CONTENTS Front Cover: Print Front Cover: Watercolor & Text Inside Front Cover: Drawing & Watercolor Section Pages: Drawings & Watercolor
Sophie Graf Julie Kukral Emilia Tapsall Julie Kukral
Wings If I Ever Tell You To Set Me Free Pastel Drawing The Headpiece Scales Drawing Summer Secrets Photograph Collage In Praise of Laughter Tall Figure Sculpture Joy-baby Digital Media A New Language Drawing Napalm Photograph
Katie O'Neill Elizabeth Jones Phoebe Morrison Ally Sterling Alicia Kiley Esme Neal Lulu Hedstrom Julia Sabetta Olivia Brodsky Allie Primak Tasha Kim Katelyn Iorillo Jubilee Johnson Allie Primak Maria Guzman Olivia Alchek Alexis Stroemer Alexis Stroemer
6 7 8 9 11 11 12 12 14 15 18 19 20 20 24 25 26 27
Sophie Hadjipateras Tyla Taylor Radhika Krishna Angie Loynaz Timmy Murphy Olivia Alchek Avery Carmichael Alyssa MulĂŠ Julie Mayberry Lauren Eames Dani Jimenez Petey Briggs Ellie Garland Phoebe Morrison Hannah Karlan Julia Jones
30 30 32 32 33 34 35 36 36 38 39 40 42 43 44 45
Labyrinth Now What Paper Cut Suspension, October 2007 Cyanotype Cyanotype Digital Media Pie Flashing Before My Eyes Collage Coffee Oil Stick Digital Media Blue Cheese Brooklyn Drawing Excerpts From My Sleep Log Paper Cut
Mortals and Immortals Bus Rides and A1 Paper Lulu Hedstrom Etching Emma Morrison Jimmy Cuyler Hedlund Photograph Julia Sabetta Digital Media Nico Wada Dissolve Julia Conway 6 am Tasha Kim Photograph Olivia Brodsky London Cab Alexis Stroemer Drawing Cuyler Hedlund Ice Cream Boys Katie O'Neill Collage Maddie Jansson GIITH Sydney Burnett Drawing Olivia Alchek Thank You Alyssa MulĂŠ Collage Olivia Brodsky The First Time I Spoke to Tasha Natalie Lee Photograph Camila O'Brien
48 49 50 50 52 53 54 54 56 57 58 59 60 60 62 63 64 68
"...but the air and the sky are free..." Photograph Samantha Smith Abroad Maria Guzman Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Caitlin James Drawing Sarah Kaplan Digital Media Kayley Leonard What is Made From Our Bones? Alicia Kiley And in Health Clare Hanlon Drawing Isabel van Paasschen Trees and Shakespeare Jordan Smith Print Caitlin Buckley What I Learned From a Cowboy Julie Kukral Photograph Julie Kukral Photograph Julie Kukral New Mexico Katie O'Neill Print Paloma Corrigan Tucker-Jane Avery Carmichael Drawing Julie Kukral
72 73 74 74 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 82 84 86 87 88 95
Concept and Design
Phoebe Morrison & Julie Kukral
Dædalus, the ancient Athenian, created the Minotaur's famed labyrinth and invented wings so that he and his son could escape from King Minos. Dædalus reminds us that we are all creators and all inventors. Editors-in-Chief Avery Carmichael and Katie O'Neill Art Editors Julie Kukral and Phoebe Morrison Assistant Editors Maria Guzman, Charlotte Jamar, Esme Neal, Natalie Reynolds Junior Editorial Board Maggie Carangelo, Alicia Kiley, Tasha Kim, Ally Sterling Olivia Alchek Kippy Ball Sarah Better Caroline Bloomer Julia Conway Paloma Corrigan Ellie Dempsey Isa Dumoulin Caroline Dunn Sarah Frauen Ellie Garland Hannah Goodrick Maxx Grossman Lulu Hedstrom
Staff Amanda Hilton Jubilee Johnson Hannah Karlan Radhika Krishna Alex LaMantia Caroline Miao Emma Morrison Alyssa Mulé Francesca Narea Lexi Olney Eliza Osman Bailey Poole Olivia Quinton Megan Root
Sloane Ruffa Clare Ryan Juli Serrano Sarah Sheer Jordan Smith Sam Smith Charlotte Stone Alexis Stroemer Cat Tubridy Eliza Whittemore Jane Zachar Caroline Zhao Gallant Zhuangli
Five times a year, Dædalus sponsors a Writer-of-the-Month contest. All submissions are sent by email and read anonymously by the entire staff. In March, editors narrow the selections and begin production, which continues through April with art, layout, and page design. Through May the editors collaborate with our printer through weekly stages until our final assembly, where we read from the issue, show slides of all art, and celebrate! Visual Arts Advisor Sherry Tamalonis
Printer Advanced Printing Services, Inc., Bristol CT Faculty Advisor Jeffrey Schwartz
Section entitled "...but the air and the sky are free..." from Edith Hamilton's description of Icarus' escape in Mythology. Colophon 750 copies of Dædalus have been printed on 80 pound Euro Gloss stock with 100 pound Euro Gloss for the cover. The text is set in Palatino, a typeface designed by Herman Zapf and originally released in 1948.
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If I Ever Tell You To Set Me Free, Katie O'Neill Take me to the tip of somewhere. Cover me in sand and throw me in the sea. I’ll float on my back, stare into the sun because I am fearless and because I'm tired of girls in leather boots and boys who think they like drugs and because even if I go blind the better to hear you with my dear, when you row out to me, gliding over water that’s too crystal to hold any secrets. Read me stories, read my stories about houses and cowboys and classrooms and yes, the sun! Explain to me what roots are, how deep they spread so that nests stay put and eggshells don’t crack. Tell me about your day while I float on my back and please be patient because I forget what is wildflower, what is vodka, what is electrical outlet. Then row back home and leave me to think about paper boats, and Icarus, and the wet of my back and the dry of my stomach. If any day you row your dark splintered dinghy and I'm gone, don’t worry. I’ve washed up in India to taste the spices or New Zealand to feel wool between my fingers or America to be a circus sideshow. If you throw me into the sea I’ll go slowly and happily blind and maybe I’ll end up in a glass bottle somewhere.
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Elizabeth Jones
Pastel
Phoebe Morrison
Drawing
The Headpiece Ally Sterling I slid my hand under my blue hijab (headpiece), trying to smooth out my hair. However, a moment later the fabric from the hijab slid back onto my face. I knew I wasn’t wearing it properly, and as much as I tried to adjust it, nothing seemed to help. I proceeded to pick up my backpack from the floor, being extra careful not to trip on my robe. I placed the straps from my backpack onto my shoulders and felt the weight dig into my skin. Meanwhile, the hijab became entangled and the fabric covered even more of my face. I could smell spices coming from my clothing, as I attempted again to move my headpiece away from my eyes. “Salam walakum (peace be with you),” said the tall, scruffyhaired boy a few feet in front of me. He had a round, multicolored hat on his head and was wearing a robe made of the same fabric as mine. “Waalakum asalam (peace be with you),” I answered and watched him walk off toward his next class. I turned around. I sensed someone staring at me. A girl was peering over the screen of her laptop. When we made eye contact, she quickly turned away and whispered something to her friend next to her. I could tell she was asking her friend about me–about why I looked so different. This had all started the previous Wednesday. I was walking the path outside to my next class, as usual. I took out my keycard and swiped it when I got to the door. I walked upstairs, turned left, and entered the classroom on my right. The three boys were already there. My teacher said, “Sabahalcheer (good morning).” I replied, “Sabahalnoor (good morning).” I threw my backpack onto the floor and folded my plaid skirt under me when I sat down. “Did I tell you about next week?” asked my teacher. “No,” answered one of the three boys. 9
“Oh, I guess I told the other class. Well, next week is our annual Arabic Immersion Week. You have to wear your outfits from 7:45am to 2:40pm on Monday through Friday. And you can only speak Arabic to other Arabic students, no matter which level they are in. No English!” he explained. The following Monday, I put on my robe, wrapped my hijab around my head and set off to school. There seemed to be three types of reactions. There were those who were very interested and wanted to know all the details. There were those who were clueless and asked questions like, “Are you Muslim?” or, “What the heck are you wearing?” And then there were those who were too afraid to ask. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, I thought, if I didn’t go to a uniform school; or if it weren't the Jewish holiday of Passover this week; or if there were more students in the school who were learning Arabic. That way I wouldn’t stick out as much, and I wouldn’t look so different. However, none of these were the case. There were whispers, stares, questions, and comments the first few days, but after awhile everyone started to get used to it, including myself. I happily crunched on my Jewish Passover matzo (unleavened bread) during lunch, dressed as a Muslim, while everyone else around me had on his or her school uniform. I continued to fiddle with my frustrating hijab because it seemed impossible to keep off my face.
