Scholastic Art and Writing 2022 Central and Southern Indiana

Scholastic Art and Writing 2022 Awards

1

For more information or permission, contact: Hoosier Writing Project CA 502L 425 University Blvd.

Indianapolis, IN 46202 https://liberalarts.iupui.edu/departments/english/related-programs/hoosier-writing-project/ No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopy, microfilm, recording or otherwise, without written permission.

Book Design & Layout: Kelsey Hawkins, Abigail Freestone, and Zoe Hanquier Cover Design: Kelsey Hawkins, Abigail Freestone, and Zoe Hanquier Cover Art: Amanda Wolf Proofreaders: Kelsey Hawkins, Abigail Freestone, Zoe Hanquier, Shannon Kucaj, Monica Simmons, and Jasonna Rogers Copyright © 2022 Hoosier Writing Project All rights reserved.

Printing Partners, March 2022 Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS p. 9 ABOUT THE AWARDS p. 10 INTRODUCTION p. 11 CRITICAL ESSAY

Modern-Day Social Media's Effects on Adolescents: Hot or Not? Brooke Liao p.16

The Endurance of the January Dandelion: What McClellan's Flower Teaches Us About the Human Spirit Alex Lu p. 24

Running Out of Time: How the American Education System Punishes Its Deepest Thinkers Lucia Moxey p. 28

Just Taxes: Outlining a Philosophical Framework for Redistributive Taxation Mathilde Robinson p. 31

A "Pressing" Issue Mathilde Robinson p. 39

Individualism, Collectivism, Colors and Kung Fu Dylan Stringer p. 44

3

PERSONAL ESSAY & MEMOIR Refuge of the Cosmos Rex Burkman p. 50

Hidden Jessica Ding p. 54

These Four Walls Bree Johnson p. 58

Fried Rice: The Flavors of My Childhood Alex Lu p. 60

A Gift and a Curse Leah McKay p. 63

Down to the Lake Lucia Moxey p. 66

Blizzard Hunting Jacob Penola p. 68

Reborn Mary Wang p. 74

JOURNALISM

Vaccination Apprehension Katherine Strunk p. 84

Should College and Universities Be Test-Optional?

Yurun Zheng p. 88 4

Title

4

DRAMATIC SCRIPT Ingrained

Alexander Kutza p. 94

FLASH FICTION All of Her Circles Grace Choi p. 109

Mid-July, The Nursing Home Amani Severson p. 109

To 1961 Amani Severson p. 110

HUMOR

An Epic Light Battle Zoe Amerman p. 114

SHORT STORY Silver Bullet

Meredith Carnahan p. 118

They Called Her Mademoiselle Vila Miller p. 120

The Dead Man and the Moss Joel Robertson p. 128

s/He Madeline Stuckwisch p. 136

5

Author Name 5

The Disc Hanna Warren p. 143

Unforgivable Eli Whitcomb p. 149

A Melancholic Flame Gabrielle Woehr p. 155

SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY What Resides in the Mirror Emma Crandall p. 159

Antithesis of Batesian Mimicry Claire He p. 170

Bellamy Versus [Eternity] Maggie Hoppel p. 177

A Hidden Soul Lily Martinson p. 182

Children of the Sky Kaia Starnino p. 187

A Still Motion Picture Alexandra Yang p. 195

NOVEL WRITING Equally Unusual

Bella Rosales p. 202 6

Title

6

POETRY

We Were Free Stella Bates p. 213

on living (a house made of pages and ink) Sally Bradshaw p. 214

Life After Death Jessica Ding p. 220

blue dashers Alyssa Gaines p. 222

Life of 5 Afgani Sonali Guttikonda p. 224

corium encryption Claire He p. 227

fathom imitation Claire He p. 228

thought experiment Claire He p. 230

waterpark surrealism Claire He p. 233

To Get a Boyfriend Maggie Hoppel p. 234

Where I'm From Clara Malek p. 237 7

Author Name 7

The Witch's Tale Lucia Trujillo p. 238

My Forbidden Friend Hailie Woodring p. 239

WRITING PORTFOLIO Means of Production Alexander Kutza p. 244

Nothing Happens Alexander Kutza p. 253

Daisy Joel Robertson p. 259

The Dangerous Necessity of Belief: Cinematic Language in Mulholland Drive Joel Robertson p. 267

ART

A Sweet Memorial Madeline Comer p. 14

What is My Reality?

