imagined for a moment that each little car traveling up the highway was like a sperm, but quickly shooed this thought away.

Meanwhile his son sat in the back, playing mind games to pass the time. First, his eyesight was a gigantic sword rending the world they passed in two, though the cut was so thin it was invisible from the car window. He was too old now to ask his dad how close they were to their destination, and they sat in silence, one in the driver’s seat and the other in the passenger side backseat. ▲

14

PHOTO // LORENZO BASILIO

out, dropping them one by one in a pile by his feet. The dust on the ground instantly stuck to them, giving them a grainy beige coating. To him, they looked a bit like what his dad had identified earlier as deer poop.

“Isn’t it peaceful here?”

“I guess,” Tom replied as he collected the M&Ms in his hand and stuffed them in his mouth. He carefully balanced them on his tongue, letting them melt before he began to chew.

“When I was a kid I was a boy scout, do you know what that is? Your friend Willy is a boy scout. We used to go on hikes like this all the time, we’d camp out in the wilderness.

We learned all about the kinds of birds that live in the woods. In fact, the California State Bird lives around here, it’s called a quail. It has a feather that sticks out from its head like a horn, and it can lay as many as twenty-eight eggs at a time!” Tom, having eaten the last of the M&Ms, began to reluctantly pick the peanuts out and eat them.

“Would you be want to be a boy scout?”

“I don’t know,” Tom quickly replied, jolted out of his Trail Mix reverie into alarm on some level by the prospect.

“One of my days as a boy scout we hiked twenty-five miles in one day, and the guy cooking the food accidentally dropped almost all of a week’s worth of salt in the stew.

You could either eat a week’s worth of salt or go hungry.

But most of us ate. Or how about all these plants? There’s Manzanita which has purple flowers when it’s in bloom, and those bushes are called Coyote Bush.” Tom gave a cursory glance to the plants his dad referred to. They were both short, gnarled plants with little leaves which were sprayed about messily like spikes. In between the clusters of leaves were large gaps through which he could see confused branches straining for a position amongst their neighbors.

“Dad, can we go home?” The words hung in the air, buzzing around George’s head like the horse-flies. “This is boring, we haven’t seen any animals.” George looked away from the plants and at his son. Tom was about four feet tall, his pale skin colored by the dirt. His face was flushed red under messy brown hair. His eyes looked cynical and judging. He stood in an exaggerated slump, leaning heavily on his right leg. Tom was six years old, and it had been two years since George and Tom’s mother had separated.

George had gained temporary satisfaction from scoring a new relationship before Tom’s mother, but it hadn’t lasted, and since that time she had remarried. The man she had married, Brian, had been in a band when he was younger and had since been unsuccessful at painting, ballet, photography, acting. He was now lending his talents to “mixed media.” Tom’s mother, Maria, worked as a healthcare lobbyist for a company whose name George could not recall. Both parents lived in the same row of townhouses in midtown Sacramento, but Maria was extremely strict about visitation periods and Tom was not

towards a distant

west by alberto lopez

T

were brothers reared by common fathers: Kerouac, Camus, Thoreau, Bolaño. We knew no shame, being the lying, narcissistic fuck-ups that we are. I can’t tell you how he consoled himself for being such a twisted individual, such a hypocrite, except that his pilgrimage to the West seemed like self-inflicted penitence. I, for my part, was able to continue leading a double life, a triple life, an infinite number of lives, by telling myself that the world I drew breath from was not the same one into which I exhaled. Like a rebellious adolescent I went against what my Fathers taught me: from the wallets of their literature they pulled out two coins each, and had I not been so ungrateful I might now be a rich man whose fortune, accumulated coin by coin, word by word and page by page, would be vaster than that of Carlos Slim or at least the U.S.A. This is true: I’m an asshole, but I’m trying every day.

his is true: I am incapable of writing an autobiography that is not fictitious, at least some measure of it.

This is true: I lied. I’m sure he lied too. I gave him my name, he gave me a name. What followed was an unspooling of the soul.

This is also true: One, two, three, four cars sped by, but I slowed down and pulled off to the side of the road, car horns bleating behind me. The kid ran towards the car, back bent, struggling under the weight of his pack, sunburned skin, bleach blond locks, trekking to San Francisco, astonished, giddy, tired--, from Florida, somewhere in the marshes where the other unwanted fauna flushed down porcelain, suburban toilets congregate: alligators, snakes, creeping, crawling things, the red hot sun sinking into mud and stench.

This is true: the extent of my own experience as a hitchhiker lasted from mid-afternoon until a few hours after sundown, and only a single car stopped and it was going in the opposite direction (that much was true). Next time I tell that story I’ll be walking on the 101, somewhere between Los Angeles and San Francisco, during rush hour, and I’ll be moving

As we sped on, the city became suburbs, which became farms, which turned into empty pastures and then lonely hillsides. Speed checked. Share the road. I told him many things, most of them true, and he told me many things, most of them lies, I’m sure. From our conversation we came to realize we prose

15

faster than the molten river of brake lights inching forward on the highway, thumb outstretched, and when I tell it, I’ll be laughing at the absurdity, at the irony, at the poignancy and profundity of the situation, and knowing myself I’ll explain the joke, I’ll repeat the punchline over and over.

Telling your life’s story is like quoting your favorite portion of a novel you scarcely remember.

As we drove on I told him mine. I realized that the things I choose to tell others are the things which I have not yet accepted as I try to make sense of my past, attempt to achieve closure, and thus each iteration of my past is a result of my evolving understanding of myself, especially in relation to others. Each time I change my past it is a result of a change in myself. If I possess any quality that is valuable in my pursuit as a writer it is that I am a liar. I keep at it, out of vanity, out of hope, and out of desperation.

Well, this is also true: I told him I was atheist. I asked many questions, I mispronounced Zarathustra, and he told me God was a painter inhabiting his creation, and we both realized the pendulums of our dispositions were nearing a stillness at the center of the arcs they traced. And finally we arrived at our destination, although to call it our destination implies a level of forethought that was not present.

We found ourselves in the parking lot of a Taco Bell, embracing each other as the sun dipped in imperceptible increments below the horizon, which disappeared as the sky darkened and the highway roared tirelessly in every conceivable direction.

And even this is a lie: we did hold each other as two brothers reunited for the first and last time outside a Taco Bell that was at least six hours away from San Francisco. The highway was roaring, but the sun wasn’t setting--, in fact it was high in the sky during that hazy time of day when nothing happens anywhere, when the day chrysalises in a cocoon of routine and you realize nothing will ever change for you.

I know very few things to be true, but I know this: I will die alone, on a hot, cloudless day, the earth spinning as ever, planes falling, ships sinking, cars crashing, children being born and learning to walk and ride bicycles, training wheels off (I refuse to part with mine), my mouth moving imperceptibly in prayer because though our anguish seems unending it is our hope which is infinite. ▲ 16

PHOTOS // ALEX WANG

ART // FIRST LAST & CINDY BELKOWICHE ART // MELANIE KEEGAN

THE

HYPOTHETICALS OF US

by Kali Deming

Hypothetical One A nervous urgency pushed against my chest as I turned the doorknob and stepped into his oddly long, rectangular room. My head felt fuzzy. I simultaneously felt two impulses: to run in the opposite direction and later on make some excuse about feeling sick, and to stand there, on the far side of his awkwardly long room, with all the empty space between us and say what I had to say as plain and as fast as possible before turning on my heel and being done with it. I crossed the room and all the space and sat down next to him on his hard bed. I casually threw my bag on the floor.

“How was your day?” I asked as I folded my legs under me. prose

17

He had his guitar in his lap and his calculated fingers glided gracefully atop the strings, stopping and plucking in the most perfect places. He quietly played a beautifully unplanned melody, the sound of which softly caressed my ears with a hollow hand. He looked down at his instrument as he spoke with gentle enthusiasm: “It was good.”

“What did you do?”

He continued to play as he spoke.

“I woke up and went to breakfast with my friends that are in town—I took them to Cajun Kitchen. And then I just hung out with Kayla and her friend for the rest of the day. I took them to the beach downtown—”

“I want to break up.”

It came out impulsively before I had the chance to even consider withholding the words. I stared at him, waiting for a reaction of some sort, but his eyes just bore back to mine and I remembered once hearing 'eyes are windows into the soul,' but I saw no tales of the heart being played behind his pupils. There was no connection. I waited for something to occur, to spark into being, but there was nothing. I pressed on.

“I was thinking about what you said, about how we’re maybe not compatible, and I think that you’re right. We’re not.”

His face remained impassive.

“I think we need things that we can’t give each other.”

A stagnant silence stood between us, him with his soundless guitar in his lap, which was held by his anomalously still, cool hands.

“But I think that we can be fantastic friends. We’re just not right for each other romantically.”

I persisted unsuccessfully attempting to penetrate the unresponsive vagueness of his expression with my pleading eyes until he finally broke the lethargic stillness between us: “We can be friends,” he said, with a nod. His fingers found their way back to the strings and the music began to dance around the emptiness of the room once more.

“Okay,” I said and stood up, grabbed my bag and walked towards the door, where I paused to turn.

“I’ll see ya later, yeah?”

He looked up and offered an easy smile, “Yeah, sure. I’ll see ya.”

I walked down the hall and out his front door and stepped into the world and I felt suffocated by the enormity of the night sky. I stood there, next to my bike as I fumbled through my bag to find my keys, as a horrible devastation crept its way into my stomach. I withdrew my hands from my bag and looked up into the vastness of the night. The stars had remained intact and they shone brilliantly from their black, velvety homes. Soundless tears fell down my face. I crouched down and wrapped my arms around my legs and buried my head between my knees as I cried for the commonness of it all. I remained there for only a minute before wiping the tears, finding my keys and making my way home. I slept fine that night, and the wholeness of my heart tore it apart.

Hypothetical two “I want to start by telling you how wonderful and amazing you are,” I sat opposite him on the far edge of his bed, one of my legs curled beneath me as I traced circles with my pointer finger on his comforter.

“I daydreamed about you every day while I was abroad. I fantasized and romanticized coming home to you.” I began to feel the forewarning tightness that precedes tears press down upon my throat. I furrowed my brow and determinedly continued on in spite of it.

“I suppose those expectations, all those dreams, that’s what makes this so hard.”

I looked up from the nervous circles I’d been tracing and into his eyes. His face was decidedly straight. I shrank away from the choice to withdraw emotion from it, and returned to tracing imagined patterns on the bed.

“I just don’t think we should be together. I want a relationship

in which I have fun, not a relationship that’s just for fun.”

I tried to recount the reasons that had fueled my decision. My friend’s voices toppled over one another: The thing is, he just doesn’t understand you. He’s a great guy, really—he is—but, he just doesn’t understand you.

You’re in two different places and you’re two completely different people. You are wired for a relationship, and he’s not.

You’re the biggest romantic I know, and you’re dating a guy who doesn’t believe in love. How will that work?

He’s younger. Not in years, but in maturity, in experience. He’s not going to see the world like you do.

I want you to think, really think, about who you are. Are you going to be able to lay your head on a pillow next to his, and share every part of yourself with him? Not the glazed-over ‘this is what happened’ story, the real, true ‘this is what it was like and how it felt and this is why I’m me’ story.

He’s already picked out parts of you that he doesn’t like—and they’re not even real parts! He’s misinterpreted your person.

And then there was the last before they all quieted into the recesses of my mind: It’s hard, and it’s hard because it could work. It could. You guys could work things out and you could be happy in a way. But even if he does want to be with you, he doesn’t love you. He doesn’t want to love you. He’s not going to love you. And you love him...and you’re going to tear yourself apart.

There was a cold stillness within my head. There was no trace of individual thought or opinion. Instead, I was filled with a sort of melancholic apathy. A numbness that somehow still bit—the moment just before the loss of feeling sharply extended throughout my mind and heart.

And then I looked at him.

And it wasn’t the way he looked or the way he sat or what he was doing with his hands or how he was looking at me or the rhythm of his breath or any of anything of that moment. It was the totality of his being that gripped my heart. The totality and completeness of who he is and what he is and how he is. And none of that could ever be captured by words or music or a painting or anything. It was too great. It was too beautiful. He was too beautiful. He looked at me and spoke: “We aren’t compatible.”

He didn’t say it to be an ass or to hurt me—he honestly believed it. He was blunt. But the sadness in his eyes held me for a moment and slowed the oncoming hopelessness as a rope of what-ifs and could-have-beens wrapped itself like a noose around my neck.

He scooted over and put his arm around me and kissed the top of my head, and I was thankful. I wanted to look at him until I had every part memorized, so that on all the future lonely nights ahead I could call on it and maybe my bed would be a little less empty, but I knew I shouldn’t give myself such a thing to hold onto and so I was grateful when I was obliged into the nook of his shoulder where I so comfortably fit.

Time moved oddly while I was safely embraced by him. Minutes were vague and the space seemed stagnant and unchanging. I knew it was time to go.

I didn’t say anything as I gathered my things, and neither did he.

I silently prepared myself for my exit. I looked at the door. As soon as I exited his room, it would be over. In this space we were broken, but we were still together. In this space there was still a potential for change, however slim the chance. In this space, the perfect combination of words could be laced together to alter everything.

The possibilities pushed against me as I walked towards the door.

I turned around and looked at him, sitting there, slightly hunched with sad eyes, and I wanted to throw my things down and jump on top of him—I wanted to bury my head in his neck and kiss his cheek and trace his jawline and then cup his face in my hands and force his eyes to meet mine as I’d tell him that I love him—that I love his every part, the totality of his parts, the parts of his parts. I love all of him. I wanted him to know.

But then he smiled at me and I knew that as soon as I chased the emotion in his eyes, it would disappear. Or it wouldn’t be enough—or I’d squander it with my own. He couldn’t love me. I didn’t believe it, but he had said it and my friends had said it and I was the only one fighting against it.

So I smiled back and stepped through the door.

torn apart by the real world and you don’t even realize how lucky you are! You’ve been coddled your whole goddamned life and praised for everything you do and you’ve never encountered any adversity and it’s allowed your ego to swell to a point where you can’t even see yourself anymore,” I stopped addressing the ground and met his eyes, “You don’t see yourself as you are!”

Tears had welled in his eyes as he fought to maintain composure and I had never felt such a strong hatred as I did towards myself in that moment. My hatred for myself was putrid. It was flashing, hitting me again and again. I watched him struggle against his tears, trying to form a response. I wanted to comfort him and tell him that I didn’t mean a word of it—because I didn’t. It had been falsified upon its release into the world. It was only ever true when it was within me, coating my internal wounds.

But instead of reaching out and wiping away the tears, I found myself walking around my car, opening the door to the driver’s seat, stepping in and driving away, leaving him with his head in his hands and his shoulders shaking as he stood alone on the pavement.

Hypothetical three

Hypothetical four

I attempted to seem casually sexy as I nervously leaned against my car, which was speckled with bird shit. I pressed his name on my phone and held it up to my ear as I stared at the grass, which appeared dewy even though it was nine at night.

“Hey!” His voice was some odd imitation of excitement.

“Hey, can you come outside and talk for a minute?”

“You don’t want to just come up?”

“No, there’s no parking and I have to be somewhere soon. It’ll only take a minute.”

“Okay.”

There was definitely parking.

I continued to stare at the grass even as I heard his footsteps echo from the stairwell and approach me. I hugged him and allowed him to kiss my cheek, but I never broke eye contact with those little green blades.

“We have to break up.” I said this to the dewy ground, which made it easier to expel.

“Why?” He was collected, and I hated him for it.

“Because we want different things. I want a serious relationship.

I want someone who is reliable, and if I can’t have that then I’d rather be alone. You want to have fun, and that’s great, and I want to have fun too, but I want more than just that. I want much more than just that. And I want someone who understands me and you don’t. You don’t understand me.”

An anger began to well inside of me as I continued: “You think I’m vain and pretentious. You pointed out things that you believe to be essential flaws in my character—and they aren’t, they’re maybe behavioral issues but I am a good person!— without ever emphasizing anything good. At all. You were mean.

You don’t understand how to be in a relationship. You say you want one, but then you act as though you want to be single and it’s too fucking much and you should just be single.

And you had that girl stay the night at your house the other night, and you used to have a thing with her! You let her stay with you and you’ve fucked her and you can’t even empathize with how that might make me feel. You can’t empathize with hardly anything. You were cheated on when you were, what? Sixteen?