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Scales Alicia Kiley
They said there was a lake beyond Grover's farmhouse where the fish climb high into the water droplets that fall on them and scale the blemished rocks that surround their dark world. Where their fins turn into palms, cold skin tepid, fibers split into crude extremities and they feel their heart grow two chambers heavier. Two chambers more compassionate? Doubtful. Dazed, they step their pristine, pale feet on new clay.
Esme Neal
Drawing
Summer Secrets Lulu Hedstrom After church, my cousin Julian and I are walking home arguing about the sermon. He believes some people can never be forgiven even if they confess their mistakes to Him. I say, No, that’s not the point of forgiveness. Julian says, No, that’s its extent. You can hurt someone deeply, or even kill them. Then what? Are people just going to say No worries, it’s okay? I say, That’s not true forgiveness. It’s meant to come from Him. Julian says, But we’re all His children. I say, Maybe we mean different things by the same word. Julian says, He is complicated: forgiveness can exist even if no one truly forgives. I say that he’s wrong. He forgives. He is not no one, I say. And Julian says, Then who is He? We’re walking up Longford Hill–the kiskadees’ calls can be heard from Granaway Deep–and I hear myself saying what Granddad used to tell his parishioners: He forgives all sins. Auntie Sarah says that that girl can never be forgiven for what she’s done. Canon Francis says, If you are truly honest with Him, your prayers will be heard. Bob Marley says, Every little thing is gonna be alright. 12
Julian and I stand at the bottom of Mizzentop looking at the view. I can’t help but smell the wafting scent of freesias. I look over to see a cluster of them– some white, some purple, some yellow. What do you think we’re going to have for lunch? Julian says. But what I think he’s saying is, We have no choice. Grandma’s been working on it all morning. Then I think, what is Julian implying anyway? Does he think I’m taking forgiveness for granted? Above Bermuda the sun blazes, and the sea fuels the wind that blows our hair as if it thinks we’re sailboats. after Marie Howe
Julia Sabetta
Photograph13
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In Praise of Laughter Allie Primak You are sitting in the dentist’s office, a slight smirk on your face. This is going to be so good, you think. I can just feel it. I know it. The dental assistant bounces on her toes through the door and comes to clip the bib around your neck. As she does so, she says, with a toothy smile, “What award does a dentist get?” She pauses. The silence is unbearable. Finally: “a little plaque.” That’s it! The television mounted in the corner of the room suddenly lights up with the word “LAUGHTER,” the speakers in the office start playing a roaring laugh track, you fall out of the chair, the nurse is already on the floor, the entire world erupts in laughter and falls to their knees in praise of this glorious joke, this watershed event in all history of dentistry-associated humor! Obviously this is absurd. When you and everyone around you is anticipating something funny, is it really that funny in the end? No. You knew right away that the assistant was waiting all day to tell that tidbit to someone, and when she did, your face didn’t even twitch. We laugh with genuine emotion, when something is spontaneous and unanticipated, when it comes naturally and our only instinct is to laugh. Laughter, after all, is an instinctive expression. Babies, adults, moody teenagers, even bitter senior citizens do it. Our lives do not come with laugh tracks. We don’t arrive at the dentist’s office knowing that a preordained comical extravaganza is awaiting us. We don’t arrive anywhere thinking that. Except maybe if we sit down to watch a television show that we know will provide us with a good laugh or two. One like Saturday Night Live. SNL cracks up American night-owls on a weekly basis. However, I guarantee that if you spend an entire day watching an SNL marathon, the simple knowledge that something funny’s supposed to hit you every three to four minutes makes the show start to seem dull and predictable. But just Olivia Brodsky, Collage
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as your indifferent gaze starts to wander over to the clicker, some unknown force reawakens you, as if snapping its fingers right before your face. On the screen, Will Ferrell is demanding “more cowbell” and… what is that? Tears!? Yes, tears are forming in the corners of Jimmy Fallon’s eyes! You would’ve never expected it! He’s chortling like a loon in front of America! No one can help but to crack up at the sight of this. You don’t even have to know what is going on in a skit to be able to laugh at an actor revealing his or herself to you. When Chris Farley is forcing everyone else on stage to desperately purse their lips to keep from bursting out laughing at his overzealous character “Matt Foley,” or when Bill Hader must lower his head and cover his mouth to suppress his hysterics during his “Stefon” segment on “Weekend Update,” the actors become less like characters and more like the viewers: they stumble, they mess up, they giggle when they’re not supposed to… and they can’t take back any of it. It’s live! It’s out there for the world to see! It’s out there as soon as you see the bite of the lip, or the covering of the mouth, the hiding of the smile, the corrugation of the brow, the restrained yet helpless jerking of the shoulders and sternum, the clamping of the fists, the squinting of the eyes (and the saccharine tears that peek out from the corners of each). A smile that is apologetic but not apologetic at the same time. I don’t know how that can be, but it is clear when you see it. The point is that the actors are no longer cookie-cutter characters; they have broken out of their shells and become relatable human beings who make mistakes that are hilarious. And the humor is natural, unprecedented. It involves no thinking, no processing of information, no “getting the joke.” They laugh, you laugh. We all laugh! Although these outbursts are often criticized as unprofessional, I believe that they should be glorified. As long as they are presented with the correct timing (when you are least expecting it), they add an element of spontaneity and surprise to SNL that makes the show definitely worth stay16
Olivia Brodsky, Collage
ing up past midnight to watch. They even have the power to make segments a degree better than they already are. “Debbie Downer” would be nothing if Rachel Dratch, with her monotone voice and downbeat announcements, didn’t cause Fred Armisen, Amy Poehler, Jimmy Fallon, Lindsay Lohan, Horatio Sanz, and even herself to lose it on stage. As the camera zooms in on Dratch’s face, with the intention of capturing a gloomy expression, she is instead completely falling to pieces, and her face is a contorted mix of her own smirking and her character’s seriousness. She is no longer the generic comedian who simply learns the monologue and does the funny expression, but now you can see that she enlivens her character and really has a good time with it. She emphasizes the hilarity of “Debbie Downer” by laughing at her own character… herself! She transforms cracking up into a sort of universal language as she simultaneously masters the best kind of humor: making people laugh just for the sake of laughter. A huge amount of praise should be given to any Saturday Night Live comedian that can truly master outof character laughter. Seriously. They sure as heck deserve a of-character little plaque.
