Miscellany XLIII Spring 2022
The Literary and Art Journal at the College of Charleston Cover art by Josiah Thomason
Letter from the Editors As I am writing this final Letter from the Editor, a bittersweet feeling is sweeping over me. I remember, sitting alone in my childhood bedroom just after leaving campus for Covid-19, and feeling hopeless and lost. I got an email from the English Department asking for people to apply to work with CisternYard Media; and once I saw Miscellany, I knew I had to apply, because I knew it would grant me back the community I lost when I had to leave Charleston. I didn’t know it at the time, but I ended up finding my family-away-from home through CisternYard Media and Miscellany. Over the past two years in which I have worked as Editor-in-Chief of Miscellany, I have been so honored to work with such an amazing team. With that, a huge thank you is required for Patrick and Cora for being the perfect team members. The opportunity to work with so many talented individuals who felt comfortable enough to share their work with us has been so heartwarming and inspiring.
Miscellany, you will always be a part of me. - E.Mallory Berry, Editor-in-Chief In the Fall of 2019, I walked into a close-to-empty room in the Stern Student Center and signed up to work as a staff editor for Miscellany. Since then, I have had the sincere pleasure and privilege of reading the best writing and taking in the best art that students at the College of Charleston have to offer. Through Miscellany, I have made some of the most impactful friendships of my life, and strengthened connections with old friends. The wider network of CisternYard Media has provided a space for creativity and reflection across campus. Mallory and Cora, thank you for being the most wonderful people to work with. Thank you to our readers; thanks, most importantly, to the artists and writers at the College, who each deserve a space for their hard work and talent to be celebrated. Without you, this magazine would not be possible. - Patrick J. Wohlscheid, Managing Editor
Miscellany Staff Editor-in-Chief E. Mallory Berry
Managing Editor
Patrick J. Wohlscheid
Submissions Coordinator Cora Schipa
Table of Contents Poetry 4.1.22 Josiah Thomason page 13 7.29.21 Josiah Thomason page 14 All Timers Luke Shaw page 37 Expedition Luke Shaw page 1 Frogs Rachel Greene Phillips page 33 Migraine Anonymous page 2 Ode to a Stranger Mollie Pate page 39 Please Just Keep My Pearls Casey Allen page 19
Prose Birthday Girl Seven Parker page 7 Into the Heart: a Field Guide Rachel Greene Phillips page 17 On Last Night Hannah Martinson page 25 Swimmer’s Ear Emma Burton page 27
Table of Contents Visual Art Adam’s Josiah Thomason page 16 A Gift To Those Who Give Daniel Jacobs page 5 Amigos Sidney Edmondson page 4 April Maggie Wilcox page 21 April Maggie Wilcox page 22 The Binary Keith Dugan page 11 Field of Flowers Josie Shostak page 38 The First Gaze Lydia Wilkes page 36 Grandmother’s Breakfast Jillian Thorvaldson page 15 Nocturnal Naptime Josie Shostak page 26 Pomelos Thomas Hicks page 23 Power’s in the Lines Keith Dugan page 12 Pyrus Thomas Hicks page 24 Raido Daniel Jacobs page 6 Robin Hood & Little John Sidney Edmondson page 3 Untitled Lydia Wilkes page 35
Expedition Luke Shaw Maybe we will always be lonely travelers looking up to the sky in search of the east or west. Maybe life is whichever way your shadow is stretched. Maybe love is a lightning bolt that finds you in open fields, despite the pitch black night’s embrace. Whatever the answers are, I hope they comfort you. I hope the life you carve into this rock is one you love and one you wish to pass on. I hope you find the strength to find what makes you strong, what makes you weak, and what makes you feel like a child. The gift of a life worth living is easily recognizable when you feel like a child again, sprawled out at the beginning of each day like an infant in its crib. I hope whatever passion you find oozes from you like the blood of a god. I hope you become a giant in the world and a mouse in the spirit. Loneliness might be one of God’s greatest gifts to the fragile human spirit. It has the potential to push you ever forward and never backward. Lean into despair as it clasps the clammy fingers around you. You may feel it is reaching for your neck, but my friend, that is when you are about to learn to relax and find the warmth within that formerly-cold-embrace. You might be cast out into what feels like some white void––an Antarctic wilderness, but blink, my friend, and you will find yourself on the airwaves coming to me. Crunch your feet beneath. That is not snow, but warm laundry. 1
Migraine
Anonymous
It’s hard to write about pain. I like the words narcissus crumble catastrophic tachycardia febrile murderous I spell them out one two three four, step by step so I’m not consumed by my left temple glowing wickedly in the 4am darkness hands cup my eyes you can’t see me I can’t see you you you sound like violins in E flat, crescendo orchestral metronome my heart reminds me she could kill me in seconds, rolling like southern heat, time mashes in one awful line and I think of a saw gripping my skull, of lifting the top delicate as egg-peel so it makes a light sucking sound, peering inside and ripping out the crawling nerves, of blowing it all off with a bullet, the tiny calcium of my bones gritty in flesh, unrecognizable. someone once described to me how brain feels in your mouth, a delicacy like scrambled eggs, fragile, savory, bitter hiding in