2019 Charlotte Latin School Blue Review Literary & Arts Magazine

Blue Review 2019

“Reserving judgements is a matter

Literary & Arts Magazine

of infinite

hope.”

Volume XXV

BLU E REVI EW

Literary & Arts Magazine Charlotte Latin School Vol. XXV 2019

“.So we

beat

“I was within and without,

simultaneously

enchanted

and repelled

by the inexhaustible

variety

of

life.”

on .”

CHARLOTTE LATIN SCHOOL 9502 Providence Road Charlotte, North Carolina 28277 704.846.1100 charlottelatin.org

BLUE REV I EW

Literary & Arts Magazine Vol. XXV 2019

Editors’ Letter

Lead Layout Editors: Bianca Bellavia | Bela Marcus | Emma Martin | Anna Rose Turner | Laura Zielinski Associate Layout Editors: Lulu Holtz | Zoe Spicer

As we sought inspiration for this year’s edition, we wanted to articulate the futility of seeking the “perfect” lives we see around us. We found our voice in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s iconic novel, The Great Gatsby. The pleasure-seeking ideals of the Roaring Twenties still resonate nearly a hundred years later; they may be even more prevalent than before.

Modern American society holds us to an impossible standard of perfection as mass media constantly bombards us with pictures of affluence and materialism. We want so badly to fit in that we attempt to replicate what we see—to be the way that we think others are.

Despite all of this posturing, Fitzgerald suggests that the notion of perfection is a façade—we are not infallible. Inside, we are secretly out of control, wrestling with suppressed emotions and desires that feel incompatible with the box we are supposed to fit into.

However, life is more than just forced smiles, fake friends, and trite formalities. Ultimately, pretending to be what we are not does not make us happy, and we lose sight of what is important.

Beautiful things do not last forever, and fulfillment only comes from deep, interpersonal relationships and powerful, introspective thought.

Our first chapter, “Precious Things Fade,” emphasizes the heavy burdens that develop in our lives when we are influenced by distractions.

Evident in the dark fiction and heavy-hearted poetry, this chapter reveals the emptiness that comes with trying to please others instead of ourselves.

Highlighting the importance of finding truth behind the madness, “Too Close to Fail” reflects the onward progression that comes with recognizing that there are more important things in life than trying to fit someone else’s mold.

Instead, we learn the value of our own voices, and in doing so, “we beat on.”

Our final chapter, “A Single Window,” transcends the harsher tone set by the previous chapters, instead illustrating that we are capable and triumphant when we pursue our own purposes.

The progression of our magazine parallels the journey we take as individuals. Each chapter extends in length, mirroring the surge of new ideas that come to us as when we open our minds.

As we seek clarity our goals become realities, and as a result, we can finally live life driven by our own bold intentions.

Cover & Complementary Artwork Emily Holtzman | Ophelia: Waterlogged | 20x48| Oil Pastel on Wooden Headboard My piece references John Everett Millais’s ‘‘Ophelia’’ by imitating the imagery of a woman lying in a river. To prompt feelings of heaviness and immobility, I waterlogged the piece by saturating the wooden bedframe and sinking the figure in the river, leaving water droplets running down Ophelia’s somber skin.

Somehow, this dramatization of the mundane, heavy feeling felt necessary in conveying the weight of the melancholy emotion.

Masthead Faculty Adviser: Lori Davis Co-Adviser: Tiffany Fletcher

Lead Copy Editor: Rachel Lebda

Associate Copy Editors: Catherine Clover Clare Downey Lily Farr

Lead Art Editor: Connor Neely

Associate Art Editors: Ella Lavelle Rhea Shetty

General Staff:

Virginia Troutman Janie Balanda Henry Smith Adel Berhe Meredith Reese

Brooke Bellavia Madison Yee Joy Yu Kai Vincent

Promotional Support: Latin Arts Association Kim Cobb Jan Johnson Vivi Bechtler-Smith Harriet Stamatakos

Charlotte Latin School Media & Graphics: April Baker Tori Belle-Miller

Administrative Support: Rod Chamberlain Fletcher Gregory Jeff Knull Arch McIntosh Hunter Murphy Lawrence Wall

Technical Support: David Bullock Andre Elam Bill Freitas Clifford Jeanty Luis Neves Craig Summerville

English Faculty Support:

Alan Becker Stuart Bonner David Gatewood Richard Harris Maria Klein

Amanda Labrie Tara McLellan Robin Siczek Tracey Vanneste

Art Faculty Support: Richard Fletcher Kaila Gottschling Clark Hawgood Will Thomason

Financial Support:

Charlotte Latin School

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Table of Contents I : Precious Things Fade

Poetry 13 15 21 22 27

TOD Refugees A Cardinal’s Song Consider This a Letter Pierce the Soft Underbelly of the Beast

Virginia Troutman Emma Martin Kaitlyn Vickers Cora Snyder Joy Yu

Free Verse Free Verse Free Verse Free Verse Free Verse

Negative Space Christmas?

2700 Miles I Didn’t Plan on Dying Jerkonomics 101 Fiction or Future?

Customer Suport The Malignant Drift

Emma Gerden Julianna Stephenson Vivian Workman Emma Gerden Brooks Finby Olivia Williams Bela Marcus Kieran Amin

Short Story Flash Fiction Flash Fiction Flash Fiction Satire Flash Fiction Flash Fiction Fiction

Thallasophile

Abby Adams Annabelle Brown Nikki Reinhardt Marion Donald Dawson Nash Clarkson Plumides Abby Adams Audrey Cobb

Photography Sculpture Digital Art Watercolor Drawing Sculpture Photography Photography Sculpture

Fiction 10 16 19 24 29 31 32 35

Art 10 12 14 17 18 20 22 25

Stitch the Octopus

Body Works Dog 4 Kraken Irish Cottage Child Coup d’Etat Melancholy Man

26 28 30 32 34

Alligator Garden Variety Values Above

Tentacles

Scrabblesaurus Pastel Dreamscape

Pen and Ink Sculpture Painting Sculpture Pastel Drawing

Ella Lavelle Ellie Beuley Grace Scott Connor Mackey Emma Carter

II: Too Close to Fail

Poetry 47 51 54 61

A Culture to Be Forgotten A Canopy of Rainbow Leaves

The Apple Orchard / South African Stars Renewal

Emma Martin Jessica Flynn Adam Manuel Clare Downey

Free Verse Free Verse Free Verse Free Verse

Alexander Donald Ruth Shumway Gavin Gwaltney Catherine Clover Maria Llerenas Soto

Memoir Memoir Memoir Memoir Memoir

Alison Moore Caroline Van Nort Elizabeth Cobb-Curtis Joy Yu Emma Gerden Emma Martin

Fiction Flash Fiction Fiction Folk Tale Fiction Flash Fiction

Nonfiction 44 57 63 67 69

The Year of the Unrelenting Squirrels Dream Come True Freakonomics Magic of the Unknown My Favorite Purple Tutu

Fiction 38 43 48 53 58 64

The Girl Who Sees Gargoyles Shark Attack Cold Winter Evening The Price to Pay Snow Fall Vita’s Yellow Box

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Art 38 42 45 46 48 50 52 54 56

Ferris Wheel Soda Shop Hungry Water Buffalo Hypno Snake Resting Face Summertime Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt Under the Stars of South Africa Glitter Girl

58 60 62

Wrapped in Gold Repose Void Depth

Neely Grace Tye Chloe Ciucevich Emma Gatrell Wills Thomason Caroline Wall Ethan Zhang Ethan Zhang Emma Gatrell Mary Catherine Pope Vivian Workman Emily Holtzman Adam Riescher

65 66 68

Goofy Gus Panels Elf

Emma Martin Britt Fuller Thea Karlsson

Mixed Media Charcoal Drawing Painting Colored Pencil Drawing Oil Painting Oil Painting Mixed Media Drawing Mixed Media Chalk Pastel Acrylic on Two Canvases Printmaking Mixed Media Graphite Drawing

III: A Single Window

Poetry 73 77 80 83 86 91 97 100

March of Mortality Kazakh’s Daughter / 6475 Miles from Petrovo Daily Drive Graveyard Fields Springtime Storms Old Rag Airport / Vermont A Chrysolite Sonnet

Clare Downey Assem Mendygaziyeva Kaitlyn Vickers Bennett Smith Payne Thrift Payne Thrift Gracie Reynolds Andrew Sumichrast

Free Verse Free Verse

Vivian Workman Elyssa Kim William Lloyd Veronica Leahy Hadley Sparks

Memoir Memoir Memoir Memoir Memoir

Free Verse Free Verse Free Verse Free Verse Free Verse Sonnet

Nonfiction

84 95 99 103 104

Zach Growing Up Korean Breathing To Be a Cat Sublime Summer Storms

Fiction

74 79 89 93

de Vitral Celestial Do You Want to Go Out? The Last Filibuster

Emma Martin Hannah Colaco Matthew Marcus Andy Dorsel

Flash Fiction Flash Fiction Flash Fiction Flash Fiction

Spring Fever Mileage Club Three Oranges Sun Dancer Irish Crow Nepenthe Portrait of Kate Windmill Ella and the Pool The Keeper Alone in the Expanse Paper Peacock Harvest Gold Retro Inky Shapes Mauna Kea UFOs over Prague Floating Figures

Emily Holtzman Molly Kennelly Paige Klingenberg Luisa de Armas Clarkson Plumides Abby Adams Lizzy Griesser Emma Gatrell Chloe Wooster Emily Holtzman Grant Barlow Molly Kennelly Emerson Shreero Kathyrn Vandiver Elizabeth Rose Emma Martin Lily McMahan

Colored Pencil Graphite Drawing Pastel Drawing Sculpture Photography Photography Photography Mixed Media Digital Art Colored Pencil Mixed Media Mixed Media Digital Art Photography Mixed Media Digital Mixed Media Digital Art

Art 72 75 76 78 80 82 84 87 88 90 92 94 96 98 101 102 104

Chapter Divider Art 8 36 70

I: Precious Things Fade Carnival II: Too Close To Fail Portrait of Lindsay III: A Single Window Colonia Sun *All chapter and cover art quotations from F. Scott Fitgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Mary Gale Godwin

Watercolor

Olivia Williams

Graphite

Abby Adams

Photography

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Mary Gale Godwin | Carnival | 26x20 | Watercolor

“

ba ck.

they

Allthe BRIGHT, precious things fade so D fast e ON m o ’T c and

Blue Review Vol. XXV

I didn’t know. I waited for her to elaborate.

“It’s like finishing a good book, or a poem or something. After the last line, something continues. A feeling or something. It’s like that with music, too. It’s about sound and the absence of sound. Like negative space. The echo after a rest, or right after the piece ends—something keeps going. I like that. That’s the best part.”

I still didn’t really understand, but if Nadie wanted to elaborate further, she didn’t—instead, she curled her legs up against her chest, rested her chin on her knee.

“I love it out here.”

“Me too.” I felt like I was at the helm of a ship—not far below, waves crashed loudly, breaking into the base of the rocks. I ran my fingers across the surface, accustomed to the grooves and grainy texture. It felt safe, here—the way we knew the best routes to climb, where to put our feet, but also the way we could talk about anything. Negative space and school and summer and sex—anything at all, Nadie and I could discuss. But then Nadie died, the same summer she wrote the song.

I always imagine what her blood would’ve looked like, splattered across the rocks, fingers that played the violin so beautifully bent and distorted at inhumane angles. Obsessive thoughts that creep into my nightmares—I wasn’t there the night she died. I wasn’t even on the island. My mother and I returned to Ontario earlier than normal, late July, and Nadie died in August. Apparently, it was a stormy night.

Unseasonably cold. And the tide rose much faster than usual.

When Nadie played me her song, not too long before that August, the song she named after our rocks, it was sort of sadder than I expected it to be.

Quiet arches of sound like melting wax, notes being folded into one another—I could almost taste it, the salt, the way the notes settled on my tongue. “Nad,” I said when it was over. “That was beautiful.”

“It’s for you,” she repeated, as if I forgot—the tone was almost teasing, but her eyes shone with genuinity.

Or perhaps it was simply the emotion that follows the adrenaline, the fervor and honesty at which she plays.

And I’d like to believe that something kept going, long after the ending, when she dragged the last note out, a steady bow swooping into lower pitches, softening the tension, then a trembling last note, a shaky breath of the instrument, sad and slow and haunting and bitterly final.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Annabelle Brown | Stitch the Octopus | 7x15x14 | Sculpture

12

TOD

1

Virginia Troutman

The labyrinth of twisted halls leads to news of more despair; faint screams and an intern that laments Tod’s last chance for fatherhood.

The operating room reeks of blood, fear seeps through the surgical pads.

A piercing scream and silent whisper Tod’s legend lives in his unfulfilled dreams.

The alarming blares of an MRI scan dismiss the glossy layer of hope.

The EKG monitor flatlines, Tod’s last breath to his unstamped passport.

An echo of a newborn cry interrupted by the flash of another Code Blue.

His dying faith all that remains Tod’s fading farewell to his true love.

Hesitant doctors, still in disbelief the final beep becomes an unbearable silence.

With nothing more to be said or done, Time Of Death.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Nikki Reinhardt | Body Works | 17x22 | Digital Art

14

RE F UG EES E mma Mart

in

The mouth of the cave swallows us whole submerging into darkness lights from headlamps guide the way like thin tight ropes creating paths that appear and then betray one’s eyes We crawl underground rats scavenging for light and not food the cold mountain streams bleed down into the caverns below the suffocating tunnel opens up into a gothic hall silhouettes of human form sit like gargoyles in a circle headlamps die black any trace of light returns to the sun above one weak flame seems to light itself glossing the faces of those around with a flickering orange tint until we emerge into a flood of brightness

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Christmas?

Julianna Stephenson

I

walked down the creaking staircase, the aroma of pine filling the air. Looking down into the foyer, I see the glimmering lights wrapped loosely around our beautiful tree chosen just weeks before. The warm sensation of Christmas filled the air in our home. My little sister ran down the

until the box inside had broken free, my sister’s eyes sparkled with merriment as she revealed the Barbie inside. My mother made us all gather around her to take a picture, and we held our smiles for so long our cheeks began to cramp.

I stood up and ran outside to find a world coated in white,

up promptly and gazed around.

“What happened to Christmas?”

I asked in disbelief.

My mother grabbed my hand firmly and told me today was Christmas; I had been asleep. It didn’t take all but a few seconds to realize where I was. I first noticed the gray cement walls,

stairs with exhilaration and rapidly sat herself before the neverending sea of vibrant, tightly wrapped gifts. Mom and Dad smiled as if our joy had passed onto them.

My mother swiftly stood up to turn on the radio and within seconds, Christmas music echoed through our home. We sang along to Mariah Carey and laughed gleefully at the dreadful sound of my father’s voice. My sister immediately grabbed her first gift while my mother drew out her camera from its case. Pulling at the tightly wrapped packaging

glistening snow. Christmas was perfect this year. I buried myself within the pristine, fluffy powder covering our yard and lie there gazing up at the sky.

Suddenly, I heard my mother run out and begin chanting my name from our doorstep…

“Julianna, Julianna, Julianna!” played on a loop, but I was too overwhelmed with joy to respond.

Then suddenly I felt a cold hand reach out and touch my face.

“Julianna, wake up!” echoed through my head.

Abruptly, my eyes opened. I sat

then the creaking of a hundred cots, and lastly I saw my sister, still soundly asleep despite all the noise. A woman walked up to me, without enthusiasm, and handed me a plastic bag full of “goodies.”

I reached inside and pulled out a couple of wooden pencils and a pair of fuzzy socks. My mom gave me a half-smile and told me to be grateful. The same woman stood up on a platform and yelled in a monotone, “Christmas breakfast will begin at 9:00 a.m.”

I guess this was it; Christmas had come to the homeless shelter.

“Then, suddenly, I felt a cold hand reach out and touch my face.”

16

Marion Donald | Dog 4 | 21x18 | Watercolor Drawing

Blue Review Vol. XXV

2700 MILES Vivian Workman

Dawson Nash | Kraken | 45x40x35 | Sculpture Clarkson Plumides | Irish Cottage | Photography

18

Emilio—September 2018 I­ creep out of my bed towards the soft light where Mommy and Eduardo are talking by the stove. Mommy looks sad, and her sagging shoulders make my big brother seem even taller as he towers over her.