Tall Figure Tasha Kim Your favorite sculpture is Giacometti’s Tall Figure II A bronze woman with an inch-wide gap in between her thighs and disfigured breasts that lie on opposite sides You are captivated by cold hips and the rough texture of her skin that is marred and ruins her beauty, I think And I see you reach out towards a slender limb as I pretend to notice the tailoring of your trousers Except it is Saturday, the fourteenth one of this year and you only have one pair of pants So this is not new, this austere room where she lives is as intimate to me as the outline of your spine and the creases that form at the back of your knees Sometimes when you turn and brush her metallic forefinger I alter my breathing, just so it becomes increasingly louder and I watch you uncomfortable at the interruption of your date with this immortal queen
shift,
Except I am alive here and I cannot say that she draws my attention like you do and I have bones and veins that bruise and there is no space left between my thighs for you anymore And she is faceless, frozen perhaps in the middle of the World’s Greatest Eulogy Except this woman is dead, lifeless and now I know, hell is a white-walled room with museum-grade lighting and parquet floors. 18
Katelyn Iorillo
Sculpture 19
Joy-baby Jubilee Johnson “Mother.” I call her that when I’m irritated and don’t want to raise my voice. It’s a subtle hint that I don’t want to sink into some fabricated dispute. When I’m trying to be serious and understand the importance of a situation, my mother becomes playfully belligerent. She makes a hobby out of prolonging petty chatter that has little value. But it’s my mother’s game. She thinks she’s putting the art of conversation to good use by dancing around issues and using flowery language to disguise her true intentions. Every day I’m reminded of her lack of responsibility. It happened today while I was in class finishing a quiz. The door opened and she peeked her head in. “Hey! Joybaby!” She called in her fluty voice. I stared. I couldn’t believe she was interrupting the class. I felt violated. The school was under an invasion. “Hello, and you are?” My teacher was being polite, even though his frustration was palpable. Silently, I willed myself to die. The mortification consumed the pigment of my skin. Suddenly, I wanted to dive into the abyss of my wooden desk. Instead, I collected my books in preparation to leave. “Oh, hi. I’m Mrs. Mariner.” She stepped inside and reached for my teacher’s hand. “I’m here for my daughter Joyce.” My mother pointed, which made every other student turn in my direction. “I’m sorry to say, but I have to steal my daughter away from your class. A family matter.” She offered a toothy grin, hoping to pass off the impromptu intrusion as benign. “No worries.” I didn’t say anything. I simply darted past my mother and marched out to the hallway. “Good-bye!” My mother announces her exits so loudly that the entire world is privy. “Joy-baby! Who’s that teacher? Mr. Dabney? Handsome, I’d say.” I could hear the sound of her shoes scurrying to catch up with me. 20
When she did, I asked, “So what’s the family emergency?” “Now who said anything about an emergency?” She glanced at me, smug. “What happened?” “Oh, it’s no big deal.” “Mother.” “Well I had to say something to get you out of school.” “What?” “Okay, the truth is I’m kidnapping you.” She flashed me a wicked smile. I squinted and pushed open the back door to the school. “Damn, it’s hot!” my mother exclaimed. She waved a limp hand in front of her face. It took her a moment to realize I wasn’t walking beside her anymore. “Joyce don’t be this way.” The distance between my mother and me was only a few yards. She looked like a vision in a pretty sundress the same color as the inside of a sweet potato. The color complimented the shade of her skin. My mother was right. It was hot. Sweat coated her body like she had recently been glazed by the sun. People sometimes mistake the two of us for sisters. My mother is eerily young looking. That might also have to do with a certain spunk she carries with her. She’s too vivacious for her own good, and everyone notices. Long, lean, brown, and tall, she has the elasticity and disposition of someone half her age. Sometimes I forget she’s in charge of me. “I’m being kidnapped,” I mumbled grumpily. Finally I had to concede. I walked to my mother who insisted on linking elbows with me. Her step was so jaunty it was almost a skip. Mine, on the other hand, was a dull trudge. Knowing that our gaits were too incompatible, my mother was forced to conform to my glum stride. We got to the car, and my mother pulled down the canvas top. She was so proud of her convertible. When she bought it, she told me, “I think I’m spoiling myself.” That wasn’t even my concern. I was satisfied that the car was at least practical. It had four-wheel drive and was sturdy. “You know what I just decided? I’m not actually kidnapAllie Primak
Digital Media
ping you. In fact, Joy-baby, your dear mother is rescuing you. Think of where’d you be, stuck in that boring school, suffering under the authority of those supposedly ‘qualified’ teachers. I’m doing you a favor. And it’s free, because I love you.” “Exams are coming up. More than ever, I need to be concentrating on my work.” That was my defense. “I think you work too hard. You need a break.” I glanced at my mother. She had on her sunglasses and was singing along to the radio. “Don’t you have work?” I asked. “Took a mental health day!” She laughed. I was convinced she was crazy. “Good for you!” I shouted back with mock approval. It’s as if my mother is always struck by sudden waves of extreme euphoria. Her mood is possibly the only thing that remains constant in her wayward life. “So here’s what I say. We go to the beach. Go swimming; grab lunch at a nice restaurant. And then we’d go see a movie. Get our nails done, because mine are horrendous. Then we’d go shopping. Oh! And I packed your bathing suit. And you know what I said while I was in your room? I said to myself, Tracy, this girl needs some new clothes. You’ve got such a cute figure now, Joy-baby, you oughta show it off more often.” We drove past a house with a tree in its front yard. “Isn’t that tree just darling? Look at those flowers! You can tell it’s really spring. May flowers. Joy-baby, we gotta get us one of those trees. I want one.” She looked at things with childlike wonder. Everything fascinated my mother. I wondered if that was normal. If I were still at school, maybe I’d be dissecting a Shakespearean poem or solving a complex geometric equation. I was determined not to succumb to my mother’s high-spirited verve. And that was hard, since her attitude was so damn infectious. I leaned against the door and looked at my reflection in the side-view mirror. When we arrived at the beach, my mother waited outside the bathroom while I changed. Coming out with my beachbag stuffed with my day clothes, I heard, “There’s hardly 22
anyone at this beach. It’s like we have our own private island. Neat, huh?” She looped her long arm around my shoulder and kissed my cheek. We walked in tandem and spread out a faded sheet on the sand. My mother peeled off her dress. Underneath she wore a modest white one-piece, decorated with a spotting of simple red rosebuds. “Let’s go for a dip, shall we?” “Okay.” She nearly sprinted to the sea. I lingered at the shore and let the waves caress my toes. I liked the feeling of warm sand. Its texture was so smooth. I sat and hugged my knees to my chest. After a while, my mother crawled up beside me. She glistened. Salt-water was all over her, and she let out a pleasant sigh. “Are you happy we came? Because if you really wanted to go back to school, you know I’d take you. I’d do anything for my Joy-baby.” She reached up and pinched my bottom lip with her thumb and forefinger. Despite how impulsive my mother could get, she really was sincere. I simply couldn’t bring myself to ruin the tender moment. Her eyes were like translucent amber, so intrinsically trustworthy. The weight of her stare felt like drinking in a hypnotic elixir. How could I ever refuse my mother? “You want ice cream? Come on, we’ll get ice cream.” She got up and fetched her purse. There was a little concession stand right on the beach. My mother got her favorite pralines and cream. I stuck to my typical vanilla. "Plain vanilla Joyce," my mother teased endearingly. We strolled along the length of the beach. She had two scoops, and licked her ice cream like a giddy kid. My grandmother, mom’s mother, always said that when Tracy was like this she was under one of her spells. I wondered what these spells really were. They were harmless fun, I suppose. And at the moment, I was feeling too good to question any of my mother’s motives. Life would be too boring without her. The world will go flat when my mother decides to leave this planet. 23
A New Language Maria Guzman My best friend has an alliterative name, which sort of goes to waste, seeing that she hates anything and everything having to do with grammar and literature. She actually enjoys using “abhor” to emphasize her feelings, but double checks with me before doing so to make sure that it is, indeed, a synonym for hate rather than a term related to boats. She might be confusing it with “harbor.” Despite her use of synonyms, she is utterly confused as to why six words can have the same meaning; she called me at 2:02 one morning to tell me how annoyed she was, throwing in the fact that she hates numbers too, unless they’re scribbled on her hand from the light-eyed boy in her trigonometry class. Otherwise, they’re imaginary, arbitrary. Why can’t she divide by zero? Besides, it’s hard to use numbers to describe how she feels, but she believes she’s not eloquent enough to use words she deems “fancy.” So she turns to color instead. In fact, when she told me about light eyes, she talked about blueberries. She told me she crushed one in her hand, juices dripping down her forearm instantly reminding her of how he tasted, of how his eyes were a lighter shade. And it made her realize that you can’t use the same type of “amazing” for the boy and the blueberry. The blueberries are royal blue, powdered with a mist of grey. But the boy, the boy is the deep red carried in her vessels to her cheeks, the rosy tint when his hand held hers.
Olivia Alcheck, Drawing
Napalm Alexis Stroemer It sounds explosive. It probably is, Because I first heard it uttered by teenage boys. For creative adjectives, Leave it to them— Similes of militaristic strategies. We were browsing hair dye, Our relentless yearning for rebellion Manifested itself in this form— Non-permanent statements of not caring. It was his big fuck you to his world, And he certainly did not care Whichever color we chose, As long as he maintained some sense of masculinity. I picked up white, but that was too wild, And he feared fire truck red would pass to pink. Cobalt we considered, but no color bemused him Like the jar that held that bright new traffic cone hue. “Christ, that’s napalm orange.” Strong features morphed to sharp bewilderment Before sighed urgency. “Purple it is?” So we covered our hands and his skull In a violet that seemed to belong between galaxies, But was miasmically human for a celestial origin. I wondered if napalm smelled like meteors. Something so industrial and bright had to be otherworldly.
Alexis Stroemer
Photograph
Now What Sophie Hadjipateras We are driving home from New York. This is good, she says you’ll be OK… now we know what it is. No, I think to myself, now we know what it is and it’s worse. Now that this problem has a name and thousands of people suffer from it, does that mean it's OK? She says if anyone asks. tell them you were just getting some tests done. I feel a burst of rage in my stomach. This is my problem, my life. Who is she to tell me to keep it to myself? Aunt Joanne called and said it’s very livable. Doctor White said we had a lot of decisions to make. “The big 16 is coming up, so we should keep that in mind.” What about driving, Mom? Concerts? Late nights? Medicine?