your throat. how strange to think our insides never see light. light from the moon pours cruelly over me like a waterfall I once saw, stood in front of, opened my mouth. ahhh. my front teeth still ridged from childhood have little enamel left. they twing like bells on the front porch. it’s summertime. the birds know something we don’t. I’m scared of the dentist. My body is at once not my business and so utterly stuck to me, mine. Once at the hospital I tapped so hard on the linoleum tiles they gave way, as things eventually do, and let me in. I walked through the ICU, people strung up and beeping and dripping and desperate, tiny tiny plants struggling through concrete, the nurses smacking gum and scrolling. sometimes I think I’m the weakest person in the whole world. I do not know if I could take it, for anyone. teeth rolling in a mouthful of blood. needles tugging at skin, throats cushioned with ice. but they say: what is love if not sacrifice? the bright beautiful imagined people of television all look up at their saturated lovers and ask the same question: would you die for me? would you suffer? death as a gift, wrapped in shiny ribbon. perhaps there’s a comfort of being encased here, wholly absorbed in pain; don’t talk to me about emails or clocking in or calling what matters is the trees, their branches leaning over the highway, stretching roots in the sky, what matters is a perfect little white pill thick in my throat, expanding into darkness at last.
2
Robin Hood & Little John
3
Sidney Edmondson
Amigos
Sidney Edmondson
4
A Gift To Those That Give
5
Daniel Jacobs
Raido
Daniel Jacobs
6
Birthday Girl
Seven Parker
It was seven days after her eleventh birthday that Annie decided to kill herself. She shoved her head down into the thick, rough blanket her mother knitted for her and wailed at the unfairness of the world. The blanket smelled old like crumbly earth. They had gotten her gifts. Plenty of gifts. They bought her a trendy matching Bratz purse, a shiny Pandora charm bracelet, and a big pink plastic dollhouse that came with a convertible the size of a lunch box. But even they were becoming aware that she was too old for these things. So they finally got her a shiny new iPhone just like her friend had, with brand new headphones to boot. If companionship was what she truly desired, they got her a puppy and a kitten to see which she’d prefer. While they hadn’t got her a horse, they had bought her a year’s worth of riding lessons. But she never asked for any of those things. She only asked for one thing, three months before her birthday. She asked her Dad; she could always count on him to cave. She waited and waited as the day drew near, and when her father finally asked her what she wanted, she marched her full height up to his waist. Her eyes gleamed with determination. She looked up at him. The scruffy weeds of his stubble were growing back. She used to giggle at the way it scratched her hand when she rubbed it. But she didn’t do that now. Now she focused all her energy into puffing up those big hazel eyes and pouting her lips into the most serious puppy-dog beggar. For a moment he smiled down on her and seemed warm, like before. “I’m almost eleven,” she began, feeling it important to establish her newfound maturity. Annie had prepared for this. She had spent hours on Google looking up the biggest most meaningful words. Then she had sat cross legged in front of the mirror with cheap Walmart earbuds and her mom’s laptop listening intently to the way the robot pronounced the word, trying to mimic its sounds. She felt smart when she got it right, but now looking up at her father, she was reminded how small she was. She gulped and continued, “I’ve learned a lot about the compliculaties of life.” Her father nodded at her to continue. She squirmed beneath him searching for the words that would make him understand. “I’m almost a teenager.” That wasn’t it either. All those words, all her preparation undone, turned to soupy mush in her mouth. She searched and sputtered at the syllables for the words she had memorized, but finally, she gave up and just said it, “I want you and mommy to live together again.” Silence. Her father’s warmth faded. His eyes formed a wall of an apology. They could give her two birthday parties, but they couldn’t give her that. — Eight days after her birthday, Annie climbed up the little wood ladder to the top of the bunk bed and began the work of tying the blanket into a noose. She would show them. They would find her, mature as Shakespeare, and know they should’ve listened. She grimly moved Mr. Piddles, the biggest Teddy Bear, from his corner on her bed, to face the wall instead. The empty space he left from where he was supposed to be, gripped at the finality of her decision. But she knew she had to spare him the sight of her, dangling. This 7