“It’s either I join up or you find my body full of bullets! And besides, you know we could use the money.”

“Shhh, no, no, baby, please at least just wait a little while. I’ll think of something.”

Eduardo sighs and walks outside, and Mommy sits on the faded teal couch, unconsciously avoiding the ripped spot where the stuffing spills out, before she grabs the remote and turns on the little TV. I sneak behind the couch as the fuzzy picture starts to play on the TV, the newsman’s mouth about a second slower than the loud words that fill up the room, some story about a big parade or something.

I slip past the stove and through the door before I plop down beside Eduardo on the concrete steps.

He opens his eyes, the cigarette dangling from his fingers glowing orange against the darkness.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed instead of listening to private conversations?” Eduardo asks as he raises his eyebrows.

“Sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

He starts to close his eyes again, the silent signal for me to go away, but I don’t want to, so I try to think of something to say.

“You look old!” I blurt out. It wasn’t what I meant to say, but it it’s true.

His eyes open and he lets out a laugh, except it sounds weird.

I watch him stand up.

“Seventeen years old and already an old man. Would you imagine that. Come on,” he says as he hauls me up, “It’s time for you to go back to sleep.”

“Carrrrrry meeee. Pleeeeaaase. My feet hurt. We’ve been walking for for-eeeeever.” Eduardo smiles, which makes him look less tired.

“It’s only been a few hours since we got up, silly,” Eduardo replies, but he picks me up anyways, and I sit on his shoulders and look at all of the people around us.

“All we do is walk. We walked yesterday, we’re walking today, and I bet we’re gonna walk tomorrow too.”

Mommy looks back from where she’d been chatting up ahead.

“And we’re going to keep walking. No complaining.”

Her voice softens, “I know you’re tired, but it’ll be worth it. We’ll be safe, your older brother will get a job, and then we’ll start a new life.”

Eduardo smiles again, so I poke him in the cheek, and he laughs.

He opens his eyes, the November

his fingers glowing orange against the darkness

October

.

“We made it! See over there, Emilio, that’s the United States of America. Now everything’s going to be okay.”

December

Mommy was so happy when we finally made it to the border, but we’ve been waiting by it for a while, and now she’s sad again.

“I heard they were detaining people for gang connections. I saw a whole group of young men being led off a couple days ago, my own son included, and nobody’s been released since. Who knows what they’re doing to them in there, Lord help us.”

“Thank you.” Mommy turns away from the old lady and starts walking back towards me, her face pinched and worried.

“Where’s Eduardo, Mommy? He’s been gone a long time. When’s he gonna be back?”

She sighs. “I’m not sure, Emilio.”

“I miss our house. And my bed. Are they ever gonna let us in?”

I draw my name in the dirt three more times before she answers.

“I don’t know, baby. I just don’t know.”

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Clarkson Plumides | Irish Cottage | Photography

20

a cardinal’s song Kaitlyn Vickers

For Eldon Earl (08/10/1935—05/14/2017) The bird house was built from the wood in his backyard.

My grandfather’s big hands chopped, collected, constructed The modest little home.

He painted it as red, as the cardinals who nested there; A stop sign, hung from the blossoming dogwood, Inviting his favorite state bird to stay a while At the quaint house on Zinnia Dr. I remember one such cardinal that day, The day after I turned 16, The day I saw the ambulance in the driveway, The red of the siren overpowering the faded red birdhouse The day that the big handed, strong man Lay motionless on a stretcher, An innuendo of the chaos to come, The brain cancer, stage 4, That spread fast. Not even a year, and he was gone.

The cardinals no longer had their birdhouse On Zinnia, hanging from the bare-branched dogwood.

We moved it to Autumn Gold, The place where he died, The place where he decayed, Slowly, losing himself, losing The love for the birdhouse.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

CONSIDER THIS A LETTER Consider This a Letter to Those Who Created This World: I know you all well.

You have raised me.

You have taken care of me.

You have taught me.

And I thank you for that.

You answered me with silence.

I know you.

I know the world you created, and the world you want to hand down.

A world where owning a house is a privilege.

But eventually I grew up. I learned to depend on no one but myself.

My thoughts and morals came of my own evolution.

And so I have changed.

I have often heard you say that life is not fair. One day I asked you why.

Abby Adams | Child Coup d’Etat | Photography

22

Cora Snyder

A world where students are trapped in a system of debt.

A world where two men can only kiss behind the closet door.

A world where straws are worth more than living creatures.

A world where young girls walk with keys held as weapons.

A world where skin tone can be the difference between a job and unemployment.

A world where trained officers shoot first and ask questions later.

A world where a teenage boy kills himself because “real men don’t cry.”

This is what you have to offer me and my peers: A dying planet and a crumbling society.

You laugh and joke like the state of the world is not your problem.

And you are right. It isn’t your problem anymore. It has become ours.

So I will say this: I refuse to live in a world like that.

I refuse to let my kids grow up in a world like that.

I refuse to sit back and say that the world is not fair.

So on behalf of a new generation made of realists, activists, atheists, feminists, environmentalists, believers, travelers, scholars, creators and dreamers, of young girls and boys who will one day change the world, On behalf of each and every one of them I decline your offer.

I reject your vision of our world.

We are the future.

We are the revolution.

We will not answer with silence.

And we will not stop until the world is our own.

Sincerely,

Those Who Will Create the Future

Blue Review Vol. XXV

I didn’t plan on dying.

The thing about death is that you only get one chance. No replays, no do-overs…it’s a one time deal. The pressure’s on. You can end up like Johnny Walters, the high school dropout who overdosed in his Toyota behind the drivein theater, or Sarah Miller, that volunteer firefighter who made all the headlines a year or so ago because she died in a burning apartment after saving eleven people.

Some people choose death, some people wait for it, some people dread it. Like my mother, fingering her beaded rosary, her lips moving in a hushed prayer. Lord, protect me. Or old Ms. Hughes who lived down the street and almost never left her couch, “Wheel of Fortune” on repeat. Lord, take me.

Me? I had no connection with death whatsoever. Death and I, we weren’t even on the same plane. Death was something druggies flirted with, nervous mothers worried about, and the sick and elderly prayed for. I wasn’t any of those things. I was just a stressed out high schooler, staying up late to study chem notes through my scribbled doodles. I went to Friday night football games, and parties every once in awhile, and the movies with some friends.

I straightened my hair and put on mascara and sweaters and my glasses and sneakers and I listened to music and I fought with my parents and I cursed at teachers under my breath and I typed essays late at night and I pinched my stomach and I worked at the grocery store on weekends and I pet my cat. Her name was Socks.

When I was younger, I went to my great-aunt’s funeral.

That was the only funeral I’d ever been to, besides my own. I knew what death was. I knew it made people cry— 24 24

all my extended relatives, wearing lacy black dresses and rumpled suits, the sharp scent of perfume and cologne mingling with the musty smell of the funeral home.

Patting tissues under their eyes, sniffing loudly, squeezing arms in half-hugs. My own black dress was itchy, and I squirmed uncomfortably all day.

But I didn’t think about it very often. Death. It’s a strange word, when you say it out loud. It summons a dark veil, clouds everyone’s eyes with a layer of morbidity and eeriness. Death. Some people lump it together with Halloween because then it seems like something fake, something you can dress up as for a night and laugh about, scare yourself for fun.

I don’t know. I don’t know. One moment I was here, and then I wasn’t. That’s all. Walking down Poplar Avenue, yellow streetlights, that faded mural that’s on the side of the warehouse—you know, the person that painted that went to my high school—the mix of green and purple paint, cool breeze—purple and green paint together, odd but in a wonderful day, I wish I could paint but I don’t do much beside doodle—and then it was over. Did you hear about Johnny Walters? Sarah Miller? Sarah Miller?

I’m not any wiser. Disappointing, but I can’t say surprising. Besides, I can’t really see myself handing out corny advice like the posters that hang on classroom walls.

What a sad afterlife that’d be, whispering cliche quotes into the minds of the living. Nope, didn’t plan this.

But it’s not that bad. No flames.

Maybe I’ll take a walk.

There’s unfinished chemistry homework sitting on my desk.

Audrey Cobb | Melancholy Man | 10x11x5 | Sculpture

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Ella Lavelle | Alligator | 24x18 | Pen and Ink

26

U

PIERCE

Joy Yu

the soft

it beckons, enticing so soft and fleshy the pink of newborn or perhaps the red of velvet so inviting the pulsing heart beats underneath blood rushing through purple veins patterns arize a hexagon? or a vine of sorts feel the warm skin shivering off its heat how similar, yet different from your own you scratch it a bead of blood does it trust you enough? does it have a choice? a scratch turns from a fine line into a river you dig deeper and blood drips there’s no sound, or you’re too enthralled to notice does it feel the pain? does it not care? flesh rips, unevenly, not the cuts of a knife but the tears of brutality at last, you reach the center can you feel it? the pounding of both hearts? you reach in deeper blood splatters thickly, the sweet smell of copper you clasp the heart in your hand

nderbelly

OF THE BEAST

does it shake you? you feel every beat, every movement it pumps and blood rushes to the veins, to your hand is it ironic? the beast has become prey, and you, the hunter? any longer and your hand may be too entangled in flesh do you hesitate, looking into its eyes? or do you tear it out, wrenching it from its home for good? the heart pulses in your hand still, even as the beast falls blood runs along your hand and for a moment, it glistens you have taken the beast down you have pierced its soul how does it feel?

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Ellie Beuley | Garden Variety Values Above | 13x11x8 | Sculpture

JE r K o n O M i C s 1 01 Brooks Finby

28

C

ongratulations, you worthless idiot! By reading this, you have made your first step in becoming the human equivalent of a back alley dumpster fire. What your greasy, sausage-like fingers are holding is a perfectly crafted guide to becoming the physical manifestation of the feeling of stubbing your toe at one in the morning. This certified, 0% customer satisfaction guaranteed, three-step guide will allow you to be even more hated than the atrocious, unholy practice of putting pineapple on pizza. If you follow my directions closely, I will guide you on your journey of hatred like a bizarre, alternate reality version of Yoda. A douchebag, you will be.

Alright my young padawan, the first step to being loathed is quite simple: bragging. Bragging will deter any possible friendship or shred of respect faster than a cheetah on cocaine. According to the abhoratic formula, bragging has a high ratio of negative sentiment to low effort levels, making it very efficient in garnering hate. In fact, researchers at the University of Hate found that bragging yielded a p-value of less than 0.01, making it a highly statistically significant method of becoming a personified paper cut. Translation for my mathematically challenged readers: bragging will get you as detested as the group photo at an extended family reunion after eleven excruciating failed attempts. HOW HARD IS IT TO NOT BLINK?!

Anyways, the absolutely wonderful thing about boasting lies in the fact that it doesn’t matter if it is true or even remotely believable.

In fact, even if your brag is obviously a lie, it will generate the same amount of hate, if not more, as a regular brag would.

For example, a protein powder addicted gym rat gloating about how much he can bench—sidenote, ladies LOVE when you do this—is equally contemptible as a scrawny weakling lying about “totally benching 200 pounds last Friday.” Basically, a true brag comes off as arrogant and egotistical, while a fake brag comes off as utterly pathetic. In order to maximize your hate levels, I highly recommend you boast about topics such as your perfect SAT score, your gym progress (complete with mirror selfies), or your car that costs more than your teacher’s salary.

Please mention how you hooked up with that “one hot chick,” as you so eloquently put it! Pro-tip: weasel your boasting into as many conversations as possible, no matter how completely irrelevant.

Now that you have made yourself out to seem conceited and desperate for attention, you are ready for stage two:

breaking people’s trust. After the first stage of this flawless plan, those who don’t know you well will shun you for your unadulterated narcissism, but you may still have friends from before you began this outcast odyssey. Stage two plays a crucial role in destroying any existing friendships and furthering your reputation as a little *redacted for excessive profanity*. Trust acts as the precious glue in friendships; it assures others that you will support them through thick and thin. Now it’s time for you, my Jerki in training, to tear through that sacred glue like a corrosive battery acid. To fully accomplish this stage, you should backstab your friends more than Brutus. Spread rumors and just flat out lie. Treat it like a Mad Lib: ___ (person 1) was at ___ (location) with ____(person 2) doing ___ (scandalous activity). Bonus points for being creative!

Another especially successful method for being a disloyal scumbag is to disseminate your friends’ secrets to the entire school. I suggest airdropping screenshots of deeply personal conversations like a World War II bomber.

Finally, insults should serve as the last nails in the coffin of your reputation. You’re already a friendless, despised loser so why not further dig your own grave? (No, don’t answer. It’s a rhetorical question.) To be truly despised, you must go out of your way to unnecessarily belittle and attack others, demonstrating your pathetic lack of basic human empathy. Some especially sore spots for you to attack include the following: looks, intelligence, athleticism, wealth, and especially family. If you start to seriously mock someone’s mother, I can predict, with an extremely small margin of error, an 83.7% chance of a fist finding its way to your detestable face. I’d suggest getting that ice pack ready! Another pro-tip: if you happen to be male, insulting the opposite gender will substantially increase the intense hatred you will receive. Moreover, jerkonomic research has shown that if you use special phrases, such as “the wage gap doesn’t exist” or “go make me a sandwich” or “feminism is just women complaining,” you unlock a x5 special combo of molten hatred for being a brainless sexist. Additionally, you must remember two extremely crucial things when insulting others: 1) never apologize and 2) you are never, under any circumstance, at fault for your actions.

If you have followed the way of the Jerki correctly, you will have transitioned from a regular, reasonably wellliked student to a loathed social outcast on par with Jar Jar Binks. You should now be unanimously despised for being an arrogant, backstabbing, rude, insufferable wretch of a person! Your social status will have downgraded more than an iPhone X running Windows 95. Even the kid who feels the compulsive need to correct everyone’s grammar would rather die than be seen with you. Finally, some possible side-effects of this guide include, but are not limited to: getting beaten up, cussed out, socially isolated, suspended, and expelled. Do feel bad though; you definitely deserve it!

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Fiction or Future?

Olivia

Williams

Grace Scott | Tentacles | 21x18 | Painting

Humans.

Greed, desire, chaos.

The fuel of man pillaged mystery and exploited her wonders.

30

Mother Earth. Once tranquil, mysterious and untouched. Wild beasts roamed her lands, skies, and seas. Her luxuriant atmosphere concealed a myriad of exotic wonders. Impenetrable forests, pure oxygen, untainted waters. Exuberant flora and fauna flourished.

Earth overflowed with life.

Humans. Greed, desire, chaos. The fuel of man

pillaged mystery and exploited her wonders. Rotten forests. Noxious air. Seas of waste. Wild creatures, forced into submission. Suffocated under the corrupt weight of man, the once mighty Earth grew frail.

Man usurped natural force. His illusion would be her demise. Her generosity and love meant nothing to him.

Earth’s light. Finally extinguished.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Connor Mackey | Scrabblesaurus | 15x11x24 | Sculpture

Bela Marcus

On Monday morning, Peter Goodman sat down on his couch. With a fully stocked fridge and a sense of determination, Peter began to dial a number that had been burned into his mind approximately 130 years ago.

Greeted by the all-too-familiar holding music, he sat back down on his couch and started a fresh book of word searches. After two hours, he began to pace around the room. At three hours he realized that the pacing had not encouraged time along, so he sat back down and continued his word searches.

Once he finished his two hundredth word search, Peter felt a cause for celebration and walked over to 32 32

his kitchen to reward himself with a glass of juice.

Unsatisfied, he returned to his indentation on the couch. After two days of word searches, Peter got discouraged; after three, frustrated. Still, he waited.

The first time he had finally worked up the courage to call, Peter had not anticipated being put on hold and, having lost patience, hung up after twenty-three minutes.

The second time Peter had decided he would only wait up to a full twenty-four hours, as he had a very unfortunate funeral to attend the next day.

A lack of devotion to the cause and the upcoming burial led him to hang up at the twenty-first hour. As he had continued to age, funerals had become more of an inconvenience than anything else. And the years that had passed made Peter became familiar with all sorts of loss, and he found himself growing dull.

By his third attempt Peter had fully committed to his decision to call, and he assured himself he would not let any inconveniently scheduled events prevent him from his goal.

Unfortunately, Peter had committed a fatal flaw in that he had forgotten to keep his phone charging.