Lee-Ann Kao p. 48

Keeping It Together Maxwell Robinson p. 82

8

Title

8

Carnage Lydia Jones p. 92

1966 Sophia Yang p. 104

SMILE! Cat Sergi p. 112

A Fragile Heart Malana Kramer p. 116

Lunchtime Chloe Sun p. 157

Self Portrait Victoria Simich p. 200

Reflections Cara Ploughe p. 242

Your Absence Shelia Hernandez p. 257

APPENDICES Gold Key Award Winner Supplementary Information p. 272 Writing Judges p. 276 Participating Writing Schools p. 279

9

Author Name 9

Acknowledgments On behalf of the Central and Southern Indiana Region of the Scholastic Writing Awards, thanks to the following: Hoosier Writing Project, English Department, School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI Steve Fox, Professor of English and Director of HWP Sara Harrell, Lecturer in English and Teacher/Consultant in HWP Beth Lafferty, Administrative Assistant, School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI genesis Literature and Art Magazine at IUPUI Sarah Layden, Faculty Advisor Kelsey Hawkins, Abigail Freestone, and Zoe Hanquier

10

About the Awards Started in 1923 by Scholastic founder Maurice R. Robinson, the Awards have grown to become the nation’s highest honor and largest source of scholarships for creative teenagers. All students in grades 7-12, whether public, private, or home schooled, are encouraged to apply. Through a nationwide network of more than 100 visual arts and literary arts organizations across the country, the 2022 Awards received more than 260,000 submissions in 28 categories of art and writing. More than 71,000 regional awards were given over 40,000 creative teens.

Across the decades, some young Scholastic winners have included names you’ll recognize: Stephen King, Robert Redford, Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike, Bernard Malamud, Ken Burns, Kay Walkingstick, and Amanda Gorman, who read a poem at the 2021 U.S. Presidential inauguration. Most alumni are less famous but no less important, for creativity, imagination, and risk-taking are hallmarks of being fully human.

The Hoosier Writing Project at IUPUI recognizes regional winners with Gold Key, Silver Key, and Honorable Mention certificates. In 2022, our region gave 201 awards and honored these students at the Regional Visions and Voices Awards Ceremony. Gold Key writing is published in this annual anthology.

Submissions receiving a Gold Key are forwarded to the national level of the competition. To see a list of our regional medal winners, visit our regional microsite: https://www.artandwriting.org/regions/IN002W .

For more about the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, visit www.artandwriting.org .

11

Introduction Congratulations to our 2022 Gold Key winners whose work is exhibited in this anthology.

In light of the ongoing Covid 19 environment that rattled and reprogrammed everyday living, the writing was extraordinary. The 507 entries submitted in the Central and Southern Region of Indiana clearly provided an outlet for many, and an escape for others. Often both. Art can make sense of chaos.

Please know how many of our judges return year after year. Most of them are writers. They know how writing can fill up empty spaces, generate joy, and provide revelations and solace. They know that encouraging young writers is important and necessary. And the bonus—our judges are inspired not only by what they see on the page, but also by the teachers who give so much of themselves to provide a safe, appreciative, constant home for creativity.

Altogether, 50 works were honored with Gold Keys, 65 with Silver Keys, and 86 with Honorable Mentions. A separate panel of judges read the Gold Key works and chose five as American Voices nominees—the “best in show”—that were sent on to the national Scholastic Awards for further judging, as were all the Gold Key winners.

All Gold Key works, including selections from two Gold Key portfolios, are printed in this anthology.

These works demonstrate the criteria that Scholastic has used throughout its history: technical skill, originality, and emergence of a personal vision or voice. The writers play with language, structure, and ideas. They represent their experiences and imagine other worlds. They have something to say, and invite you to hear it.

We owe special thanks to anthology editors, Kelsey Hawkins, Zoe Hanqui-

12

er and Abigail Freestone, who also edit IUPUI’s genesis literary and arts magazine under the outstanding sponsorship of Prof. Sarah Layden. They spent many, many hours designing and putting this issue together.

We thank the dedicated teachers who have encouraged students to honor and express their creativity. And we thank the families and friends who support teens’ creative thinking, problem-solving and experimentation.

Enjoy reading this work.