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I don’t know what she’s thinking. I read online that people who have this often appeared as if their bodies were being taken over by demons. No control. Mom, you don’t know what it feels like. Sweetie! she says, you’ll be OK. I just don’t think it’s the right time to be telling people. Your friends don’t need to know. If this were my brother she would be sobbing, “Your poor brother.” “Your poor brother is exhausted.” “Your poor brother lost his phone.” Enough, she says, that’s nonsense. But it’s not really. I’ve heard that line way too many times. Here I am, I know what it is and it's worse, worse than I thought. No control. This is good, I’m happy we got the tests done, she says. We have different understandings of the word good. Tyla Taylor
Paper Cut
Suspension, October 2007 Radhika Krishna Pa has been gone for two days now. He doesn’t really like talking when he’s away. He doesn’t eat a lot either. He just sits in the living room clutching his cross necklace and stares out the window. But it’s already dark out, so I don’t think he can see anything outside. He didn’t always go away. Ma told me that when I turned three, and Pa went to fight off bad people, and when he came back he started being all weird. Ma says Pa just needs some Pa time, because he’s a little tired. But I don’t really get it because shouldn’t he be happy that he’s home with us? Ma went to see Grandma at the old people’s place today, and Matty’s doing homework upstairs, so I’m bored and decide to talk to Pa. “Pa?” I ask, “What are you looking at?” He stares at me for a second, but then he blinks and the clouds in his eyes clear up a bit. “Oh. Nothing, Honey, I’m just thinking. Come here.” I scramble onto his lap, and he wraps his arms across my tummy. Pa’s really, really big. Sixfeet-two inches, almost three inches when his hair grows. “My gosh, have you grown again?” he asks me. He’s asked that almost every week since he’s come back, but I like it anyway. He kisses the top of my head and sighs. We hear the garage door squeak, so we know Ma’s home. “You’re still up?” she asks. I can tell she wanted me to already be asleep. “Come on, let’s get you in bed.” Pa gives me another kiss and I hop off his lap. “Goodnight, Pa,” I say. “Night, Em, sleep tight,” Pa responds. Ma and I go upstairs to my room and she tucks me in. She switches off the light but leaves the door open just enough to let the hallway light leak in. I roll over in my bed, but I can’t sleep, so I get my flashlight and start reading Magic Tree House #31: Summer of the Sea Serpent under my blanket. Miss Jaspers said that I’m a fast reader for my age, so I want to finish the book by Monday. 32 Angie Loynaz
Cyanotype
I read 23 pages, but I hear Ma’s voice. She’s using her stern tone. It makes me nervous. I walk to the top of the stairs on my tippy toes because the floor is cold, when I hear Ma’s voice again. “You need to pull yourself together,” Ma says. I don’t know if it’s the way she said that or if it’s just because the air’s chilly, but the hair on my arms stands. I take two steps down the stairs so I can see them. She leans against the wall, facing Pa. "What happened in Kabul?" The question hangs in the moment, and for a little bit, neither speaks. Pa’s still sitting by the window, but he’s looking into his lap, holding his head in his hands. He says, “I can’t just... I need time, Laura.” “This isn’t just about you anymore,” snaps Ma. “It’s affecting our children.” Pa starts saying something, but then stops. “There’s nothing I can do if you don’t tell me what happened,” Ma says quietly. Her voice isn’t cold anymore. “Please.” Now her voice is weird; I’ve never heard it before. “Please,” she repeats. Pa touches his cross again, and looks up at her. His eyes are hollow. I flinch and make a small noise. They don’t notice. “I can’t. Not tonight.” For a fraction of a second, Ma looks furious, but then her face drains of emotion as she walks away. My lips quiver. She pauses at the doorway to their bedroom, and without turning back, she says, “God will forgive any sin, Michael.” “Em, what are you doing?” Matty whispers from behind me. His voice makes me jump, and without a word I crawl back to the top of the stairs. Matty takes my hand and leads me into his room. I try really hard not to start crying, but I give up and tears roll down my cheeks. Matty looks sad, too, even though he’s trying to hide it. “I’ll bring your pillow here, okay?” he says, as he leaves. He comes back with my pillow and lays it next to his on the side of the bed that’s against the wall, because he knows I always fall off the edge. He crawls in next to me after switching the lights off and pulls the covers over the two of us. I’m still crying a little, but I soon fall asleep to the rhythm of his breath, my body pressed against his for warmth. Timmy Murphy
33 Cyanotype
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Pie Avery Carmichael I took a slice of melancholy, and I hated it. It reminded me of people who correct capitalization, and punctuation, and I swore that I’d never try it again. I added it to my list of non-options: smoking cigarettes, picking my toenails, participating in organized athleticism, giving hand jobs, and now, being unhappy. So I smiled with my teeth, leaned back against a brick chimney, and imagined textured wallpaper. But so quickly my sky transitioned into the saccharine velvet blackness of a burial dress. She died a virgin! They would say. Its Splenda-like zero-calorie impact was addictive–more enthralling than aviators, libraries, or grass tennis courts. How could I resist asking for more, sir? And more. Until suddenly, I was stuffed, filled to the brim with visions of abstract terms–like physics, I could not relate. What ideas I had were inaccurate. I don’t know poverty, hunger, death, destruction. So I tried again, turning on the lights, rolling down my car windows and singing–to no avail. “Julie, it seems like you’ve been struggling with this for awhile. Have you thought about antidepressants?” And I took another slice of melancholy, and another, and another, and I died from satiation. I exploded with tears of fulfillment, fading into the tick tick tick of the bomb you had thrown at me.
Olivia Alcheck, Digital Media
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Flashing Before My Eyes Alyssa Mulé i’m not calling anyone a liar or anything but as far as i could tell, my life didn’t flash before my eyes before i died instead the pilot’s voice filled the airplane cabin panicked with that lacy veil of calm he said something about turbulence as if we couldn’t figure out for ourselves why our stomachs were dropping from our bodies like we hadn’t eaten for days good preparation for eternity i guess well i can only speak for myself not this collective we i tend to toss around to ensure that everyone knows that i didn’t die alone which would be horrible i imagine not speaking from experience no no i died in the endless night sky surrounded by strangers kissing their wives hugging their children praying to their god (who exists i’m sure somewhere above this darkness in which i hover lingering loitering like i did with my friends near the school parking lot when i was fifteen) 3366
people screamed and sobbed in confusion maybe their lives whipped in front of their eyes like some sort of banner waving in their faces hey you you’re about to die here’s your life in a thousand colors in a thousand words and voices transporting you back in time like i mentioned i can’t really speak for them but i can say that right before i died the only thing i could see flashing before any eyes or anything was the gray seat in front of me empty vacated while the former inhabitant lurched a distance away looking for someone before we flipped and my blood throbbed against the walls of my mouth and i watched the man’s neck snap as we locked eyes so you see that guy didn’t watch his life shimmering in goodly glory in front of him he just saw my eyes scared reflecting back
Julie Mayberry
Collage
Coffee Lauren Eames Mae walks slowly and deliberately across the room. A mug from her childhood, from the Adler Planetarium, shakes in her left hand. She watches it intently, trying not to spill. Likewise, a man watches her from the kitchen table. “How long has it been?” “What do you mean, Jon?” She does not look at him. “How long has it been since you’ve had a cup of coffee?” “Three days.” She only spills when she gets to the sink. A look of “Damn” crosses her face. Gently, she licks the side of the mug. “Junkie.” She looks over her shoulder at him. “I overfilled the mug.” “Of course you did, junkie.” She crosses to her laptop. She always sits across from him at the kitchen table. Gently, she places the over-full mug on the placemat next to her. Her laptop sits on the surface of the table. She starts drinking. “Isn’t that hot?” “I burned my tongue on the side of the mug. I can’t feel it if it is. And you know our kettle doesn’t heat water properly anymore.” “We can get a new one.” “It heats water, just not properly. We don’t need a new one.” Jon sighs and leans back. He runs his hand through his dark hair as he does when he knows he’s having the same conversation over. He looks at Mae. She looks at him. They have this conversation every morning, but they haven’t talked about the kettle. He can tell she doesn’t mean it; proper coffee is too important to her. “We can get a new one.” “We don’t need a new one.” She is only absent-mindedly continuing the conversation. She has begun to check her email. This is more important 38
Dani Jimenez
39 Oil Stick
Petey Briggs 40
Digital Media
than coffee. She needs to know what's going on elsewhere to be comfortable where she is; that's what she tells Jon anyway. He thinks it's bullshit. "How's the coffee?" "Instant." He rises and grabs his mug. It's got some kind of modern art on it from their second date when they went to a modern art museum and pretended to understand the art to appear intellectual. Neither ever admitted to pretending, but they had been. He still uses the mug. He has a contact addiction to caffeine from being around Mae for two years. She tips her mug back to catch the last drops as he begins his first cup. She stands and makes another. He jokes again about her being a junkie. She gives him a tired look that calls him a hypocrite for bringing it up every time she boils water. After all, he drinks just as much as she does. She is tired, he is just waking up. She has always needed coffee, he never has. So it goes. Every morning. Beginning with the first cupof coffee.