wasn’t Mr. Piddles fault. These mature thoughts were flashing through her mind, and bit by bit the reality, the horror of it all, was creeping through her chest. She tried to focus on tying the blanket around the post at the top of the bunk bed. The blue wool her mother had knitted it with was thick and hairy, and strings of it would tickle at her as she worked. She tugged at some of the larger ones, pulling the weave into tight little bunches. It was an addicting sort of motion. It satisfied her to see the annoying little clumps unseated. But she couldn’t let herself get distracted. Suddenly Annie heard the beginnings of a weak little growl from beneath her. She knew what would come next. The dreaded yapping. It was the dog her mother got her for her birthday. To, “keep her company” as her mother put it, leaving so many things so clearly unsaid. Her mother seemed to think Annie couldn’t see through the ways adults lie to children, but she was eleven now. The animal was a snotty little french bulldog with an ugly scrunched up face that looked as though it were perpetually tormented by foul odors. It wheezed everywhere it waddled. It’s wheezing stopped only when it saw little Annie. Then it would yap at her until its face was sweating and it panted and wheezed so badly from the effort, she prayed it would just keel over and die. It never did though. Her mother had told her it was from a very reputable breeder. As though that would make Annie love it. The animal’s only joy in the world, other than yapping ferociously at Annie, seemed to be leaving wide swaths of piss for Annie to step in late at night while she crept around the house in her socks. That and chewing all the wires for her brand-new headphones. And her mother was trying to get Annie to name it. — As much as she hated that dog, it still wasn’t the worst thing she had to deal with. No, that prize would go to the cat her father bought her. It was always lurking, waiting for her at her father’s apartment. Every weekend, when she nervously climbed the stained carpet steps up to his room, unavoidably inhaling the perfume of ancient cat urine and cologne, the knowledge that she would have to waste another weekend tiptoeing around that cat weighed on her. That and the knowledge that her father might try to talk to her. The animal her father had bought her to, “keep her company”, was a scrawny black cat with oily hair and a cruel vindictive temperament. Its flat, scarred face and upturned nose reminded Annie of the vampire bats she saw on National Geographic once. Only, the bats were cuter. “He’s a rescue.” Her father had tried to explain. As though that would excuse that ugly creature’s uncanny taste for human blood. The animal was the single most hate filled being Annie had ever encountered in her life. It spat at its food. It hissed and clawed at affection. It seemed to take no joy in anything but the sound of human screams and the feel of dripping crimson blood from its overgrown claws. In the daytime, with no shadows to lurk in, it would grouchily prowl the apartment, thin eyes darting back and forth suspiciously. When they saw the cat like that Annie and her father would do everything in their power to avoid getting in its way. They would crawl over counters and stay locked in the bathroom for hours rather than cross that cat. She had thought her father would be better at dealing with the animal he had to live with. But instead 8
he seemed to simply accept his life in fear of the small furry animal he had bought for his daughter. He shrugged at the thin red scars lining his arms, like a veteran shrugging at their missing limb. It was a part of the job. At night, the animal’s cruelty would truly come alive. The creature’s only true love was the shadows it used to stage its assaults. Five days after her birthday, on a dark arid night, Annie left the relative safety of her locked room. Her throat parched and throbbing for a glass of water, she stumbled about navigating the foreign space by the faint glow of her iPhone. Then she heard a sound. It was a low guttural rumbling. It threatened at any moment to burst into a shrieking howl and an unseen frenzy of claws and teeth. But for now, it rumbled invisible amongst the shadows. Annie held the light of her phone out in front of her, presenting it like a cross to protect her from a vampire. She shakily raked the light across the unknown lands of the apartment. The light reflected off the small pile of unfinished dishes in the far corner. Then she caught the slight glint of the creature’s yellow eyes shining in the darkness. Then it began. Screaming, kicking, crying in the darkness, the formless monster was seemingly all around her. It was howling too, a battle cry, as it sunk its claws in her skin and viciously tore them about. Annie screamed, and ran in the direction of her room, abandoning her phone to sprint away. She slammed her foot into an unseen object in the dark. She fell to the floor. The animal was on her back, launching its vicious assault on her hair. She was done for. Cracks of yellow light burst into the hallway as her father opened his door and stepped out of his room wearing nothing but a stained wife beater and pinstriped boxers and grimly clutching a katana. Annie watched as her father realized his opponent was not an armed home invader but his cat. The creature prowled at the edges of the light on the floor and hissed at its caretakers. Her father’s sword arm drooped and waivered. Annie hurriedly crawled to the safe yellow glow of her Father’s room. He knelt down to pet and comfort his sobbing daughter. “It’s okay, you’re okay.” He cooed softly in her ear. Annie was weeping messily into her father’s wife beater, not caring about the stains or the way her own snot and saliva added to them. Her father didn’t seem to care either. He just kept stroking her hair and kept repeating those words. “You’re okay, it’s okay.”
9
10
The Binary
11
Keith Dugan
Power’s in the Lines
Keith Dugan
12
4.1.22 I can’t say that I miss you, not aloud, at least. because that would mean that you were right. about it all. and if I give away my power, then what else do I have when you’re across oceans that are too deep to swim?