People die! People get abused! People get raped and battered and prose

I stepped through his front door. He was in the kitchen, hunched over with his face in the fridge. I dropped my things and wrapped my arms around him from behind and buried my face in his back. He put his hand around my forearm and rubbed his thumb up and down it. We stood there in silence for a moment before he closed the fridge empty-handed and turned to me. He grabbed my face with both of his hands and lifted it up to his. He kissed me passionately and then released me from my tippy-toes as he wrapped his arms tightly around me and kissed the top of my head.

He knew it was coming.

I began to cry. I didn’t attempt to withhold the tears. I stood there with him in the middle of the kitchen crying as he stroked my hair. I was so mad at the situation, at the universe—at him for stroking my hair. For doing the exact right thing when I was so goddamned mad and hurt. But I loved him for it, too. I loved him stroking my hair and I loved that he stood there with me in the middle of the kitchen and let me cry into him, and that he didn’t make me move and he didn’t attempt to wipe away my tears—he just let me be, and he stayed there with me.

I couldn’t look up at him. I continued to cry until the tears slowed and my breath steadied. And there, in the middle of the kitchen with fluorescent lights beating down upon us and my head buried in his chest I whispered, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

He kissed the top of my head again as he said, “I know.”

I ran out the door crying. There were no footsteps behind me, no desperate calls of my name, no ‘Wait!’s followed by a dramatic kiss in the street and hurried and hushed whispers of ‘I love you’.

There was nothing.

I stood there in the street for a while hoping, until hope turned into curiosity. The light remained on in his apartment. I wondered what he was doing, how he was feeling—was he sad? Was he sitting there catatonic beneath the bright kitchen light, shocked by the loss of me? Was he crying softly with his head in his hands as he sat on the couch, feigning to watch TV? Was he playing guitar and writing beautiful songs with a broken heart?

My feet began to ache and I realized that whatever he was 19

doing, he wasn’t chasing after me. I walked home and cried until the sun rose, and then slept the day away so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the memory of the ease with which he had let me go, and because the sunlight made everything too real.

conscious of her inability, but was unable to fix it. Or perhaps she didn’t try, because her romanticisms held her, and reality often stung.

He knew she was planning on leaving, that her belief had dwindled, that she didn’t understand how he felt. She was certainly gallivanting in the clouds, but he wasn’t on the hard ground, as she believed. He was following as best he could, but she was blinded by the sun.

He had spent the previous day in a frenzy after receiving a text from her that read: “We need to talk. Whenever you have a few minutes, let me know.”

His friends had attempted to distract him, but he was antsy and it did not fade. The novelty of a four-person bike did nothing to enthuse him, the beauty of the ocean didn’t stir his great appreciation of the world, and his laughter was hollow; there was only anxious anticipation-- it was overwhelming-- and he had not expected that. He hadn’t realized how much she meant to him, how much he wanted to be with her—for her to be with him.

And now he did, but he was scared that it was too late. He hadn’t noticed in time and he was going to lose her.

But, she postponed. First it was later in the day, then it was tomorrow, then it was a few more days. The few more days never actualized and it was tomorrow that stuck, but not because she had asked for it or altered her mind about needing time. She had felt sick and dizzy, and she was alone and so he came over.

“We don’t even have to talk about anything serious, just let me come over and hold you,” he had said.

She wanted nothing more. And so he came, and they lay together in gentle conversation, tiptoeing around emotional grenades. But, inevitably, there was a misstep—and there was no backtracking. The territory had been invaded and they could only push forward, despite their desire to remain in decided ignorance.

“Well, fuck,” he laughed half-heartedly as she sat up, breaking their embrace. “I guess we’re talking about this now. Look, I messed up. I’m not great at communicating. But, you are so important to me. Yesterday, I thought you were going to breakup with me and I was a mess,” He looked at her earnestly and his vulnerability grounded her and she was listening—really listening.

He continued, “I want to do special things for you, I want to surprise you, to make you happy-- just, anything to make you stay.”

All she could manage was a nod, because she hadn’t expected this from up in the clouds. But, it was perfect. She saw all the subtleties—the way he rubbed her leg as he spoke, the uneven rhythm of breath that indicated some nervousness, and how he never broke eye contact...he let her see him, and that was all that she needed.

“You’re amazing,” he said, and she nodded and maybe she said thank you—she didn’t know, she was too raptured by his words and vulnerability and honesty and affection. She was consumed by who he was and what he was and nauseated and thrilled and in love with the romance of it all.

“I’m not leaving,” she said, and that was it.

There was more talk of concrete problems, but this was all that really mattered: a singular and brief happy ending had occurred, and the beauty of that was all that needed to be seen. ▲

Hypothetical five I sat in my apartment in silence, thinking so much that I wasn’t thinking-- my sweaty hands fiddling around each other as though I was externally attempting to grasp at an internal thought. I couldn’t make myself move. I looked at the clock and it was a few minutes past nine, and I was late. I was already supposed to be at his house. And I wanted to go, or I thought that I should want to go because I had previously wanted to go, but I couldn’t. I was frozen except for my clammy hands, which also felt as though they were outside of my realm of control.

Maybe if I turned off my phone I could ignore it? It could all just fade away and end itself organically. Or maybe it wouldn’t end itself, maybe I could wake up and everything would be better. I could just lock my door and go to sleep and then wake up the next morning and turn on my phone and I’d have at least five voicemails and ten texts from him apologizing, telling me it’ll be better, he does believe in love and it’s happening—and he wants it to happen.

And I’d apologize, too. I’d apologize for any and everything. And maybe he’d tell me that he suddenly sees the beauty in romance, and the beauty in me. That, to him, I am beautiful. Who I am, what I am, how I am and what I’m about, and the sum of it all is beautiful. And even if he isn’t yet in love with me, I could breathe, and I could rest assured that my heart wouldn’t forever be a mile ahead of his.

But I couldn’t reach out for my phone. My hands were endlessly intertwining and ringing each other and I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed in a universe of nothingness where neither beginnings nor endings existed. I floated amongst a vast web of decisions, of opinions, of thoughts and emotions—there were so many of them—so many possible directions that felt as though there were none.

And then there was a knock at my door. My head felt hot and my heart was in my throat before I could remind myself that the ideal never actualizes.

I made my way over to the door and opened it, and he was there. And as simply as that, my faith was restored in all things.

actuality The room was subtly lit and though there was an awareness of the problems and the necessity to discuss such problems, the space between them was comfortable and he didn’t hesitate to reach out and wrap his hand around her leg, pulling her closer. They lay there, nose to nose, for a length of time. To her, the bed they lay upon was a world apart from reality. They were alone in time and space; there was only him, and she was filled with a hundred sugarcoated dreams of the boy to whom she had secretly given her heart.

He did not give in to such romanticisms-- he was conscious of the outside world and the reality of the relationship, but his heart was not dulled by his rejection of them. He reveled in his closeness to her—he cherished her. But, she hadn’t any idea of this. He didn’t articulate it and her mind was a million miles away, riding upon fantasies, and she was unable to notice subtleties. At times she was 20

Mr. B

by Patrick Harrington

For Harriet.

In blissful ignorance, Mr. B happily tees up his ball and angrily curses his drives. As is par for the course (especially amidst the relaxation of a “‘free”’ game), he enjoys a cigar and a few beers throughout the round. For no matter how any round turns out, golf is all about the company you keep. And today, he is with three of his oldest and dearest friends.

It is a good day for golf. Many would say that any day is a good day for golf, especially if it’s a weekday. Given Scotland’s wet climate, one would not want to be caught out in a sudden downpour, but on this Tuesday, green grass meets blue skies in a distant haze of heather on the horizon. A coastal breeze nips at the curly orange locks that hang from the back of a tall Scotsman’s golf cap.

Father Seamus Murphy especially enjoys these days out on the course. He can only escape his priestly duties one day a month, and thankfully, his friends do not mind the monthly excuse to hit the links. They always arrange to play hooky the same day. Just the fact of skipping out on a normally regimented and wholly unlikable task—–work—–makes the day that much better. It brings them back to the days of their youth: skipping out on school to head down to the pier with pockets full of Cadbury and watching the ships and sailors bustling about. It was a little piece of Heaven come down to Earth.

Mr. B lives for golf. He would die for it too. And he will. For, unbeknownst to him, today is the day he dies. And the 13th hole of the Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society is where it will happen. Ironically, he begins the round playing a sudden death format to settle yesterday’s draw. It is an appointment Death himself does not plan to miss——if you are one to believe in such fates.

Dr. Jake Matthews settles the tie on the first hole with a long birdie putt. Though he takes the win, the bet, and the coinciding cash, Mr. B had hit a beautiful chip shot on his approach. Deep in his belly (next to the buttered, jellied, and creamed scone thatwhich he had for breakfast), he feels his day is off to a good start. Mr. B is at home on the golf course. Most of his days here were preceded by long business ventures abroad, so a day on the golf course signified a return to his proper corner of the world. Regardless of the way the ball breaks, everything seemed right when he was hitting it. Having paid for a full 18, they carry on with a friendly round. No one places any more bets, though for one of the party, the stakes are incredibly high. prose

The good father hollers over to Mick—-- the last member of their foursome—--for another beer. Mick sheaths his 9-iron with a clanking of both clubs and bottles. Mick is a self-titled entrepreneur, a publican of the highest sort. Really he is just a barman who overindulges on his own stock, but none of his golf-mates complain when his bag is bulging with bottles of beer every round. They also do not mind concluding every round at the so-called “19th hole,” the bar Mick owns and warmly offers to all as a watering hole. The real name of the bar is a mystery; there are two signs out front, a small blackboard 21

ART // NATALIE O’BRIEN which reads “Bill’s Tavern” and a white Celtic-lettered board above the door which reads “McDonagh’s.” Seeing as neither name is in any way related to Mick, everyone sticks with the unofficial name. It is a warm place, devoid of any pressure shots. They take as many as they please.

But they are yet to reach this happy end. And it is Mr. B’s shot, so he turns to his clubs to decide which to use. The bright sun glints off the heads of the irons, each catching the light in a kind of dance like the mating moves of a bird of paradise.

The squawk of a grouse snaps his attention to the brush. With a rustle of wings and leaves, a bush explodes and the grouse takes flight over the fairway and settles on a low hanging branch of a fir tree. A pause, all is still, as the two creatures carefully consider each other. Mr. B looks longingly to his navy blue bag, wishing the stock of his shotgun stuck up amongst his clubs’ heads. But alas, such a reserve may well make his companions nervous, especially when money was on the line and the balls were flying astray.

What the golf bag does contain is a small bottle of brandy, which he carries out of his fear of death. He does so not out of a refusal to die sober but rather out of superstition that whiskey—-- the Gaelic uisce beatha, the water of life—-- is a remedy for any brush with death. He is the kind of man who would believe in such fates as Death’s cold hard knock upon one’s life-door. But it wouldn’t do him any good; his death was to be swift, leaving no time for even a single reviving drop to reach his lips.

ball so hard that his be-wearied heart can no longer hold on. He collapses to the ground, struck dead by a stroke—-- and by a life of too much and too great quality.

For despite his untimely death, he will have an undeniable legacy. He is the only man whose parting act was to make a hole in one.

Mr. B selects his club and readies his shot.

Mr. B was a real man who actually did pass away during a sudden death round immediately after striking what would be a hole in one. The rest of the details of the tale are purely the author’s imaginative embellishments. ▲

Not on the final hole of the course, but on the final hole of his life, Mr. B forcefully torques his 6’2’’ frame in hopes of a mighty drive. And a mighty drive it is, for he strikes the 22

ART // MAYA TRIFONIC

SUNDAY MORNING

a fragment of a memoir

by Claire Nuttal

Most mornings, I will wake to my alarm. To the snooze button, a scrambling, a silence. To pale light painting wobbly shapes on bare legs. To quiet. Most mornings I will slide sleepswollen toes to the cool corners of the bedsheets, to carpet, to cool tile. Tug on socks. Rinse my face with cool water. I will blearily stumble downstairs to sugary-sweet cereals and lips pressed to my hair and Dad reading the morning paper. To Mom making scrambled eggs and coffee.

But some mornings are this morning.

This morning I wake in the dark of too early, to choked screams splintering what is left of my dreams. Ache for a snooze button to the sound of a mother losing her son, put it off until another time. I play dead. Imagine my blood turning to sand, heavy and stagnant in my wrists, hips, the base of my skull. Will my body to sink back: into the bed, or the sleep, or the silence. But some quiet part of me knows better.

Exhale, Claire. Roll over. Hurry. Obey the muscle memory murmuring get up, go see and fall prey to the scrambling, cool corners and carpet. Don’t bother with socks.

This morning I wake to chaos and confusion and too many bright lights and too much noise and too much hurt for too early. I peer through the doorway of my big brother’s room. He is a broken doll, all crooked limbs. Unmoving. I hate the sharp color of it all, the bright blue bedspread dark with prose

23

urine, the rosy flush staining his cheeks. Yellow yellow yellow stretchers, blood red plastic equipment. Blue red yellow lights, flickering outside, licking at the windowsills.

The paramedics hover over his form like flies on a carcass, out of context in this pretty, beige home. My whitewalled home that will always be too big for the furniture, for the thin-framed woman behind me, calling for my dad. For the soft-faced man before me, calling for my brother, begging him to breathe.

Roll over. Hurry. Obey. Muscle memory kicks in. Dad tugs at his face– wet with vomit– before the paramedics gently pull him away.

No one calls my name. No one asks for my help. I am excess and unnecessary. But on mornings like this there is too much for me to go back to sleep. I hover in the doorway and watch my big brother try very hard to die. Shiver in limbo between the soft dark and sharp light.

I hear screaming, glance down, and my hands are shaking.

The screaming, the screaming is me. The white walls close in and the high roof crashes down because everything here reeks of too much alcohol. Now he is a broken doll unmoving and wet with vomit and I am still just excess.

Most mornings I will go downstairs for Lucky Charms, but this morning the world ends. ▲

ONE SIDED conversation

a

with

ROLAND BARTHES AN IMPRESSIONISTIC ESSAY IN RESPONSE TO "DEATH OF THE AUTHOR" BY R.B.

By NATALIE O’BRIEN Something about that cigarette poking out from between two weathered fingers endears him to me, makes him human.

Barthes interrogates all life by nature, and conversation is no exception. We doubtless both view this as some sort of experiment. However, that does not mean we will carry the same suppositions. I know nothing about this man other than that he is a man who is read and discussed in virtually every modern art and literature course I’ve come across. I know he is balding, enjoys cigarettes, and (depending on the photographer) appears predominantly in black and white. I decided not to google him (an appropriately inappropriate-sounding verb) beforehand because it seemed tactless, considering the topic.

He knows zilch about me—less than I claim to know about him. I wonder what he thinks of my tie-dye pants. I wonder if he will think these pants seem like something I would wear because I’m me, or if these pants are just crazy pants—pants that have absolutely nothing to do with me.

I vaguely remember a lecture on Balzac in a neurosciencemeets-humanities course: A sound bite, “He worked himself to death” imprinted there. It seemed a bit silly at the time, being so passionate (or crazy) as to literally write oneself to death. So when the name Balzac tumbles off the tongue, I immediately picture him sealed in a creaky, mildewy attic illuminated by a single scrap-wax candle, malnourished, as droplets of sweat soak through several layers of his manuscript. Why I picture this, I don’t know. The other thing I think of, when my attention in this vision falls to the manuscript, is the story of a captain’s wife who loses her memory. But that fun fact mentioned tangentially was a scrap blown up to headline proportions which got stuck by thumb into my frontal lobe.

I suppose he’s taking stock of me as I’m taking stock of his office space, which is mostly in shadow and cozily insulated on two walls with several layers of books. They aren’t in 24

grayscale like their master, and I find myself getting caught up in the words while he waits for me to begin.

“I went to LACMA for the first time this past summer on my way home from school. I finally broke the hundred-dollar bill that had been maturing in the front pouch of my purse for the last two months on the fancy exhibit. As I let the bill slide through clamped fingers, I tried to reason with myself.

'See, I borrowed some money,'” I explain.

He settles in a low leather armchair and reaches for the cigarette case. My eyes dart to survey the movement. The glint distracts me. “I couldn’t have spent it any other way—I was going to see the Expressionists,” I add.