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Blue Cheese Brooklyn Ellie Garland I clasp my hands in the lap of my new blue dress, one too costly and opulent for Mother’s seal of approval but where exhaust and fresh cut flowers, body odor and ripened fruit befuddle the senses, Mother is not here to veto. With this coveted studio I ought to be happy but I promised with pinkies intertwined on the farm with Betty that I would never ever live alone because nothing is more frightening than solitude. The light here is green like the neon signs that adorn the shops. It is nowhere near the yellow of Dad’s priceless cheddar– more like blue cheese, bitter to the tongue, and only pleasing when slathered in sweet fig jam which I forgot to pack for my journey here. Now I bask in the blue cheese light, shaken by my own shadow, dreading the black of night.
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Phoebe Morrison
Drawing 43
Excerpts From My Sleep Log Hannah Karlan 4/12/07 2:42 AM Sleep Log – Day 26 Thursday. Only have woken up twice tonight. Fell back asleep relatively quickly the first time. Itching side effect from the pills has been bothering me. A lot. Now my foot itches. Can’t decide if I want yogurt or cereal for breakfast tomorrow morning. I had yogurt yesterday morning, so I’ll have cereal tomorrow. *Go grocery shopping* Joan called me today, she asked me out for coffee. Not sure if I’m gonna go. Those things are always sort of awkward. I’ll try to get back to sleep now. 4/14/07 3:27 AM Sleep Log – Day 28 Saturday. 1st time waking up tonight. Legs are itching again. Tried the white noise machine, but the “babbling brook” wasn’t exactly relaxing. I’ll keep looking for the right one. May try soft music tomorrow night. I went out with Joan for coffee in the end. Decaf for me, espresso for her. Funny how some people need caffeine to keep them awake. Joan has a nice smile. I’ll try to think of her to fall asleep. Will record results. **Thought of Joan last night, fell asleep pretty quickly. 4/18/07 3:12 AM Sleep Log – Day 32 Wednesday. 3rd time awake tonight. Itching has gone down. Music choice: “Classical Piano” station on Pandora. Some of the crescendos are distracting, but overall, a calming station. 44
Julia Jones, Paper Cut
Can’t stop thinking about Joan. Had dinner with her tonight. Food was okay mediocre, but I didn’t notice. I was so nervous I spilled my beer. But she thought it was funny, or cute, I can’t remember exactly which. She has the greatest laugh… the full kind. Going to call her tomorrow. Will record results. 2/9/11 1:43 AM Sleep Log # 2 - Day 198 Monday. 1st time awake. Increasingly odd dreams as a result from new medicine. Anne’s first day of kindergarten today. Didn’t cry until I got home. *Doctors appointment tomorrow at 11:00 AM.* Joan has been snoring due to a cold. Might have to move to the couch downstairs. Not sure if that will help me sleep longer.
2/13/11 4:19 AM Sleep Log # 2 – Day 202 Friday. 3rd time up. Especially fitful night. New prescription not successful. Lack of sleep may be due to increase in fights with Joan. We seem to be fighting about most things these days… nothing in particular. May consult a marriage counselor. Added stress hasn’t been good for the insomnia.
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Bus Rides and A1 Paper Lulu Hedstrom An old woman sat near a window. Her mind was racing though with nothing in particular. She often examined the expressions of people on the bus. They were fascinating! So much to consider, yet nothing to be sure of. Was anyone ever fascinated by her face? Did the depth of her wrinkles reveal a complex mind? Could the color left at the tips of her hair reveal another life? Her name was Clementine. His name was James. The tendons at the back of his eyes strained as he tried to interpret the long strands of numbers before him. The same shoes, same pen, same keyboard had sat in this dismal office for four and a half decades. What kept him here? It couldn’t be the routine cracking in his arthritic fingers or his dry, parchment skin that scuffed against the corners of an A1 pad of paper. But as he looked down at the blotches of sun-stained skin on his aging hands, he recalled another life. It was a beach in Cornwall. Two people, hand in hand, walked its length. They wrote their initials in the sand with a branch from a bay willow tree. They were young and in love. As they each took a breath of the stale, salty British shore, the last thing that they had envisioned for themselves was a life of bus rides and dry, A1 pads of paper. 48
Emma Morrison
Etching
Jimmy Cuyler Hedlund It was the opening weekend of Shrek the Third and the boy had been waiting long enough. He had been sitting patiently up to this point, but when one of the theater workers stood up in front of the screen to ask for donations to an organization for kids with special needs, he grew restless. In the middle of the man’s impassioned bid for moviegoer generosity, the boy yelled out, “What do I care? This has nothing to do with me! Start the movie already!” I shrank down in my seat, both embarrassed and amused, because that boy was my brother Jimmy, and Jimmy has Down syndrome. That’s Jimmy in a nutshell: people try to put him in a box and he really couldn’t care less. Jimmy is too content being Jimmy to be bogged down by the trivial fact that he is disabled and “different.” I doubt that the irony of the episode in the theater resonated with him, but it illustrates Jimmy’s general approach to life. Jimmy’s no prom king. He is pimply, short, a bit oddlooking, and has a pronounced stutter. He seems much younger than fifteen, both mentally and physically. He acts in a way that draws attention, and not always in a good way. Still, I’m only exaggerating a little when I say that he’s the most popular kid in school. Through the sheer power of his charisma and genuine enthusiasm for life, Jimmy attracts people to him like a rock star attracts fans. He conducts his life with an attitude that says, “Hello world, I’m Jimmy! What you see is what you get.” You might be thinking, “Well, ignorance is bliss,” but here’s the thing: Jimmy is aware of the fact that he is different but he isn’t self-conscious and doesn’t try to change for the sake of fitting in. He puts people at ease because he is so at ease with himself. He doesn’t waste time comparing himself to others and does not try to impress. He likes himself, and that’s contagious. I remember my dad telling Jimmy to shower, and as he walked by naked on the way to the bathroom he said, “Ta-da! How do you like my
new outfit?” Jimmy is literally comfortable in his own skin. That’s his biggest strength and a simple but powerful lesson he has taught me. Living with Jimmy has shown me that trying to be someone else takes too much energy. Still, I sometimes struggle with this. I worry about the biases that come with first impressions, but I’ve learned not to take myself too seriously. Jimmy has a bigger hurdle to jump than most when it comes to stereotypes, but he’s impervious to judgment. Watching Jimmy in his element is humbling and puts my own problems into perspective because, if a kid with the odds stacked against him is completely content just to be who he is, then I can be too. Jimmy inspires me to trust more in being myself. I could tell you that having him for a brother has made me a better person, but that isn’t necessarily true. I can sometimes be impatient, snappish, and insensitive to others. Still, it is because Jimmy is my brother that I can recognize those moments and stop them before I do something I may later regret. Mostly, I feel that we could all stand to be a little more like Jimmy. I can accept the part of me that is sometimes awkward and angsty. I can embrace the part of me that belts out Billie Holiday alone in my car, and I can appreciate the part of me that loves cream cheese and olive sandwiches and old movies. I’ve learned to like the quirks in my personality that make me uniquely myself. As Oscar Wilde said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
Julia Sabetta
Photograph
Dissolve Julia Conway You wouldn’t know anger is soluble in salt water unless you confided in naive bubbles, and watched the air fade from the denial embedded in between your lips. You would find that salt frosts over frown lines etching its way through the crevices that come from swallowing Monday mornings. You’d discover tears taste like first kisses, and clenched fists willingly forget their purpose, like feet that venture too far in deep sand. You’ll learn lies aren’t buoyant, so they plunge towards an unforgiving fate, leaving a repenting body to float.
Nico Wada
Digital Media
6am Tasha Kim Now I’m lying here on this bed I think you left last night because the imprint of where you should be has grown cold. To the touch. I want to touch you. Where are you? Janie said Wichita the last time I called. That’s far, I think, but far is the distance between my pinky and fourth toe and the time between start and stop on a microwave. You say, life and morality are in our faces all the time. But you are no Wilde and I know you steal all those lines from soap operas and coolquotes.net. I am hung-over, inhaling citrus juice and my head pulses with images of your nose. Come back here. Your pretend intelligence is plastic and I think I could mold you into the kind of boy who might need me. I want you. You are far away, but you could be as close as you wanted. If you wanted, that is.