Steve Fox and Sara Harrell Hoosier Writing Project Department of English School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI

nonfiction nonfiction nonfiction

A Sweet Memorial Madeline Comer 15

`

critical essay

Modern Day Social Media's Effects on Adolescents: Hot or Not? Brooke Liao

In 1997, Andrew Weinrich launched SixDegrees, an online platform that allowed users to personalize their profiles, make friends, and send messages to one another. Nobody was aware that it would become a labyrinth of social connections within virtual networks- our modern definition of social media, which has grown exponentially in the past twenty years. We use it to connect with people worldwide, search for users with similar interests, discover colleagues and friends, and share our thoughts and feelings. Amorphous in nature, social media includes many sites and apps that allow users to do anything from watching and creating videos to chatting, posting pictures, and more. Thus, social media is swiftly evolving, becoming more advanced and easier to access. Unfortunately, along with these benefits come a multitude of disadvantages. Numerous studies and anecdotal experience have begun to prove that social media is becoming increasingly more complex and detrimental. Furthermore, the people most likely to be harmed by this are teenagers, who turn to social media for endless social connections and entertainment. Adolescents are already more sensitive, impressionable, and self-conscious than any other age group, so ideas, information, and content presented on social media platforms can be increasingly pernicious. While social media can help people forge positive connections, on the whole, it is causing severe harm to adolescents because it often preoccupies our time, causes poor mental health, and propagates harmful misinformation as well as the glamourization of certain dangerous topics.

It is incredibly hard to avoid something meant to draw you in, and social media does precisely that. Social media companies use various psychological strategies to hook their users and create an addiction to social media. Companies often motivate their users to open apps by using a buzzing or beeping notification. This strategy creates in users anxiety that they are missing out on something or excitement that there may be something interesting online. However, an even bigger stimulation to use social media is positive reinforcement. Getting likes, comments, and positive messages gives us rushes of dopamine, the neurotransmitter linked to

17

pleasure. In a Harvard University study, researchers found that validation following self-disclosure on social networking sites “lights up the same part of the brain that also ignites when taking an addictive substance” (Hillard). Although the feeling isn’t as intense, it is still the same. That dopamine rush is associated with a rewarding feeling, creating positive reinforcement. But, what exactly is an addiction to social media? Jean Hillard, a social media manager, describes it as a behavioral addiction that is characterized by being “overly concerned about social media, driven by an uncontrollable urge to use social media, and devoting so much time and effort to social media that it impairs other important life areas.” It is also easy to get addicted to social media apps, according to app developer Peter Mezyk. In an interview with Insider, he reveals that many social media apps are “painkiller” apps. They lessen the feeling of “loneliness and boredom” and give us validation and successful social interactions.

Another factor, according to a study run by the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, is that social media algorithms are adaptive. They adjust “based on your preferences and behaviors, which makes [them] both more useful and engaging and interesting, and more addictive.”

The result? Social media wastes an enormous amount of time. On average, the West Virginia Education Association found that teenagers spend more than 9 hours a day in front of screens, with a third of this time being on social media. Using social media becomes a habit through repetition and is rarely a pre-planned activity. A compulsion to check social media occurs all the time, including when we are working or studying, and this impulse negatively impacts many people; the American Medical Association found that brief mental blocks or distractions can “cause you to lose as much as 40% of your productive time” (Zalani). A recent article

by Forbes claims that the use of social media takes up “more than 1,300 hours [54 days] out of one year” (Suciu). The recent COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the issue significantly. Due to the pandemic, various studies have seen a doubling in adolescent screen time, from India to China to the United States. The truth is, there are so many productive and interesting things we can do with our time instead of spending it on social media; high on that list: learning new skills and information or participating in activities.

Perhaps one of the most notorious and prolific effects of social media is its link to poor mental health. It’s no secret that social media can cause

“depression, anxiety, and even suicidality” in more extreme cases (Walton). But what are the roots of social media’s connection to these mental health issues? To begin, anxiety is one of the most common effects of increased social media use because anxiety can affect anyone, no matter who they are. As previously discussed, the stress of missing out on social media content also comes into play here. Many teens endure “anxiety from social media related to fear of loss,” resulting in frequent checking of notifications and messages. From personal experience and the experience of people around me, I believe anxiety can additionally stem from the desire for validation from your peers and the fear of being judged. A second factor caused by social media is low-self esteem, which is highly correlated to anxiety and depression. With the rise of the smartphone and social media use, researchers are seeing a simultaneous surge in negative self-esteem resulting in depression and suicide; the Clinical Psychological Science journal found a “33 percent increase in the number of adolescents with high levels of depressive symptoms and 31 percent more deaths by suicide” (Auld). Another study recorded in a Cureus article “Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review” observed a 70% increment in “self-reported depressive symptoms among groups using social media” (Karim).