“I had to have been the most aggravating visitor to occupy the Van Gogh to Kandinsky exhibit all afternoon, followed closely by a friend who, might I add, dropped his admission ticket on three separate occasions in the Calder exhibit before reaching the door to Van Gogh to Kandinsky.”

Barthes politely stifles a yawn, closes the notebook and banishes it within the side-table drawer.

“One painting in particular, a Matisse, arrested my attention for nearly fifteen minutes.”

He perks up, so naturally I build off of his energy and try to jazz up my story a little.

Twirling my split ends into a tight tube around my index finger—a sign of deep concentration and admiration—I explain, “It was like visiting a century-old painter’s studio.”

With one graceful finger, he signals and I pause. To my surprise, he asks why I called the painting a Matisse.

“Well it was a Matisse,” I answer, confused. I can’t provide the name of the painting I’m about to describe.

He waves me on.

“Looking around, I realized I had misplaced my friend

entirely. In his absence, I resumed licking and smelling the paint with my mind, repainting it several times over in simulation. The way the browns jumped and grooved together up the rungs of the painter’s stool, all in slightly varied tones, reaching a majolica ceramic vase cradling red poppies (I’d assume, because artists like opiates, right?)”—he didn’t nod— “which made love to get the rich clay brown of the cabinet, standing like a stoic soldier behind it. These swaying parts invited me in closer like the seductive hands of hula dancer.”

Barthes interjects again. This time he asks if we’re talking about my friend or painting. “Well, it’s the painting, I suppose.” But he corrects me—the verb: to paint, not the Matisse.

I think for a moment. He’s got a point. I’m talking about re-painting a famous work of art here. Who am I to devise a master’s technique?

“I do paint, but I wouldn’t say I’m a painter,” I admit. “Why? Well I’m not known for paintings. I’m not known for anything, really.” He asks me if I knew anything about Matisse.

“Well... no. Well, I mean he... no I don’t.” While I’m attempting to scrape a Wikipedia biography off the ceiling, Barthes takes up the pen and notebook. The verb: to paint, peindre. I try to recollect where I am in the process of telling my re-painting. Was I talking about paintings or painting?

The cabinet, the hula reference. Okay. ▲ ▲ ▲

Scene: “MA’AM, can you PLEASE remain behind the line when viewing the paintings,” said the gruff voice belonging to a very large, evidently bored female security guard.

“Oh,” I said, still absorbed, and with the elegance of a tortoise, maintained the same distance from the Matisse with my face whilst shuffling my toes behind the line.

“Thank you,” snorted the woman in a way that meant she was not thankful at all.

Ah, here I am.

“The shadow under the easel was slightly skewed from the bottom cross beam, which was curved so that the middle of it looked like it was alive and reaching an arm over to get closer to the canvas within the work. Whatever image resided there is strangely the only thing I can’t picture.” I guess the canvas pictured in the painting probably wasn’t important enough to commit to memory.

“Oh, because it was blank? Really?” I assume.

He corrects me.

“White, okay. Well what’s the difference?” I ask.

He says a lot of things, and unfortunately I don’t have a recording device so you're just going to have to believe me.

It boils down to the signified. What does white signify in comparison to blank? Matisse left it blank is not the same as Matisse painted the canvas white.

“Maybe I was more focused on the construction of the painting rather than why Matisse chose a blank canvas on an easel for a subject. The subject blended and morphed into the

prose

25

rest of the scene, so it couldn’t have been the narrative focal point, right?”

Then I think to myself, why didn’t I think about Matisse at all while looking at this painting? Next to it, a mystery title, since eradicated from memory, and the painting’s dimensions, date, and artist. If I were to think about Matisse, I would ask questions: Is this Matisse’s own studio? A friend’s? Did he rent out a space and buy materials? Or were they his objects? And in trying to figure out the painting process, would I be able to unravel the steps within the layers? I fantasized about my coveted photoshop history tool.

“I had an impression that all the windows and right-hand screen were outlined first, and filled later with the glowing green tones of painted light. My eye wandered from ‘black’ to ‘black’ in the corners and under- sides of the cabinet, easel and window, noting which blacks had more reds, greens, or weren’t ‘blacks’ at all. The formless forms of the marble plaster busts were almost indiscernible from what I judged to be a distinguished white blob atop the cabinet. I again revisited the warmth of the clay brown cabinet and noticed a muted pink aligned with the shape of the adjacent windowpane.” ▲ ▲ ▲

Scene: “See the blacks?” I asked Julian to look at the shadows I was almost touching with my index finger. We both leaned closer, and jumped back at the approaching sounds of the LACMA beast.

“See? They’re not really blacks at all.”

Scene within Scene: I blink back to when I was sixteen, to an image of the bulbous, green, NYU grad student sashaying from easel to easel. We had been asked to break figures into shapes and colors. As a result of this, I can only see him now as a large green oval with two horizontal rectangles outlined in black.

Towering over the desk of a small mousy girl, he smirked and dangled a shimmery new tube of Winsor & Newton’s Ivory Black between mandibles. “Rrrreal painters,” he sneered, “mix their own black.” ▲ ▲ ▲

“It’s because it’s A MATISSE!” I say. Barthes finally nods.

“I was wrong all along. It’s not the painting that interested me, or the way it was painted. I’m more likely to dissect a painting I find aesthetically compelling on a personal level— something I might want to replicate in my own work. I was trying to figure out why it was there! In a LACMA gallery, I mean. As a matter of fact, I was doing so for a lot of the paintings in that exhibit.

I get Cubism—I read the stenciled text on the wall. But there needed to be a reason for the paints to appear on the canvas like that... Why the blacks wouldn’t just be tube-black.

Because it’s a Matisse.”

He seems amused, which I do not mistake for satisfied.

I thought for a moment. What about another scenario?

Recrossing my legs, I shifted the conversation to an entirely different gallery experience. Photography. “What about Larry Sultan? I had the converse experience with that gallery.”

He flashes the cigarette case, and does not object.

I begin again.

“This was also at LACMA, but more recently. It was a new exhibit. I was initially attracted to the abstract painting gallery, which justified in its entry description the unavoidable resurgence of ‘abstract’ art. I was blown away, but just out of the sheer scale and impressiveness of each piece.

I didn’t know what a single one was about.

Except for the lipstick urinals. That one seemed like it would be a similar ‘something’ to a ‘something’ the average passerby would recognize.”

He asks who Larry Sultan is.

“He’s this photographer who died recently, I think early 2000s? The gallery was provided in part by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation (did you read Patti Smith’s memoir?)”—he shrugs—“and he’s from the San Fernando Valley. He was commissioned by Vanity Fair (and magazines like that) to take photos, so he must have been well-known and respected. I’ve never heard of him, but the friend I was with came specifically to see his new exhibit. He photographs the Valley, which I thought was going to be uninteresting because, let’s face it, it’s the Valley. And you know what people say about the Valley.”

One brow arches up like a rainbow.

“Nothing good comes out of the Valley?” … Moving on.

“So basically I knew nothing about this Sultan guy, and if it weren’t for my friend Mariah, I probably wouldn’t have checked it out. I tend to make the trek to museums for paintings... for, you know, the Works.”

He asks what I mean by “Works.”

“Well there’s this scholar, Benjamin. Walter Benjamin. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He talks about this energy around master works of art and calls it an aura. Not the aura one gets at a festival, but the essence of a work that encapsulates all it has been, the times it has seen, le nom de l'artiste and all fame preceding it. Now, what’s interesting about these photographs is in my understanding of the word aura, they qualified. But not immediately.”

Barthes asks if this photographer had anything to do with creating the aura.

“I would say so. The Matisse drew me in because it was a Matisse, as we established, and the aura was powerful enough to influence how long I looked at it. The fact that it was a Matisse in a gallery of masters caused me to ponder the painting process, so that I could qualify it for myself.”

He looks puzzled.

“I had this painting teacher, who you can read more about in another essay. She didn’t like me, this much was apparent.

I like to paint photo-realistically and then add some flare. My opinion, which has never been impressed upon me in school,

is that artists have to earn their stripes; they have to be able to render the hell out of life before they can jazz it up. It’s like those four-year-olds painting elephants: that blob is not an elephant, and that kid is not a genius...yet. When I saw Picasso for the first time I felt dizzy, and not in a good way. Maybe I’m just too close to painting and I need answers... I need to know how one ‘makes it.’ This teacher did make me appreciate color theory, and a newfound love for Degas. The painters that spent four hours maximum on their paintings, with mismatched tones and mutes, scanted strokes and slanted faces, prime showing through—she loved them. That was fine, until I saw her paintings. Photo-tastic. Her paintings, I thought, were actual staged photographs. Incredible. My idol, unparalleled skill. Are we more interested in things we don't fully understand or aren't prepared to try? But then again, there were no people in them. And Rembrandt breathes the ruddy life into otherwise china-doll cheeks, blotchy strokes and all. So there’s the life element, I suppose.”

Barthes mutters something into a palm folded over his mouth and scribbles in his notebook. I begin to look around the room for Rorschach inkblots. I’m sitting on a comfy couch facing the window, there’s a pleasant enough looking man in black and white facing me, scribbling silently, and I’m opening up like a lily in the afternoon. Or maybe the word is “blossoming,” because in talking this out, I’m reaching new levels of consciousness.

“Anyway, she loved the big smears and strokes. The painters who can create figures out of three decisive brushstrokes in three block colors. That’s impressive, and difficult to achieve.

I understand the merit in it. But if we’re in a beginning painting class with squared off canvases and we’re told to make it like the picture, how does she expect us to take that?

It was a very confusing time for me.” I looked down at my hands, which were strangling each other.

A writing professor once wrote on a paper I turned in, “And it all dissolves into...?” These words are burning rings around my ears. What does Barthes think of me? Does he buy my story about the teacher? Am I just completely out of my element here? I let out a sigh.

He asks what’s troubling me.

“I just can’t seem to communicate with the limited vocabulary and story-telling capabilities I possess. My adjectives are meager and my verbs are plagued with être. I’m not confident with my voice.”

He asks me if I expect writers to be naturally gifted. I shrug, secretly believing one either has it or doesn’t with writing, but knowing he would use the P-word. Practice. Or some Malcom Gladwell recipe.

He tells me that words are the same for everyone. He says, the author is a more recent figure, whereas the story superseded the storyteller gurus before. And while I’m trying to tell him what’s in my head, my smithy for language is prosaic.

I’m descending down the black hole of Endless Elaboration, where millions of eyes read millions of dictionaries and live myriad existences which conjure infinite manifestations of the word “chair.” Now that I accept my imminent failure to 26

Taken at the Larry Sultan Exhibit, LACMA

express myself entirely, I’m more comfortable residing in the “I know nothing” box. I stole a peek into a friend’s textbook, Reframing Latin America, while he steeped my tea. I remember immediately relaxing when I read the words: “Cultural theorists reject this notion by asking what directs an author to make her or his selections. Can authors be omniscient, knowing every connotation, every possible motivation behind and implication of their selected thoughts, words, and ideas? To cultural theorists such complete awareness is impossible.”

These complex, circular ideas are taking over the structure of my story. The only explanation I can come up with is that I am not the owner of these ideas, I am the surrogate—the switch on the tracks, transferring information (though my own bodily network of neurotransmitters is biased). According to this book, modernists believe there is some larger truth we’re supposed to unveil. Someone once called that “romantic”— a.k.a. “quaint”—in a condescending tone. Yes, m'am I'll have one of your thought-trinkets! How 'bout the "idealistic", oh and the "naive" on the back shelf.

Post-modernists are more wary to accept an author’s truth; it’s conditional. In wading through these thoughts, I think of death and religion. It comforts me to know everyone dies, while it comforts me to know no one really knows anything.

He clears his throat. Right, I'm hardly a good conversationalist considering all the long lapses into silence and sifting through my memories. Okay, Barthes. prose

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"So in regard to conversation, out of Benjamin, Foucault, and you, you seemed the most accessible. Your ideas were easy enough to navigate and to apply to personal experiences.

Foucault left an impressionistic traffic jam in my path, which led me to the exit and the coast. His words muddled rather than magnified."

Who doesn't like to be compared? Barthes at least, seems excited about his discovery and wants to share it with the lesser writers and readers such as myself. Both, however, made it about the reader.

In this case, you, reader, are the reader, and I (the narrator) am a character the writer of this essay has created to speak for her. This character is fallible and her language is faulty. There’s a good chance you will not catch all her drifts, and you’ll likely not tie up the fractals of fraying ropes.

Digressions, a friend once told me, are his favorite part of conversation. It’s like reaching into a bag of assorted candy, the anticipation and hyper-awareness preceding the determining moment: the reveal of a chocolate bar or a soft, stale lollipop.

The person opposite you in conversation will either expose more road for your mental journey or they will make you want to go around. Sometimes, you just have to sit behind a big truck and follow it until the road divides again into two lanes.

Barthes clears his throat. I've been lost in thought for a time which depends on how long it took you, reader, to get through the last four pages. He asks me to describe the exhibit, as if I

was writing a paper for a class. A strange request, isn’t it?

“Images of the San Fernando Valley, blown up on the walls at first glance just looked like home. The gallery entrance surrounds the viewer with suburban neighborhoods, back yards, sprinklers going off on the lawn; the usual Edward Scissorhands set. Because the setting is a gallery, the viewer leans in, while perhaps assessing the interactions other viewers in the room are having with each work. The viewer may or may not read the words surrounding the entrance, because the text is small and neutral in color. From the initial text on Pictures from Home, the first of three galleries I surveyed, I recalled the words “to stop time” and “confusion about its meaning” the most. I found the curator’s choice to italicize Larry Sultan’s words in juxtaposition with the journalistic text about his work brings pathos to the exhibit text.

Usually, photography exhibits accomplish one of two things: they challenge the viewer to ask questions and construct narratives in order to place the visual information in context, or the question of its relevance and subject matter simply confuses the viewer. Sultan himself, within the first form of writing in the exhibit expresses his own confusion and search for meaning, which situates the viewer at a crossroads between empathizing with the artist and trying to interpret his perspective.

In the Larry Sultan: Here and Home exhibit at LACMA, the work itself draws its own audience, apart from the text that surrounds it. Or rather, it permits us to laugh and cry before we are critical. A sense of humor glues together the two collections, Pictures from Home and The Valley. But underneath the inquisitive eye, the story- teller immortalizes entire lives within framed moments. The curator, working with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, left everything as open to interpretation as possible, save for the small introductory paragraphs printed on the walls and selected writings from Sultan in Pictures from Home 1983-92.

Sultan’s small anecdotal content is included to provide added nuance to the intent of each piece. Sultan is troubled with the conundrum of representing his parents, who are by no means simple. Situated via text on the wall, Sultan and his father discuss a Thanksgiving turkey in the foreground of a portrait of his mother’s face shrouded in shadow. Sultan is quoted next to the painting, “He accused me of creating an image that had less to do with her than my own stereotypes of how people age. I argued that our conflicting notions about who mom is and how she should be represented are based on our different relationships to her.” He acknowledges the tension between the way he frames his parents, and their reluctance to accept his rendering.

I observed my photographer friend reacting to this portion of the exhibit. She recalled an argument with her father as well, on her portrayal of his “aging.” She had simply snapped a picture of her father’s hands, an act that alarmed him."

Digression: Why do we use the word “take” in “take a

picture”? I think of cultures where superstition surrounds the thought of someone “stealing” a person’s image, or in some cases the soul. We are taking, in a way, when we reproduce the image of a person. We take that moment—we now possess and share a moment of the subject’s life. If the subjects are posing, aren’t we taking those seconds of autonomous existence from them?

And to “take down notes” is to collect. We’re collecting images, moments, faces, stories, experience, memory. Photography is stop-motion life, and often people trust photographs because they supposedly document reality. So in an art gallery, when photographs are accompanied by titles, stories, motifs, and filters, aren’t they more than documentation?

“Let’s revisit aura shall we? Before we read the anecdotes in the parents’ gallery, we made it personal by discussing this series among ourselves, and dividing it into our favorites.

One, the aforementioned photographer, loved the worker under the cherry blossoms. I could guess this is because her work blooms with floral motifs and imagery. The other, a film enthusiast also present, liked the pictures with obvious humor and cinematic elements. I, identifying as a poet, liked the off kilter or uncomfortable ones with simple titles; the pictures that depicted a nebulous depth that speaks directly to some buried part of us.