Olivia Brodsky
Photograph
London Cab Alexis Stroemer “I screwed up.” He was American and enunciated the constants at the ends of his words. He had a girl tucked under his arm. Neither of them had spoken since she flagged me and he offered an address. She inhaled and shifted in her place. “No, but—“ “You’re sad.” “I’m tired.” “You’re tired and sad.” Silence, again. “So, I screwed up.” She sighed and sat up. They weren’t touching anymore. “I promise I won’t do it again,” he continued. She looked out the window. “You don’t make promises.” I realized that she, too, was American. Her voice was soft, but not pitiful. It was quietly frustrated. “But, I will for you.” “You never did before.” “But, I love you.” “You’ve said that before.” “But, I really do, now.” “And you didn’t before?” She looked down before glancing at him. I think he looked offended, because she added, “I’m sorry.” This time he was silent, but his head was still turned towards her. “It’s, like, you make a ‘discovery’ that you love me, and it makes all the other times you told me feel…I don’t know.” “I’m sorry.” “Don’t—I mean, yes, but—” She shifted towards him. “I’m tired.” “I know.” He pulled her close again. “I won’t do it anymore. I’ll stop. It’s not fair to you—” “I didn’t mean…I’m not asking—” “Well, I’ll have a drink every now and then, but I won’t 56
go out of my mind. It hurts you.” “No, it’s fi—” “You and I both know it’s not fine. You’ve said it yourself. I’m not the same person.” His jacket rubbed against hers as he nudged her shoulder. “You know I’m right.” “Last night wasn’t the worst. It’s when we finally talk after days of empty chatter and we have these lovely discussions. Then, in the morning, you apologize for what you may have said, because you don’t remember how lovely you were. I’m not mad just…hurt.” “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I prom—” she began to protest, “I promise. And that’s a promise I will make.” Silence fell, again, until I began to pull into a courtyard of mews homes. “I don’t know what to say, but thank you.” Her voice was small and barely audible. He murmured something to her before he clapped his pants for his wallet. “That’ll be twelve fifty.” He handed me fifteen. “Keep it.” They got out. She almost tripped on the way, but he caught her. “Have a good one.” “You as well.” They hadn’t reached their door when a man in a suit staggered up to my window. “Knightsbridge?” I nodded and he got in. “The wife’s going to kill me.” His words were slurred. I drove on.
Cuyler Hedlund
Mixed Media
Ice Cream Boys Katie O'Neill We all met boys in ice cream shops when we asked for recommendations (I did it first ) and they smiled their favorites at us and we noticed their eyes. Hallmarks is a shop under open sky so I smiled too and drank beer (2 cans) with you on the picnic tables then kissed you back. All of us have jumpy feet that linger too long over the gas pedal when we drive home at night because we know we could keep driving up the coast. But it’s hard for me to know if the other girls talked about poetry or smoking with the boys they met, or how real theirs are because everyone’s ice cream boy is a few million miles away (mine is 71.2). They frustrate me sometimes (often) since I lie a lot so I don’t know if they do too, if they’re in love like they say or if they even know what hands held is like. They don’t get it when I say I like being alone and also being with you and they think it’s easy to kiss and say goodbye. They don’t understand the bigger part about legs (and legs) and hands in hair and on backs and that you said that I could sleep in your bed and it doesn’t make me scared to think about waking up next to an ice cream boy.
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Maddie Jannson, Collage
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GIITH Sydney Burnett Internships at The Late Show with David Letterman are usually reserved for college seniors; however, I managed to land one as only a high school junior. How did I obtain this rarified position? Perseverance, hard work, and, well, my dad is the show’s executive producer. The moment I walked onto the vaunted stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater, I knew what I had to do: become the greatest intern in television history (hereafter GIITH). How else to shake the nepotism that gave me this opportunity? Unfortunately, GIITH hit an early speed bump. Turned out I wasn’t an actual intern; I was a “shadowing” intern. This meant that while the interns performed menial tasks like making copies, getting coffee and delivering tapes, I had the even more menial task of following the interns while they made copies, got coffee and delivered tapes. GIITH was not going to come easy. Nonetheless, I embraced my situation with enthusiasm. I followed. I watched. I learned–all the while praying that I would somehow get my chance. But the weeks inched by with no change. GIITH was slipping away.
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Then, one day, it happened. Week five: I am shadowing the talent department intern to the edit room when the talent coordinator calls and says four words that can change my life: “Jonah Hill needs Claritin!” With the regular intern occupied, there is only one person for the job. And just like that, I am no longer shadowing. I am flying solo. GIITH, here I come. I exit the theater. It is a hot summer day and the skyscrapers cage in the humidity. The masses are lethargic, but I cannot be. I bob and weave, thinking, “Don’t these people realize I’m getting Claritin for Jonah?!” (I figure since the state of his nasal passages relies on me, Jonah and I are on a first name basis.) Right away I am faced with my first-ever executive decision: CVS or Duane Reade. I choose Duane Reade because it is closer. I burst in and scour the shelves. Claritin comes in many varieties. Without hesitation, I grab the extra-strength– executive decisions are becoming second nature. I race back to the theater and make it with four minutes to spare, delivering medicine to my very own celebrity in distress. That night’s show is a good one. Everything goes right, but silently I beam because of what didn’t go wrong. A non-congested Jonah Hill tells stories without a sneeze or a sniffle. Thanks to me, he is Claritin clear. That night when I get into bed, I know of course that I neither saved The Late Show with David Letterman, nor did I become the greatest intern in the history of television. Truth be told, I performed a simple task that could have been completed by anyone. And yet, as I lie in the quiet of my room, I am bursting with pride. I was a tiny part of a great big TV show. And as I drift off to sleep, my last thought is exhilarating: “Today, Claritin for Jonah. Tomorrow, who knows?”
Olivia Alcheck, Drawing
61
Thank You Alyssa Mulé “Dad, you know I’ve saved up all my money from the paper route.” Dad grunts over coffee the color of his dark hands, inquiring, “What for?” “For…not for anything. I’m saving up.” My hands close over the bills wadded in my pockets I’m sure he’s proud of, despite the fact that his eyes are scanning the morning paper. He takes a sip of caffeine and flicks a glance offhandedly at my mother, cooking eggs with the little butter we have left, muttering “Grazie.” Her golden curls tumble undone, her lips bare, because her lipstick money went into the cigarettes Dad pulls from his pocket, silent without the coins bouncing in mine. “Please don’t smoke at the table,” she pleads, and he lights up, this time turning completely to face her: “Fumerò se voglio a alla mia propria tavola.” I will smoke if I want to at my own table. (My fingers clench over my coins, my coins, warm against my legs, round little kisses of promise that I have worked hard for.) My mother ducks her head; she doesn’t speak the language of my father but she hears the venom laced through his words and the expression she wears on her face looks rubbed-down with fatigue. If I give the money to my father, he will spend it on cigarettes, even though I want to present him with it as a gift. I worked hard for you, Papà, but I would rather feel the bills heavy against my flesh than dead on the table next to your newspaper. Grazie, Papà, grazie, but next time I will just save and keep something for myself. Eventually, I will buy you your vices and Mother her makeup and both of you will meet my gaze. Mother will know her Italiano by then, and together you will whisper: Grazie, Pietro, grazie. 62
Olivia Brodsky, Collage
63
The First Time I Spoke to Tasha (Really spoke to Tasha) Natalie Lee “It’s not easy working here.” Tasha is 24, in beauty school, from the Bronx (although she’s really from North Carolina) with a personality bigger than her matchstick legs and hummingbird wrists. On her break, she brings back chicken nuggets from the McDonald's three blocks away. She keeps potato chips and marshmallows in her purse (her niece is 5) and she blasts R&B on her iPhone whenever there’s a quiet moment. “It wasn’t so bad at first, but now I’d rather be anywhere than here.” She says she’s going to quit in two weeks and she means, it, too. In between sandwiches, and customers, and scrambled eggs with sausage, she scrolls through Craigslist ads on her phone (in the corner where the cameras can’t see you), stopping every once in a while to mark down a number, or bookmark a link. Today, she leans with one elbow on the counter one ankle crossed over the other, idly tugging at the hair not yanked back into a ponytail. (Don’t worry, it’s fake). The store is almost empty and business is slow. 64
It’s Sunday, after all. In fact, we seem to be getting more people asking for job applications than they do for sandwiches. Sure, we say, and point to the back. We take orders, not careers. They nod graciously, step, turn, walk away. Maybe we’ll see them next week. Tasha’s not so optimistic. “They might as well put another sign up,” she snorts, “Now Hiring: Mexicans and Koreans.” It’s ridiculous at first and then not so hard to believe. Even in New York City, the melting pot, each borough can be seen as its own distinct community housing whatever ethnicity has taken root. Koreans are inclined to hire Koreans, blacks are inclined to hire blacks, and ever since this particular sandwich chain (started September 5, 1989 by Korean immigrant Henry Kim) has been hiring, a network of Mexican workers and families has aggregated, dominated, and makes up nearly the entire restaurant workforce. At Kim's on 58th street between 5th and 6th Ave they’re like a team of older brothers and uncles always there to pat you on the head and with little things to help you out. (I bought you a soda, mi amiga.) They treated Tasha and me like family. She extended the favor, but if there’s one thing about Tasha, she puts trust before anything else, 65