Though he had survived two and one-half days of increasingly depressing elevator music and was fuming once it had ceased without warning, he quickly looked to his never-ending calendar to carve out a week for another attempt.

When four days finally passed Peter became less hopeful, but since he was no stranger to waiting he stared at the clock, persuading it to rotate faster.

However, time had never been on his side, and once he realized the hands of the clock would be no friend, he turned his persuasion to the phone.

He found himself on the verge of praying for an answer. With no new luck, Peter and his lack of patience watched the clock for another seven hours.

It was at 4:26 p.m. on Thursday that the satisfaction of another voice met him.

“Hi, how may I help you today?”

Startled by the disruption to the consistent light jazz, Peter temporarily forgot how to speak. “Hi, hello, yes,” the words stumbled out, hoarsely, “I would like to make a return.”

“Could you please describe to me the purchase?”

Still flustered, Peter attempted to speak as clearly as possible. “I made a deal with the devil, about 130 years ago, and I—” he had rehearsed the conversation a million times over, but in the moment the anticipation left him unsure. “I don’t feel that the product was accurately described to me before the exchange occurred.”

In that moment, he realized his formality did not demonstrate what he had hoped to be intellect, but more the effects of excessive revision.

“Did you read the fine print on the contract?”

The accusatory tone challenged Peter and he could feel the smoke billowing out of his ears. Peter believed that the circumstances of the original trade had prevented him from clear judgement.

He decided that it had not been his own fault through lack of caution, but rather that of the other party through a sense of hurriedness they had brought about.

“I wasn’t quite given the opportunity,” Peter deflected.

“Since the product has already been used we cannot make any returns or restorations. It’s company policy.

Perhaps you should have taken this into consideration before finalizing the purchase.”

He could feel the voice on the other end of the line stoking the flames. He let a quiet resentment boil inside him, though unsure of at whom the feeling was directed. But only quick to anger, never action, Peter kept a steady voice in light of the fiery attack.

“What about an exchange?”

“I’m sorry, we don’t offer exchanges. However, you could always make another purchase. May I suggest for a loved one or companion?”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite have another soul to give.”

Peter knew what the voice was about to explain.

While not naive, he hoped for the best and would not jump to any conclusions unaided.

“To be frank with you, sir, many of our returning customers don’t purchase using souls that belonged to them.”

“Oh.” A moment of silence passed before Peter took up the courage to speak again.

Though easily frustrated, Peter was still a gentle man. The clear implication frightened him, but for a brief moment of desperation, he began to let himself consider the possibility.

“Is that all?”

“I’m sorry?” the voice had interrupted Peter’s considerations.

“Is there anything else I could help you with?”

Peter did not want to waste the opportunity, having spent the past few months in pursuit of this call. He decided to press on about the logistics entailed in a second purchase.

Peter asked a few of his more pressing questions, thankful that phone call could not reveal his face reddening with embarrassment.

Once the conversation became too heated, he finally thanked the voice and hung up.

Though his call to hell had answered many questions, Peter lie down, defeated. He had a decision to make, but had no sentiments of worry or a need for rush.

After all, Peter Goodman had all the time in the world.

“He could feel the voice on the other end of the line stoking the flames.”

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Emma Carter | Pastel Dreamscape | 20x14 | Pastel

34 34

As the gray, ominous clouds approached the shore, I had a premonition something horrible would follow. It is breathtaking how easily colors transform the clouds from peaceful into deadly.

Traveling to the cliff side, I became quickly captivated by the sand blowing a beautiful display and was oblivious to the forceful wind gravitating me towards the edge.

I realized my predicament too late. The wind blasted me off the edge. My sweaty fingers grasped the grassy ledge, but they soon became numb.

I peered tentatively below. The ocean violently swirled fifty feet below me. I realized this was the end. As my short life flashed before my eyes, I could only picture the discontinued memories of my father. The rocky precipice crumpled under my fingers and I plummeted towards the water.

My body dropped into the murky abyss causing

He was always there for me and I aspired to be just like him. My father was my best friend—until that dreadful night. I quickly pushed the memory aside and attempted to focus on the happiest parts of my life.

I remembered the sweat dripping off of my forehead as we painted the front door together. I remembered the childish complaints I squealeded to my father about the hard work or the hot sun and the sweat pooled in damp droplets on the porch.

Although I complained, the long hours of yard work brought my father and I closer than ever.

Catching my breath on the piece of driftwood and staring at the clouds, I sadly began to recall the worst moments of my life. I could see the doctors attempting to console my mother and my father telling me, “Everything will be fine, son.” Tears

MALIGNANT DRIFT THE

Kieran Amin

a liquid explosion. Struggling towards the surface, I attempted to propel my body upwards only to find myself sinking closer to the endless depths below.

Mustering every ounce of my strength, I forced my body towards the surface but was stopped by something heavy and dark. I gripped the edge of the mysterious object and tried to pull my body up to no avail.

The oxygen leaked out of my lungs, but I would not quit. Struggling against the waves, I managed to climb on top of the floating object in the water.

The sun, completely set by now, left the sky pitch black. I could not tell what had saved my life, but all I could think about right now was sleep. I awoke with the early morning sunrise and realized I was on top of a small piece of driftwood. Attempting to keep my sanity from escaping, I began to reminisce about my father.

When I was growing up, we were inseparable.

began to roll off my cheeks and created ripples in the calm water. The memories came flooding through me now, every hardship I ever faced was shoved right back into my mind.

Attempting to regain my focus, I forced myself to center my attention on the present and gaze at the shimmering water. Instead of seeing my haggard reflection, I saw the young, joyous face of my father.

The face before cancer. The face before his death.

He looked so content and relaxed, and he extended his hands out to me, as if we had never drifted apart.

I placed my hands into his, and a smile crept over his young, joyous face. I understood that this was the only way I would see him again and I plunged into the water. Sinking through the welcoming depths with a smile, I traveled further away from the clouds and closer to my calm, final future.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

srdo

close

he could

ly g rasp

Olivia Williams | Portrait of Lindsay | 17x22 | Graphite

36 36

ti

.

ha

must have seemed

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Wills Thomason | Hypno Snake | 12x10 | Colored Pencil Neely Tye Grace | Ferris Wheel | 38x30 | Mixed Media

38

The Girl Who Sees Alison Moore

Her foot hit the table leg. Tap. The reflection of a girl with sunken eyes and knotted hair stared at her. Tap. The blank walls and fluorescent lights hurt her eyes.

Tap. Tap. Tap. The chair bit into her back.

Tap. The room was cold, empty. Tap. Tap. Creak. Her eyes shot to the mirror.

Silhouetted by light flooding into the room was a man, and on his shoulder, a gargoyle.

Hiss. On her head, a smaller gargoyle she had dubbed Rascal dug its talons into her scalp as it snarled.

“Hello there,” the man said, “my name is Doctor Markov, head of this wing of the hospital.” Creak. He shut the door. Thump.

Thump. His footfalls were soft, muffled.

Thump. He crossed into her line of sight.

His back was arched and his thin frame was wrapped in a lab coat. Thump. Thump.

Thump.

When he turned, she noticed his face was as wrinkled as his leather briefcase. A liversplotched hand snatched the chair. Squeak.

The veins on his hand bulged as he pulled it back. On his shoulder the gargoyle shuffled its wings. They were torn to shreds, and dust gathered on the man’s once clean coat as it shook them. Thump, he dropped the briefcase onto the linoleum floor.

“So,” Dr. Markov lowered himself into the

chair, bones cracking, “How’s the psychiatric ward been treating you?” His smile was asymmetrical, teeth crowded in the front, absent on the left side, and jagged on the bottom.

“Fine, thank you,” she said. His spectacles were framed in a dull silver. It did not match his golden wedding ring. Tap. That bothered her.

He dropped several manila folders onto the table. “I’ve heard you’ve got an interesting skill.” Prowling on her skull, Rascal snarled. She brushed a strand of hair back, fingers flicking against his stone underbelly. Tap. The growling stopped.

“To say that is to say that having twentytwenty vision is a skill,” she replied. Dr. Markov placed his elbows on the table. He leaned into his laced fingertips, plastered smile cracking as he spoke.

“So you’ve always had this—” he struggled with the word— “ability?”

“Yes.” She tightened her crossed legs, hitting the table leg again. Tap. He nodded, sliding the first folder towards her. His discolored nails stood out against the creme coloring. Tap. He retracted his claws when she took the folder.

Her name was scrawled sloppily, drooping towards the right side. Her

Blue Review Vol. XXV

finger dragged across the material, the sturdiness was pleasant, calming. She opened it.

“The information in there is all up to date I trust,” he said. She scanned the pages, flipping through tests and evaluations. “A bit of anxiety—” Rascal perked up at the word— “but your exams look completely normal.” Dr. Markov’s tone made it seem unexpected. She kept her eyes fixated on the paperwork.

“Does it surprise you that someone sane would be here?” He chuckled at her question.

“We take all sorts,” he answered. She nodded, closing the folder. Her fingers tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, tickling the side of Rascal’s tail.

“My mother thought it’d be good for me,” she

numbers. It’s similar in that I see someone and they’re just as apparent.” Her eyes dragged across his gargoyle’s hunched figure. Click. Click.

“By ‘they’, do you mean the disorders?”

“Yes.” She frowned as his gargoyle clawed its way to his other shoulder.

“And how often does this instinct prove to be right?”

“Ninety-eight percent of the time. I rarely miss a diagnosis.”

He sat up straighter. “Really?” She nodded. Click.

He opened her file again. “It says here you went to med school.”

She scrunched her fingers so that they cracked. “The biggest mistake you can make is assume that you know all

explained, meeting the harsh gaze of Dr. Markov’s gargoyle. Its beady, red eyes burned into her, and when it reshuffled its wings she saw bullet holes in its side.

“And what do you think?” Dr. Markov asked.

She slid the folder back to him before sitting up.

“I think it will prove to be insightful.” He nodded, disappearing beneath the table and shuffling through the contents of his briefcase.

Rascal chewed on a strand of her hair. He was small, but could grow if she was not careful. It was the case with all gargoyles, no matter what type they were. She considered herself lucky that Rascal was a small-built anxiety; he was easier to control than the others.

“Tell me,” Dr. Markov straightened, “your ability. How exactly does it work?” He had a notebook and pen. Click.

She pressed against her seat.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with synesthesia,” she said.

“People see colors when they look at certain letters or

there is to know. Hubris is a dangerous thing.” Click.

He scribbled furiously on his notepad. “And what did you learn?” She tugged on her sleeve. What she had learned was far greater than just procedures.

“Did you know Galileo believed that there was more to the universe than previously thought?” Her eyes wandered to Rascal’s reflection. “He offered the church a chance to see for themselves that they were wrong and they declined.” Rascal tugged on her hair, the line of spikes down his back swung as he wagged his tail.

“They didn’t need to see what they knew didn’t exist.”

She dropped her gaze to the doctor. “And after all this time the world hasn’t strayed from that mindset. Man still doesn’t want to see what it believes doesn’t exist.” She narrowed her brow. “We will sacrifice sanity and sense to ensure that what we understand as real will continue to exist as such and that what we perceive as false will continue to be so.” Rascal stretched, pricking the top of

40

her scalp with his claws.

“So you think that the reason you can tell what disorders people have is because you see what others refuse to believe in? What doesn’t exist?” He clicked his pen, head cocked so that his glasses gleamed.

“Something like that,” she mumbled. His gargoyle stirred once more, yawning. She studied its dark stone.

Copernicus, she decided. That would be his name. A gargoyle named after a man no one believed.

She thought it was fitting.

“I must say, it’s an interesting concept,” Dr. Markov chuckled. “Well, we’ll see how much merit there is in your claims.” He passed her another folder, though when she examined it the name had been scratched out. Click. She

“Pardon?” She slouched back in her chair, eyeing Copernicus. His dark complexion, tattered wings, and long snout all pointed to one thing.

“Post-traumatic stress order,” she said. Copernicus tensed, glaring at her. Dr. Markov’s pen fell to the floor.

Clink. He cleared his throat, bringing a closed fist to his mouth.

“You-ah-you thought I wouldn’t catch on?” Her voice was gentle, but her gut churned like a cement truck. He let out a huff of air.

“It’s no surprise. I just figured…” He trailed off before shaking his head. “Never mind that. There’s one last question I need to ask you.” She nodded.

“Why are you here?” He asked. She sat back in her seat,

would not have to read the symptoms to know; she could identify what type of disorder by the type of gargoyle. Click.

“An eight-year-old female normally described as well mannered showed signs of anxiousness, inattentiveness, social inactivity, daydreaming, and a lack of selfconfidence both in and out of the classroom,” Dr. Markov read. She examined the photograph attached to the folder, the girl was smiling, ice-cream dripping onto her shirt.

Dangling from the bottom of her ice-cream cone was a gargoyle with long talons and a short snout. From the description she knew what the diagnosis was, and the gargoyle reaffirmed her suspicions.

“ADHD,” she said, tilting her head to try and get a better look at the creature. She closed the folder and set it down on the table.

“But if you really want to know whether or not I can diagnose disorders,” she said, “Why don’t I just tell you what yours is?” Dr. Markov shifted in his seat. Click.

a sad smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

“I’m here because people forget.” She watched as Copernicus curled up in a ball on Markov’s shoulder.

“They get to a point where they are indistinguishable from their disorders. They believe that they are nothing more than their struggles.”

She had seen people whose gargoyles had morphed into them. People who had stone wings and claws, people whose eyes were as dull as their teeth were sharp. She caught Dr. Markov’s gaze and held onto it. “And I want to help them remember.”

He nodded, eyes distant. She laced her fingers together, cocking her head slightly.

“So,” she said, “should I be here for work on Monday?”

Dr. Markov smiled as he stood. Copernicus blinked sleepily on his shoulder.

“Yes,” Markov said, holding out his hand, “I think you should.”

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Chloe Ciucevich | Soda Shop | 31x26 | Charcoal Drawing

42

sharkATTAC K Caroline Van Nort

I

nstantly, Olivia’s leg was crushed by millions of sharp knives. Terrified, she stared as the beaming water line disappear from above her. Looking down in a panic, she saw a dark mass move away from her long legs in one swift motion. Gasping for air she re-entered reality.

Olivia frantically looked for her surfboard which had drifted several feet away. As the notorious fin rose out of the water, her body froze.

Floating in the placid ocean she was submissive, and a shooting pain surged up and down her left leg. Seeing the bloody teeth marks buried in her leg, her stomach lurched. Olivia gritted her teeth, moving her weary arms in the direction of her board.

Only a few feet away from her destination her adrenaline caught up to her racing heartbeat, wreaking havoc inside her chest.

WHOOSH! The deadly gray mass shot up from beneath the murky water and in a flash it disappeared. Paralyzed by fear she started frantically swimming towards her board. In one swift motion she threw herself on top of it and was finally able to breathe for the first time. As her wound gushed out more and more blood, she looked up and saw the shore as if it was only

a hairline in front of her eyes.

Trying to stand on her injured leg she attempted to catch the next wave to shore, but instead fell hopelessly in the ocean. With a tremendous effort she brought herself back to the surface, discovering that her surfboard had disappeared. With her heart pounding a million beats a minute, she felt a rough object grate the bottom of her foot.

Her body went numb. She slowly raised one arm out of the water and started to paddle towards a plank of wood in the distance, moving as carefully as possible so as not to disturb the tranquil ocean. She dragged her mangled leg behind her and peered with determination at the distant shore.

She could feel the surf starting to hit her on the chest as the shark came crashing into her body from behind like an unstoppable cannonball. A wave hurled her forward off the wood and she was pinned aggressively underneath the rough waves.

Opening her eyes she saw the sharp, white teeth racing towards her when suddenly, shooting straight up in her bed, breathing uncontrollably and horribly fast, she realized the dream was finally, mercifully, over.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

The

YEAR of the

UNRELENTING

squirrels Alexander Donald

A lush, green jungle sprawls over the cow manure and coffee-ground-enriched soil of my 35 square-foot garden. It’s early May, and after a long school day I rush to the garden to examine the new growth at the tops of the tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, watermelons, cantaloupes, and green beans. Bees swarm, desperately trying to pollinate the countless flowers. My garden provides me much-needed solitude from the bustling city of Charlotte.