There was no aura until we saw this man’s entire body of work throughout six rooms. Consequently, I began to fall in love with the people in the photographs. They began to take on personalities, and Sultan’s voice, almost prophetic, guides me through his memories from beyond the grave. It became more about Sultan as I went back for a second look. Where was he?

How many photographs did he take? Did he have consent? And so many of his works made me laugh. One featured a Valley princess surrounded by dogs in downward-dog position. Easy.

The one I found more impressive pictured a massive print of a house across a street bathed in magic-hour tint, which took up most of the picture. Surrounding the standing print was dark garage space. Cool blues and warm oranges divide a beautiful, bright image from a dingy garage.”

Barthes looks exhausted, as if we’ve just eaten a Thanksgiving turkey dinner between the two of us. In talking about it, I have now arrived at several destinations.

Authorship plays a role in how I personally view and digest art. There’s a difference though. The master (who I may or may not know anything about), a famed name, immediately develops a string of antibiodies ready to fight it from seeping in too easily. When I learn about the person through the art, it’s a bonus. The art itself, since it is of personal narrative, excelled with personal touches about Larry Sultan’s artistic process and his life.

I get up, slowly, unsure what protocol dictates for the circumstance. I decide on a half nod and stern eye contact.

Evidently, as you would agree, shaking a photograph’s hand is a tad problematic.

That’s enough truth and beauty for today. ▲ 28

ART // NATALIE O’BRIEN

By

HELEN IRIAS (continued from Fall Issue)

Week 4 “Look what I brought!” Serena sang as she swayed through the door, a fifth of tequila in her hand. Tess sat at her desk and reluctantly emerged from behind her book.

“Aren’t you going to the meeting?” The bi-quarterly hall meeting began in fifteen minutes. Anyone who did not show up would receive a warning, and more than two warnings could mean expulsion from the dorm. Tess already had one, but it was only because Serena had set the fire alarm off in the middle of the night with her bong while Tess had been asleep.

“Of course I’m going, I just thought we could pregame,” She waved the bottle around enticingly. Tess had gone out prose

29

with Serena twice last week, vomiting violently each time. She could not understand how people did this every night.

“Serena, it’s a meeting. Not a party.” She closed her Bible and marched out the door without a backward glance. She mentally applauded herself as she made her way down the hall to the meeting. Resisting temptation.

Choosing the right path. No need to pray for forgiveness, because she had done nothing that could be interpreted as wrong.

Serena arrived late to the meeting and refused to look Tess in the eye. Afterwards, the two walked back to the room in silence. Tess returned to her desk but Serena grabbed her book satchel, putting the tequila bottle inside and turning for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To hang out with a couple friends. Night!”

The door shut and Tess stared blankly at Serena’s side of the room. What did I do? She knew the answer and immediately felt awful for her judgmental behavior. Who am I to say she can’t drink before a meeting? If it gets her to the meeting, it is justifiable.

She pictured her hanging out with other, cooler people, taking shots and laughing. What if she likes them more than me? Tess bolted out the door and down the hall, grabbing Serena’s arm.

“What the hell?” Serena whipped around and her hair splashed into Tess’s face. It smelled like lavender and jasmine.

“I...I thought of a drinking game. We can use it to do our homework. One shot every ten pages we read. And two for whoever reads slower.”

Serena’s scowl melted into a mischievous grin. “You are the best roommate ever.”

Tess’s face and ears glowed with warmth as she and Serena hurried back to their room. Sucks for her other friends, she thought, ignoring the knot of guilt in her stomach.  Her heart sank when she saw the time on her phone screen: 8:45am. She had completely slept through her 8am Greek Mythology discussion section. But maybe this had been for the best, as she had not done the reading. Again.

She decided she would rather have a best friend than attend every discussion class. She glanced at Serena, dead asleep from her rendezvous with another random boy the night before.

This used to bother Tess, but she knew that one day Serena would find Jesus and repent for premarital sex. Serena was innocent in that she was unaware of her wrongdoings.

Her focus returned to her studies. It would be a good idea to at least email some bullshit excuse. She felt a thrill down her spine even thinking the word “bullshit”. The clatter of her laptop keyboard sliced into the silent morning and rustled Serena from her hibernation.

“How was class?” She yawned the question.

“Didn’t make it. I’m emailing him now.”

“Emailing Mister McDreamy?”

Tess rolled her eyes. She had mentioned the vaguely good looking young Greek Myth TA to Serena, who had then dared her to take a picture of him in class. Jeffrey Peters was his actual name, a graduate student visiting for the quarter from some New York college.

“Let me help word it.” Serena rolled out of bed and scuttled over to Tess’s desk, shoving her out of her chair and grabbing her laptop.

“STOP!” Tess screamed, but did not do much else to stop Serena from writing. She was genuinely intrigued.

After some clacking around on the computer Serena cleared her throat and read loudly, “Dear Mr. Peters, I am devastated I had to miss your class this morning. I woke up with such a burning fever that I had to take all my clothes off and fan myself. I’m sitting here naked as I write to you because any extra layers will bring up my temperature.

I have done the reading, and accidentally read a bit further than we were assigned for this week. I just find the material so interesting. Would there be any way to meet with you one-onone and catch up with what I missed in class this morning? Let me know, and have a wonderful Thursday.

Yours, Tess.”

“You are ridiculous. Now give it to me, let me write the actual email.” She reached out for Serena to give her the laptop, but all Serena gave her was a mildly concerned expression.

“Tess, I just sent that one. That’s why I read it.”

Tess felt her heart swan dive downwards into her kneecaps as her face prickled with heat.

“You did not.”

“It’s a joke! What is the worst that could happen? Don’t worry about it, it’s funny!”

No words could express the fury boiling up within Tess, so she remained silent as she constructed an emergency rectification email. She apologized for her friend’s idea of a joke and for the unprofessionalism and for missing class, sent the message and squeezed her eyes shut to stop tears from sneaking out.

“I...can’t….believe you did that.” She whispered.

“If he’s cool he’ll think it’s funny.”

“It doesn’t matter if he’s cool, he’s my teacher!” Tess grabbed her school materials, stuffed the jumble of books and cords in her backpack, and stormed out the door to the library.

Sometimes she wondered if Serena was not entirely in her right mind.

She spent the rest of the day studying and avoiding her email, terrified of both a response and a lack thereof. On the phone with her parents that day, she realized her white lies had darkened to pure lies. I deserve to live my life as I please. That is not wrong. She sat in spiteful satisfaction, acknowledging the feeling of ease that settled over her after her dishonesty.

Why should she live her life for her parents? It was hers and hers only. As long as she and her parents were both happy, what did a few lies matter?

Week 5 Sometimes Serena would leave the room without speaking and come back an hour or so later with no explanation. Tess wanted to ask her where she went, but pushing too hard against Serena’s love for privacy seemed like a bad idea.

Serena returned from one such outing around 6pm one night with a smirk on her face.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” She asked mysteriously.

“I have class.”

“But what are you doing?” She held up a ziploc bag with three sugar cubes and waved it around.

“Drinking...tea?” Tess had no idea where this was going.

“It’s acid, you Amish woman. Check it out.” Serena came closer and showed Tess the subtle blotches of liquid staining each sugar cubes. “Each of these is one tab. I’ll take two, you take one because you’re a baby. If we take them around 10:30 30

we get the whole day to trip.”

“No no no I’m not getting into that.”

“Why not? Why is it any different than smoking weed?”

“I’ve heard about that stuff. It’s made in labs and my parents say all drugs open your mind to the devil.”

“Is that really so bad?”

Upon Tess’s scandalized expression Serena broke into a laugh. “I’m kidding. It’s not heroin, calm down. And you won’t think like the devil--you will actually think. You will notice all of ‘God’s creations.’” She used her fingers as quotations to mock Tess. “You’ll see what you overlook when you’re sober.

It’s like putting on psychedelic glasses.”

All of God’s creations.

“We can go on a hike. You will learn way more than you would if you went to class tomorrow. McDreamy will miss you but he will get over it. Come on, Tess. I thought you were chill, you can do this.”

“I am...‘chill,’” Tess snapped, turning the tables on Serena with finger quotes and sarcastic mimicry. “I just…”

Serena sighed and put the bag on her desk. “Whatever. I’ll find someone else who isn’t scared. Have fun in class!”

“I’ll do it. I’m sorry I’ll do it. I want to see everything.” Tess inwardly cursed her lips for allowing those words to escape.

“YES!” Serena jumped giddily and smothered Tess in a messy hug. The lavender and jasmine filled Tess’s nostrils.

Sparknotes had never been so disrespectfully ravaged as it was in the forty-five minutes following Tess’s discovery. After aggressively scanning the plot summary she grabbed her Blue Book and dashed to her lecture hall.

For fifty minutes, anxiety stabbed her in the chest as her fingers trembled around her number two pencil. What am I writing? I know nothing about this class except the teacher who I awkwardly email. She and Mr. Peters had now exchanged more than a few emails that Serena analyzed as mildly inappropriate for their positions.

For example: “If you ever want to chat about anything, come to my office hours.” Or “Missed you in class today.

I’m guessing you had another naked fever?” But the ones reading “Unfortunately since you have missed more than two discussion sections your grade is automatically one half letter grade lower. Please come to class, Tess. It is always great to see you” were more concerning to Tess than anything else. She was already disqualified from her 4.0, and the thought of being booted from the Honors Program was horrifying.

When she returned to her room, she burst into tears and explained to Serena what had happened. Always the savior, Serena packed a bowl in her little pipe and the two inhaled smokey peace. Tess drifted off to an early sleep, and dreamt of a bull with the face of Mr. Peters. ▲

 She saw Serena’s face in the waves and her mother’s in the trunk of a tree. The wind whispered reassuring nothings in her ear and the sun glowed red. Tess lay down and stared at the slivers of blue sky visible above the trees. She was Snow White.

She was a bird. She was a seashell. What is Heaven? Nothing else mattered but now.

For what could have been four hours or two minutes, Tess traced the lines in the treebark with her eyes, marveling at every indent, every flake. It turned out tree bark was not all brown, it was subtly speckled with every color of the rainbow. Perhaps God allowed this substance to be created so His people could admire the details of His work.

She and Serena took turns braiding one another’s hair and Tess knew they were sisters. God had created the two of them to find each other. And He had created this moment to let Tess know.

An impossible time later the whimsical bliss began to dwindle. The two decided to head home, and the next thing Tess knew it was morning. She had slept or daydreamed through the evening and night.

With a foggy head and racing heart she wobbled up to a sitting position. Serena was gone, on one of her mysterious outings most likely. Since she had missed her Greek Myth discussion section again, Tess decided she might as well demolish some homework in the meantime. She flipped open her planner and nearly choked on the realization that today was her midterm. Not only was it today, it was in an hour.

prose

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ART // NATALIE O’BRIEN

eleventh eleventh

DEMENTIA NONE OF THIS IS FOUNDED IN SCIENCE.

By Alexandra DWIGHT

records of every being in this town. I know your medical history. I’m not god (and god knows what god is...), but I know a lot.    Regardless, nothing can stop preposterous humans from professing to know what is beyond. Some claim to have peered into other realms through wormholes, in velvety neardeath moments, or by way of various tabs and pills that can unleash normally stopped-up functions of the brain, but these few are written off as mad men. These few pose a threat to the very frightened white picket fence society. Yes, the cosmic wanderer is a danger encroaching on the safety of Pleasantville—a needle drawing ever closer to a very delicate bubble, swollen and just about ready to pop. So, naturally, we turn up the volume on the television to drown out all that goddamn noise. But, what happens when it’s not loud enough? I’ll tell you.   

THEY SAY

there are eleven dimensions as we know it. Four are available to earthling comprehension: three spatial, including length, height, and width, and one temporal, which is time. But what about the other seven? You can analyze mathematical models all you want, but I can assure you that no amount of watching “Cosmos” will reveal these to you—they’re simply beyond the grasp of the inhibited mind. Even I can’t quite tell you what these realms might consist of, and I know a lot. I know the birth and death

Did you hear about Lynn Cooper? That’s an example of what happens when you start going around spewing madness: you end up in a mental hospital, a zoo animal on Xanax. I mean, you can’t really blame anyone, they found her passed out in Donna Warbler’s bathtub; you would’ve done the same.

Pardon my rant, I’m only telling you what I saw. But such talk likely makes little sense to you. Let me give you some context— peep through the misty lenses of my all-seeing eyes.    There’s an area of suburban Palo Alto, just past the 7-11 on Middlefield, just past the Winter Lodge ice rink, where the town appears impeccably preserved, cryogenically frozen in 1973. And it’s not just the perfect rows of pastel Eichler 32

houses, the tame lawns strewn with bicycles, the constant tic of sprinklers, and the hum of AC; it’s the people too. The streets are eerily empty on this 102 degree afternoon, but you can see their figures if you just look inside the windows, past the gauzey curtains hung for privacy. Everyone is trying hard to fit the mold of convention here: men rise in the dark to boot up the engine for their daily commute, women look extraterrestrial with their hair up in hot rollers and make pot roast and Jell-O salad for dinner. But this isn’t 1973-- it’s 2011, and things are rapidly changing. Dick & Jane gender roles are no longer consistent with the external world, the nuclear family is imploding on itself, and the people of Palo Alto are filthy carcasses, decaying from the inside out. But it’s all okay! These earthlings are con men and masters of deceit, and they hold their guise well with cherry syrup smiles at the supermarket.

It’s all okay, except for when it’s not. Lynn Cooper is not okay.

Lynn Cooper has just about edged over the terribly delicate threshold of okay-- her plastic is melting under the heat of this 102 degree day, May 20, 2011. This is because Lynn Cooper’s brain is swimming with a veritable cocktail of bad chemicals.

Allow me to explain—    The trouble began for the most part four days ago. On May 16th, Lynn bumped her head on an open cupboard door adjacent to the kitchen window, which perfectly framed a view of her husband driving away for the last time in his BMW. This stimulated a previously dormant hyperactivity in Lynn’s amygdala, the walnut-shaped compartment of the brain through which all sensory information filters. It is in the amygdala where sensory information is linked to memories, causing the human mind to register certain stimuli as familiar, symbolic, or even cosmically important. In simpler terms, since Lynn’s firm knock on the cranium, her twisted mind has begun to attach extreme spiritual significance to otherwise meaningless events.    For example, on May 17th, Lynn nearly forgot about the violent argument with her husband the night before, culminating in a stack of divorce papers on kitchen table.

On May 17th, Lynn headed to the supermarket in a fugue state to buy a liter of Dr. Pepper and a Ho-Ho for breakfast (uncharacteristic of a woman who normally skips the most important meal of the day). On her way into the store a homeless man asked her to spare some change. Lynn continued into the store. She thought nothing of it until she saw the announcement on the Dr. Pepper bottle to enter in the “Change The World Sweepstakes!”. Lynn glanced feverishly at the Ho-Ho package, “Change the way you experience dessert.”

She hurried to the register. It was all too real- the word had appeared to her three times now. “Don’t forget your change!” warned the woman at the register. Lynn shuddered and rushed out of the store. She needed change. She understood the message. She begged God not to tell her again; it was spiritual overload. Lynn shook at the wheel of her car, desperate to get home. Once in the safety of her kitchen, Lynn wrote the word

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“change” 107 times on the cover of her divorce papers. She had just hazily stumbled over the threshold of okay.    For the next couple of days following the crisis at the supermarket, Lynn locked herself up at home, safe within her former suburban paradise—the haven where she had settled with her dreams of tartan dish towels to match handsome China plates. However, the space designed to be her sanctuary was now reminiscent of a dirty cage, and Lynn was a despondent, filthy animal. She had not been alone in the house for longer than the daily span of seven hours since she and her husband had settled down in 2005. Truthfully, they’d grown apart long before their recent argument. The distance that had accumulated between them echoed in long empty groans. A kiss on the cheek in the morning and a home-cooked meal at night had gradually diminished to stunted small talk, and finally, to nothing at all - particles of dust. Lynn had become the estranged housewife, too far gone to notice her own condition.

But, for her dear husband, the silence was just enough to make him snap.

Now, isolated in the cavernous depths of the Eichler, Lynn confined herself to the TV room. There, she nested in her La-Z Boy recliner for two days, surrounded by empty wrappers, crushed soda cans, and pill bottles, wholly absorbed by the continuously blaring television set. She began to question her place in the universe. She wondered if life was really a dream.

She wondered if it was not even her dream, but if she happened to be a character in someone else’s dream. She wondered if any other worlds existed that might be more pleasant than this one, and if there were portals to these realities in her house.