13
Josiah Thomason
7.29.21
Josiah Thomason
and the wind danced across the blades of grass and invaded my lungs and leapt under my clothes and all i could remember was how fresh the air was as it swept down from the mountain to greet me at a time before i knew you
14
Grandmother’s Breakfast
15
Jillian Thorvaldson
Adam’s
Josiah Thomason
16
Into the Heart: A Field Guide
Rachel Greene Phillips
This scientific journal is the property of a researcher pursuing rare and unusual species. If found, please return to her immediately. This information is of a sensitive nature to those in the scientific community and other explorers of Emotion. The knowledge gathered and contained in this journal is research of the highest importance. Crushes parva phantasiae Crushes are little creatures. They’re small and almost everywhere. I tend to carry a lot of them; many spilling from my pockets and a few sticking out of my socks and always one tucked behind my ear. They’re almost imperceivable, but now and then I’ll feel a tug on the sleeve of my shirt, a sudden tightening of a shoelace, or even a little pull on my hair. They’re imperceivable, but if I could see them, I’d imagine them as little pear-shaped things: soft and pink and squishy. Yesterday, I felt one in my jacket collar, but I didn’t bother with it, as it was doing me no harm. Later however, while I was talking to an associate of mine, the little creature yipped and tickled the back of my neck, which caused me to giggle in quite the inappropriate context. Exes or colloq. “Loves Lost” perdidit amor Exes are found in the swampier regions of the Heart, located near Mixed Emotions. I have discovered only one in my travels, but others in my profession have come across many of these creatures. From what I’ve seen, they are generally of a disagreeable demeanor. Rather than openly pursue prey, this predator prefers to stalk its target from a short distance, until the prey is tired and vulnerable. Once the ex sees that the prey is weakened, it strikes. They feed off of your very lifeblood, so be cautious in your interactions. They may also vary greatly in size. The specimen I mentioned before has been stalking my camp over the past couple of weeks. This is a predictable behavior for an ex, which, if one stays vigilant, is nothing to be too alarmed over. However, I am still trying to limit my interaction with this creature as much as possible, as I know that the consequences for growing too close are dire. It is an adult specimen, which means the bite is far more lethal than that of its underdeveloped young. Friends cognitus prope Friends are relatively common, although hard to track for long periods of time. This is due to their highly variable migratory patterns, since friends are a largely nomadic species. Some explorers encounter many of these creatures, while others encounter few. From what I gather, the more years you spend in the study, the more friends you’ll find. I’ve discovered many friends in the lands of Common Interest, but I hear that they’re also a prominent species in the valley of Proximity. Friends, like exes, vary widely in size. They tend to bond more quickly if they find you share similar traits.
17
False Friends, colloq. “Frenemies” amico iniqua These creatures are the unpleasant masters of mimicry. They are easily mistaken for friends, despite the fact that they come from different taxonomic orders, because of their excellent camouflage. Frenemies will display all of the same bonding behaviors as a friend, then, once the target is close enough, proceed to sting their prey. I have been fortunate to encounter few false friends in my travels, or at least to only have a handful reveal themselves to sting. Greater Friends (subspecies), colloq. “Kindred Spirits” similus enti Far less common than cognitus prope, these are rare and elusive creatures. It is not often one comes across these. I can count my own sightings of enti similus on one hand. They’re somewhat hard to see, as they can be easily mistaken for the lesser friend. I am still working on ways to differentiate between the species and subspecies, as my current identification method is subpar. Just last summer, I found one where I least expected to see it. While passing through unfamiliar territory, I spotted an enti similus engaging in a bonding exercise. It communicated briefly with me, expressing a knowledge of Common Interest. It was one of the most touching moments in my scientific career. Loves, colloq. “Soulmates” verus amor The most rare of creatures; location undetermined. Even the best of the best of our scientists don’t usually run into more than one in a lifetime. These creatures are also the strangest of the beasts I have described to you thus far. They are the most amiable creatures, unwavering in their bonds. I have yet to correctly identify a member of this species, but I am currently watching a creature that has a resemblance to the descriptions I’ve heard tell of. Because of their shared possessive tendencies, explorers will often mistake exes for the verus amor, only to be unpleasantly surprised later. I can only hope, as I observe this creature before me, that I am not making the same mistake.
18
Please Just Let Me Keep My Pearls I was reminded of my mortality yesterday. When I die, I will likely not have an heir. I have never been the motherly type, I prefer to foster divine dresses and rare gems. When I die, I will likely be alone. My lover has declared that they will die long before me. When I die, let me keep my pearls and lay me to rest in my most expensive dress. I am a very selfish person, I know. But my possessions have always been well cared for, They cannot end up alone in an antique shop. A sea of books, gold watches, war collectables, and tattered children’s toys. Unnerving yet thrilling, To own something that has been owned perhaps many times before; Passed down from hand to hand. But not from the hands of your own mother, or even great grandmother. A fur coat that is lined with emerald green silk, Cries out from its hanger to be worn just once more. A pair of engagement rings sit in a glass case, Longing for new lovers to come along and set them free. I’m almost jealous, As those rings knew of love long before we ever could. And my personal favorite, a box of lost post cards and love letters Given away for reasons unknown. I always thought that love written is love committed, Promises strewn onto personalized stationery. Their responses exist beyond our reach, Beyond the box that sits silently in this shop. I hope that our love is not lost, And that our letters are not sold for $1 a piece. Separated by passing time, And taken to hang on a hopeless romantic’s wall. My letters marked by lipstick stains, tears, and my signature scent Will not be left to become a conversation starter in a sapphic’s bedroom. I hope our portraits do not hang in the library of someone that We never had the chance to meet. I am selfish. I am gluttonous.