Although I have been gardening for years, there has never been a garden with as many ups and downs as the summer of 2018. The difficult but enjoyable preparation began as usual in March: tilling, raking, and installing irrigation. As April arrived, I placed the seedlings into their cozy little holes, keeping them warm until summer. Between above-average temperatures and plentiful rain, the garden grew exponentially.

Then terror struck.

I’m usually considered a nice, quiet guy, and not much gets me riled up. That is except when varmints such as squirrels feast on my tomatoes, the garden’s prized jewels. Like every other year, I built a netcovered tent over all twenty-one tomato plants, but this year the squirrels beat me to the delicious, juicy tomatoes. Their few days feasting in the garden before the net arrived seemed to have increased their ingenuity, too.

Staring out the kitchen window, I watched three squirrels scamper along the top of the net. I laughed at their foolishness because the fortress I had constructed—at least in previous years—was as secure as Fort Knox. One slid down the corner closest to me. It appeared to be inside the netting. In fact, all three had made their way into the netting. THIS WAS ABSURD! I stealthily approached the garden so I could observe how the squirrels were entering. When one grabbed a large, brilliant red tomato, I’d had enough. Hightailing it toward the garden, I let out several vicious barks.

44

Quickly escaping through the back of the net, the robbers scurried away. The thievery astounded me. I cursed the squirrels that had left half-eaten tomatoes lying helplessly on the ground.

Scouring the net for places these pesky animals had entered and departed, I finally discovered holes in the bottom. That must have been the endeavor of a sly squirrel. Determined to fix the problem, I hopped into my Toyota 4Runner and headed to Lowe’s to buy chicken wire that these nuisances surely could not penetrate. After wrapping it around the lower third of the net, infiltration would be impossible.

Three new tomatoes on the ground! What is this witchery? I had underestimated the determination of these squirrels that craved the taste of a homegrown tomato. I searched the entire net again but found no signs of a hole big enough for a squirrel. Intent on stopping the scoundrels, I added a small strip of additional netting where the net’s side and top sections met.

Then they got the huge tomato I had been carefully watching! The anticipation of covering my entire sandwich with one juicy slice of it now made me nauseous. I sprayed the tomato plants and fruits with animal repellent. The stench of this concoction was unbearable. No way a squirrel would ever get close— that was, until I walked out the next day only to see more tomatoes on the ground. Giving up on artificial methods for fending them off, I turned to clapping and barking regularly to scare the squirrels away, hoping to get at least a few of my favorite summer fruit for myself.

Reaching into the basket, I pulled out a tomato, washed the pesticides off, sliced it, and laid the bloodred treat on my turkey sandwich as I sat at the kitchen window. I may have lost the war against squirrels this year, but next year I’ll be one step ahead of them with a stronger, bigger net in place immediately after fruits appear.

Emma Gatrell | Hungry Water Buffalo | 30x30 | Painting

Blue Review Vol. XXV

46

Wills Thomason | Hypno Snake | 12x10 | Colored Pencil

aTOculture BE

Emma Martin

A skeleton of past times stone upon crumbling stone building blocks of a rooted faith Tintern Abbey now a tourist site sits and watches the seconds tick Knocked down by the scepter of a Tudor king’s spirit echoing choirs howl in the wind wooden floors now turned to grass In the summer night a ceiling of stars and indigo roads for traveling dreams the river Wye in the days of early June ghosts come out as wisps of clouds wisps of memories long forgotten blacked out by the falling sun at a corner of the foundation

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Caroline Wall | Resting Face | 17x22 | Drawing

S

he sits on the couch, racking her brain for ideas.

In the distance, the old, yellow, plastic guitar struggles to stay on key as it begs listeners to sing along. She looks around the dismal, gray room filled with antique lamps and the musty smell emanating from the loveseat, looking for some sort of color, even just the tiniest spark of inspiration from somewhere.

She can’t think of anything to write, and anything she does come up with quickly turns into a dead end.

She is swirling around in an endless cycle of emptiness inside her head, a cycle that she just can’t seem to break out of. The deadline is tomorrow, and she doesn’t even have an idea.

Her breathing picks up and her heart starts 48

cold

Elizabeth Cobb-Curtis

WINTER evening pounding as she spirals out of control. Trying to calm down, she takes deep breaths and begins humming the music from the upcoming strings concert to herself.

The quick tempo and difficult rhythms distract her as she picks out major fourths and minor thirds within the composition.

I can do this, she thinks to herself. She knows she is creative and smart. She forces a small smile and begins typing words into the plastic keyboard.

“Hope, are you busy?” Joseph walks into the room calling her. She grimaces at her name, as she’s always worn it like a false label. Filled with guilt and shame that she’s not always as happy as her name tells her to be.

“Umm, sorta. Why, what’s up?” She doesn’t look up from her paper.

“I was wondering if you could help me with my math homework,” he approaches her hopefully. “We’re working on long division, and I really don’t get it.”

“Long division. Yuck. I don’t know, bud,” she’s not even sure if she remembers how to do long division, and she knows she needs to write this paper.

She almost had a good idea, and he walked right in on her. “Maybe you could get Mom to help you?”

“Mom’s busy with Thomas, and she told me to come ask you,” Joseph sits down on the couch next to her.

“And Dad’s working on his paper for school before he starts supper. So I need your help.”

His eyes shine in the lamplight, making him look cuter and younger than an eight-year-old should.

Hope knows she wants to help him, but high school is a little more important to her than third grade math right now. She looks at him apologetically.

“I’m sorry, but I need you to leave me alone. I’m trying to write my paper, buddy.”

And she waits for it.

“But…but I need your help!” His eyes fill with disappointment, begging her to change her answer.

This is always the hardest part. “I don’t know how to do it, and you need to help me! I can’t do it otherwise!”

He’s on the verge of tears, and she can’t help in an but think about just how pitiful he looks, but also how immature he can be sometimes.

“Joseph, I need you to try it out by yourself. I know you can do it. I have homework, too,” she tries not to sound pleading.

She can feel her anxiety grabbing at her chest and throat, seizing her gut as he looks at her with intense hurt, insult, disappointment.

“No!” And he storms out of the room, huffing and puffing like a two-year-old.

A few minutes later, she can hear her father fussing at him for being too loud, that he needs to sit down and do his homework quietly. Joseph produces the scream of an unmistakably spoiled child.

Hope feels awful, and she knows she can’t focus on her paper anyways.

She calls out to Joseph, telling him maybe she can help him for a little while. She is met with another piercing shriek.

“You didn’t wanna help me before, why would you now? I know you don’t really care!” Joseph storms back

into the living room, wearing a scowl.

He stomps on the carpet before scooping up one of the frightened black cats and running back up the hallway to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him with a violent crash.

It’s not long before her father walks up the stairs and knocks on Joseph’s door, telling him that he can’t just act that way. Joseph needs to grow up and act more his age.

Again, the child screams that nobody cares, nobody wants to help him, he’ll never understand math, and he’ll grow up to be a failure.

Hope rolls her eyes; he’s eight and he’s already playing the “grow up to be a failure” card.

“Joseph, you’re literally eight, stop that,” she calls out, bracing herself for the resulting scream.

Her head spins and she begins to feel the anxiety reaching out to her again as her family members continue to fight.

She looks back down at her paper, but her eyes refuse to focus. She looks out the window at the dark street in front of her house, longing for freedom from this suffocating trap.

She gets up and walks across the room, through the kitchen, opens the door, and steps outside into the fresh, cool air. of The horses across the way stand in their pasture, watching her as the donkeys bray, seemingly in disapproval of her arrival.

She steps down from the softly lit porch and across the yard towards the street.

When she safely crosses to the light cement of the Prospect Church parking lot, she finally feels distanced enough from the house to breathe.

Forcing deep breaths and fighting back tears from her anxiety, she sits down on a bench between the trees, shading her from the blinding industrial parking lot lights.

In the distance, she can hear the cows in their pasture behind the church talking softly to one another, telling stories to help the little ones sleep.

She looks down at the unwritten paper on her tablet, and begins to type.

“swirling AROUND

endless cycle

EMPTINESS inside her HEAD ...”

Blue Review Vol. XXV

50

Ethan Zhang | Summertime | 24x18 | Oil Painting

A Canopy of

Rainbow Leaves Jessica Flynn

Mountain Roads Traveling west the 2.5 hour drive up Through twisting mountain roads to Asheville.

Countless miles through boring, barren towns, We finally begin our ascent.

Feelings of excitement to finally look out Over the land once again upon the trees.

But the day has yet to break, So we continue driving through the white mist of fog.

Through the clouds we emerge, And to the left I see a rainbow of leaves.

The higher we climb, The more air I breathe, the more land I see.

The beautiful landscape wipes my mind of all other thought, As the mountain embraces me with all of her senses.

Backyard Woods Out of the window to the left in my bedroom I see a canopy of dark green leaves.

The unexplored wooded area behind my house Set the scene for many of my childhood adventures.

Down the trail I march to the creek underneath the oak trees Until I can leap across to follow the winding waters.

A waterfall I stumble across Is still, without motion.

I reach under the water to move a pile of fallen leaves And the rushing water pours through once again.

I am embraced by sounds Of flowing water, birds singing, leaves rustling in wind.

The chirp-chirp of crickets in the trees and croaking of frogs in the creek Are my lullaby, as the moon shines bright through my window at night.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Ethan Zhang | Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt | 20x16 | Oil Painting

52

the price to

PAY

Joy Yu

They called her Oracle. Prophet. Diviner. Some The girl’s clenched hands trembled, and her face even called her god. But not God. She was only God’s held contempt.

Messenger, and His name was not to be uttered without This was news to the Diviner. Did her people suffer her blessings. for her? “Don’t question God’s decisions. He only Everyday, she woke up to the whispers of the clouds wants the best for us. He—” and the voices of blue.

She scoffed. “God? What sort of God lets His She wore gold-spun vines and ocean-breathed veils.

Messenger loose without boundaries? There is no such And she ate the pearls of snakes and drank the tears of God. Even if He does exist, He wouldn’t make His voice feathers. visible to you. You act without consideration for others, After all, she represented God. fooling yourself and everyone that God wants you to In her land, no one dared to argue with God, for do so.” the fear of His might. But there emerged a girl who “Enough.” The Elder of the Justices interrupted. questioned her and thus questioned God. “Men, arrest her. She shall be dealt with accordingly.

On the first day of the Holy Birth, she began the Oracle, continue.” ceremony of Rebirth. She anointed each disciple with The soldiers dragged her from the temple, and she her holy blood and sang the ritual prayers in her went willingly. temple. Cast in soft fires and golden sun, she shone as But her gaze lingered on the Prophet. For the first she spoke the word of God. time in her life, the god felt hatred. She felt the girl’s The girl came to be anointed absolute abhorrence. like everyone else. But before The ceremony continued “But there emerged a girl without further incidents, but the holy blood was imprinted on her lips, she broke a sacred who questioned her and everyone averted their eyes. rule and asked the Prophet a As soon as the Rebirth thus questioned God.” concluded, she was ushered to her question.

“Who gives you the right to chambers. be God?” “Let me see the Elder,” she ordered. The servants The god dropped the golden bowl and blood would not respond and only bestowed upon her a splattered onto her white robes. letter.

The air smelled of copper and thickened. The She scanned the document but could only rip the singing halted, and the people gasped. Soldiers came paper in frustration. forward to detain the girl, but the Diviner raised her She must be executed. For if even you believe her, hand. what would the people think? Do not end up like your She stared into the girl’s dark eyes and her lips mother. parted to speak. Porcelain skin, rosy lips, and curls of She fell asleep, haunted by memories of her mother earthen hair. My age? and the girl. The ghost of full lips, flowing locks of “Insolent mortal. I am God’s Messenger. Who are brown, eyes laced with tears. Her disgraced mother you?” Her voice was airy. She didn’t remember the last stroking her head and murmuring songs. time she had spoken to a subject.

A slam of the door awoke her. The servant The girl stepped forward. The subject and the god frantically informed her of the execution. She ran. stood face-to-face, eye-to-eye.

She knew exactly where the Elder would hold the “I am a subject of your lands. My lady, you wield the execution. She knew exactly why he chose to not power of God without His consequences. Last year, you inform her, why he chose to let her know when it was led our country into war. When the men returned, few too late. were left. My father, my brothers, everyone died.” The The night glittered and the stars mocked her. girl continued.

The moon was laughing.

“For what? For your whimsical wanting of their She smelled the smoke before she saw the fire. kingdom’s treasures? Do you know the price of your The girl was blazing and the god, with all her power, lavish lifestyle? We paid with our blood and lives.” could only watch as the truth blew away.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Emma Gatrell | Under the Stars of South Africa |20x26 | Mixed Media

54

apple ORCHARD Adam Manuel THE

I see the vast valleys of the Appalachian Mountains as I stand upon a single branch.

The brisk, November air ripples my cheeks Above me, Golden Delicious, tantalizing me just out of reach Below me, my older and younger brother watch on Ladderless, I stand in the tree I can hear the limb struggle beneath me Reaching far, I desperately lunge for the bitter, sweet pendulum above.

Fall My bones rattle as I fight to my knees, aching My brothers laughing Recovering, I glance down to my dusty hands, to find a yellow apple

South STARS AFRICAN

Camping out in the Bush Of Makalali game reserve Our guide fearless Casper, protecting our tentless campsite from the African wilderness We huddle in our group, Warming each other from the cold night Painful stings line my skin as I sit in shock, unable to relieve the burning sensation Invading fire ants breach my sleeping bag They crawl up and down my body Shaking, looking to the sky, the bright African stars watch over me Their luminescent aura shining through, Preserving my ability to fall into a deep sleep I wake to cool droplets of water on my face The slight drizzle, a natural alarm clock Blue Review Vol. XXV

Mary Catherine Pope | Glitter Girl | 20x20 | Drawing

56

dream come true Ruth Shumway

Scythian had taken Merlefest by storm, so it was only natural that everyone’s new favorite band had a mile-long autograph line. Being the starstruck seven-year-old I was, I dragged my mom into the crowd as I strained to get a glimpse of the musicians. After an eon in the queue under the hot April sun, I slipped up to the autograph table and introduced myself. I headed quickly down the table, however, because the man I really wanted to talk to was the main fiddle player. Alex Fedoryka, a virtuoso Celtic fiddler and experienced showman, had a big happy smile and sparkling eyes, one brown and one gray.

“I’m Ruth,” I told him. “I’m a fiddle player too.” His smile grew even bigger, and he asked me if I would play him a tune. I turned to my mom and employed my best puppy eyes because my tiny fiddle was all the way across the festival grounds and someone would have to retrieve it. She sighed, and after a kerfuffle and a good bit of running we scampered back to the autograph tent, fiddle in tow. This time we skipped the dwindling line and I unpacked my violin as quickly as I could. Since I was more of a bluegrass fiddler, I played Alex the only Irish tune I knew—“Swallowtail Jig.” After I finished, he knelt down so we could look at each other face to face. He seemed excited and just a little impressed.

“We’re playing on the main stage tomorrow. Do you want to play “Swallowtail Jig” with us?” he inquired.

An image of the monolithic wooden stage popped into my head. It more closely resembled a giant cabin than a platform, and a sea of lawn chairs spread from its gaping mouth. I had wanted to play on it for as long as I could remember. Why, it was only two days ago I had scrawled a drawing of myself on that stage in my notebook with brightly colored markers.

“Yes!” I exclaimed. Mom looked a little more hesitant, but when Alex asked her for her phone number and promised to text her that night, she printed it on the smallest piece of paper she could find. From the look on her face, I could tell she thought he was going to lose it.

Miraculously, and despite Mom’s doubts, we got a message later that night. The biggest dream I could fathom was coming to fruition.

The next day, Alex met us at the gate and finagled my mom and I through it into the backstage area, despite our lack of VIP wristbands. Up close, the stage looked even bigger. There was even a cafeteria in the back for artists and backstage-pass holders. The lady who ran the cafeteria was very kind. She even offered me a pack of Scooby Snacks. I had never eaten Scooby Snacks before. They seemed new and exciting, just like the rest of the unfamiliar backstage wonderland. We twisted through a warren of dressing rooms and emerged in the holding bay where mics, drums,

and speakers were stored in black, heavy duty cases. Here, we met up with the rest of the band for our one and only rehearsal. We ran through the tune once, and then I went to go sit in the hidden seating area on the side of the stage so I could watch the show with Mom. The incredible performance seemed to speed up time, and before I knew it, Alex waved me on. Mom handed me my fiddle, and I marched onto the stage. By then she had learned not to ask me if I was nervous. I never get anxious before performing. A helium balloon of excitement inflated inside my chest, and adrenaline flooded my arteries. I felt on top of the world, invincible, important. I beamed out at the crowd as Joey, electric bass and fiddle player, adjusted an extra mic as far down as it would go.