She tried to walk through the television screen unsuccessfully, twice.    Still, despite her internal madness, nobody in the town knew about the pollution in her brain.

Sure, she’d been acting a little funny, watching an excess of reality TV and letting the front lawn yellow, but it’s excusable due to the traumatic divorce, which we don’t talk about. Except at book club. Except at PTA mixers. Except at the grocery store. Except on Thursdays.    On the morning of May 20th, a voice drifted from the airwaves of Lynn’s colorized Emerson television set, and pierced through her mental haze like a harsh beam of sunlight.

This voice—the voice of an angel—shook Lynn from her state of despondency. She sat up in her La-Z Boy recliner. The high, nasal voice belonged to Jim Norton, the face of “Guru Talk,” a multi-million dollar spiritual talk show with a cult following.

“It’s not too late for you to harness your cosmic power! It’s not too late for you to find G-O-D!” Norton spoke from a podium against a backdrop of pink crushed velvet. His cream suit was perfectly pressed, hair combed back, owlish eyes peering from behind thick-rimmed glasses. He looked like somebody to listened to. Static shifted

‘O God, you are my God! I long for you! My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.’ (Psalm 63:1) The childhood words of Sunday school echoed in her mind, alive with new meaning.

And there, rounding the corner at the cross of Byron and Tasso Street, came forth Lynn’s God in a rickety old wheelchair, manifested in the form of Donna Warbler.

All this time spent praying to some bearded man in robes, and it turns out God is a woman.   

across the television screen in waves, distorting the color.

“Listen, I used to be just like you—a sad sack with no real purpose.”

Lynn looked down at her frayed bathrobe, perched atop her growing pile of trash. Surely he was speaking to her. “ I’d say to myself, ‘God, where are ya?’ But, he never showed up. Listen up folks, I’m here to share with you the truth. God is NOT some figure in the clouds. He’s not some great omniscient eye - no, he’s not!”

The sentiment spoke to Lynn. She’d been wondering herself when some great cosmic hand might come sweep her off the recliner and make things right, maybe nudge her back into reality. But by now she’d long lost faith in the concept. If God existed, he was a quiet man.

Norton spoke again, relaying the solution to her qualms like some holy messenger.

“No, GOD walks with us here on planet Earth, GOD is in every living being, GOD is the first face you see on the street today!” His voice swelled with power, its rhythm matching Lynn’s pulse as she gripped the edge of the recliner. He threw his arms up with passion, and the audience went mad.

Now, I know you haven’t been in town for long, so let me introduce you to Donna Warbler.

Here is Donna Warbler at surface level: Donna Marie Warbler is a 72 year old handicap and retired secretary from Pasadena. Her husband, David A. Warbler former professor within the Stanford University Anthropology department - passed away 3 years ago. She now lives with her caretaker, April, who carts her overripe peach of a body around Palo Alto for a daily walk at precisely 12:15.

Here’s a look inside Donna Warbler’s mind: Diet Hansen’s cream soda, tuna fish on whitebread, a ratty macramé shawl, buzz buzz buzzz mothballs buzzzzzzz, what’s that nice young lady’s name again? I wonder when David will get home from work today..? Oh, aren’t those roses lovely.

Lynn shut off the television, drawing in ragged breaths.

Her hair was matted and eyes were red as the devil, but she felt great. She had appealed to the universe for a sign, and the universe had responded, channeled through the medium of Jim Norton. Today, she would find God, face to face, and everything would finally make sense. No longer would Lynn Cooper be forced to deal with the trivial matters of suburban life. Today, she would transcend.   

There’s nothing much going on in there.

Of course, Lynn Cooper doesn’t see any of this. Here is what Lynn Cooper sees: The face of God. The face of God is soft and freckled with sun damage. God is wearing a pastel muumuu. God has atrophied limbs and rides in a wheel chair.

Brazen and self-assured, Lynn rose from the rat’s nest of her armchair, like a phoenix rising from its ashes, steering herself blindly into the heat wave. It was around noon, and the suburban sidewalks were empty as the day’s temperature hit its peak. Everything seemed normal: the same roses cascading over the neighbor’s fence, the same sprinklers pushing up through the dirt at exactly 12:03 to expel water upon the same immaculate lawns, the same lemon curtains drawn to protect inside-dwellers from the insidious heat creeping in through cracks in the walls. Yes, everything appeared normal, but Lynn now observed her surroundings with a searing sense of lucidity. The roses were brilliant neon, the sprinklers shot out ultraviolet rays, and she longed to tear down those lemon curtains like a rabid animal, exposing her town to the truth.

The truth! God was walking in their very midst, selfishly guarding the answers to all of man’s questions in his pocket.

The pain of life, all of its triviality and aimless wanderings, were unnecessary—if only they knew. Lynn babbled hushed curses at all of the pathetic mortals cowering around her, operating like rusted machinery, completely unaware of their condition.

She felt shrewd and perceptive now, as if each of her senses had heightened to inhuman clarity— her pupils expanded into tall, sharp slits like a serpent’s.

If Jim Norton was her angel, she was the messiah, holding her arms open to God, ready to accept the message.

In Lynn’s mind, the psalm continued to its glorious end: ‘Yes, in the sanctuary I have seen you, witnessed your power and splendor’ (63:2) Lynn did not speak. She wanted to cry out, but she knew that God was protected by the harpy driving her two-wheeled chariot. She was afraid that her human voice might cause the vision of God to disappear. Her eyes continued to track Donna and April on their righteous path as they crossed the intersection. She followed quietly at a distance.    As the suburbs became enveloped in nightfall, and the street lamps began to pop on one by one, Lynn crouched motionless in a hedge of hydrangeas beneath the window of Donna Warbler’s house. She wanted to wait until she could be in God’s divine presence alone. She would have to enter the palace of God discretely.

Once the static on the television lit up and April settled into the couch to watch programs, Lynn took her cue to enter, inaudibly clicking the front door shut behind her.   

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In the bedroom, God was resting, her eyes shut tenderly in some heavenly dream. Lynn hovered above the ethereal body, contemplating her move. To awake God from her most pure state—it had to be a sin. But hadn’t she suffered enough? She deserved answers! Seven years Lynn had lived in Palo Alto, and only 5 blocks from God’s resting place... not once had God appeared to her before. That in itself had to be a sin.

The body shone pure white in the darkness. Lynn hadn’t the nerve to disturb the silence, so she backed to the bedroom entryway to conspire a plan.    “Do I know you?”

The voice of God’s caretaker echoed unsurely across the foyer. She had gotten up to check on Donna during a commercial break.

Lynn froze. She said nothing and slunk into the shelter of the bathroom, as April clamored back into the television room.    Any minute now, April would be phoning for help. Any minute now, Lynn would forever lose her chance to convene face to face with God. Yet, once in the tiled confines of the bathroom, Lynn felt a strange sense of peace wash over her, numbing her limbs and calming her ragged breath.

The claw-foot bathtub displayed prominently in the center of her room caught her eye. It was hard to ignore. Its presence was a symbolic one: it lit up her unruly amygdala like a Christmas tree and swallowed her in positive memories— those of being bathed as a child in her mother’s claw-foot bathtub, the lukewarm water trickling down her forehead and cleansing her of debris.

The authorities would arrive any minute, but Lynn could see her escape clearly now. Maybe there was a reason she had not spoken to God all this time; maybe there were other ways to reach nirvana. Maybe the bathtub was not just a symbol of serenity, but an actual tangible portal through which she could access that divine state—through which she could shuttle her body through time and space, to another realm.    There was a soft white glow in Lynn’s eyes now, round and growing like the moon. Eclipsing the dark pupil, filling up the iris, and hurtling towards earth like an interplanetary apocalypse.

The glint in her eyes was growing, and in parallel, she was growing internally madder.

The glint shivered and shimmered like a desert mirage. She looked like she was seeing that illusory oasis right in front of her — licking her lips at the promise of water and cracking a jagged smile with tiny Chiclet teeth.

She was extending her arm towards the supposed portal of the bathtub, the promised pathway to a new world where everything would be pleasant. Not pleasant like Pleasantville, with it’s plastic hearts and organs pumping Xanax, and wellbutrin, and oxycodone, but the kind of pleasant that only a void, an infinite expanse of nothingness can offer. prose

35

No more four-door sedan, no ex-husband with the 9-5 job at the gray desk with one weeping plant, no television, no La-Z boy reclining armchair to rest on after endless toiling days.

No form, color, or gender; no names, no emotion, and no self.

Only a constant, unending, and unthinking bliss—ah.

She exhaled.

The portal - or rather the bathtub - was at her fingers now.

She traced its porcelain rim and braced her arms on either edge, pitted against the full weight of her body. As she lowered herself gently into the tub, the water flowed over the sides and onto the tile floor. Her wet clothes clung to her like saran wrap.

She felt it coming: soon her particles would diffuse. Soon the tub would be empty, only a shallow puddle remaining.

Her heart was pounding inhumanly fast, thud thud thudding louder and louder.

“Join me in heaven, Lynn Cooper.”

Jim Norton’s voice filled the bathroom, coaxing her from reality.

“Join me, join me, join me.”

The television audience roared on and on in eternal madness.

The glint, the little moon fully eclipsed her eyes now—pure white, rolling back in their sockets. In her mind she could visualize Norton’s owl-eyes floating against the pink crushed velvet as everything else began to dissolve and pass away...

The transition was complete.    Did you hear whatever happened to Lynn Cooper?

Well I guess I’ve told you now: they found her knocked straight out in Donna Warbler’s bathtub. You can pay her a visit now at the Santa Clara County Psychiatric Ward. But, I suppose that’s what happens when you start going around spewing madness: you end up in a mental hospital, a zoo animal on Xanax.

Still, this is no great defeat for the cosmic wanderer because in Lynn’s mind, she’s someplace else entirely. Yes, my friends, Lynn Cooper has reached the eleventh dimension. ▲

HENRY

By Oakley Purchase

>>> ART // MADELINE LOCKHART

i grew up on a Lion Research

project in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. We had this old Toyota Cruiser named Henry, an absolute piece of shit that looked like it was held together with string; ironically it was, after I broke the latch on the driver’s door one morning. We were in Maun, the closest town to our research camp, and we had just finished getting supplies. My stepfather was furious at me for the door. These outbursts weren’t rare, though. He wasn’t always like that.

Sometimes he was great; I remember how he made up fun games with elaborate and hilarious rules and would play them with my siblings and me for hours. Sometimes he was gentle. I left Maun with my mother in the T4 Land Rover and Pieter chose to leave a little later in Henry with the rest of the supplies. Our camp was a two-hour drive away from Maun. First, we would drive to Shorobe, a tiny village on the outskirts of civilization, and then continue on to the Buffalo Fence, which was the divider between the bush and society. We had lived in the delta for eight-or-so years and I just turned twelve. Camp was our home. Two large tents made up the kitchen and living room, with five bedroom tents, a reed hut that was our shower, and a long drop on the outskirts of the camp. It may not sound glamorous, but my mother made a wonderful home for us.

Everything had been unpacked and put away; we’d eaten dinner and made a fire. We were never really worried about how late Pieter was. We assumed he had stayed later or had car trouble; Henry was constantly breaking down. At around 11pm we decided we would drive to the Buffalo Fence; if he had broken down on our side then we would find him, and if he had broken down on the other side then someone should be helping him already, he may even be having a drink at Audi camp back in Maun. I elected myself as driver. We had all learnt how to drive at a very young age, it was important we knew how in case something happened to an adult while out looking for the lions and we needed to drive for help. We made it to the fence, no sign of Pieter. We decided not to worry and to trust that he was okay or being assisted, so we began our drive back to camp.

We were a few kilometers from home when we came out of a Mopani brush to find ourselves in a wide opening and completely surrounded by elephants. It was a large herd and they were all startled by our sudden arrival. I hit the accelerator and tried to make it through as quickly as possible.

The young ones were being the trickiest, one was charging us from behind and I couldn’t do anything to divert it because we were boxed in. There were two running along the right side of the car and a larger one to our left, with another one

running along the road ahead of us. A song that Pieter wrote for us kids one day on a long drive came to mind: “Elephants to our left, elephants to our right, elephants straight ahead and elephants right behind. What are we going to do, they’re not going to let us through, we better just hit the floor and hope that there’s no more, HEY!” If we didn’t speed up or get off the road, we would be hit. My mother, a powerless observer, had to place her confidence in her twelve year old son. She gripped her door and the dashboard and told me to get us out. I sped up and rammed the bumper into the back of the adolescent elephant in front of us, it immediately diverged off to the right and we had a clear path to evade the rest of the herd. We got home safely, but Pieter did not.

It was the 30th of September, Botswana’s independence day. Pieter had been hit by a drunk driver, or two drunk drivers collided, depending on how you want to look at it. The other car had three people in it, only the driver survived. The impact flung Pieter out of Henry’s door on the driver’s side, which had ripped open easily given the fact it was tied shut with a piece of rope. After the impact, Henry was a ball of scrap metal; you could barely tell it was once a car. He broke his hip, his legs, arm, wrist, collarbone, and had suffered major internal bleeding. I remember hearing one of my mum’s friends say how lucky it was he had been flung out of the car.

After two years of hospitals and rehabilitation centers, after my mother relocated our family to Johannesburg and devoted her finances, her time, her sanity, and her health to the well being of Pieter, he decided to leave. He had changed.

The redeeming factors we kept using as excuses for his bad behavior had gone, and we were left with the darker side of him. My memories of Botswana are beautiful, but sometimes I wish I hadn’t broken Henry’s door. ▲ 36

Can You See Me

by Trevor Crown

I

was wearing a thin cardigan and probably turning blue beneath it. I wasn’t about to make it worse on both of us by saying anything. My Camry had a heater, but it would’ve taken twenty minutes to warm up, so I didn’t bother. The place was nearby.

ART // NATALIE O’BRIEN

was wearing the heaviest coat I owned and still shivering.

It’s one thing to complain about the cold when you’ve made the mistake of going out unprepared, but I figured that in this case I had done what I could. At the very least I had nothing to regret, coat-wise. Lena, on the other hand,

prose

37

She and Jordanne had roomed across the hall from one another as freshmen at St. Joe’s. Neither had gone on to finish school. Lena told me they had joked about that when she ran into Jordanne at the Turnview Post Office in November. It turned out that Jordanne and her husband Terry lived only a few streets away from the space we’d been renting on Warren.

She had invited us to a Christmas gathering.

Jordanne’s husband was dying. Cancer of some sort, she told Lena, a tumor in the abdomen. He had chosen to stay home and live out his last few months there instead of spending a year or two in the hospital. Don’t bring it up, Lena had said. As if I would have asked to touch the tumor.

Though I admit, I was curious as to why a dying man would want to throw a Christmas party in his own home, if not just to show off.

Frost reflected streetlamp light on the strip of grass between the sidewalk and pavement where we parked. Just remember, Lena said. I know, I said.

The lights inside were red and gold, and there were maybe fifteen people there, mostly couples our age. Jordanne and Terry came to the entryway to greet us. She was short and sturdy in a long skirt, and he was handsome. I had expected a much thinner man, someone wasting away, but he looked like a former athlete and shook hands like one. Lena said it was nice to finally meet him, and he smiled. And that’s a great shirt, she said. He was wearing a pressed button-down with a checked pattern on it.

Oh, thank you, he said. Then he turned to me and asked, What about you, Michael? Do you like the shirt?

Of course, I said. I was unsure what he meant by asking.

It’s all yours, he said. Give me a month or two—I’ll add it to the will. How do you spell your last name?

I opened my mouth and drew back a few inches before laughing. I should’ve looked at Lena first, because Lena was looking at Jordanne, and Jordanne was not laughing.

Terry was smiling and shaking his head. He put his arm around Jordanne and said to me, What, I can’t joke about it?

It’s my cancer, right? I shrugged, still laughing. I supposed that it was his after all. But under Terry’s arm, Jordanne began to cry. She first looked down and then put both of her hands on her face.

Terry tilted his head. Oh, honey, he said. It was a joke.

Michael thought it was funny, he said, then turning to me: Didn’t you? I found myself shrugging, not knowing what else I could do. But Jordanne shook her head. She cupped her hands above her eyes like the bill of a cap and said This is embarassing to Lena and I. Lena assured her that it wasn’t, that it was completely understandable, and that she was sorry. I apologized too. We just stood there, wincing, still in coat and cardigan. I didn’t turn to face her, but I could feel Lena looking at me the way a mother does at a child sent home from school in muddy clothes.