The superficiality and materialism promoted on social media are often overlooked causes behind the correlation between social media and poor mental health. Many depressive struggles of teens are rooted in the millions of celebrities and influencers on social media, whether the platform is Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, or Youtube. Celebrities on social media usually hide the “struggling of our daily lives at a deeper level” beneath the facade of an exciting, carefree life as depicted in their highlight reels (Karim). Their profiles are incredibly polished and superficial, causing many adolescents to feel insecure about their lives, body, appearances, and more. Materialism is a less obvious but just as relevant factor behind the link between social media and poor mental health. Tim Kasser, professor of psychology, claims that materialism prioritizes “image and popularity, which are almost always expressed via money and possessions.” While using social media, many people do not notice how widespread material culture is, primarily through advertising. Myriad brands and companies use celebrities and influencers for advertising their products. When we see these seemingly happy, glamorous, and successful influencers, we want the products they use, the clothes they wear, and the platform, followers,

and likes they hold. Repeated exposure may cause us to form a mental link between happiness and money, popularity, and material goods. A Sussex University study found that the more highly people endorsed materialistic values, the more they experienced “unpleasant emotions, depression and anxiety, physical health problems and less pleasant emotions and satisfaction with their lives.” This is because people feel more and more insecure as they attempt to buy more items, get more followers and likes, and emulate celebrities and influencers, who are often not as successful as they seem. The truth is, we are just playing catch up with impossible standards that are projected through the people we see online. Social media companies want us to use their apps as a source of happiness, validation, or success. Many adolescents fall into this trap and attempt to conform to unattainable standards, which also causes loss of individuality and trend following. This is no surprise, as humans naturally tend to follow the crowd and are influenced by the actions and thoughts of others.

Robert Cialdini writes in his bestselling book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, that people are unarguably guided by others around us. For example, he examines advertisements: companies generally use customer reviews and display their products as best selling or extremely popular; they rarely convince you that the actual product is good, only that “others think so” (Henderson). The app TikTok, using positive reviews and celebrities in their advertisements, launched in September 2016 and “gained 20 million users per month” until it hit half a billion users just 2 years later (Ortiz-Ospina). In other words, the beliefs of others influence us greatly.

As a result, when we try to follow unattainable standards that we believe will make us fit in or convince others to admire us, it can lead to low self-esteem and decreased mental health. Superficiality and materialism on social media can cause a negative mindset and decreased mental health for developing adolescents due to an unreasonable ideal of perfection.

Misinformation has generated the frequent glamourization of detrimental and dangerous topics, such as alcohol, drugs, mental illnesses, and more. Social media reaches a massive, diverse audience and greatly aggravates this issue. When you think of teen addiction and substance abuse, alcohol and drugs might come to mind. This stereotype has plenty of truth to it: the NCDAS reveals that by 12th grade, 46.6% of students have tried illegal drugs and 1.19 million teens have reported binge drinking in a month. The CDC adds further evidence to these disheartening statistics, claiming people aged 12-20 “consume about one-tenth of all alcohol

20

consumed in the United States,” - all of it illegally. Social media plays its part in this issue by portraying the use of alcohol and drugs as exciting or fun. The main link between social media and substance abuse is grounded in the influence of celebrities that we admire. Influencers and celebrities post photos of themselves on their platforms partying, drinking, smoking, or doing drugs, “making it seem as if it’s necessary to use these substances to be successful or cool.” Adolescents who do not know better will “only see the glamor of drug use and binge drinking” without perceiving the adverse, deleterious effects (Novak). The glamorization of drugs and alcohol is also spread through trends or peer pressure. Instagram and TikTok are leading apps for trends; if you just scroll on TikTok for an hour or two, you will quickly notice many similar videos from different users, known as trends. For example, there are popular vaping trends, where teens use a vape to blow out smoke in the shape of ghosts or rings. Another example involves users convincing their viewers to overdose on Benadryl to experience hallucinations. Moreover, millions of videos show teen influencers enjoying drugs such as marijuana and drinking alcohol with their friends while calling it a “lifestyle” or “aesthetic.” The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse had conducted studies that support this correlation between substance abuse and social networking, finding that teens who used social media apps regularly were “5 times more likely to buy cigarettes, 3 times more likely to drink, and two times more likely to use weed.”