Alex introduced me and the crowd roared. At the time I felt grown up and special, but the fans saw a tiny sevenyear-old, barely taller than the monitors, sporting a big smile.

“Tell them what song you’re gonna play, Ruthie,” Alex instructed. I leaned into the microphone and said, “Swallowtailjig,” all in a rush.

“Are you ready?” He asked.

Then, to his surprise, I started playing. No one else was ready, but they played it off the way experienced showmen do and gave me a solo. It was just me and the clapping, cheering crowd. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my face projected upon the giant, glowing Jumbotron.

This was so cool! Then the crowd started rushing, so I had to concentrate extra hard. Keep the tempo, Ruth. You can’t speed up. Luckily, Alex and Joey came in on their signature dueling fiddles, and the fans found the beat again.

Surrounded by powerful tone and rhythm, I kept my fiddle as close to the microphone as possible, wanting everyone to hear me. Then Danalo, Alex’s brother, started strumming his guitar, and Mikey fired up the kick drum. It was incredible, standing on that stage, playing for the dancing, cheering crowd, surrounded by my idols. I didn’t want the song to end.

Looking back, this moment changed the word “musician” from an answer to, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” to a deep heartfelt desire. Since then, I have worked and practiced with the goal of someday earning my way back onto that stage.

But this whole incredible experience occurred only because of the immense kindness of Alex and the other band members. They chose to share their big moment on the main stage with a little seven-year-old and changed my life forever.

The following day, Danalo sent Mom another text. It read: “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Vivian Workman | Wrapped in Gold | 24x15 | Mixed Media

58

fall

A

nnie Walker stood at the kitchen sink. Cold water poured from the tap, and she scrubbed pots until they were spotless, the air thick with the sharp scent of lemon. Her hands were smooth and soft; she prided herself on her nightly routine, on the expensive lotions and creams that lined her vanity. Oh Annie, you don’t look a day over twenty-five!

Her pale blue eyes searched the yard; the window above the sink was large and clean, so free of smudges that it was almost as it there was no window at all.

Bare trees whispered in the breeze, frost sprinkled across the tips of dry grass, and the sky was cloudy and gray. She washed the dishes without looking, like a child that can close her eyes and twist a Rubix cube into place.

Chores were methodical, calming, and Annie watched as a crow flew from the neighbor’s roof into the blank sky.

A hand touched her waist, and she jumped.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, darling.”

“No, of course not.” She twisted the faucet off and patted her hands dry on a towel. “I was just lost in thought, that’s all.”

“What were you thinking about?”

Annie glanced up at William, flashed a fleeting smile—she loved his perfect hair and his gleaming eyes, his chiseled jawline that she liked to run her fingers over, and she did so now. She caught a whiff of his cologne, something clean and rich, something she started buying him years ago for Christmas.

“Just John, that’s all. Have a good meeting.”

Snow

Emma Gerden

A kiss on the cheek, the feeling of his suit underneath her fingertips, the slipping on of a coat, and then he was gone, the front door pulled shut behind him. Annie leaned against the sink, folded and unfolded the towel against her hip.

The house was silent again, almost eerily so, the gray clouds outside throwing shadows across the rooms.

A chill washed over the kitchen, and with it, a strange sadness, one that pricked the back of necks.

Annie cleared her throat. “John?” Her voice echoed throughout the house, up the winding staircase.

The house of her dreams—hardwood floors, granite countertops, white exterior with blue shutters, exactly the way she imagined it in her youth.

In the spring, flowers bloomed from the garden beds, and morning sunlight washed over the house, tinted with optimism and breath that smelled like coffee. It was a house designed for children, for a family. Little footsteps scampering upstairs, young giggles and William laughing. Dinner in five minutes!

Your favorite, Willy. Willy, that’s what she used to call him. When did that stop, after the doctor’s appointment?

She used to imagine children and parents curled up on the couch on cold winter days, knit blankets and fluffy socks, an old holiday movie playing as snow whirled against the window panes.

Annie turned to face the sink again, and a thick, white speck floated down from the other side of the window. “John? It’s snowing!” She used to love the first snowfall, when she was a little girl.

John materialized in the kitchen. That’s what he did— materialized. His face, hollow and wide, his dark eyes heavy with the weight of something Annie would never know. Annie smiled. “Hello, darling. It’s snowing outside! Have you ever seen snow before?”

Of course she knew the answer—but those were the only types of questions you could ask John, questions you knew the answer to. “Want to play outside with me, John? Let’s go get your coat from the closet. Do you remember the coat we bought together, the nice red one?”

The boy wavered on his feet. His small hands were tucked inside the sleeves of a too-big t-shirt, and his feet were bare. Annie walked towards him, leaned down in front of him and took his hands in hers. “Let’s go outside, darling. It’s snowing!”

He blinked towards the window. Annie wanted to tickle his stomach, to kiss his cheek, breathe in his warm, childish scent, but she knew he wouldn’t like that. His skin was smooth, and shades darker than Annie’s. She never imagined this, when she was younger—the wonderful house and picture-perfect husband, but no groups of children ran through the house, with fair skin and pale hair like their parents. It was meant to be, that’s what people said. God has graced you with a beautiful child in need of a home.

She believed it, or wished desperately to believe it.

But vivid in her mind, four days after John arrived, sobbing against her husband’s shoulder—He doesn’t talk, William!

“Come on, left arm here. There you go.” Annie gingerly slipped John’s red coat onto his small frame.

She touched his arms lightly, and fast; she was scared she would startle him, or break him, like he was made of glass. His hands were so small compared to hers.

Annie knew he liked to spend his time drawing, up in his bedroom—before, she and William had filled the room with toy trucks, soccer balls, building blocks, soldier figurines, everything she imagined her son playing with. She dreamed of cheering him on as he kicked a soccer ball down a field, much more talented than any other six-year-old boy. Parents nearby would glance at her. That’s your boy?

Yes, that’s my son. Isn’t he wonderful?

He’s Asian.

So? He’s adopted. God has graced me with a beautiful child. She would be fiercely protective, and after the game John would run into her arms and laugh, and she would kiss his cheek.

Can we get ice-cream, Mummy?

Of course, darling. Which flavor is your favorite?

Strawberry!

Strawberry is my favorite, too.

But now, John sat by the front door, struggling to

put on his snow boots, and Annie inhaled sharply and leaned down next to him. She knew it was wrong to compare him to the boy in her mind; shame unfurled in her stomach.

“Here, John. I got it, darling. Aren’t you excited to play outside?” She smiled and answered her own question. “I am so very excited. I love the snow. You’ll love the snow, John.” She pulled her own coat around her shoulders, something more pretty than it was protective of the cold, something William had bought her years ago at Christmas.

Outside, the icy air was biting, and it cut against teeth. Annie’s nose and ears began to burn, a tingling sensation running through her fingers, and she glanced up towards the sky. The snowflakes were heavy and lazy, sticking against the pale green grass, and she felt one land on her cheek.

“Look at this, John!” she said. “This is snow. Isn’t it cold?” She watched as John walked away slowly, his boots leaving faint imprints in the frost-bitten yard. He was nearly swallowed whole in his coat.

“Don’t walk out into the street,” Annie called, though that could’ve been a joke. The street was empty, and silent; cookie-cutter homes lined the sidewalks, most husbands away at work and most wives at home cooking dinner. No cars were anywhere in sight. A wind blew through, rattling the branches of bare trees, and with it, again, a subtle sadness. Tears bit at her eyes; she couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or not.

“Are you ready to go back inside?” She rubbed her hands together and watched John near the street.

“John, don’t walk out into the street, please. Let’s go inside. Maybe we can watch an old holiday movie on the couch, would you like that?”

John looked over his shoulder at the pretty white woman with the smooth skin, at his mother, his dark eyes brimming with long eyelashes. Annie thought she saw him nod, at least a little bit—at least, that’s what she wanted tell William later. I asked him a question and he nodded in response, and we played outside and watched a movie and had a wonderful afternoon! Dinner is ready in five minutes. Your favorite, William.

“Come on,” said Annie gently, reaching out her hand, bravely, palm upturned. How badly she wanted John to take it, to curl his small fingers around hers!

The boy watched her, motionless. Moments yawned by, and eventually Annie pulled back her hand, brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, smiled as the cold stung her eyes again. “Come on, let’s go back inside, darling.”

As Annie walked through the front door, praying John was a few steps behind her, she glanced up at the house. White exterior, blue shutters. It really is a beautiful home.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Emily Holtzman | Repose | 17x22 | Chalk Pastel

60

Clare Downey

Golden coast burning crimson, Clears the excess. fields of ash Are Evidence of destruction The longer it’s been since it last burned, the longer it burns.

A dire need of purge, augmenting by the day, the minute.

But Nature, a phoenix, Reborn

racism, sexism, xenophobia The byproducts of our superiority Have grown for too long. They too need destruction. A cleansing breath. A forest fire.

Humanity, extinguish the hatred you’ve fostered.

Let equality burn.

Injustice born alongside humanity, But they need not die in sync.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Adam Riescher | Void Depth | 48x48 | Acrylic on Two Canvases

62

FREAK

O NOMICS

A 2014 analysis concluded that Fortune 500 CEOs who played the most golf in the previous year decreased their companies’ productivity by 1.1 percent. In response to this study, some scholars have compared CEOs’ golfing habits to addictions.

Now I have a confession: I have an addiction of my own. It started, as most good stories do, in a bookstore. I didn’t go looking for trouble.

All I wanted was an assigned psychology book, which I had in my possession. Then, like a stranger beckoning from a dark alley, the bright orange and lime green cover of Freakonomics called to me. “There’s no harm in trying it,” I told myself, but I was sorely mistaken.

I began Freakonomics the moment I got home. Steven Levitt’s balance between witty candor and brilliant statistical analysis was the stimulant that kept me turning pages throughout the night. This book was my gateway drug. Post-Freakonomics, I viewed the world in a fundamentally different way; everyday queries became opportunities for observation and quantification. Levitt played on my natural curiosity and left me wondering what else had a hidden side.

So the next day, I returned to my metaphorical dark alley to up my dosage. I was still in denial, but when I left the store with five new social science books, I conceded that I might have a minor obsession. I naively believed that my work and sleep would remain unaffected, but that night I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. finishing SuperFreakonomics. (How can sleep compare to the economics of escorts?)

The following weeks, I voraciously consumed a blur of statistics: criminal justice, foreign policy, even golf. These popular sociology books were great, but they soon became an economic strain and I turned to a cheaper and stronger alternative: the podcast.

Once hooked on podcasts, I began using more frequently. I started listening while driving, and shortly “Revisionist History” and “Criminal” made me late to school because I couldn’t go to class without hearing the

Gavin Gwaltney

conclusion. Soon enough, the familiar voices of Malcolm Gladwell or Stephen Dubner emanated from my car’s speakers everywhere I traveled.

But as all addictions go, eventually podcasts weren’t enough either. That’s when I began trying the social-science equivalent of hard drugs: academic papers from the Social Science Research Network. My computer’s desktop soon became covered in PDFs awaiting exploration. I was a full-fledged junkie.

Then I committed the cardinal sin of addiction: I began producing my own supply.

I called more than 50 public policy professors in hopes that one would allow me to work on a research project. Luckily exactly one responded, and that momentarily satiated my thirst for knowledge. Shortly after the school year concluded, I began frantically entering data into spreadsheets like someone suffering from withdrawal. My first task was to collect thousands of data points.

After these numbers were properly sorted, I added and averaged, attempting to distill the data into its purest and most concentrated form. The project enthralled me because I was literally dealing new knowledge. Sometime in the future, a student or a researcher might cite my work in their effort to further academia. To further their addiction.

Thanks to my newfound Excel skills, I had the tools necessary to research my life in the manner I had always wanted. I started experimenting with the most quantifiable area of my life, golf. For months I poured every conceivable stat into a spreadsheet. While this project started out as fun, injecting this new information into my golf game dramatically improved my score. It was statistical doping.

So what’s next for my addiction? Well, it shouldn’t surprise you that I wasn’t able to quit the research that was just supposed to be a summer internship. With no Researchers Anonymous or statistics-habit interventions available, it seems I’ll continue to feed my addiction throughout the school year. I just hope it doesn’t decrease my productivity.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Emma Martin Her size four Converse on her size five feet scuffed the floor as she proceeded on the porcelain tile through the glistening gateway doors, looking up as she went to translate the name of the store: Anthropologie. Purple paper butterflies flew down from the ceiling to greet Alanna as she held her breath, not wanting to blow too hard on this dandelion wish. She and her mother made their way to the back left-corner of the room, passing silk rompers and laser cut denim as they went. Every outfit could be worthy of Vogue’s best-dressed on the red carpet, every scarf the latest trending accessory on Pinterest, and all the jewelry equal to the regal stature of the crown jewels.

This was Alanna’s favorite day of the year, the one day where her mother took off work—a midnight diner in center city. On this day they went to play “princess,” at least that’s what she called it when she was four, but now at age eleven it was more of a time to ignore the persistent truths of her reality. She could escape the fact that she took two subway stops and walked half a mile to get to her less-than-reputable school.

They entered the SALE room where even at 30, 40, or 50% off, actually purchasing anything was out of their reach.

Even so, the vibrant canary yellows glistened and luscious lilac purples glowed and made Alanna’s stomach feel as if not butterflies, but Snow White’s entire army of flying friends were swooping around inside. She and her mom fingered through unfrayed sweaters and light wash jeans until

64

Alanna came across a black poncho with silk tassels lining the bottom and a striped pattern across in silver. She pulled it over her head in one motion, spun in the mirror, and admired the way this one transformation made her feel just like the princesses in the movies.

Suddenly, she remembered the princess movie she used to watch where the peasant girl becomes royalty overnight; sadly, this poncho could not make her dreams a reality. She felt elated, special, jubilant in this poncho. However, one of the few things her mom’s quirky philosophy books on life and its greater meaning taught her was to see past the polyester layer of insincerity.

Holding in another wintery breath, she placed her tiny hands in the pockets surprised to find a small velvet box.

When she pulled it out, she held a small, yellow ring box with rounded corners and “Vita” engraved in pristine silver calligraphy. But when she popped the lid open, it was empty.

Not thinking much about it, she pulled the poncho off, put it back on the wooden hanger, and returned it to the rack.

They left the store and walked down to Johnny’s Pancake Diner where she ordered her usual: three M&M pancakes and an orange juice. The red leather booth had the same cracks and and solid white stripe down the middle that squeaked as she scooted in across from her mother.

She looked down to see her crochet purse from her eighth birthday, ever so slightly opened, and a small canary box peeked out, reflecting the fluorescent diner light.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Emma Martin | Goofy Gus | 13x19 | Printmaking

Blue Review Vol. XXV

66

Britt Fuller | Panels | 18 x 36 | Mixed Media

MAGIC Catherine Clover

UNKNOWN

With my hands trembling on a large, hefty, silver microscope, my team members staring at me in anticipation, I saw God. Well, not really God, but something that was so magical that’s all it could be explained as being.

I’d never used a microscope before. This heavy, cold device scared me; it’s not made for those prone to falling.

My teacher saw my expression and soothingly said to give it a shot, so despite my fears that I would somehow find a way to break it, I listened. Placing my hands on the dials on both sides of the microscope,

special, that the textbooks said the same thing. But seeing firsthand the miracles of life, the process that leads to living, breathing beings of all shapes and sizes, shifted my perception of my previous reality.

I now think and think and think. I lose myself in this thought about life and how fish and plants and humans and mice all have the same basic cell structures, yet they are so visually and physically different. I think about how we as humans became so advanced while animals like mice haven’t evolved to such heights. I think about how the world is so visually diverse, but in cellular forms, all living things

I peered through the bulbous glass lenses, expecting to see nothing and to need help. I steadily, nervously turned up the magnification, seeing parts of cells dyed in bright pink finally coming in to view, hoping to just pass the test and let someone else take this device from me. But there, right in front of me, under the miniscule lens of the microscope, was a beautiful, unique, dividing fish cell, encapsulated in a tiny glass slide.