The other couples in the living room had begun to notice the scene but had continued their conversations over the holiday music. Jordanne must have felt the change in the

room’s pressure because she seemed to shrink into the space between Terry’s arm and his chest. Instead of glaring the guests away as he certainly could have, Terry kept his eyes fixed on his wife. He reached out to touch her shoulder with his free hand, and turned her to face him, shoulders square.

She cupped her hands over her eyes again.

Honey, he said, as if no one could hear him but her. Can you let me see your face?

She shook her head.

Please? He lowered his chin slowly.

She removed her hands and rested them in the crooks of his extended elbows.

There you go, he said. That’s one beautiful face.

She shook her head again.

I’m sorry about the shirt joke, honey, he said. It was no good.

She nodded.

I’m here, he said softly. Look up, I’m here.

She raised her eyes to meet his. Her nose was running.

Then he said: Can you see me?

She nodded widely, Mhmm.

Okay, he said. Then come here.

And he brought her close to him and kissed her forehead just below the middle-part of her hair. Their eyes were closed, hers just barely above his shoulder when he leaned down to embrace her. And they spent a moment like that, in the entryway, right in front of Lena and I. A Harry Belafonte song played from the television set. When they released eachother, Jordanne wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her sweater and said, Well, welcome to the party anyway! and laughed. She said there would be cookies burning in the oven, and then walked toward the kitchen.

It’s my fault, really, Terry said. He explained that Jordanne hadn’t wanted to do the party this year, but that he had felt like they should. And it didn’t seem strange to me then. He asked if I wanted anything to drink. I said I’d like a beer if he had one, and he led me to a cooler by the sofa.

When I came up with my drink, he said to me with the straightest face in the room, Michael, I hope the shirt is worth all of that to you. Then he grinned and said he should find Jordanne. He even patted my shoulder in passing.

When I was ready to leave, I told Lena to take her time, that I would go out and try to get the heater running for the drive home. She acted shocked and said, Well who is this prince? But I didn’t mind. I shook Terry’s hand once more.

Thank you so much, I said. Of course, he said. We’ll see you two again sometime soon.

The Camry warmed up more quickly than I had expected.

I switched on an overhead light so that Lena would see me waiting out there instead of a shadow in the driver’s seat.

When she stepped out through the front door, her cardigan shone vibrant red in the house’s pale front yard floodlight.

She looked up from her bag, and I waved to her. And before crossing the street to our car, she stood still for a moment on Terry and Jordanne’s frosted lawn, waving back at me. ▲ 38

ART // CORINNA ZANOLINI

Carmichael’s Gift: the Power of Quiet in Woolf’s To the Lighthouse

By Sean Mabry A profound irony stands at the heart of Virginia Woolf ’s To the Lighthouse. Published in 1927, the novel follows the Ramsay family as they meet with friends at their summer home in the Hebrides. The plot focuses on two particular days, one before the first World War and one after. All the while, the novel stares deeply into the interior lives of its characters, inviting the reader to consider how each cultivates their own interiority and tries to reach into that of others. Yet, Woolf elects the aloof Augustus Carmichael to consecrate the novel’s ending. It begs the question: in a novel of noble abstraction, why honor the disheveled hedonist? Why end this journey of the spirit in the hands of one whose spirit seems impenetrable? But Woolf does not choose him haphazardly: with close attention one can see how Carmichael’s quiet powerfully creates meaning, both for himself and for others.

On the surface, Carmichael’s quiet forces the other characters to improvise, and these improvisations help the others define themselves. His shameless self-indulgence drives Mr. Ramsay to always construct his world around Carmichael.

When Carmichael dares to request another plate of soup, Ramsay’s anger flies “like a pack of hounds into his eyes.”

This animal metaphor suggests that his passion is natural. A moment later he becomes a machine: Mrs. Ramsay sees him “clutch himself and clap a brake on the wheel” as “the whole prose

39

of his body” seems to “emit sparks” (Woolf 95). This tiny scene plays out as a microcosm for Mr. Ramsay’s inveterate modernism. Beneath all of his categorizing thought lies the basic assumption that the human animal, reckless and beautiful, must be bounded and streamlined by the machine, be it a physical machine, mechanized culture, or mechanized thought. Later, Lily watches as Mr. Ramsay’s discoloring, desperate gaze casts “over the rubicund, drowsy, entirely contented figure of Mr. Carmichael, reading a French novel on a deck-chair, a veil of crape” (Woolf 152). Perhaps the industrial part of Mr. Ramsey obscures Carmichael in an effort to eliminate corporeal waste and obsolete sentimentality, but this moment also demonstrates how the former defines himself against the latter. Carmichael is for Ramsay the image of an impossible alternative life. For all his eccentricities, Ramsay admits that Carmichael is a “true poet.” Though he loves poetry, Ramsay knows he could never be a poet. His deep self-doubt precludes the solitude and soul-bearing necessary of a poet, and worse, his suspicions threaten to be true. His “fatal sterility of the male” leaves him so devoid of vitality and sympathy he must demand them uncomfortably from women (Woolf 37).

For all his noble qualities, Ramsay lacks the bedrock of pure emotion out of which others develop empathy. Lacking even emotional insight, he is left to beg from not just his wife but

from any woman, following the social code that marks all women as uncomplicated nurturers. When he tries to resolve the debate over Scott’s novels, hoping by proxy to prove his own enduring relevance, he sets up a tautology possibly broken his own poor taste in literature (Woolf 118). He reassures himself that the book is good because it stirs him to feeling. Since he has already decided that the book is good, this experience confirms his sound literary taste. With his taste confirmed, he need only approve of his own work to make it worthwhile. Yet, for Ramsay, a rationalist who craves hierarchy, this otherwise forgivable tautology only sharpens his self-imposed inadequacy. Thus, by separating himself so emphatically from Carmichael, Mr. Ramsay saves himself from taking an unbearable risk.

Woolf likewise defines Mrs. Ramsay against Carmichael, but there is a lesser gap between them. Both characters are more subtle than Mr. Ramsay, in action and in spirit. Far from her husband’s grand academic musings, Mrs. Ramsay anchors herself in the quotidian. Throughout the dinner scene she frets over the timing of the Bœuf en Daube and the arrival of her guests. This is not perfectionism for its own sake; the dinner must be perfect because she deeply cares about her guests. She is a lifegiver by nature, and she tries to concretize her immense blessing on the group in the form of a perfect dinner. This basic effort manifests in all her relationships; whether she is encouraging marriages or simply going out for groceries she always seeks to deliver material signifiers of her great love. She does so not merely to leave mementos but to preserve love’s purity. To her, language itself risks reducing love, so she “triumphs” over her husband by omitting it from her speech (Woolf 124). Thus, the difference between her and Carmichael is one of degrees: where she can at least express the quotidian, Carmichael speaks only of his whims and pleasures. He wants more soup, so he asks for it. He is satisfied to see Mr. Ramsay and crew land at the lighthouse, so he notes the event aloud (Woolf 95, 208). Where Mrs. Ramsay speaks with rhythm and purpose, Carmichael speaks sporadically and without any apparent design. This difference gives rise to the tension between them, and in turn signals a deeper conflict: they are both full of life but have different ways of sharing it. Though she resists speech, Mrs. Ramsay still wants, even needs, to see love and life confirmed through comprehension. Her aforementioned “triumph” comes when her husband knows she loves him, not merely when he suspects it. Even in his most transparent moments, Carmichael does not seem to require confirmation.

Carmichael’s effect on the reader is similar to his effect on the other characters, but Woolf offers the reader a vital degree of extra perspective. Unlike the characters, the reader witnesses a

single precious thought straight from the mind of Carmichael: “And it all looked, Mr. Carmichael thought, shutting his book, falling asleep, much as it used to look” (Woolf 142). Here Carmichael considers the Ramsays’ summer home, having returned to it after its long abandonment. In that same moment, Carmichael reads a book by candlelight, resuming his old habit of being the last one awake in the house (Woolf 125). In “Time Passes,” his poetry meets with “unexpected success,” though Woolf attributes this to post-war Britain’s renewed interest in poetry. These aspects of him, viewed from the other characters’ perspectives, lend Carmichael an air of permanence. That the others do not see him going to sleep leaves their imaginations free to assume, even subconsciously, that he does not sleep at all. That he was a “true poet” to begin with and recognized only in the aftermath of war suggests that his success comes from no unusual effort or change on his part. His seeming permanence is very much linked to his seeming indifference, all the way down to his appearance. His slippers and stained beard are both yellow, a color of greed and rot (Woolf 40). His opium use and corpulence suggest hedonism. Taken together, he embodies the laughable stereotype of a French intellectual, complete with filth and aloofness. This stereotype makes him iconic, which adds to the permanence. Even when Lily tries to picture his mourning of Andrew, she struggles to find an image for it. To her, Carmichael is “the same as he had always been,” through fame and tragedy alike (Woolf 194). Considering his appraisal of the summer home, one imagines that Carmichael himself might agree with Lily’s analysis. All of these traits affect the reader as well, leaving them equally tempted to mythologize the man. Nonetheless, the reader knows that he does sleep, that his post-war poetry draws from his grief for Andrew, and that even in his god-like final appearance his trident is “only a French novel” (Woolf 208). Thus, the reader sees the illusion that Carmichael displays for all the others, but still recognizes it as performance.

There are, of course, moments where the other characters do witness Carmichael’s humanity, but never with his prompting. This very lack of prompting is crucially important, as it leaves the other others free to forge their own path to empathy. In this way, he poses the ultimate test to Mrs. Ramsay: . . . Mrs. Ramsay could see, as if before her eyes, the innumerable miseries of his life . . . Oh, she could not bear to think of the little indignities she made him suffer. And always now . . . he shrank from her. He never told her anything. But what more could she have done? There was a sunny room given up to him.

The children were good to him. Never did she show a sign of not wanting him. She went out of her way to be friendly. And after all—after all (here insensibly she drew herself together, physically, the sense of her own beauty becoming, as it did so seldom, present to her)—after all, she had not generally any difficulty in making people like her . . . She had been admired.

She had been loved. She had entered rooms where mourners sat. Tears had flown in her presence. Men, and women too, had allowed themselves with her the relief of simplicity. It injured her that he should shrink. (Woolf 41) Mrs. Ramsay, once again, is used to having her power confirmed. She has seen pain transformed literally (by way of 40

tears) into shared humanity. But Carmichael refuses to deliver such an obvious display. He refuses to play into her assumption that little acts of kindness can, with accumulation and grand intent, undo the pain of life. Stripping her of her usual mode of repair, he leaves her in a position of pure feeling. She must feel Carmichael’s pain and know that that is enough. She passes this test every year she has him back at the house, accepting (if not comprehending) his mode of quiet empathy.

If Carmichael tests the depth of empathy with Mrs. Ramsay, he tests its connectivity at the end of the dinner party.

When Mr. Ramsay begins speaking his poem, his voice takes on an air of commonality, with everyone at the table feeling as though it “were their own voice speaking” (Woolf 111).

Though it rings true, this is a deeply mysterious moment.

Nobody can know the exact origin of this one-voice feeling. It is a moment of suspension, one that by nature severs causality.

But somewhere in the process, Carmichael emerges and finishes the poem with a gesture that preserves some grain of that suspended commonality: . . . as she passed him, he turned slightly towards her repeating the last words: Luriana, Lurilee and bowed to her as if he did her homage. Without knowing why, she felt that he liked her better than he had ever done before; and with a feeling of relief and gratitude she returned his bow and passed through the door which he held open for her. (Woolf 111) In a rare moment of display, Carmichael gives Mrs. Ramsay a concrete example of empathy. Yet, the gesture does not merely draw a line of empathy from him to her; that same line extends back to Mr. Ramsay. He, after all, begins the poem that Carmichael finishes. This three-point line is made crucial by the fact that earlier in that very dinner, Carmichael creates a divide between the Ramsays. While Mr. Ramsay fumes over Carmichael’s second helping of soup, Mrs. Ramsay frustratingly wonders why the man should not have his soup.

In being first a site of conflict and later a site of connectivity, Carmichael demonstrates the power of empathy to transcend disputes without forgetting or devaluing them. The husband is free to fume and the wife is free to fret. Carmichael invites both to share in commonality, and one assumes he invites the rest of the table as well, in his own quiet way.

If Carmichael’s habit of testing seems at all cruel or reckless, one must remember that Woolf includes far more odious tests in the novel. In “Time Passes,” the war and Mrs. Ramsay’s death test everyone. There are illuminating triumphs and failures all around, but none of them are enough to excuse the horror and stupidity of these events. In losing their matron, the surviving Ramsays are left to more vigorously define themselves, but one imagines they would each trade a lifetime of insight for the return of their beloved Mrs. Ramsay. One even imagines that Carmichael, true poet though he is, would exchange his famous works for the return of Andrew. Andrew, who is one moment prose

41

a curious child learning secrets in Carmichael’s study, only to evaporate a moment later as a soldier in a bombed out foreign trench. Unlike the reader, Carmichael at least witnesses the intervening years between these events. Nonetheless, Woolf ’s juxtaposition of Andrew the child and Andrew the soldier remains intact, appearing as bitterly absurd to the reader as it must to Carmichael. These tests of life are messy, devastating, and, worst of all, unintentional. Carmichael’s tests, by contrast, are minimal and free of malice. While Woolf carefully prevents one from reading Carmichael’s mind, one may even assume that his tests come from a place of love. How else, one wonders, could his tests produce such beautiful effects?

Through Carmichael, subtlety becomes sublime, and thereby points toward divinity. Lily witnesses this quality, but her early encounters with it seem like projection: She addressed old Mr. Carmichael again. What was it then?

What did it mean? Could things thrust their hands up and grip one; could the blade cut; the fist grasp? Was there no safety?

No learning by heart of the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life?—startling, unexpected, unknown? For one moment she felt that if they both got up, here, now on the lawn, and demanded an explanation, why was it so short, why was it so inexplicable, said it with violence, as two fullyequipped human beings from whom nothing should be hid might speak, then, beauty would roll itself up; the space would fill; those empty flourishes would form into shape; if they shouted loud enough Mrs. Ramsay would return. “Mrs. Ramsay!” she said aloud, “Mrs. Ramsay!” The tears ran down her face.(Woolf 180) Onto the iconic form of Mr. Carmichael, Lily projects an impossible fantasy: the defeat of death. By all means, Carmichael allows this; projection is one of the great affordances of his quiet. Yet, there is something prophetic about this passage. At the end of the novel, in a more subtle way, they do both rise on the lawn and find an explanation. Part of that explanation is a simple “yes.” Life is indeed startling, unexpected, and unknown. The other part of that explanation comes in the form of Carmichael’s divinity. Standing like “an old pagan god” and “spreading his hands over all the weakness and suffering of mankind,” Carmichael confirms and consecrates the “final destiny” of humanity: our commonality. But here Carmichael’s and Woolf ’s subtlety becomes most crucial: if Woolf were to make him literally a god, or if Carmichael were to speak something so obvious as “we are all one before death,” then the moment would collapse. Intellect and morality would descend necessarily on such recklessness. Carmichael makes available the unspeakable precisely by not speaking. He obscures his own humanity to make it transferable and amorphous, a mound of clay that one can shape into a god or man as needed.

Divinity is an illusion, but Carmichael’s gift is just real enough to be something we can hold and share. ▲ Edited by Daniel Podgorski and Maya Jacobson

the tole mour

by Emily Hansen

T

he Tole Mour soared toward Long Beach Harbor. It'd been three days since I'd been ashore. We rapidly approached our destination, the motherland, a thick, long rigid line that cut the sky and sea in half. I stood at the stern and watched as a couple eighth grade classmates leaned over the antique deck. Their eyes, a stinging red from the tearing sea wind, looked longingly toward the approaching shore, and reflected the Carl’s Jr. and McDonald’s signs that lined the LA streets. I remember at the beginning of the trip how we’d all stood at the bow, enchanted, gazing with mouths agape, as the dolphin-riddled waters manifested dreamily before us- not a single memory of suburban life to induce any kind of homesickness.