19
Casey Allen
Bury me with my jewels. Bury me with my photos. Bury me with my letters. If nothing can be salvaged, Please just let me keep my pearls.
20
April
21
Maggie Wilcox
April
Maggie Wilcox
22
Pomelos
23
Thomas Hicks
Pyrus
Thomas Hicks
24
On Last Night
Hannah Martinson
I had a dream about my grandmother last night. That hasn’t happened in a while. I can usually decipher between dreams and reality, and realize when I’m in a false world of my brain’s creation. There is no hesitation or confusion in regards to what is material and imaginary. But last night’s dream tricked my brain into pondering, even hoping, that reality mercifully disobeyed all of its principal laws and allowed me to see my grandmother once more. She stood before me as tangibly as ever. As real as I have ever known. I gazed at the wrinkles near her eyes and on her forehead that outline the stories of her life. I followed each one carefully, as I used to follow those stories as she used to recount to me as a child. Those extraordinary tales that generated from my tiny person such herculean emotions– joy, terror, grief. Every story, every wrinkle, was right there, five feet before me. The smell of her perfume permeated the room and everything inside it, my body included. Its sweetness eased my heart and mind, which raced against each other toward what seemed to be complete self-destruction, and allowed them to stop for a breath. Breathe in and out. In and out. I never want that smell to go away. I didn’t want any part of her to go away, not again, into an abyss of darkness and confusion and sadness. Please, don’t go away again. Her hands touched mine. I swear to you they did. She hadn’t gone away, not then. Instead she put my hands into hers and pulled me closer. Closer and closer until even the smallest sliver of doubt or fear would fail to slip in between us. She pulled me into an embrace that I remember, like a song you haven’t heard in years yet recall each lyric when it spontaneously plays over the speaker of a coffee shop. I remembered that hug like I remembered that perfume. I missed that hug, that perfume, those wrinkles, everything. I didn’t want to let any of it go. Stories eventually conclude and lines come to a stopping point. Perfumes wither into the stale air and their mask falls to reveal the unpleasantness they were needed to cover. Embraces draw to a close. As quickly as she returned, she vanished. My eyes opened to the darkness of my bedroom, which seemed much darker than normal, almost black. Readjustment took my body a few moments, but my mind has yet to follow suit. It will not allow for reality to set in again and extinguish the hope it so maliciously tempted me to reach for. There I lay in bed, as still as the darkness which entrapped me. I was indeed alone, and everything was indeed a dream. My mind, a Judas in its own right, had betrayed me. It allowed me to hope for the hopeless, to reach for the fruit I would never quite grasp. I lay alone in bed, afraid to return to sleep and subject myself to the same torment. Alone I was. Alone I am. Alone I fear I always will be.
25
Nocturnal Naptime
Josie Shostak
26
Swimmer’s Ear
Emma Burton
Eleanor pulled the water to either side of her body as though it were a curtain, then kicked her legs like a frog’s to propel her through. The heated water felt like an embrace over every part of her body. It supported her from below and surrounded her on either side. She breast-stroked to one side of the pool, then back, then there and back and there and back and there and back again until she’d exhausted her limbs sufficiently and it was almost time to pick her daughter up from school. Before she left, she heaved herself out of the water and dripped over to the other side of the pool where they kept the medicine balls and where the water was deep enough for the divers to slice into the water from their lofty platform above. As she walked around, she passed and observed a younger mother sitting with her toddler in the baby pool adjacent to the big pool. The toddler, with his floaties constricting his chubby arms, splashed his mother, and his mother splashed him back, and they both laughed. They continued for as long as Eleanor watched them, splashing and laughing. When she reached the other side, Eleanor lifted a dark blue ten-pound ball from its mesh enclosure on the pool deck where it sat clustered together with other balls of various weights and jewel-toned hues. She held the weight close to her chest with both hands, then jumped into the pool, letting the ball sink her until her feet collided with the bottom. Her ears strained under the pressure so she released the weight and fluttered back to the surface. On her way to retrieve it, she equalized the pressure in her ears by plugging her nose and blowing out until she felt a satisfying pop. She pulled the medicine ball to her chest again, already aware of her shortness of breath and the weight of the ball which seemed to have tripled five meters underwater. She kicked against its heaviness, feeling her quads burn as she gradually rose to the top and took in a humid lungful of air. She dropped and retrieved and dropped and retrieved and dropped and retrieved the ball until she feared she wouldn’t be able to make it to the surface another time and it really was time to fetch her daughter from school. In the pickup line at her daughter’s school, Eleanor edged her car forward as mothers and fathers collected their kids. She felt her hair drip down the nape of her neck from her wet bun, sticking the thin fabric of her shirt to her upper back. A wet ringing sound started