before family, even. If you have her trust you had better do your best never to lose it. They’re required by law to have one black person working in each store. Supposed to fight discrimination. “That’s bullshit.” Tasha’s eyes flare suddenly but her voice is calm: “You think that fights discrimination? You be that one person and you go work in every Kim’s store there is. Then you can go straight to Mr. Kim himself and try and tell him ‘This ain’t discrimination.’” I guess there’s only so much you can do when the monitors in the basement– fuzzy black and white screens connected to the security cameras lodged in the ceiling– can only record skin color not sound. I guess there’s only so much you can do when everyone seems to chatter in whirlwinds of sentences, trilling words and phrases too fast to understand. Raul’s phone rings (a bass-heavy Spanish pop song) and you can’t tell whether he’s speaking to his mother or his wife. Tasha doesn’t speak Spanish, (she was fluent when she was 5) but she used to have a friend here who did a few months back. He was young, and claimed to hate all Mexicans. (He was Mexican himself.) Whenever she asked him why, he would just shrug and say, "They’re stupid, 66
they’re immature." And she would laugh it off and defend them, never believing they were her friends. Even if they gave him dirty looks for no reason, even whenever he’d shake his head in disgust after overhearing an errant comment muttered in Spanish, they still worked together cleaned together went out together drank and smoked together (though she quit the habit last year). "No, you don’t understand," he’d said one day. "It’s not about me." The fluorescent light bounces off the top of her hand, the rapid-fire Spanish dulls to a hum in the background, the AC is too cold, like always. "If you know what they said about you, what they still say, you would have quit your very first day." He left a few weeks later. With him, he took every last good intention and benefit of doubt. Sure, she still took delivery orders with Armando cleaned registers with Raul got fried chicken with Alejandro drank and smoked with Angel but the hour-long train ride every morning (except Saturday, her day off) went from the favorite part of her day to the least. 67
Some days she couldn’t find the motivation to get up. She came in late. They changed, rearranged, shortened her hours. (Some of the guys here show up 2 hours late every day. They still work full time). “If I’m making it sound like a war zone, it’s not. It’s not at all.” Her voice is calm and smooth like always “I just hate feeling like– feeling like my vision has changed. I don’t want to have to look at the people here differently. I still consider them friends, and for me, one incident isn’t going to change that. But things can’t go back to how they were before, and I hate that.” "The absolute worst," she said, "was Alejandro." They were friends even before she started working here. He was quiet, and sweet, and shy, yet still managed to piss her off in the most unimaginable ways. She smiles, and here is where her story twists: She got the job at Kim's, and they were close, still close. But she noticed the more she talked to Alejandro the less the others talked to him. Their conversations got shorter the longer she worked there. She got to know the other workers. She befriended the delivery guys, Camilla O'Brien 68
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got drinks with the manager, but Alejandro continued to pull away. He became indifferent (Si, si, amiga, I am busy.) She got angry lashed out and they haven’t spoken for three months. "Sometimes," she says with a sad smile, "he leaves out a cup of mandarin oranges" (her favorite, a silent peace offering on the dirty countertop). It’s a small gesture but for a man of few words, it's enough.
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Labrinyth Maria Guzman
You need to let your clothes air dry, the machine makes too much noise and we can’t have our lights flickering at night. And when it gets hot, we don’t believe in vents, not even when sweat is skin, because little bugs can crawl in and out to sleep in the folds of your sheets. Which, by the way, we change every Sunday. White only. Pillow left upright, sheet folded once over. Oh, and please leave the window open in your room to freshen the stale air composed of your American breath. Speaking of which, I smell the foot-long baguette that you tore with your hands. Don’t use your hands, and if you want the good kind you must wake up at six thirty. Eat all the food on your plate, and then walk everywhere. When you leave, leave with your face pale and your lips red because you bit them, because you want eyes on you. That’s why you came here. You want eyes on the face no one noticed back home and hands to undo the buttons on your air-dried shirt.
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Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Caitlin James An outsider just glancing at the celebratory cake would have observed a shaky yellow line of frosting winding its way between blobs of blotchy green. But we all knew instantly what it was: the blobs of Italy, Troy, Northern Africa, and the painfully meandering path of Aeneas and his men. Someone mockingly suggested that our journey through Latin, from 6th grade to AP Vergil, had been similar to that of Aeneas. Our 7th grade teacher, who sang and chanted and kicked the file cabinet, was the Sybil of Cumae, bursting with erratic prophecies. Father Cipolla, or Pater, the wise and strongminded high school teacher, was Hector, appearing to lead Aeneas when he forgets his purpose. Those dropouts in the middle of the year (who, as Pater says, “joined ceramics class instead”) are like Palinurus, unfortunately flung from the ship at Neptune’s insistence. And of course, the gods, quarrelling and scheming and pushing Aeneas in every direction, are those unseen but all-powerful AP exam writers. Those first few years were ones of gathering supplies and equipping our ships with vocabulary and grammar. The technicalities of syntax and inflection were the mechanics of sailing and navigation, almost mathematical in their logic. As we made our way first through translating short sentences, then tackled Caesar for the first time, we sailed across the Mediterranean. When we hit that semester of Cicero, it was as if we had reached the romantic roadblock of Aeneas’ marriage to Dido; like Aeneas, we were trapped there for months, digging through dense prose. There were the late nights and lacrimae rerum right before a test. The shorter poems from Ovid and Catullus led us, at last, to the shores of Italy. And then, just as Aeneas spends six books of the Aeneid battling Turnus, we undertook the challenge of Vergil. We fought with the lines, attacked them strategically to uncover their meaning. We sought to embody the slogan from our freshman class, Esto Vir, when scary subjunctives and wacky word order threatened to blow us off course. At 74
last, we walked into that exam and proved our mastery. The purpose behind Aeneas’ journey was not to learn to sail well but to establish the foundations of Rome. In the end, after the years he spent being tossed around the ancient world, Aeneas’ legacy is just that: Rome, the seat of Western civilization and the city to which all roads lead. Seven years of studying Latin has given rise to a similar legacy. I didn’t just learn how to read Latin; I learned how to think. Latin is a foreign language class and a math class, an English class and a history class. I learned to be analytical and methodical, as we balanced declensions, conjugations, sequence of tenses. The words came together like an equation—there was only one right answer. And from that literal translation, we looked deeper, into meaning. Once every syllable is accounted for, Latin evolves from precise to abstract. Translating Vergil is one thing; reading and understanding it is another. Every choice that Vergil makes, every poetic device or emphatic word order, has significance. Words have many definitions, and Vergil often intends more than one of them. And then there is the history; the study of Latin teaches us about ancient culture. We must grasp the history, the politics and social structure, the religion. We have to consider the perspective of an ancient audience. Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem. Such a burden it was to found the Roman people. And it was, at times, a great burden to learn this language. There were many moments when it would have been easier to give up and switch to ceramics. But I surmounted every dauntingly ambiguous ablative, every confounding contrary-to-fact clause. And in the end it was worth it. Now, I feel privileged to be able to read the words that have enthralled people for centuries. I feel a connection to Homer, who sat at his desk with a scroll before the birth of Jesus Christ. I read a line and know that Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson once did the same. Latin may be a dead language, but nothing makes me feel more alive and more human than joining this tradition and being awed and humbled by these demonstrations of the prowess of the human mind. Title from The Aeneid."One day it will please us to remember even this."
Sarah Kaplan
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Digital Media
What Is Made From Our Bones? Alicia Kiley What is made from our bones? You said you want to be cremated and melt into the blacktop already filled with shreds of your skin, but I can’t just wait here for six feet of dirt to splinter whatever remains of me. I want to cage sparrows in my ribs, nesting until their young are strong enough to claw their way back out, cracking through my stress fractures with invincible, ebony beaks. I want each finger to be carved with a sesquipedalian word and an Irish metaphor that I don’t understand. Someone once told me that long fingers are a sign of royalty, but I’d rather be tracing letters in the air than on expensive parchment. I’ve never liked collarbones. In fact, I find them quite morbid. Do with them as you will. My right tibia is bowed; I want silk to be woven into the marrow so that violinists can eke out some beauty from a flaw and kiss life back into me.