To anyone who doesn’t understand the magnificence of this phenomenon, I’ll explain: when a cell divides, microtubules extend and push the already duplicated substances to the opposite sides of the cell, then it splits in two. This isn’t new, extravagant knowledge; my teacher taught the class this before, so I already knew what to expect.

But my mouth dropped open, tears welling up. I was stunned. Life now had a different meaning—my studies now surpassed the tests and exams and took part in forming a larger picture of the world.

When I shared my epiphany with someone in the class she scoffed, telling me that it wasn’t anything

are very similar. I think about atoms themselves and how everything in this world (living or not) is made up of them, but still these atoms compose very different objects.

Finally understanding and questioning the world around me was so rewarding, as it opened up my mind to new possibilities. I’ve learned to care less about the tiny things in a high school teenager’s life; what I find important now are larger, more existential questions about the ways of the world.

That experience taught me to take my eyes away from my textbooks and to look up at the sky, to appreciate the intricacies of the world around me.

I don’t get frustrated with finding the answers to questions anymore. School teaches us to know the right answer, to check the box to get the perfect score, but the universe is comprised of questions, not answers.

So now I sit in nature, gazing at birds perching from the apex of trees and bees pollinating flowers, and wonder.

And I find happiness there.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Thea Karlsson | Elf | 24x18 | Graphite Drawing Britt Fuller | Panels | 18 x 36 | Mixed Media

68

M Y FAVO R I T E Maria Llerenas Soto

TUTU

My life as a four-year-old consisted of the same cycle repeated with the same events. Wake up. Put on my purple tutu. Go downstairs. Eat breakfast. Play in the backyard until it was too dark to stay outside. Have dinner. Unfortunately, take the tutu off. Take a bath.

Put on my PJs. And go to sleep. On the weekends, I would typically go over to my grandma’s house, still with the tutu on. I went to school with my tutu on. I went to swimming with my tutu on. Wherever I went, my tutu went with me.

My favorite purple tutu was unlike any other. The tulle was the color of lilacs, bedazzled with sequins and baby butterflies scattered around the edges of the skirt.

When I spun, the tutu would ride up reminiscent of the motion of a merry-go-round. Around the elastic, a satin lace ribbon and bow undulated with every whirl.

When I wore my tutu, everything surrounding me reflected a purple glow and nothing could hurt me.

My friends and I would play all around my house for hours and hours on end dressed in our array of colorful tutus. Immersed in the pride my people shared in our heritage, all aspects of my life revolved around my culture. We would sing traditional Mexican songs that could have shattered glass and our dancing skills

had penetrated the dark sky. Walking through the airport, memories flashed through my head of my first years of life. The flight felt eternal because I did not know what to expect.

The drive to our new house offered a whole new point of view. There were trees everywhere and as far as you could see. Open fields and spaces made Charlotte seem like a scene on a movie set. The blue skies, so fresh and clean, seemed surreal compared to Mexico’s polluted haze. When we got to our new house, it smelled of detergent and a fall breeze. A week later, our boxes came.

My mom set down my stuff in my new room.

Tearing through the sticky tape and stubborn cardboard, something felt wrong, something felt off.

The tutu was gone! Vanished, forgotten, untraceable, nowhere to be found. I remember crying for days on end because despite all the other costumes, none could ever compare to my perfect purple tutu. Life became dull and dreary after that moment. At school, I no longer looked forward to anything because all my friends wanted to do was color, no one wanted to play and dress up in tutus.

I soon came to realize that no one knew what I was

“When I wore my tutu, everything around me reflected a purple glow and nothing could hurt me.” were closer to a prance, but we did not care because what was there to care about at four years old? My slick wood floors, along with a spacious living room, created the perfect stage for all our plays.

One day, my mom told me the most heartwrenching news. Everything stopped within me and I felt as if the ground had opened and swallowed my world whole. We were moving. My dad’s work was transferring him to Charlotte, North Carolina—a place unthinkably far away. Away from my friends, my school, my aunts and uncles, even my swim group. I knew nothing beyond my small world and picking up my life and spinning it around felt as if I had just rode the scariest, most stomach-churning rollercoaster ever.

The day we moved, everything seemed like a blur.

Nothing remained in my house, but I could still picture all the furniture and memories. The bare, white painted bricks and eerie feeling of nostalgia were the only thing left. We left for the airport before the first rays of sun

saying or understood the way I did things. I was very different and I told myself, “I have to change and fit in, be just like everyone else.” I stopped embracing my differences; if I needed to use every opportunity to become less of “me,” I would do just that. I tried to hide my Latina-side every time she tried to assert herself.

My tutu, along with my alter identity, was gone.

Although I believed that the tutu was essential to my childhood and a necessity in my daily life, I realized that was not the case. The tutu was a valuable memento of my existence in Mexico, but it was gone and no longer played a role in my life thereafter. The tutu represented my loss of culture and a loss of my identity that was left behind in my old life. The fact that I could no longer wear it was a way of conforming to American cultural and societal norms. I may no longer have my beloved tutu, but I will always have lilaccolored memories of those bedazzled, purple-hazed days in Mexico.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

70

s i e e r f o i L uch m look y l l m so sfu

e

gl

s e c c su roug th w.

n i s a h

ed

“

atwindo ”

Abby Adams | Colonia Sun | Photography

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Emily Holztman | Spring Fever | 9x6 | Colored Pencil

72

March of

Mortality Clare Downey

We were meant to keep pace.

Built with a heartbeat, an internal clock, Ticking our moments from the womb to the grave.

We, therefore, are accomplished timekeepers.

Fascinated by the speed of the world “This week feels sooo long” “Where has the time gone” But the 30 seconds of pain is the same as 30 seconds of bliss is the same as 30 seconds of fear is the same as 30 seconds of panic.

Whether consciously or unconsciously, Our attention is toward the clock.

We pulse with the hands, we rely on them.

They provide security and sameness, A comfort in the known.

But when we count the minutes and not the moments, We lose them. All we do is pace our march towards death And count the steps.

How fast can we do it?

When will we be done?

Blue Review Vol. XXV

de Vitral

P

Emma Martin

aola looked behind her at what had been her forever home, her casa para siempre. Sitting on the crest of the horizon, it slowly became swallowed by the darkness of the sky. She held a bus ticket in one hand and held her stomach with the other, looking down to see her recently exposed baby bump.

In her bag was a Tupperware of pastel de choclo, two empanadas wrapped in tinfoil, $20.00, and an Indiana phonebook. She could still see her papá’s reading lamp, the reading lamp which guided their adventure through the lands of children’s books, on in the upstairs bedroom window.

Roberto Rodrigo Moreno Alves was a good man, a respectable one, and that is why he felt it necessary to take the route he did. The house faced the southeast bus stop as the vehicle pulled up under the sign that seemed to mark the end of a chapter in her life; it read: Phoenix, AZ, Valley of the Sun. No. More like the Valley of the Setting Sun. No longer would she be spending the night in her queen-sized bed under her poster of NSync but finding work to support two and experiencing the extraño, the foreign: living on her own without a support system from her put-together, well-off, God-fearing parents.

Three years later, she found herself in front of ten Mexican, Guatemalan, and El Salvadoran immigrants —illegal—explaining why run conjugates into: I ran You ran we ran he/she ran they ran Robertito sat under her desk. Three seats sat empty due to an ad in the newspaper asking for potato farmers in Idaho. The man in front had a drooping face from worries he could not expel about his family back in El Salvador where las maras ruled the streets. She was about to reach down and tell Robertito to put away his transformer action figures when Marco Villanueva walked up and handed in his worksheet from class; on the top it read: “may I be so lucky as to ask for a couple hours of your time tonight?”

He drove up in front of her casita and opened the

car door for her as she approached him. They drove down Desconocido Street to the gas station.

The cracked pavement disappearing under the rubber tires, not a turn for miles. He made the sharp turn into the QT, and he pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his wallet. If one paid close enough attention you could see a tiny photograph of Madre Villanueva who had crease lines across her forehead from where the image had been folded many times over.

Once the gas tank was full, they pulled back the convertible top and drove past corn fields, raced past oceans of wheat, and rolled on by the tomato vines.

They pulled over and talked. That’s it. They sipped on plastic straws in Sweet Tea and counted the cars that passed. They talked about Roberto and how he would buy pizza bagels on Paola’s birthdays and about Robertito and his transition into kindergarten that would happen in just a few years. They talked about what the future held, about her hopes to own a business someday and his hopes to go to school for I.T. They remembered pasts that were now fuzzy dreams and futures that were still unclear.

And as the moonlight passed through Paola’s bottle of tea, a stained glass pattern of coppers and oranges appeared on the windshield.

The chilled breeze combed its fingers through Paola’s hair as the car pushed towards the casita where Robertito’s little eyes peeked over his windowsill.

The night ended with a kiss on the cheek, and a desert marigold in a sweet tea bottle. That vase sat on Paola’s windowsill in the kitchen for weeks with a new marigold replacing the previous one over and over again. It sat there when Robertito lost his first tooth, when Paola came home with her MBA, and when a postcard from Arizona arrived from Roberto explaining that he wanted to meet Robertito.

The stained glass pattern danced on the linoleum floor of la cocina when Marco’s chapped knuckles knocked on the door. As the door opened, it revealed him standing there with a twenty dollar bill in his hand and a desert marigold in his front pocket.

...it revealed him standing there with a twenty dollar bill in his hand and a desert marigold in his front pocket 74

Molly Kennelly | Mileage Club | 20x15 | Graphite Drawing

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Paige Klingenberg | Three Oranges | 24x13 | Pastel

76

6,475 Miles from Petrovo

Kazakh’s Daughter

The fresh smell of wildflowers now become vanilla White Oak, and the grasslands are now bright Charlotte streets.

6,475 miles away, and I’m looking up into the midnight sky.

My sister, on the balcony, wonders if the stars look different in Kazakhstan.

She says she misses the days we spent together in the cool prairie night, riding horses with Beam and Inga.

That morning, she asks me if I remember what Dad always told us, and I tell her I always have.

Assem Mendygaziyeva

“Always remember the beautiful prairies you come from.

Love it, care for it, as it always does for you,” her father always says to her when she finally visits Petrovo.

He makes her take in the smell of wild flowers, those that surround the patches of woods, home to foxes and wolves she read about in Russian tales.

She imagines grasslands before her where the cows and horses graze, remembering the days he taught her to ride horses.

Their dogs Beam and Inga lead the way.

On these prairies they spent nights running from the moon as it chased them.

Hours away from the closest city, just them and their prairie.

He says, “Never forget the memories the prairies gave us.”

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Luisa de Armas | Sun Dancer | 17x12x12 | Sculpture

78

Celestial Hannah Colaco

Creeping down the pathway they stumble blindly, walking one behind the other.

They had woken up at 3:00 a.m., put on their clothes, tied their shoes, and scrambled to get to the meeting place.

Whispers of “Hurry up,” and “Shhh!” invade the silence.

Everyone crowds around the bell, anticipating the shrill clank of metal on metal. No one dares make a sound, except for cicadas and crickets chirping in the bushes. The bell rings, signaling the start of their adventure through the bear sanctuary on Mt. Mitchell. They’re all anxious, except for her.

She glides down the gravel path, barely making any noise at all. Her feet crunch when they meet the gravel. Her long hair flows in a mysterious breeze that they don’t feel.

Her skin glows, as if all the starlight reflects off of her and doesn’t touch them.

No one notices.

They’re too wrapped up in their own anxieties. They start down the hill towards the narrow corridor in the trees, still blinded by the darkness.

They weave through

“

the forest, desperately hoping to reach the cross.

Sounds permeate the dense undergrowth, and they hear a bear growling and an owl screeching. Their footsteps and heart rates speed up with every screech and growl.

Someone steps on a twig.

“What was that?”

“Oh my God, we’re gonna die!”

“Shhhhh!”

They take off down the path, frightened by the dry snap of that twig.

Except for her.

She floats down the trail, hair flowing and skin glistening.

The bear comforts her, and the owls calm her. She is unfazed by the darkness and the loneliness. She feels no fear and embraces the mystery of the forest.

No one notices.

Up ahead, they see Brawne Road. They can’t leave the woods fast enough. Once on the path, they finally adjust to the darkness. It gets lighter with every step, and soon they see the stone building. They march up, see the cross, and fill into the pews. There are only two walls, stone on both

the left and the right. The front and the back walls are nonexistent, creating an open atmosphere. In the center of the space, the cross stands high.

Beyond the cross is the magic. The sky lightens and transforms into a fire. The Sun stretches his arms and says goodnight to the Moon as she sinks into a deep sleep.

He rises up out of bed and paints the sky with royal reds, opulent oranges, and youthful yellows, leaving the canvas a brilliant blue. They’re all speechless at the Sun’s magnificent painting, and they sit and stare in awe.

Except for her.

She floats down the aisle, her hair still flowing and her skin radiant. She lies down near the base of the cross, deep in sleep, opposite from the Sun. Everyone notices.

She walked when they walked, she turned when they turned. The shadow accompanies them on every path, through every forest, and onto every road. She even follows the Moon and the Sun, floating gently behind them.

Everyone notices.

”

Blue Review Vol. XXV

daily drive Kaitlyn Vickers

Every day I drive down Potter Road, the nature tunnel near Wesley Chapel, I watch the trees turn from green to decaying gold, but never up close.

The lights strobe through my car as I rush past the metamorphosis, my radio brainwashing me into focusing more on the monotonous melody.

So I turn the radio down. Look at how the sun makes them shine like emeralds.

Drifting away, leaves become Golden rain showers of light.

Seconds down Potter Road, I see life and death all at once.

Clarkson Plumides | Irish Crow | Photography

80

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Abby Adams | Nepenthe | Photography

82

G

raveyard Bennett Smith

Fields

Passing wooden signs on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the soft noise of shoes on pavement turns to the crunch of gravel.

We enter Pisgah’s southern tip, Nantahala’s forest traversing the boardwalks of this mile high swamp with branches grabbing at ankles, reaching through low fog.

The dull, misty expanse of rhododendron, so thick the morning sun no longer touches our skin.

The loud chatter quickly turns to a kind of silence, the roar of the Upper Creek Falls.

The gloomy ambiance of woods shifts to a vibrant August light from the heavens.

The stream falling free from hundreds of feet above leaves us speechless, staring up, in awe.

Climbing upon boulders tossed down by the cataract, the power of these billion year old mountains.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Lizzy Griesser | Portrait of Kate | 22x17 | Photography

Vivian Workman

G

rowing up with a younger brother, I’d always envied my friends when they talked about their older siblings. I got it in my head that I wanted an older brother, and this wish persisted, appearing sporadically and popping in and out of my thoughts aimlessly.

However, it didn’t appear that summer after second grade when my parents announced that we would be going back to the Island. It didn’t appear on the plane to Detroit a few months later as I listened raptly as Mom regaled us with her childhood memories of the Cottage. It didn’t appear when I looked out at the bright blue water as we crossed the Mackinac Bridge in the cramped rental car that smelled like hand wipes and mango gum. Nor did it appear when the aunts and uncles and cousins and dogs poured out of the tiny

84

boat and onto the dock in a flurry of tight embraces.

My wish stayed dormant for a while, only waking up years later to greet my pieced together realization, a compilation of memories surrounded by the lake.

Summer of 2011 I don’t remember my introduction to Zach, probably because children don’t typically value introductions as important. Certainly there were hushed conversations late into the morning, voices dripping with pity and roughly concealed surprise and bathed in the soft caramel light of the kitchen about the boy with the bright and ready smile who had nowhere else to go.

However, those details were for the grownups, and so the friendship between Zach and I began with a gradual build of trust, much like a that between a songbird and a person, if only the person were wary of the bird as well, each fluttering around the other in passing, curiosity overpowered by unfamiliarity until one day it isn’t.

And so one day Honey Nut Cheerios eaten side by side in uncomfortable silence turned into chasing and laughing on the beach, shoving each other into the frigid water with shrieks.

Dinners spent tracing the wood grain on the table as adult conversation floated into the rafters became expeditions on the raft, two adventurers on a mission to collect the lost driftwood treasure.