in her right ear, then intensified, then stopped. It felt as though it had plugged itself with water, like someone had run a faucet into the ear until it was full, then turned the water off. Eleanor could not hear more than muffled voices from her right ear, and when she covered her left ear, it sounded as though she was obscuring her hearing in both. She pulled on her earlobe and shook her head to one side. The car behind her beeped to tell her to move forward in line. She spotted her daughter, and waved while tugging at her ear with one hand. Her daughter made her way toward the car with a slow plod. Eleanor remembered when her daughter used to sprint to the car when she saw it arrive, but now Clare was eleven, in fifth grade, and no longer sprinted to the car when she saw it arrive. “Why were you late?” Clare asked Eleanor after hopping into the front seat. “I was hardly late, there’s a line of cars behind me,” Eleanor said, still tugging on her ear, passively irritated by her daughter’s tone but more preoccupied with her sudden hearing impairment. “Besides, don’t I get a hello?” “Hello.” Clare angled her body toward the window and pulled her legs into the car seat. Eleanor kept her hand at her ear as she drove. Clare looked over her shoulder at her mother. “What are you doing?” 27
“ I think I might have an ear infection from swimming. I’m having trouble hearing out of this ear.” “Or maybe you’re just old. I can tell that you dye your hair, you know.” Eleanor exhaled out of her nose and chose to ignore her daughter’s mood. Clare had been drifting in and out of spells of spite and rudeness ever since Eleanor and her husband had decided to move her from private school to public school come next fall because of her husband’s recent layoff from his job as a payroll clerk. Clare was there on partial scholarship to begin with, but that other partial had become too much of a burden, at least for the near future. Eleanor reached over to her daughter to try to hold her hand. Clare shrugged her mother’s hand away and turned on the radio. The station played top 40 hits, but it was tuned one degree away from the clear broadcast, so the sound that came from the speakers was scratchy and grating. Clare was reaching the age where kids began to pull away, and any effort on Eleanor’s part to pull her closer seemed to achieve the opposite effect. Eleanor remembered when Clare was an infant and her favorite thing in the world was to sit with her child sleeping on her chest, breathing in the particular baby scent of the top of her head and feeling the warmth of her little body sink into her heart. What excited her about having a baby most was the endless love she could give her child, and the hope that that love would come back to her. At the same time, adolescence was something she feared deeply, the period where more love only seemed to reduce the intimacy that a mother shares so intensely with an infant, a toddler, a baby connected to her mother through blood and tissue in the womb. Eleanor drove in silence, but kept her right hand on the center console just in case Clare changed her mind. — Later that evening, Clare, Eleanor, and her husband, Daniel, sat around the dining room table amid small plates holding tapas which Daniel had prepared. Since the layoff, he had taken to spending the mornings looking for jobs and the afternoons methodically crafting complicated recipes for his wife and daughter to return to. On the table there were baby squid, olives in an herby dressing, a thick, oily tortilla, and various cheeses and hams. Dinner made Eleanor feel guilty somehow, as though she weren’t doing enough with the part-time job she had taken at the library, even while she harbored suspicions that the squid, olives, and certainly charcuterie had come prepackaged from the grocery store, in which case they also seemed like an exorbitant expense. Eleanor’s ear had begun to throb and ring with a distracting rhythm punctuated by sharp twinges of pain. She focused on the tentacles of the baby squid which appeared to undulate and wave at her placidly. “How was your day, El?” Daniel asked. “Yes, it looks delicious,” she said. “Honey, I asked how your day was.” “Mom, no offense, but that was kind of stupid,” Clare said. “I’m sorry, I think I have an ear infection. I can’t hear very well out of my right ear.” “But the left works fine?” Daniel said. “It’s actually quite painful,” Eleanor said. 28
week.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, hopefully it rights itself in a few days. Maybe take it easy on the laps this
Eleanor nodded and cut herself a wide slice of tortilla. The cross-section revealed a structure of egg, potato, and red peppers. When she pressed her fork into the top, oil pooled around the tines. “Are these octopuses?” Clare asked “They’re baby giant squids,” Daniel responded, wiggling his fingers like tentacles. “Cool,” Clare said. “You know, next year the sixth graders get to go to a lock-in at the aquarium for the whole entire night and basically sleep with the octopuses.” She bit into the tentacle of a squid and chewed it between her front teeth. “And jellyfish. And even sharks,” she said, looking up at her father. “Well, hopefully you can go with them,” he said. Eleanor nudged her husband’s foot under the table. They had reviewed their finances, done the math, contacted the school, found a part-time job for Eleanor, and still, at least for the next year, they found that they could not afford to spend the thousands of dollars it cost them to put Clare through private school. They had had the tough conversation with Clare at that very