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And In Health Clare Hanlon Everyone tells the bride that this will be the best day of her life, but I never got that same assurance. My mother told me not to get in your way while you planned your dream wedding, and believe me, I was more than glad to follow her instruction. Then your mother took over anyway, and you and I took the backseat in relief. But right now I am not nearly as calm as I was then. What unimaginative soul could be levelheaded when he thinks about his future with you? I will never forget the way you tighten your deathly grip around that bouquet as you proclaim, “I do.” ••• Later, when I asked you what day it was that you fell in love with me, you said the Gregorian calendar was too suffocating for the two of us. Does it make me less sincere for being able to pinpoint the moment I knew you were worth it? It was 6:22 p.m. when I asked you to sit next to me while I played Amnesia: The Dark Descent because it was too scary to play alone, and you were still able to fall asleep on my shoulder. April 23rd, 2008, your phone rang, and I rashly picked it up for you since simulated screaming had not been enough to wake you, and I didn’t want to wait and see if shrill ringing was. April 23rd, your doctor started flinging around words I didn’t understand, like “myopathy,” and then some I did, like “treatment” and “futile.” That spring, you woke up to me telling him I’d pass along the news. You asked if I would waste my money on produce with such a short shelf life. I told you to go back to sleep, and reminded myself that no person can go rotten. Before all this, neither of us believed that love could find us: we weren’t raised that way. Oh no, if you don’t actively pursue something, how on earth do you expect to get it? Well, thank goodness life isn’t so competitive, or else I’d be cowering behind the starting line. So it makes sense that, when fate finally mashed us together, you didn’t have to chase me down, and I didn’t have to build up the courage 78
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to say hi. Instead, I came off the entrance ramp too fast and you switched lanes without checking your blind spots and we created hour-long gridlock. When I opened my mouth to spit out a flustered apology, I spat up blood on my collar instead. You told me “Don’t worry, the paramedics will be here soon.” They were, and I was carried to the hospital, and you were given my insurance information. Sure, the recovery was a bit of a drag, but when you visited me in that off-white room to see if I was in one piece, I nearly threw myself into rush hour to ask if you were free. So maybe that’s why this experience is so frustrating. The doctor says there’s nothing more he can do, and I agree with him. We need to accept that this time there isn’t some miracle surgery that can give us another year. This time, the doctor tried all his medicine and all his tricks on you, and it hasn’t gotten us far. Well, baby, I’m the leading physician on not doing, and here’s what I’m prescribing for your pessimism: I will not leave this room without you. I will not look at those strident machines that surround us. I will not even ask what “myopathy” is. Please don’t tell me. You are, not now, or ever, diseased to me. Because, what the doctor forgot to mention is, there’s a lot more we can be. You will be strong and just as wonderful as you always are, I know it. And I will be right here, right in this flimsy plastic chair. And no matter how we end up this time, you will stay with me, one way or another.
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Trees and Shakespeare Jordan Smith “It’s about time you got here,” she said, making a pie crust even though I knew she couldn’t cook. “Uh huh.” “I’m thinking of moving in with John. He lives in a tree, that’d be an adventure.” She stares out the window scrunching up her nose. Dad told me once that I have her nose. Her hair’s a mess. It’s auburn, with streaks of blond. But not one gray hair. She’s never going to grow old. She couldn’t even if she tried. “What kind of tree you going to live in?” She stares at me. “A cherry tree. I just hope George Washington doesn’t try to chop us down.” She smiles, and it’s not strained. It was a truly, funny joke. There was a long pause as she retreated into her mind. Her eyes were staring right at me, but she wasn’t looking at me. “I’m telling you. As my son, you should know this. People are born to fight. They’ll fight themselves if there’s no one else. It’s better to be in a bubble and float your way around.” I don’t listen, not really. I’m mostly thinking of the river. That’s the one thing I truly miss from home. “But I can see you’re already in your bubble.” Rivers don’t stop moving. They can’t and they won’t. “Don’t fight it. That that is, is.” “It’s late. You better go back to where you came from,” she said. I would love to just be a river. Not in one, but be one. Always moving, never stopping, never settling. I would like that very much. I stood up and brushed the dirt that wasn’t there off my pants. I stared at her and for the first time in my life, I was unsure. 80
Should I shake her hand? Kiss her goodbye? Hug? How do you say goodbye to a mother who’s been absent most of your life? You don’t. “I’ll see you around.” She smiled and walked into the living room. We both know we wouldn’t see each other again, not in this life, at least. I smiled, my lips widening over my teeth, the tips reaching near my eyes. It felt strange, smiling after so long. “Bye, Ma.” I don’t know why I walked outta her boyfriend’s house smiling. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t excited. I was just smiling for the fun of it.
Caitlin Buckley
What I Learned from a Cowboy Julie Kukral I never thought I would find myself squatting in a dusty corral–with a bloody knife between my teeth–kneeling over a yearling calf. But there I was: fourteen years old, covered in dust, and castrating my first cow. ••• Going to Walden, Colorado–population 595–is like going through a time warp: the town itself is only .3 square miles and the five block main street consists of the River Rock Café, the Moose Creek Cookhouse, a vintage thrift shop with hours listed as “By Chance,” and not much else. About fifteen minutes out of town via the County Road is the Park Range Ranch. Coming from the East Coast and having never seen a working cattle ranch before, it was hard to believe that a three-hour drive from a renowned ski resort could take me to a whole different world. Cowboys—I mean, real cowboys: boots, buckle, spurs—still exist in America. To my ignorant eleven-year old self, this was news. Ever since, for a few weeks each summer I’ve traded in flip-flops and bow lines for a pair of cowboy boots and a fly rod. The highlight of the Ranch’s summers is the annual cattle branding, to which we invite all friends and family. Everyone has a job: roping, wrestling, shots, tagging, irons, or–if someone yells “Bull!”–cutting (my job). First-timers always remark on how "fun" it is. And it is fun, most simply because the Ranch is wholly and almost comically different from the metropolises we all left. Yet despite all the fun, I always felt an underlying awkwardness. Here we are: a bunch of “city slickers,” rolling up our sleeves on a family vacation, but we’re not at a resort or even a dude ranch–this place is real. For many present, the day is another day of work. I always felt uncomfortable knowing this and have often felt embarrassed at the Ranch, especially during the branding. However, my discomfort was lifted by the arrival of Gavin, the ranch manager’s nephew who is my age and from a nearby town not much bigger than Walden. Gavin spends 82 Kukral Julie
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his summers working for his uncle on the Ranch and training for the Rodeo where he is a bareback bronco rider. During long trail rides, Gavin and I were able to get to know one another. Gavin and I are very different in a lot of respects. He wears Wranglers and spurs and I wear skinny jeans and heels. He lives in a town where the total population is as big as my school. He wants to work on a ranch when he’s older and I want to be editor of Rolling Stone. However, at the end of the ride we’re really just the same—two kids, both with friends, goals, and even the same favorite candy and music. Having Gavin around helped me realize that any awkwardness I felt at the Ranch was constructed entirely in my head. After years of total silence, I’ve finally forgone my self-consciousness during cattle roundups and am able to be more vocal: Come on, girl! Move cow! Okay–I’ll admit I’m still a little nervous about doing that, but I am able to laugh at myself when I’m too weak to lift a saddle and don’t feel embarrassed about asking questions. Knowing Gavin has taught me the value of differences and similarities. I learned that even though Gavin’s jeans have real rips and mine were just bought that way, it is never hard to find a common ground.
Julie Kukral
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New Mexico Katie O'Neill We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. –Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
That is, you go into the earth with every sun, moon, or angel you’ve seen, every glass of wine, every New York Christmas Ball, every person you’ve loved, a part of you. When death is so much like a desert or a sunset, remember the blue and cloudlessness before murky orange. You gave me dark eyes and lips that disappear when I smile. You taught me how to stuff jalapeños with cheddar cheese and taught my mom how to make tortillas. We all looked alike when we were little but what is worst about all of this is that I don’t know myself well enough yet to give you a proper goodbye. Someday I’ll come to New Mexico and leave a hundred flowers over your body, daisies and carnations and Roses and Lilies. Now all I can say is thank you for Christmas dresses, and for Shirley Temple DVDs, and for laughing at short-tempered waitresses who had run out of pudding, and for memories in Santa Fe, a city in the sun. 86
Who do I write to? You, or my own mother, or to anyone looking for consolation? A little of each, every time. If there were a way to say We’ll Make It, without sounding insincere, well. Some people think death is a beginning, or an end. I think it is a movement, movement to somewhere always right after dusk, full of wisdom. Someday I’ll see you in a place like Santa Fe on a clear night. You can tell me what you were like at my age and I’ll give you songs, poems, whatever you want in exchange. You can tell me all the best parts of the sunset.
Paloma Corrigan
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