After squirming in our seats as we conspired and being excused from the table with a laugh, the sand kicked up on our calves as we raced for the beach.

The shock of diving into the water brought us to the surface, gasping until our bodies numbed and we could submerge ourselves to forage along the murky bottom.

We then carried our wooden treasure back to the beach to dry on the faded orange raft before we collapsed in euphoric exhaustion on the sun-warmed sand.

Summer of 2012 My hands grip the canvas-covered foam handles of the tube and I take a deep breath of the diesel fumes emitting from the boat. I begin to mentally prepare myself for the serious task ahead. The soft rumble of the engine reminds me to shift my weight back as the boat lurches forward, and we pull out of the channel. My feet drag behind in the frigid water and occasionally brush across the reeds as I try to blink away the water droplets flying up from the wake.

I look to my right and see Zach on an identical tube sitting back on his knees. He yells something across to me, but the words are lost in the wind as we suddenly speed up.

A grin breaks out across my face, and then I’m holding on as if my life depended on it when we fly over a wave and into the sharp turn. Then, Zach grabs onto my handle and before I can do anything, leaps

onto my tube. Screeching, I try to wrestle him away, but I can’t pry his hands from the handles. Laughing, he tries to shove me off, but I grab onto the strap on his life jacket and we both go flying into the water. Life jacket up to his ears and curly brown hair soaked as we bob in the water, Zach’s gleeful shout of “1 to 1!” serves as the catalyst for the brutal and lawless Tubing Wars.

Later, arms aching, grit from the plastic floor of the kitchen caught between our toes we huddle together, shivering in front of the microwave watching the two mugs slowly spin in the artificial yellow light. We both fiddle with the packets of hot chocolate powder in our hands, a comfortable silence as we continue to catch our breaths.

Absently listening to the soft clanking of the microwave, I watch the drops of water form a small puddle at our feet, Zach’s normally deep bronze skin a few shades darker in the shadowed corner of the kitchen.

I come out of my daze when Zach shoves a marshmallow into my mouth, its chalky outside grazing my lips before giving way to sticky sweetness that clings to the roof of my mouth.

He then hands me my mug and we go curl up on the ancient couch together, him to watch a movie and me to read a book.

Summer of 2013 I chase Zach’s lean frame out of the den, through the breakfast room, into the kitchen, and out the laundry room, screen door slamming behind me as we run towards the woods on a Robinson Crusoe-esque mission to build a raft out of sticks. Zach stops abruptly on the path, and too out of breath to be bewildered, I don’t notice the boy until he starts talking.

Tall, with freckles, smooth blonde hair, an expensive camera, and khaki shorts, he seems a bit out of place, and from his monotonous chattering, I gather that he’s the nephew of one of my great aunts, Mary.

Zach rolls his eyes and beckons me into the woods and starts talking as we walk, axe in hand.

“I don’t trust that kid. He tried to get me in trouble with Aunt Mary, who already doesn’t like me and—Oh hey, this is a perfect tree!”

A steadying chopping sound soon accompanies the birdsong and the rustle of the wind in the trees, until it’s interrupted by an eerie noise much like the moans of a ghost.

“Ugh, don’t worry about that. It’s just that kid trying to scare us.” Logically, my brain knows that Zach was right, but logic begins to be overpowered as my

imagination starts to untangled itself.

The mundane sounds of snapping branches, rustling leaves, and crowing ospreys magnify and mutate into an unsettling symphony as my heart rate slowly climbs, like a sluggish crescendo that I try in vain to silence.

The unearthly noise continues as I struggle to catch my breath with the tightening of my chest that constricts and pushes tears up behind my eyes.

I fiddle with my hands, cold sweat making my fingers stick together. I don’t notice Zach turn around to glance at me, but I stumble over a nearby root when I hear him shout suddenly.

“Hey!” Followed by an angry expletive I was unaccustomed to hearing come from his lips.

A very human head pops out from behind a clump of dead sticks.

“I was just—” “No! C’mon, Vivian, it’s time for dinner, anyways.”

I scurry after Zach, and I don’t look back at the figure standing in the trees.

We walk in silence until we reach the front porch, gray paint flaking off the wall and plastic green chairs strewn about.

Without a word, we simultaneously sit down on the weathered wooden steps, and I study the daisies growing near the tree stump next to us before I look at Zach.

“Are you okay?”

My normally soft voice comes out as a whisper as I weakly reply. “Yeah.”

Zach pauses before he speaks again, uncharacteristically still. “I’m sorry for what I said in the woods. You shouldn’t have had to hear that.”

I give a small smile. “It’s okay.”

We stand up and start walking down towards the beach, shoulders brushing, to join the rest of the family for dinner by the bonfire.

Zach turned into first a friend, and then an integral part of the Island. Over the span of several years, however, I began to consider him my family.

It was not a sudden revelation that led me to this conclusion; it was simply that one day my idea of him was no longer as a friend but as the older brother I never had. Our experiences redefined my definition of family from one of a strictly scientific standpoint to one of shared emotional bonds.

Through raucous laughter and shared vulnerability my wish was fulfilled, and I received not only an older brother, but also an altered perspective on humanity and the idea of family.

...my pieced together realization, a compilation of memories surrounded by the lake.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Springtime Storms

Payne Thrift

In the marshlands of Pawleys Island, the smell of wet mud and fish fills the air.

The crabs crawl in their holes, and the birds huddle together as the rumble of a distant storm crawls closer.

The wildlife disappears, the storm grows stronger on the horizon.

It arrives, raining down on the salty earth, the thunder splits the evening sky.

It vanishes leaving a dripping wet marsh.

The birds begin to sing, and the crabs reemerge from their dark and damp holes.

As if reborn, a rainbow stretches across the marsh.

86

Emma Gatrelll | Windmill | 12x12 | Mixed Media

Blue Review Vol. XXV

88

Chloe Wooster | Ella and the Pool | Digital Art

Matthew Marcus

“Listen,” he sits her down. “I know that this has been a long time coming. We spend so much time together, and you always have a smile on your face. I know that we don’t talk much, but we don’t need words. Your beautiful eyes have an entire world behind them, and they let me know everything I need to. With just one look, you read my every thought. You love it when I’m happy, and you comfort me when I’m down.” He takes a deep breath. His hands fidget, and he develops a case of restless leg syndrome.

“You stood out from the rest, and I knew that I just had to have you. You’re sweet, enthusiastic, adorable, and the best friend I could ever ask for. You make me happy, and I only want to be with you.” He runs his fingers through her hair...then shakes.

“So what do you say, girl? Do you want to go out for a walk?”

“Bark!”

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Emily Holtzman | The Keeper | 8x8 | Colored Pencil

90

Old Rag Payne Thrift

The barren top of Old Rag rises over Virginia’s rolling hills.

The hot air crushes anyone scaling the peak.

Pine forest conceals the struggles hidden in the chalky rocks ahead.

Large boulders and gaps slow an ascent to a crawl.

The heavy heat fades behind the strong breeze at the peak.

Endless countryside below rewards anyone who grinds through.

Conquering not a mountain but climbing a way through life.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

92

Grant Barlow | Alone in the Expanse | 21x24 | Mixed Media

Andy Dorsel

Being tied to a tree is not as fun as it seems, especially when it is for an execution by firing squad.

A guard approaches me one last time.

“Any last words?” he states, not expecting much.

This is now my time to make everyone just as miserable as I. As a former treasonous congressman I have much experience in filibusters, and now it is my time to shine.

Under the laws of the kingdom, the guards must let me finish speaking before they execute me.

I start off with the basics—family, friends, and loved ones remembering me. Then, I go all the way to the beginning of my life.

I tell my whole life story to the guards, and with each passing minute more and more of them are yawning.

One slumps down by a tree, and another seems to

have fallen asleep still standing up.

With only eight more guards to put to sleep, I begin the story of my mother’s immigration.

Within another hour of talking, three more guards are down, bored out of their minds.

Only the five most determined are still left upright.

The struggle now is not only finding a story that is boring enough to knock them out but to stay awake myself and continue my endless rant.

After six more hours of reciting the most irrelevant stories I know, only one guard remains.

Now I am engaged in a duel between myself and the final guard but instead of trading bullets, we trade yawns as each of us struggles to outlast the other.

As his eyes slowly come to a close and he finally begins his rest, I realize that I now have other problems with which to deal .

I still happen to be tied to a tree.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Molly Kennelly | Paper Peacock | 26x21 | Mixed Media

94

Growing Up

Korean I

Elyssa Kim

’m a typical China doll.

Well-kempt. Hair cut below the ear. Conservatively dressed.

Smart (especially at math). Cooks for the family. Never associates with boys unless her parents deem them worthy. No B’s. An amazing pianist. Plays golf—the only acceptable sport for Asian women.

Actually, that’s my grandma.

My grandma is the epitome of the perfect, docile Korean girl. She did as she was told, attended Seoul’s most prestigious school for girls, learned every tradition, agreed to an arranged marriage to a man

As a child, I inherited her quiet demeanor. “No reason to make a fuss.”

That worked for awhile.

As I grew older, I grew out my hair; I love it long. I don’t care if my shoulders were covered, or if my shorts are too short; I’ve developed my own 21st-century style.

As I grew older, my thirst for knowledge grew too. I spent a late Tuesday night, post-golf match, poring over my English paper, while my dad made me spaghetti for dinner. This was not the first time Grandma scoffed, “Your father

get loud. I started questioning and standing my ground. It startled her that I would speak up or talk back. I noticed that Grandma had no problem voicing her opinions with me, but she would never do that with a man.

She had always been brighter than my grandfather. But in the presence of men, she is quiet and demure.

She is a doll: silent, unopinionated, an empty vessel.

My grandmother is still my favorite family member, but I refuse to stay quiet.

So I won’t be a China doll. I may

hand-picked by her parents.

My grandmother has always been my favorite family member.

My own mother, a tomboy grown into a working professional, generally shrugged off stereotypes of womanhood and downplayed the importance of domesticity.

“Study hard so you can get a good job, and then hire someone to cook and keep house for you!” she’d say. But my grandmother helped me embrace the domestic, feminine side. She taught me to bake cream puffs and cook traditional Korean japchae, fold a napkin for a perfect place setting, craft coral bracelets, serve food in the proper Korean way, and blend watercolors. She taught me how to behave like a girl.

My grandma’s options were limited, and she found a passive role in the world as a decorative artist.

is making food for you?” implying that a good Korean girl should be making dinner for her father, not the other way around.

I quit piano and pursued the “less respectable” art forms of musical theatre and hip-hop dancing. More commentary from Grandma: “That’s just for fun. A phase.”

Kevin and Tristan came over to play foosball. “So you hang out with boys now?”

When I told her I had a boyfriend, I think that was the turning point.

I could see in her eyes that I was no longer the proper young lady she had been molding. Her smile was pinched now. “You just couldn’t wait until college?” like she had.

I developed a voice. I started to

have rosy cheeks, alabaster skin, and long shiny hair, might be neatly dressed, a golfer, and good at math, but I might also have glitter on my face or a shoulder popping out of my shirt, and a clandestine love of Shakespeare and Drake and show tunes.

I can be all the things that Grandma has been, but I want to go farther. For example, I’m using my voice on my high school campus. I’ve become a leader in speaking out about diversity. I want to initiate change, not watch it pass me by. If Grandma grew up in today’s world, I know she’d be exactly like me.

Society will not prevent me from reaching my full potential the way it has my grandma.

It may not have been her time, but I believe it’s mine.

“So I won’t be a China doll.”

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Emerson Shreero | Harvest Gold Retro | Digital Art

96

vermont Gracie Reynolds

As we drove higher the flurries hit the windshield The windshield wipers could not keep up with the winter storm I could feel we were getting closer At last my car door was opened I leaped out of the car My first action was pick up the snow on the ground And ball it in my hands Soon as my brother exited the car He was greeted with a cold sphere of snow My brother and I put our bags down on the bed But we did not stay in our room for long We shuffled to the bunny slope As quick as we could

airport

She heard the lady over the speakers telling Everyone to watch their belongings for what felt Like the 100th time since I arrived at the airport The lights were dim and the smell Was anything else but fresh The scent flooded my nostrils Like rain floods the South Carolina roads in April She was hungry and coffee deprived She was tired and annoyed with the several delays Due to constant lighting and thunder The flight took off and the turbulence began Her brother begged to watch a movie on her phone And he would not take no for an answer Her parents who sat many rows back could not save Her from her nagging brother She finally was able to shut her eyes and rest When she was greeted with a blinding light That shot through her closed eyes But when she stepped off the plane she was greeted With a breeze of warm air and breathtaking view

The chair scooped me up and I pulled the bar down I could feel the snow flakes slowly Melt on my cheeks as we floated up the mountain We raced down the mountain Swerving through little kids Not practicing the pizza formation We learned in our previous years Of ski school We continued to progress: green, blue, black Cutting through pine trees Making jumps out of mounds of fresh snow We stayed on the slopes until our bodies went numb

Blue Review Vol. XXV

98

Kathryn Vandiver | Inky Shapes | 16x22 | Mixed Media

breathin g William Lloyd

Breath. It’s usually the simplest part of life, one that requires no thought. Ironically for me, breathing has proven more fickle than learning logarithms or cellular respiration. Diagnosed with chronic sinusitis after a botched nasal surgery in kindergarten, easy things like running the mile in P.E. or diving in a pool proved daunting.

Crosspool, a game in which touching the pool drain meant a free pass to the opposite side, felt like second nature to my friends. For me, that twelve-foot plunge felt like James Cameron’s descent into the Marianas Trench. Later, I wouldn’t be able to swim in lakes, for every organism seemed to flock to me, something I could never quite replicate in my romantic life.

The years progressed and doctors began to sound like blips on a radar offering hope, only for me to watch it evaporate. I felt like Sisyphus, King of Corinth, condemned to rolling a boulder up a steep hill until, just as he reaches the top, it falls back down.

Pessimism began to devour me, and I left each doctor’s appointment more downtrodden than the last.

I couldn’t even smell my pancakes!

One day in ninth grade (anticipating a particularly bad appointment), I sat in the waiting room, head hanging low, while my mom consulted with the receptionist.

Unexpectedly, I heard the raspy voice of the man waiting next to me. I glanced over at him, sitting in a wheelchair and with a badly deformed nose.

Barely audibly, he muttered to me, “Head up. You’re a superstar. Nothing changes that.” I looked at him and told him thank you, robotically, as I had been taught.

Suddenly, I heard the voice I dreaded most.

The receptionist, calling me back into the examination room, was as shrill as a fire alarm, and somehow more nasally than I was. I mean, you’d think an office focusing on nasal issues could find someone with a normal voice, right?

But as I walked into the examination room, the positivity of the stranger remained with me. Perhaps

I should be thankful for the breath I do have, rather than looking to what I don’t have. Hearing the stranger encourage me and believe in my strength, I realized I had the chance to do the same.

As the weeks progressed, I was inspired by more and more acts of altruistic positivity. The little girl highfiving her grandpa in the food court after he got out of the chair unaided. My friend telling me, “You got this, I believe in you” as I started a big test.

Because I was so thankful for the simple act of breathing, I began to see the impact of the little things everyday.

Breathing to me became a mindset, not a set of respiratory system instructions.

“I couldn’t even SMELL my pancakes!”

These days, my breathing still isn’t perfect, but giving small acts of encouragement have become my way of experiencing a deep breath.

The gift of breath can’t be bought, something my parents definitely found out after five surgeries, yet it can be given to others out of love and compassion.

Giving my brother my brownie and letting him know I’m here to talk, high-fiving a boy on his way into the doctor’s office, or buying my friend a milkshake after he was cut from the soccer team are small ways I uplift those who need it. I even started an organization that teaches children the importance of positivity, and the highlight of my week is seeing a third grader named Nick and talking to him about our love of the Hardy Boys’ novels. I strive to give the same outlook to him that the wheelchaired-stranger gave to me.

The breath of fresh air I long for permeates my body.

I can’t find it in the inhaler or the nebulizer.

Instead, I find it in positivity every day.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

a

sonnet Andrew Sumichrast

The Colorado valley breeze at the rocky summit of Chrysolite Mountain, the sound of short breath as the air begins to thin, and the loose quartzite slips beneath our feet.