I too was anxious for our long-awaited arrival – but like the fellows by the stern, I wanted to calm my nerves; I decided to make a round or two about the boat deck. Over Starboard, a few students leaned across the slick wooden rails. They looked as disenchanted as the guys I’d just seen ‘round the corner. I kept walking, happy that my friends hadn’t yet surfaced from the bunk room down below. In their absence I positively radiated in my moment alone, and pretended that I was a mermaid trapped by pirates. I was totally bored with the classmates that slumped like sacks of potatoes against various parts of the ship. I wanted to be a jellyfish, floating gently beneath the sea surface, stinging all of my classmates’ unimaginative rumps.

Within a half hour we pulled into the harbor. The schooner zipped toward the undulating harbor and the crew sprang to life. Excitement; they wanted us to help dock the boat. “Ey you bums abraft! Get those sea legs movin’, we got to batten down the hatches!” And then everyone awoke!

Our minds were consumed with desire for freedom from the unforgiving sun and sea- I couldn’t tell if my classmate Carly beamed with excitement or sunburn. We lowered the sails in accordance with the strict training we’d received for the past 72 hours and performed as a well-oiled, mastheading machine. The trip was over! Teacher Deb promised fast food and other land-based luxuries upon our departure from sea!

But we still had to attend a corny little award ceremony.

The crew had prepared it for us, a final commencement before we were allowed to heap our exhausted bodies back into the school vans. No one other than Teacher Deb and the chaperones seemed even remotely excited about anything nautical or schooner-related at this point; some of the scarier eighth graders even used some Spanish cuss words at the idea of a ceremony. With such little interest from my classmates, the event began to feel…lackluster.

I was interested, however.

We learned at the beginning of the trip about a prize-

the rainbow flag. The captain determined the winner based on overall participation, enthusiasm, excitement and interest in nautical vocation. I hid my desire to win the nerd novelty because I knew my friends Stephanie and Maribel would think it lame to pursue something so childish. Only people who played with dolls and tetherballs sought such stupid things. Nevertheless, I sweated profusely, a mix of excitement and pure nausea, as I waited for our arrival.

Then the Tole Mour barreled into a narrow dock; she was twice the size of and ten times older-looking than any other boat floating in the harbor. She replicated a 1787 sea vessel, and looked spectacularly out of place amongst the shiny yachts and motorboats that bobbed around her. From above, fat, indulgent, domestic seagulls orbited the densely populated harbor: 3 pm, chow time. Pedestrians gawked while we docked and exited the boat (I probably would too, had I the unique opportunity to observe an ancient wooden boat excrete dozens of golden-brown pre-teens onto the harbor sidewalk.)

We were quite the spectacle. Twenty-five prepubescent adolescents, grimy and oily, caked in sea salt and crispy as a bag of potato chips. The seagulls mistook us for frenchfries and hovered dangerously close to our heads. Some of us swayed unsteadily, unable to catch our footing because, indeed, we still had our sea legs. Others hunched, doubledover, and gripped at their lower abdomens as they futilely tried to contain their bowel movements (we considered it taboo to poop on the boat; no one dared stay in the latrine longer than three minutes).

Excitement boiled out of my every pore, but I contained myself as Maribel and Stephanie nudged their way through the crowd to stand next to me. They both looked disheveled and fatigued, as if they’d emerged from a drug-sex-sleep den. I wasn’t surprised. These girls, who hid their faces behind thick black veils of hair, who preferred spiky belts over leather ones and colored skinnies over regular jeans, who, over the delightful years of elementary school acquired copious amounts of information about sex and alcohol, who laughed and rolled their eyes at role-play field trips like the one we were on...everything about them intimidated me.

And yet, they were my best friends.

Stephanie slouched against a stout wooden pole with her arms folded against her chest, eyes closed. Her wrists sported dozens of colorful jelly bracelets and her shirt promoted the name of her favorite band, “Boys like Girls”, which was printed in cursive above a still-beating and bloody heart.

Inconvenienced by the closing ceremony, she tilted her head back and released an annoyed sigh, clearly wanting everyone else to feel the same. Like a robot, Maribel adopted 42

PAINTING // MEGAN FISHER

Stephanie’s demeanor and facial expressions, so I did as I had to do and followed suit. A bug flew into Maribel’s mouth and it caused her to curse profusely.

I’ve known Maribel for a very long time, since Kindergarten, in fact. Our older sisters are the same age and best friends, so naturally Maribel and I spent much of our childhood together. The sea air caused her hair great irritation, making the already unruly wiry texture to become, if possible, even thicker and coarser. Her unfortunate hair also caused her scalp to secrete thick oils, which birthed large scarring pimples on her cheeks and forehead. That day she kept her eyes squinted in permanent displeasure. She developed faster than I did - both physically and mentally – I still correlate this with the early desires for boys and alcohol she expressed, and worst of all I blame puberty for her abandonment of playtime with me and her new shenanigans with Stephanie.

I tuned back in to the ceremony’s thin drone, but Maribel’s cussing storm continued beside me. Her more colorful cusses included fuck, fucking, bitch, shit and dick.

Maribel is the only person I’ve ever heard call a fly a dick before. Sooner than it took for the fly to lodge itself inside her mouth, she began to simmer down. Then, the crew began making real progress in their closing words and it began to feel like there was a bug buzzing around in my stomach, not Maribel’s. In unison, the crew marched to a patch of sidewalk about twenty feet in front of us, now with authority to better capture our attention. My gaze fixed on the folded black fabric in the Captain’s hands- the rainbow flag! But Stephanie wasn’t impressed. In a high-pitched whine she proclaimed, “This is so dumb.”

Maribel scoffed in agreement. “Who even gives a fuck about a fucking flag anyways?” I nodded and mumbled incoherently in an attempt to express faked annoyance.

“So dumb,” Stephanie repeated.

It then occurred to me that I’d thought the same thing the night before, when Stephanie pulled a flask from her duffel bag and waved it in our faces. The three of us had been sitting in a tiny built-in bed in the girl’s bunks below deck.

It was located directly beneath the ship’s tiny classroom, a safe distance from the crew’s quarters (and authority).

Teacher Deb chose to sleep outside on the top deck because she was overweight and felt uncomfortable below the decks, so our only other female chaperone was in bed across the way, and she was nearly comatose. I’d watched at dinner as she downed several tablets of what I guessed were sleep aides. The coast was clear and the booze accessible, and maybe if we were lucky some boys would be awake too.

In all honesty, I thought it was the dumbest idea I’d ever heard. Surely we would become violently ill and die. How long did my Dad say people stay drunk? Everyone would be able to smell it on our breaths. Maybe we’d get arrested!

How often were the night guards making their rounds? I trembled with fear.

The flask, which Stephanie had hidden in her purple dinosaur-print pajama bottoms, slipped from her hand and

into Maribel’s. She took a long swig, one lengthy enough to fool my naïve mind to think that alcohol tasted delicious.

“This shit is fucking sick,” Maribel even proclaimed, “what’s in it?”

Stephanie smiled triumphantly. “It’s kool-aid and apple flavored vodka. Tastes like candy, huh? My older brother showed me how to make it one time before I went to a hardcore show. He also taught me how to roll joints.”

I had a faint idea about what joints were but not enough to know whether that was good or bad. Maribel’s answer helped form a better picture in my mind: “Dude, hell yea.

Did you bring any of it with you? Or would it be sketchy to smoke weed on the boat?”

“We can just smoke sometime when we get back. Emily, did you want the flask?” I realized it was my turn to take a sip. I smiled, but grabbed the metal tin from her hands with reluctance. The coolest cucumber couldn’t keep my hands from shaking in that moment. I caught a whiff of fruity nail polish remover wafting from the tiny opening. I pursed my lips and tilted the flask back cautiously…

Immediate regret. My mouth filled with the most terrible burning sensation, with the liquid that caused my cheeks to flush and glow like fire. My face contorted in agony and the girls snickered at the pathetic sight.

“Just one drop, huh? Are you really that innocent, Emily?” Stephanie turned my face maroon, like the crimson of a lobster shell. I shook my head no; had I tried to verbally convey the message, I might have puked.

To my surprise, Maribel responded in my silent stead.

“She’s just got strict parents, you know?” Stephanie shrugged, she could care less.

I didn’t realize Maribel could be nice to me still.

After a few more rounds, when the girls got progressively gigglier and I more aware of my naivety, I excused myself from the bunk room and went up to the top deck where my pillows and blankets sat welcomingly. Students also had the option to sleep outside and I loved to look at the night sky and stars. I curled up into my sleeping bag, my body still in quaking from the fear of being caught. Stephanie’s probing question rolled through my mind on a loop. Was I really that innocent? Was it because I liked video games, or still played with Barbie dolls, or wore a size double-A bra?

Perhaps it was because I hadn’t yet started my period?

I pushed the questions out of my head and looked forward to the next day, when we’d arrive back and I’d win my rainbow flag. Sleep washed over me like a tidal wave.

Out on the sidewalk stage of Long Beach Harbor things began gaining speed. The captain thanked everyone for their hard work and he spewed (lies) about how much he cherished the time spent with us: we were all characters; it’d been a long time since he’d met such a special, intelligent group of adolescents. I wanted to sustain unwavering eye contact with the captain, but two boys standing in the back tried to hit each other with their testicles and I couldn’t keep from tuning in.

To distract myself from their graphic distraction, I 44

ran through my accomplishments once more. I’d done everything right: wiped the decks with gusto, sang my sea shanties strong, dissected my squid with earnest curiosity, climbed the mast (twice!), participated in all snorkeling events- I was even on a first name basis with the captain and the cook. And I wasn’t only doing it for the sport of competition, like some of my fellow mates. I genuinely enjoyed every activity, every lesson, every song. I tuned back in as the captain announced the winner.

“Congratulations… Paige Brady!” He paused while she sprung up and walked over to the captain, teary eyed, a wide long smile careening across her face. We all cheered and clapped and smiled, or pretended to at least.

Beside me, my friends: “Oh my god, Paige? No surprise, she’s such a kiss-ass.” Stephanie laughed at her own joke.

“Yeah, who even gives a fuck?” Maribel agreed. Under normal circumstances their pessimism would have been of comfort to me; I would’ve found their lack of interest comical and admirable. But I was still sore about

Stephanie’s comment the night before, and somehow losing the flag made me feel even worse. How was I to prove myself as a mature young adult now? How could I prove to boys that I wasn’t some childishly naïve kid when I didn’t have a rainbow flag mounted on my wall? I felt so dumb for getting hurt about losing, but I did my best to conceal the growing lump in my throat from my friends.

The crew requested one last sea shanty before our departure, which Paige feverishly endorsed and my friends abstained from. We sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ with its heavyhearted lyrics and jaded tune. Halfway through the song, a singular tear streamed down my face. I couldn’t tell if the catalyst was Stephanie, Paige, the song, or a mixture of the three, but it taught me that growing up is hard, and in that moment I had a lot of it to do. I may have been well-versed in the ways of the sea vessel, but in the land of sex, drugs and booze – the place where my friends resided – I was a foreigner, with so much more to learn before adulthood. ▲

Funes el bibliotecario A Tribute to Jorge Luis Borges // By Yibing Guo Prólogo

Funes el bibliotecario

Para esta narración, se utilizarán elementos (personajes, tramas, lugares, eventos) que le serán familiares a usted, el lector, pues el fin siempre ha sido satisfacer las excentricidades de su imaginación. En primer lugar, contaremos la historia de Funes, un hombre lleno de memorias, al único al que se le podría atribuir título de posesor de verdaderos y auténticos recuerdos.

“El cronométrico Funes” nos mostrará por medio de sus ojos, unos ojos que ya han perdido toda luz, la mítica Biblioteca de Babel y el hexágono del cual era bibliotecario; nos contará acerca de su búsqueda de una vereda nueva; una historia irrepetible que sólo se encuentra en aquella biblioteca que contiene todos los libros posibles… Todo esto, con base al testimonio de Borges.

Esta ficción tomará lugar en algún recóndito lugar de Uruguay, o quizá Argentina; Babel.

Usted como lector, podrá confiar plenamente en esta obra porque, como lo refiere Derrida, la lengua escrita será siempre más confiable. Al final, usted decidirá si esta trama, los elementos que la conforman, e incluso el autor, son tan sólo una ficción más que ha de definir e interpretar o si se encuentran fuera de la diégesis.

Esta interpolación de diferentes ficciones (o quizá realidades) Borgeanas serán narradas de forma breve pero precisa, porque como él lo refiere, no siempre una obra extensa representa una obra excelsa.

Sin más por el momento, me despido.

Ciudad de México, 15 de febrero de 1946

Yo nunca tuve la oportunidad de conocer a Funes, pero un viejo amigo mío, casi mi padre, lo conoció de forma superficial. Funes es un hombre digno de ser recordado no sólo por el hecho de haber existido, de haber sido, si no también porque desempeñó un trabajo que lo consumió en vida. Él fue bibliotecario de la mítica Biblioteca de Babel. A él le pertenecía una galería hexagonal que contenía 640 tomos, los cuales estaban en riesgo de aumentar de forma indefinida. Durante su infancia, emprendió numerosos viajes al lado de su padre a aquél recóndito lugar para encontrar el catálogo de catálogos, el cual siguió buscando durante toda su estancia en el hexágono y hasta el último de sus días, cuando perdió toda luz en su mirada y sabía que ya no había opción, que él moriría no lejos de su hexágono, sin haber encontrado aquel tomo al cual dedicó toda su vida y que se encontraba en aquella biblioteca que contenía todos los libros de historias posibles. Él siempre se preguntó si esa afirmación quería decir que la biblioteca era infinita.

Funes no sólo era un bibliotecario, él era un hombre y como cualquier hombre, esto implicaba que no era perfecto, que había algo más que controlaba sus acciones. Algo más allá de nosotros. Algo que se encuentra en Babilonia; la misteriosa Compañía de Lotería, en cuyas manos residían las suertes de todos, que pendían de un fino hilo llamado azar. La Compañía jugaba el papel de demiurgo en esta biblioteca, este universo.

Quizá la biblioteca misma era tan sólo una creación de la Compañía y todos en aquel universo vivían en una ficción más, cuya trama se bifurcaba y seguía siendo escrita una y otra vez…

Era el aclamado eterno retorno de Nietzsche.

prose

45

milagrosas. En este Universo caótico, al cual Funes se refería como «hogar», bastaba con que un libro existiera para que estuviera en algún estante de algún hexágono de las indefinidas galerías que existían en este lugar (o al menos eso afirmaba Funes con fervor). He de interpolar que todo en aquél microcosmos se podía definir con la afirmación de Galileo Galileí de que la naturaleza está scritto in lingua matematica; todas las características de la Biblioteca de Babel eran de índole matemática, tal como el azar, cuya composición es quizá una pizca de matemáticas y lógica y otra tanta de suerte.

Al morir, Funes articuló algunas palabras indescifrables, que quizá escogió al azar; yo he dedicado toda mi vida intentando darles sentido a dichas palabras y lo único que he obtenido son unos cuantos bosquejos que no me conducirán a nada. Sin embargo, yo sé que Funes había encontrado el sentido de este Universo al cual pertenecía; había encontrado el orden del caos. Después de todo, él sabía la manera en la cual actuaba la Compañía, la deidad y demiurgo; el principio activo de los gnósticos y el dios creador de los filósofos. Sin embargo, Funes no sólo era una creación más del azar, no era una ficción más. Él era tan real como yo y como usted.

Funes murió en una tarde lluviosa de mayo de 1889, con un libro de latín en abrazado contra su pecho, a los 21 años de edad, de una congestión pulmonar.

1945 ▲

Yo digo que Funes, hasta un par de años antes de su muerte, fue cuando realmente empezó a vivir a plenitud. Él, como cualquier individuo, vivía de manera inconsciente; miraba sin observar, oía sin escuchar, vivía de forma insustancial. Pero repentinamente, algo sucedió. Quizá fue un sorteo más de la Compañía lo que decidió sus suerte. Quizá obtuvo un boleto color carmín, en el cual se decidía que quedaría tullido después de un desafortunado suceso. Sorprendentemente, eso no lo afectó en lo más mínimo; de hecho, aquél accidente cambió algo en él.

Desde entonces, había un brillo diferente, pero indudablemente espectacular, en su mirada. Desde entonces, todos sus sentidos se intensificaron. De ahí en adelante, el sendero que él seguía se bifurcó. Ahora era un Funes nuevo: un Funes que podía percibir todo lo que para los demás era imperceptible y recordar detalles de una manera sorprendentemente nítida. Toda la vida que se le había escabullido hasta el momento del infortunio de pronto se concentraron de una manera muy peculiar e intensa durante sus últimos años de vida.