dining room table, the overhead light fixture giving the scene the impression of an investigation against the contrast of the dark kitchen as Clare asked why? when? what am I going to do? who am I going to be friends with? And they, mostly Eleanor, had labored over each answer, only for Daniel to give their daughter seeds of hope that they both knew would amount to nothing. There was nothing Eleanor wanted more than to assure her daughter that they could provide everything to her, but the reality in the short term was abundantly clear. Clare raised her eyebrows at Eleanor as if to say, see? I told you Dad would find a way. After dinner, Eleanor took two ibuprofen to calm the pounding feeling in her ear. Clare went to her room, and Eleanor asked Daniel if he could help her put in hydrogen peroxide drops. She lay down on the couch and he rummaged in the bathroom for the drops. He came over and knelt by the couch with the bottle in hand. Daniel leaned over and pulled at Eleanor’s earlobe. “That hurts, please be a bit more gentle.” “Sorry, here let me try something different.” He pulled at the cartilaginous top part of her ear, and squeezed a drop. She could feel it suspended in her ear canal, blocked by something that wouldn’t allow it to enter where it needed to go. He squeezed the dropper again, and she could feel the peroxide pool and overflow down her lobe and onto her neck. “Can I put my head in your lap?” she asked. He sat on the couch and she shifted her head onto his thigh. They used to sit like that when they were first dating, but it was usually the other way around. Daniel would lie down and fall asleep whenever they watched movies, and Eleanor would stay awake until the end. Daniel pulled at her earlobe again in an attempt to get the peroxide to sink down. “That’s sore, I already told you. Maybe let me try.” She stuck the dropper directly into her ear. The peroxide overflowed again, and with her head at an inclined angle, dripped onto the couch. “Oh shoot, let me get that,” Daniel said. Hurriedly, he lifted her head off of his leg and ran to grab some paper towels. 29
“I think maybe I’ll get into bed and just try it again myself,” Eleanor said. She walked down the hallway with her head tilted to the side, and the walls appeared to slant toward each other. Eleanor tapped on the door of her daughter’s room, and upon hearing no answer, said goodnight softly to the closed door. She brushed her teeth sideways, the foam accumulating in one cheek and hanging there, a soft pouch. For a while, Eleanor drifted in and out of sleep. She half waited for Clare to come in and wish her good night, half waited for Daniel to come to bed and tickle her back while she sank out of lucidity. She imagined his arms around her, warming her and holding her secure. In the in-between of sleep and waking, the make-believe arms felt intensely real. Her dozing was interrupted by occasional bursts of pain that traveled from her ear to the back of her head and down her neck. Eventually, she heard Daniel’s footsteps in the hallway, but they stopped in front of Clare’s room. She could hear Clare giggle, the low tones of Daniel’s voice, all obscured by the doors and space between them as well as Eleanor’s right ear which churned with endless ringing. — A few days later, Eleanor visited the urgent care. The pain in her ear came back with waves between doses of ibuprofen and peroxide, and her hearing diminished more and more by the day. It felt like years since she’d been in the water, the one place where it made sense to hear not more than a fragment of the world around her, under the gentle ripples where the world was quiet. Eleanor entered the clinic and waited for the nurse to call her back. The nurse had long, brown hair in a ponytail and was short and petite. When she called, Eleanor followed her past another nurse who was short and petite and had brown hair. They both wore blue scrubs. The nurse weighed her, took her blood pressure, and had her sit on an examining table with crinkly white paper that reminded Eleanor of the parchment paper she used to bake cookies. When the doctor came in to examine Eleanor, she too was small with longer brown hair than both of the nurses. Eleanor wondered if they all went to the gym together. “The nurse said you’ve been taking drops at home? Have you noticed any relief since beginning with the drops?” “The pain subsides periodically, but I still can’t hear. There’s a strange ringing in my ear, and when I plug the other one, it’s like I’m plugging both. Sometimes there are sharp twinges of pain. It hurts when I press or pull on it. I’m a swimmer. Well, I swim recreationally. I love to swim. Sometimes I dive pretty deep, though. Maybe that’s it. I’ve noticed some discomfort a few times after swimming to the deepest part of the pool but this loss of hearing, this pain, is pretty new. It could be something that started a long time ago. I hope it’s not anything too serious.” It felt good to talk about her symptoms, to verbalize the minutiae of every little thing that was bothering her, every contextual element, to a person whose job it was to listen. “Do you feel like the drops have been going straight into the ear? Is someone helping you to put them in?” “I’ve been able to just take them on my own.” 30