The mountain, scarred from ruins of mines, lasts forever on the distant horizon.

The slow hike up the frontcountry trail turns lighthearted as we approach the peak above soft cirrus clouds.

The coolness from the summer snow caps chill with 4,000 feet of rocky terrain below us.

We sit in a half circle as we take in never ending mountains.

100

Elizabeth Rose | Mauna Kea | Photography

Blue Review Vol. XXV

102

Emma Martin | UFOs over Prague | Digital Mixed Media

to be a To be a cat is to have reached the epitome of cool.

To be a cat is to be a part of the gang.

To be a cat is not only to swing but to be accepted as one who swings.

In jazz, to be labeled a cat is the highest form of praise. *** National Youngarts Week in Miami finally arrived.

There were seven of us in the jazz ensemble. We bonded over that week of hard work and intense learning.

We were cats.

Even our beloved ensemble director, a famous cat himself, must have seen it. “All you cats go to the men’s dressing room to get ready,” he reminded us before the concert.

“Umm… what about me?” I asked, being the only woman in the band. “Am I not a cat?”

His eyebrows lowered: “Well, you’re not a real cat.

You’re a kitten.” The words rolled off of his tongue as smoothly as a musical riff—so natural, so instinctual.

The Alpha Cat demoted me to kittendom. I’m a kitten: I’m a pushover, I follow, I’m just a girl. *** Picture the rehearsal of a jazz band of twenty or so dudes. They begin by comparing Miles Davis and John Coltrane records like baseball cards. At break, a few jokesters season their quips with dirty punchlines meant for the ears of the fraternity. When they’re swinging, their drums echo that unmistakable shuffle pattern, reminiscent of the Swing Era big bands. Yes, everything’s right with the world of the cats—a world that hasn’t changed much since the 1920s.

Then a woman walks in the set of double doors. Her heels disrupt the drums’ shuffle pattern. Twenty or so heads swivel, eyes widening in skepticism, as if to ask, “Can she grasp the complex language of jazz?”

This woman, of course, could be me. Has been me.

Is me.

at

Veronica Leahy

Take the first time I ever played with an “experienced” jazz band. I was in seventh grade playing in a city-wide all-star band.

As I assembled my saxophone in the rehearsal room, I heard the snickers of the boys behind me and the snide remark, “What’s she gonna play? ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?’” (For the record, I played “Confirmation” by Charlie Parker, a staple of the bebop gospel.) What’s even more bothersome? I’m guilty of making these women-can’t-possibly-be-cats assumptions too. This summer, I went to the Summer Jazz Academy, which had an 11:1 boy-girl ratio. Upon meeting my roommate, I specifically recall thinking, Poor thing. She’s not gonna hang with the guys. I’d never heard her play. *** In music, genius has always been associated with men, from Beethoven to Armstrong. It reminds me of a “theory” that a Grammy-award winning saxophonist shared with me during a lesson. He attempted to rationalize why more women weren’t involved in jazz: “Jazz is inherently male, and men are more willing to assert themselves, to show off in solos.” Once again, at the time, I barely pushed back.

But I should have.

Look, I know that I can improvise, show off when I need to, jam with “the cats.” After all, when we stepped out onto the stage in Miami, I emceed the concert, I counted off the tunes, and I delivered the musical cues.

I led the band. The National Youngarts Foundation even asked me back to kick off their annual fundraiser this summer. And all of this I did without being a “cat.”

I don’t need to be a cat. We may play in clubs, but I refuse to see the art form itself as a club. Jazz emerged from oppression, from people who never gained entry into any exclusive clubs.

Jazz is freedom, and I’m free to declare that I don’t want to be a cat.

I want to be an artist.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Sublime Hadley Sparks

I

t was the last Sunday of camp. The rain pelted us as we ran back to our cabin, the pressure from the droplets more intense than the sad trickle we got each night in the showers. The weather was uncomfortably cold for the middle of June as evidenced by my sweatpants, long sleeves, and perpetual shivering. Usually we complained about the lack of air conditioning in the cabins, but today we would gladly have taken the scorching heat of summer in the Carolinas. The clouds were so thick that the mountains enclosing our beautiful camp had vanished completely.

Even the incessant croaking of frogs by the lake had been drowned out by the onslaught of raindrops.

“It’s supposed to rain like this all day,” sighed our counselor, Emily. A cacophony of groans resounded

Lily McMahan | Floating Figures | Digital Art

104

through the cabin, almost masking the dull roar of the downpour. The entire camp was expected to sit outside at chapel in less than thirty minutes for a church service. Normally, Sundays at camp were a time of relaxation and joy, but not today. The moods of every girl in camp aptly reflected the dreary storm outside. We hoped fervently that there would be an announcement moving the service indoors, but breakfast had ended without any such salvation. The older counselors were hardly surprised; there had never, in all their years, been a chapel service inside.

They reminded us that, as we had experienced the past two Sundays, the weather always cleared up by the time the first “Amen” resonated through the hills. My faith was not quite so strong. I fully expected to be swept away by the deluge of water during the service, a most unwelcome and chilly baptism.

Complaining loudly, my cabin and I trudged down the muddy hill towards chapel, slipping in the wet grass. Our hair already plastered to our faces, our precisely-applied mascara now congregating under our eyes, we gingerly sat down on the soaking steps.

Our director of camp, Jim, stood up to lead us in an opening song. As 300 voices joined to praise the Lord, singing of simple gifts, the rain suddenly stopped.

By the time the song ended, the inundated grass was greener than ever, the gray clouds had completely dispersed, and a double rainbow shone over the lake as the warm sun dried our dampened skin.

The mountain peaks rising in the distance seemed to reach heaven. It was truly miraculous. The entire camp sat quietly, gazing at the wonders of the nature surrounding us.

For one glorious hour, the weather was perfect. Our voices, always a little off-tune and out of sync, blended harmoniously through each song. I felt a connection to every person there that morning. It seemed as though we were wrapped in a warm blanket sheltering us from the storm and drawing us closer to the bosom of the highest power, God. During that hour-long service, the weather was absolutely stunning. The heat from the sun was countered by a cool breeze flowing across the lake. We seemed to be in a perfect bubble of tranquility as we sang and prayed. I felt a soothing presence beside me, above me, and somehow within me throughout chapel.

Somehow I was a part of the world, and it was a part of me. Nature was divine and holy, the purest expression of the love and guidance from a greater force, and I was fortunate enough to exist as a small piece of the glorious world in which I live.

That summer, the summer before I started high school, my head was flooded with doubts. I had no idea who I was or who I wanted to be, so I looked to others for a model, attempting to mold myself into a narrow ideal of what I thought was the most desirable.

Always a perfectionist, I felt that I had to be the

smartest, the skinniest, the best in any situation. My unrealistic expectations for myself weighed on me like a stone. Sitting on the rock steps, surrounded by the glory of God, I felt released from the pressure to be perfect. It no longer mattered if I fit society’s standards because I knew I was enough for God and, therefore, enough for me. The storm of insecurity within me ceased to swirl for one calming moment, mirroring the cessation of the thunderstorm outside.

At the exact instant we said our last “Amen,” the sky grew black with clouds as the heavens appeared to flood all the Earth’s water onto our heads. Thunder crashed through the mountains and the storm detector began wailing. Everyone sprinted back to the safety of their wooden cabins, but something made me linger for just a moment.

As I stared up at the powerful storm raging down upon me, I noticed the double rainbow still shining through the darkness. The colors were more vibrant than I had ever seen and seemed to grow stronger with each breath I took. I felt someone grab my hand.

Startled, I pivoted around to see my friend rolling her eyes at me as she dragged me back to the safety and warmth of the cabin. As I reached the last step to our wooden home, I glanced once more at the storm to see the incredible rainbow, but it had vanished into the clouds.

That morning of strange weather still resonates years later. When I question my faith, my purpose, I remember the power and protection I felt during that chapel as the storm ceased so we could pray. In the instant the rains stopped and the sky cleared, I knew a power greater than myself was at work. All of us were a part of something that day, that shining, special day living forever, perfectly preserved in my memory.

Nature and God enveloped the humble girls of camp that morning, connecting us to the larger world and to our truest hearts. A more authentic sense of myself emerged from that experience of the sublime.

The simplicity and yet awe-inspiring grandeur of that chapel service renewed me and allowed for a lifechanging moment of reflection upon my place in the world.

I was reminded that there is a God who is allpowerful, immutable, and divine, a God who helps and never hurts, a God who seeks to guide us along the path of life.

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Blue Review 2018 Honors North Carolina Scholastic Media Association (NCSMA) Awards Overall Awards

Fiction: 2nd Place Art: Honorable Mention Nonfiction: Honorable Mention Cover Design: Honorable Mention Cover Design: Honorable Mention Photography: 3rd Place Theme Development: 3rd Place

Individual Awards

Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) Silver Crown Award Gold Circle Award: Anna Rose Turner, 1st Place, Use of a Designed Art or Headline Gold Medalist: Overall All-Columbian Honors: Reader Essentials

106

Fiction: 2nd Place: Lily Farr HM: Martha Elizabeth Watson Art: 2nd Place: Neely Grace Tye HM: Emily Holtzman Individual Photograph: 1st Place: Emma Martin Individual Photograph: 2nd Place: Bela Marcus Poetry: HM: Mallory Evans Photography/Art Layout: 1st Place: Ansley Nurkin Photography/Art Layout: 3rd Place: Mallory Evans Nonfiction Layout: 1st Place: Mallory Evans Personal Essay: 2nd Place: Jazz Zeng Personal Essay: HM: Mallory Evans Fiction Layout: 1st Place: Meredith Reese Poetry Layout: 1st Place: Mallory Evans

2019 Scholastic Writing & Art Awards Bechtler Museum of Modern Art Award of Excellence Emily Holtzman, Mixed Media, “Mirror Me” Adams Outdoor Advertising Art Pop Award Emily Holtzman, Pastel Drawing, “Note to Self ” Art Gold Keys Emily Holtzman, Drawing and Illustration, “Note to Self ” Emily Holtzman, Drawing and Illustration, “Spring Fever”* *Emily Holtzman, Drawing and Illustration, “Repose” Emily Holtzman, Mixed Media, “Mirror Me” *Emily Holtzman, Mixed Media, “ Waterlogged Ophelia” *Connor Mackey, Sculpture, “ Scrabblesaurus”* Art Silver Keys Emily Holtzman, Drawing and Illustration, “Atomic Spin” Emily Holtzman, Painting, “I Think My Third Eye Is Blind” Neely Grace Tye, Mixed Media, “Dog Collage” *Ethan Zhang, Painting, “Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt” Art Honorable Mentions Emily Holtzman, Art Portfolio, “Autobiography” *Abby Adams, Photography, “Nepenthe” *Audrey Cobb, Sculpture, “Melancholy Man” *Marion Donald, Drawing and Illustration, “Bored Puppy” Molly Kennelly, Drawing and Illustration, “Thinking” *Emma Martin, Printmaking, “Goofy Gus” Olivia Williams, Drawing and Illustration, “Portrait of Lindsay” Adam Riescher, Painting, “4 Sections” *Vivian Workman, Mixed Media, “Wrapped in Gold” Writing Gold Keys Brooks Finby, Critical Essay, “Fight Club: Transcending Expectations” Sara Kenefick, Critical Essay, “The Whispers of Emerson and Thoreau in the Twenty-First Century” Alex Lapuente, Critical Essay, “Transcendentalism in The Wall” *Adam Manuel, Poetry, “The Apple Orchard” & “South African Stars” Nikki Reinhardt, Critical Essay, “Women in Media— Not Just a Marketing Tool”

*Bennett Smith, Poetry, Corners of the Carolinas: “Graveyard Fields” & “Georgetown County” Cora Snyder, Poetry, “Consider This a Letter” Writing Silver Keys Abby Adams, Critical Essay, “Transcendentalism in the Torah” Hannah Barnes, Critical Essay, “The Innate Evil of the Human Soul” Hannah Barnes, Critical Essay, “The Flower Power in The Scarlet Letter” Alex Lapuente, Critical Essay, “Vaccines: A Watershed” *Alison Moore, Short Story, “The Girl Who Sees Gargoyles” Brooke Norman, Poetry, “From Madness to Clarity” Maxine Tan, Personal Essay/Memoir, “The Ordinary and the Extraordinary” *Kaitlyn Vickers, Autumn Elegies: “Daily Drive” & “A Cardinal’s Song” Writing Honorable Mentions Janie Balanda, Journalism, “A Chance for Everyone in Charlotte Latin’s Art Program” Hannah Barnes, Critical Essay, “Trapped in “The Yellow Wallpaper’” Catherine Clover, Personal Essay/Memoir, “Strength Over Darkness” Elly Ficca, Personal Essay/Memoir, “Journey through Feminism” *Brooks Finby, Humor, “Jerkonomics 101” *Jessica Flynn, Poetry, “Canopy of Rainbow Leaves” Samantha Gitlin, Journalism, “The Donation Miracle” Alexander Hall, Poetry, “Darkness on the Sun” & “A Starlit Path” Laura Han, Journalism, “Wayfaring in Germany” Daniel Haughton, Journalism, “Old Rival, New Star” *Elyssa Kim, Personal Essay/Memoir, “Not Your China Doll” Rachel Lebda, Poetry, “Ghost Light,” “Past Remnants,” & “How to Cope...Or Not” Olivia Lowe, Critical Essay, “The American Drug” Paige Nurkin, Critical Essay, “Measuring Up: Comparing Shakespeare and The Handmaid’s Tale” Mary Catherine Pope, Critical Essay, “The Darkness of Symbolic Veils” *Gracie Reynolds, Poetry, “Airport” & “Vermont” *Payne Thrift, Poetry, Fishing in the Marshes: “Springtime Storms” & “Old Rag” *Joy Yu, Poetry, “C.C. (Silver Flutes),” “Guillotined,” *“Pierce the Soft Underbelly of the Beast” *Indicates in this edition

Blue Review Vol. XXV

Colophon The body text is Minion Pro. Headline fonts include Proxima Nova and Minion Pro. We explain the theme in the editors’ letter.

500 copies are printed and distributed free of charge to the school community. The Blue Review staff has access to one iMac desktop and four MacBook pro laptops. We are grateful for the school’s support in covering printing and other expenses associated with Blue Review. Our publisher is AlphaGraphics, Charlotte, North Carolina. We used 100# cover stock for the cover and 80# text stock for the inside pages. Blue Review was created using Adobe InDesign CC. Charlotte Latin School is a member of the following professional organizations: North Carolina Scholastic Media Association (NCSMA) and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA).

Editorial Policy

All 522 students in grades 9-12 are eligible to apply for the Blue Review staff.

The lead editors select general staff based on their interest in and dedication to the Blue Review; staffers must attend regularly scheduled meetings and a required editing session, and they assist in hosting the launch party when the magazine is presented to the school community.

All student editors are appointed by the faculty adviser. The lead layout, copy, and art editors are students who are current staff members. Lead layout editors are responsible for every aspect of the publication, including conducting staff meetings and editing session, selecting the theme, delegating the tasks to the associate editors, etc.

Blue Review is an extracurricular activity; every part of its construction is completed after school hours.

The lead and associate layout editors work together to design every element for each spread; therefore, we do not include credits for layout in our pages since the work is

completely collaborative.

The art editors are responsible for cataloguing and photographing the artwork.

The copy editors oversee the editing process and organize all print submissions. Associate copy and art editors often begin in grades 10 or 11; they assist the lead editors.

Students are encouraged to submit works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art in all forms, and English and art teachers can recommend pieces they feel merit recognition. Submissions are blind; the students’ genders, races, names, and grade levels are not disclosed during the selection process.

Pieces may be edited for grammar and/or space, but content is not censored by editors or adviser. The staff adjudicates the works based on voice, style, creativity, and literary merit. From the selected pieces, preference is given to senior work.

It is the policy of the editorial board that Blue Review focuses solely on creative works rather than critical essays, reviews, etc.

“.So we

beat

“I was within and without,

simultaneously

enchanted

and repelled

by the inexhaustible

variety

of

life.”

on .”

Blue Review 2019

“Reserving judgements is a matter

Literary & Arts Magazine

of infinite

hope.”

Volume XXV

BLU E REVI EW

Literary & Arts Magazine Charlotte Latin School Vol. XXV 2019