A pesar de que era joven (y que la juventud generalmente va de la mano de la inexperiencia), Funes era más sabio que cualquier persona y sus conocimientos eran inigualables, inimaginables. Esta capacidad de recordar y percibir todo lo que se encontraba en su entorno le ayudó a continuar con su trabajo y a seguir en su búsqueda del catálogo de catálogos (aunque al final, de todos modos falló en aquella empresa).

Muchos creían que se había vuelto loco cuando Funes volvió a aquel proyecto; sin embargo, él era el único consciente de que La Compañía actúa de formas misteriosas, pero

Bibliografía: Borges, Jorge Luis. Ficciones. Buenos Aires: Debolsillo, 2011.

We must all dissect our idols A criticism of Borges // By Joshua Goodmacher

the once bloody ashes are in your fire place they are mixed with the desecrated mud beneath your floor boards they are in the dried ink of your speculum critiques and your labyrinthian experiments they are the marrow within your skeletal ideas all, paper ashes from a sacrificial fire in which surely you dreamt some Behdinian forceor Dante, the madman, losing his wayor perhaps a bull that was a rose that was a blade that was jumbled words but which was in actuality only the fire of a surrender. a surrender to the fact that genius is legacy, and you could not leave behind this bastard novel, this unworthy son. so, that beautiful book was destroyed or maybe never written. either way it was titled: Cobardia

46

ART // CORINNA ZANOLINI

PHOTO // NATALIE O'BRIEN

this lazy this youn g >>>

poetry

47

These Days

by Selena Ross

These days even Mondays make music.

It seems impossible, but they do.

Pounding out a rhythm Even a dazed downbeat can't ignore.

These days are so bright they make you squint, And the ocean’s still cold But it feels like home.

These days, even though we really need rain We’re making do without.

This April our water heater broke, And like the skies We never showered.

And yet this May it seems our footsteps still sprout wildflowers We leave orange polka dots of poppies in our wake

They take root on our dirt feet.

These days even when it’s too foggy for the lunar eclipse We’ll still climb on the roof And count the holes the stars leave And point to the ring around where the red moon should be.

These days aren’t perfect, But neither is anything else.

These days are numbered, But so is everything else.

These days are already framed Years from now on a wall, On the way to the kitchen I’ll stop And remember.

These days I’m wearing your socks I found them on my bedroom floor after you peeled them off

And in the middle of English class today I catch myself Admiring these stripes.

These days we’re listening to voices made immortal By scratched vinyl and fifty-cent tapes.

Turn up your amp, This room is cramped but we’ll make space.

These days it’s midnight on the eighth floor But they haven’t kicked us out yet.

We made a dance-floor out of every desk And turned up the music.

We were the only ones left. ▲

This Lazy This Young

by Canelle Irmas wake up half hungover on a Sunday it’s already noon stay in bed not sleeping, not waking another hour or so roll out from the covers onto a pile of week old laundry and drag your feet into the kitchen make bacon in the microwave because the real way takes too long and requires more dishwashing make grilled cheese by tilting the toaster on its side eat neither with a plate drink flat orange soda out of the bottle light a cigarette with a match smoke inside because it’s a waste to go outside especially still in pajamas blow the smoke out the window so as not to set off the fire alarm drop the ashes in a red solo cup sprawl onto the couch

watch that 70s show for 3 hours only half paying attention the other half glazing over stained white walls open a document for that essay due tomorrow type the heading stare at the cursor close the document there will be time and thought enough tomorrow steal the roommate’s hot cheetos she won’t notice look at the mirror hair a mess unshowered dead sleepy eyes ratty t-shirt the clock 5:07 pm know what it is to be this lazy this young ▲

PHOTO // JULIA MARSH

ICE CREAM

by Mathew Javidi Sunday morning in February is the perfect time for ice cream, Michelle tells me after I claim that brunch is just breakfast with alcohol and excuse me but my glass is already half empty She says that’s my problem— that it’s either full or empty or that devastating threshold between, the climax of a tale that ends with ice sliding down the bridge of my nose, the way you would slip across my chest, sleepy, safe.

You are a scoop of rocky road, Michelle declares her voice, a decrescendo like the wail of an atom bomb plunging into an intersection Sure, it’s nice to have sprinkles, berries, stale gummies that never mix well with chocolate, but you get them anyway.

Take ‘em out, and you’ve still got sweet, lumpy ice cream.

Now she pushes the glass aside and squeezes my hand kneads my thumb with hers and tries to make the corners of my mouth hop upward like meerkats and I remember when you and I played Scrabble.

You would beat me with words like capricious.

I can’t help but respond to Michelle with a familiar semi-smile, the same sheepish, apologetic grimace she wore when she met you, and saw in your petite figure, bunny cheeks, feet kicking when she would joke about me, all of the sprinkles, berries, gummies, and she regrets giving me a metaphor with which to frame our relationship.

Comrades, the clone I never had, the Larry to my Jerry, the girl who figured out that I am rocky road, and I want sprinkles, not another scoop. ▲

poetry

49

SHADOW MEMORIES

by Samantha Perez

We lay with crumpled sheets on naked skin, remembering stories about close-call trains and lazy smoke.

We were told that bending on knees and lacing our hands would keep the damned away.

Instead we mix hot breath and spills of tangled hair, holding ourselves against each other.

We look up into swirls of pink and purples, when we walk from Keg-N-Bottle to Deli Mart looking for a cigarette.

A taste of relished sickness against cracked lips.

We used to tear apart the filters of Marlboros burn them between us, sitting on plastic slides and thinking of lost beanie babies and forgotten dripping oil paintings, the old version of us . p

PHOTO // MARIAH TIFFANY

50

ART // CORINNA ZANOLINI

Recuerdas? ?

By

yibing

guo Those voids, those silences.

Remember? ▲

¿Recuerdas aquél glorioso verano infinito? ¿Recuerdas esas tardes en las que platicábamos de la luna y las estrellas? ¿Recuerdas aquellas noches sosegadas en la playa?

Las olas se quebraban a cada paso que dábamos y salpicaban nuestras huellas en la arena.

Nostalgia–what a marvelous and treacherous artifice.

Carrying me away to intangible places, Fugitive moments, Existing only in the most remote places of our memory.

¿Recuerdas aquellas miradas?

Esa manera tan sutil en la que todo se convertía en un juego.

Buscarte entre el mundo que nos separaba en aquellas sábanas, “Tu es très mignonne,” me decías cuando nuestras miradas se volvían a encontrar.

But the memory has remained in a flickering world.

Do you remember those glances?

That subtle way everything would turn into a game.

Finding you in that ethereal world of the bed sheets that separated us, “Tu es très mignonne,” you’d tell me when our gazes met again.

Pero el recuerdo se ha quedado en un mundo vacilante.

Do you remember the music that fed us?

If you close the door, the night could last forever...

The way the night timidly enveloped us; An accomplice of our furtive games.

Yo lo recuerdo muy bien.

Recuerdo tus ojos y el mundo en tus pupilas, Tus labios tan eternos, Tus brazos tan gentiles.

I remember it well.

I remember the world in your eyes, Your lips so eternal, Your arms so gentle.

¿Recuerdas la música que nos alimentaba?

If you close the door, the night could last forever...

La manera tan tímida en que la noche nos envolvía Y se volvía cómplice de nuestros juegos furtivos.

La nostalgia – qué artificio tan maravilloso y traicionero.

Me transporta a lugares intangibles, Momentos fugitivos, Existentes tan sólo en los lugares más recónditos de la memoria.

Remember?

poetry

Do you remember that glorious eternal summer?

Do you remember those afternoons, talking about the moon and the stars?

Do you remember those peaceful nights at the beach?

The waves breaking at the shore with every step we took, sprinkling our footprints on the sand.

Esos espacios, esos silencios. ¿Recuerdas? ▲

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>

RHONE ALPES

by Aubrie Amstutz Two long haired dogs stride along the fence tracking my movement through tall grass.

A group of skittish donkeys their faces more real than expected eyes curious quickly distracted.

A boy on a lawn-mower smiles unabashedly, first time he can drive it now.

One is loudly flatulent disrupts the scene, startles himself.

He jumps away, the others start like donkeys do.

With a jolt in the knees and soft stomp of the hooves.

Along a wet-dirt road out of the damp backlit woods of red-orange slugs.

A second farmhouse with meticulous gardens all blooming in the shiny gray light.

I have come voyaged far enough now.

This is where I’ll stay. ▲

ART // LAUREN DAVIS

A bird of prey a view of the hills all green and the farms weaving through the woods.

Brown-orange roofs of Cour et Buis in the distance.

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NEWBURY STREET, boston, 9/26

by Leslie Zhang

i.

ii.

OVERWHELMED! Reading Philip Whalen’s “Sourdough Mountain Lookout”

Often I fear I am too young and

in a Boston café good music good vibes quick approaching

tender to survive in this world. Moments

afternoon chocolate croissant puffed up in my belly heart puffed up

like these—sitting, reading, basking

in my chest ready to yell leap skip jump make a ruckus frantic

in a café—can make me overwhelmed

search for pen and notebook of course the notebook is left in Ned’s

Got to drop everything and sit, elbows

dorm almost don’t have a pen and feel a short fall in my

propped, palms cupping numb face,

gut. A walking or sitting cliché, scratching thoughts onto a

to slow the rush of emotions pulsating

napkin as they come, totally organic no preservatives except I stopped

through me. The boy barista

to think before writing “scratching”—no! not the word I wanted

is prettier than I,

the correct word is STREAM, STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS, FLOW OF

thought he was a girl when I approached

EMOTION—like the beat legendaries whom I idolize but

and shocked by his voice:

what do I know… generations later, only had

Angel with a black septum ring! ▲

"reefer" (the cool hip term several decades ago) and shit bourbon “Satan’s piss” that leaves me sick and horny. Good delusion! Couch-surfing across the country, drop by without notice, run broke, read books—poetry & the Autobiography of Malcolm X, living off my parent’s hard-earned capitalist cash… poetry

53

ART // LEZLIE ZHANG

WINDOWS

by Ryan Mandell

That chipper pink sweater Can’t disguise your sourpuss face You stand there With your lips stubbornly taciturn, like a clenched asshole Just reading the nutrition facts on your tea bag While the sunflower fields pass you by The signs change I can tell we’re in France now A fleet of clouds The fairy navy Wheat fields for beer hop around merrily on my tongue Airy, bready While the sun Warms my back through the window And then there’s rain on your head, sourpuss Your tea is too bitter And the train is too bumpy Your son is waiting for you in the apartment You have a long way to go Two hours to Paris and then some Sip Sip Sip Sip Sip Pace Pace Pace A field of purple flowers Lavender, perhaps. p

PHOTO // ROBERTO PEREZ + ROCHELLE REBUCAS

54

by S

ati ne Isk an da ry

V V C T L

an i

ne

// Streaming through Flitted Texture text Lost translating bits of text too familiar to encase in gilded frames, pilfering knowledge freely stuffed into not so musty literary corners, coveting appliance-friendly portals hosting condensed drone files to inject, carry ‘round bottleswallowed malevolent venom pressed under tongue to eject later, another floppy disk discarded as this flat circle churns and the pinnacle peak stands still deliciously &topples, sweeping dusk-flavored eternity into hurtling black flumes as angry reams of paper-thin thoughts spring UP spilling across hand-drawn lines crafted taut with understanding; binds stretch to fit the leather shape of my spine shivers every time catharsis appears in covers judged: haiku mornings and afternoons spent swimming with words to emerge victorious, a couplet born from the verbose and seaming into quatrains always trailing, assonance so askance it inevitably leads the meter to an iamb reborn in the blood: me limbs akimbo, morose lingo leaking from pages always screaming in forgotten folds of forgotten libraries, leaving folded sheaves, sheathing beating hearts against the harsh coldness, offering shelter from the I of this storm so I wrote words that won’t stack up, packing papers lucky with clover four-folded over in order to hold em together, lone stars; consternation laid prostrate before me, half-crawling scurries from the Mecca of my temple in ostentatious spidercreep stretchings, loop incessantly off kilter and skittering mine skittish limbic system to arrive at the helms of slumber; sunk under, smothered until succumbed to cerebral silence â–˛

poetry

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ART // LUIS BONDOC

tender lids drooping translucent while beats boxed into minute compartments

sPeaking

Flight

by Peter Folsaph

by Cassidy Green

I am the writer, said the writer, Said the writer of the writer, said The writer of the writer of the writer, I said, said my writer, Said the writer of my writer, said The writer of the writer of my writer, I said.

Shortly after takeoff a complete engulfing of clouds, a sudden milky blindness.

A low-level panic.

And if the blindness lasts forever?

A moment of surrender.

And then, just as suddenly as it appeared, an opening up

Waiting For a train

into the clear blue sky.

By Helen Irias

I find it remarkable that We spend our lives fiercely battling age Smearing serums to fend off the clock's groping paws Coloring the truth with packaged dyes And yet The monotony of a railway station Triggers an abrupt reversal Spins our minds to wish minutes were seconds Fingers tap tap tapping in impatience Demanding time to propel at our preferred pace To hell with youth In the face of this purgatory period!

This makes me believe That somewhere between life And waiting for a train Dwells the (im)possibility of contentment

PHOTO // ALEX WANG 56

A Life,long Walk to the Same Exact Spot

by Peter Folsaph

Overestimated mysteries confounded the public minds Whose oyster sensibilities pearled the least speck, Then pointed to their fleck of dirt buried in excreted nacre And pontificated about its elegant beauty.

Out of the nothing from whence come things Came one un-mysterious figure.

In un-mysterious and un-unknown words, The figure spoke to these un-intelligent.

Fingering their shiny bands of baubles and squinting To showcase for each other their thorough distaste, They let him speak his plainspoken reason Before laughing lightly, sadly, at such foolish phrases.

So the figure ceased speaking and went on his way, Living un-sadly, un-mysteriously, a life of simple love, Creating the as yet un-created, Smiling un-infrequently, And living with a peace un-imaginable Until into the nothing again he went.

Ever-confused, the public minds nervously considered How one so wrong could be so fulfilled, While they shouted praise at mysteries.

Every day remaining tied to the certainty That comes with sincere love for romantic falsehoods, They never considered the obvious answer: Milton’s Satan, chained in flames, had only to stand up. ▲

ART//LUIS BONDOC

poetry

57

THE DAY AFTER RAPTURE BY SELENA ROSS

The day after the rapture we all wore socks beneath our shoes and too many people said thank you meaninglessly, habitually —they couldn’t help it, they were taught to.

The day after the rapture, a couple people started diets, a few went on blind dates and online headlines told of riots in countries, far, far away.

Post apocalypse, several someones lost their keys, and others stood in long lines

and during dull lectures, they daydreamed.

After Armageddon, it was impossible to find parking, reckless elbows broke some glasses and custodians took the trash out.

The day after the rapture, people apologized for being late and we all carried on, ceaselessly, endlessly, despite being all collectively in the afterlife. ▲

PHOTOS // MARIAH TIFFANY 58

at birth, I did not know myself b y A L B E RT O L O P E Z

ART // VIJAY MASHARANI At birth I did not know myself, I know my mother best though scarcely more than I know myself now: How old am I? I’ve lost count since many days ago or years (the difference between a day and a year is knowing) when the calendar, crucified and bleeding ink, no longer had a page to turn; now the only thing that carries me through the days is faith that those around me do not lie (I know they do), not because they care to inform me of the day of the week, but because they need to remind themselves it’s almost over (God willing and the cost of living don’t rise).

At birth I did not cry, my mother says, she is proud, not that I believe her (she hung herself with what was left of my umbilical cord, it took her eighteen years to die).

At birth I did not know myself and each day since then less, until at death there will be scarce;y any of me left. ▲ poetry

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- special thanks to -

The Catalyst is a student-run collective that produces an interdisciplinary design & writing course, music and arts related community events, an online blog, and a submission-based quarterly publication open to all UCSB students.

The magazine features both submitted and commissioned original student art, writing, and collaborative projects.

THE UCSB ENGLISH DEPARTMENT UCSB ASSOCIATED STUDENTS A.S. PROGRAM BOARD

THE CATALYST IS A STUDENT RUN PUBLICATION OF THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA. Printing funded by Associated Students

THE ISLA VISTA FOOD CO-OP LUCIDITY

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