“Let’s take a look.” The doctor inserted the ear speculum and maneuvered it around the inside of Eleanor’s ear. The feeling was uncomfortable but somehow satisfying. It felt like the means to an end which would hopefully bring a great sense of relief. “I can see a lot of buildup. If the drops haven’t been working, I think the next thing is to try to wash it out.” The doctor left the room for a moment, and returned with a bottle of water with a long, hose-like nozzle and a basin with a divot cut out of one side. She asked Eleanor to hold the basin up by her ear, then inserted the nozzle into her ear canal. She squirted the water, which was warm, into Eleanor’s ear. The water spilled into the basin and down Eleanor’s neck. The doctor cupped the back of Eleanor’s head and Eleanor rested against it. The sensation was strange, and made her feel dizzy. She closed her eyes and focused on the smell of the doctor’s perfume, something like fruit that had overripened, but not in an entirely unpleasant way. The warmth of the water pressing into what almost felt like her brain gave her a feeling of warmth all over. The doctor stopped the water and asked Eleanor to take the basin away from her ear. Then, the doctor looked through the otoscope again and began to probe with a long, metal scoop. Eleanor leaned into it. The irritation inside her ear had been something she couldn’t reach for days, and the sensation of something moving in and around the source of her discomfort was almost cathartic. She felt taken care of, attended to. “Any relief there?” the doctor asked. “I still can’t hear. Maybe just a bit more with the water.” The doctor removed the metal instrument, wiped it, and set it down. She pushed a pale wisp of hair off of Eleanor’s neck, tucked it behind her ear. “Don’t want to get your hair stuck in there,” she said. The gesture was intimate in its action, yet pragmatic and sterile in its context. Eleanor chose to enjoy the feeling once more, resting her head in the doctor’s hand and letting the warmth of the water move through her. Once more, the doctor removed the water and went in with the metal tool. She scraped around the canal, then moved the tool into a deeper part of Eleanor’s ear. There was a rustling sound, then sudden clarity. She felt like her hearing had been restored and magnified, like she’d gained a new sense. The sensation was like nothing she’d ever experienced, like she was conscious of her first ever sounds in the world with fresh ears after months of the dull muffle of amniotic fluid. The doctor furrowed her brow intently while she worked, her brown eyes glassy and concentrated. “How is that?” She asked. Eleanor thought, then lied, “Maybe just once more. It’s feeling better, though. I think it just needs a little more.” Eleanor closed her eyes again as the doctor repeated the process. She savored every touch the doctor placed on her ear, her head, her face, her neck, each one intended for the sole purpose of healing her, providing her comfort and ease.
31
32
Frogs
Rachel Greene Phillips
Frogs. They said I’d have to kiss a lot of frogs to find Prince Charming Or something like that. But what they didn’t tell me about kissing frogs is how hard it is. Eventually, I got over the initial squeamishness of raising a wet amphibian to my lips, my body shivering with nausea and hope I was fine. If only it was that uncomplicated. Unfortunately, the frogs are hard to find. The sneaky bastards hide in bogs and damp musty places like that In my layers of skirts, it’s hard to navigate and catch them so I have to dull down my appearance and blend in with my surroundings. Frogs always hide from the royal daughter clothed in confidence. When I do catch one, I dread kissing it. I know until I do, it could still be Prince Charming. And each frog looks a little more different, a little more special, like maybe just maybe this is it. And each frog stares into my face with its little and dark and soulful eyes like it could really be the one.
33
So I wait and wait and wait And put it off Until the day I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and lower the poor creature back into the pond.
34
Untitled
35
Lydia Wilkes
The First Gaze
Lydia Wilkes
36
All Timers Grandad wants to call me and talk. He doesn’t want much these days. With a voice like a bear on the brink of hibernation he says Hey buddy I’ll be back soon I’ve got things to sort out up there, Okay granddead, I’ll see you then But I know I won’t. He was asleep when Mimi died. She was on the couch, cold faced and he was sunken in the center of their quicksand bed, slumbering oblivious. He laughed at the funeral home called “simplicity” He stood there forty pounds lighter when he saw her body. I did not want to look. He laughed and said This is the last time you’ll see her, wiping a tear from his eye.
37
Luke Shaw
Field of Flowers
Josie Shostak
38
Ode to a Stranger Every once in a while, I look up your Spotify and go through all your new playlists, trying to piece together what your life might look like now. It’s like putting together a puzzle without ever seeing the box. We both made playlists for our twenty-first birthdays, and I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw that even though we haven’t spoken in three years, they had all the same songs. You’re still you—even when you aren’t. Some of them were even on that first mixtape you made for me when we were seventeen, and I wondered if you had noticed that too. Sometimes, after a few glasses of wine, I read the poems you once wrote about me, when you described me with all the wonder and tenderness of every first love, when you wrote about my hair half tied up as I stared at the setting sun outside your bedroom window, my hands intertwined in yours, the hands of two children who knew little other than that they loved each other. I hope that whatever you’re doing now, you’re happy, but mostly I just hope that you think about me too.
39
Mollie Pate
40