Mental illnesses are also [unsurprisingly] on the rise, and their representation is everywhere throughout the online network. “Depressing” posts or quotes about mental illnesses can be found on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook from 2010 or earlier. Hence, the content is nothing new, but the recent romanticization of these mental illnesses in the media is both shocking and dangerous. Many posts refer to mental illnesses as “tragically beautiful” and “aesthetic” (Yu). On Instagram and Tiktok, I have seen ads for people selling shirts that say things such as “I have anxiety” or “Anxiety is my superpower.” There are necklaces, hoodies, and sweatpants with “depression” printed on them. There are even disturbing videos labeled “How to get an eating disorder.” These mental illnesses have been transformed into more “mild and aesthetically pleasing versions of themselves” and then become “personality traits” and internet trends (Abelson). ADHD is often represented as simply a focusing disorder, anorexia as a dedicated goal to lose weight, OCD as wanting

21

everything to be clean and orderly. On TikTok, there are trends where people (pretend to) have depression, anxiety, anorexia, or bipolar disorder and then boast about it, viewing it as trendy, interesting, or attractive.

There are even users revealed to be posting disturbing content claiming that they are suicidal in order to get attention or followers. The stigma that used to be around many mental illnesses has quite literally shifted to the opposite. Social media glamorizes and misrepresents what mental illnesses are genuinely like. They don’t show the tragedy and the ugly elements of mental illnesses and only portray the softer aspects that are now desired and unique. As for other mental conditions that are “uglier” such as schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, bulimia, or binge eating disorder, they are ignored because people “have yet to discover or create a gentler and more acceptable version” (Abelson). As a result, many teens who actually have mental illnesses question the validity and danger of their feelings and don’t know whether they should seek assistance. The glamourization of perilous and dangerous mental illnesses, drugs, and alcohol on social media must be stopped before it causes harm to individuals who are truly suffering.

Another crucial issue is that seeing posts calling out issues or horrific events too often desensitizes our view of them. According to a study performed by the University of Michigan, college students are “40% less empathetic than 30 years ago” (Pearce). On social media, something important blows up, and then “everyone forgets it happened” (Pearce).

Examples of this are posts calling for action to stop environmental change, racial issues, world hunger, gun violence, and more. Many users like the post, leave a supportive comment, and then forget they ever saw it. We disregard that the problems and people on those posts are real, and they need help and attention. Evidence supports this: once we see “a cause so many times on social media, we get tired of seeing it and disregard it” (Pearce). Social media also psychologically makes this problem worse, as the format of all posts is the same. The post calling attention to the logging of the Amazon Forest or a school shooting looks the same as a funny meme or cookie recipe. As we scroll from a vital topic to a funny or entertaining one, we are desensitized to the posts that matter. When we see something hundreds of times, even if it is surprising or disturbing, we eventually get used to it. The same applies to internet posts that discuss important things- and while included in this is the glamourization of drugs, alcohol, and mental illnesses, there are many other topics that we

22

must pay attention to and act upon before it is too late.

It doesn’t help that fake news has emerged at “velocities and in volumes that make it nearly impossible to stop” (Warzel). In today’s age, a false claim is 70% more likely to be spread across the internet and will “reach 1500 people six times faster” than a valid claim (Dizikes). Incorrect information is more captivating, more exciting, and easier to spread than ever before. The rise of social media has seen a worsening in the amount of fake news. Fraudulent news was slow to spread in the past, as only media companies could quickly disseminate information. Now anyone can post anything on fast-paced social media sites, and our easily-captivated attention and cognitive bias cause us to believe and further spread fake news. Misleading information on social media uses novelty and emotional appeal to draw us in. As a result, extreme and exaggerated false news tends to captivate our attention quickly. Our own cognitive bias only aggravates the spread of fake news. As humans, we naturally prefer to believe what we want to believe. When we aim to find information supporting or opposing a claim we have, it is facile to have “uncritical acceptance” for a piece of information if it concurs with what we wish to prove, or “complete rejection” if it doesn’t. (Warzel). A 2016 study analyzing the information 376 million Facebook users interacted with concluded that people “tend to seek information that aligns with their views” (Anderson, Raine). People, especially teenagers, who are unaware that they may be looking at fake news or biased towards a particular opinion, quickly believe what they see.

All that being said, social media is also a revolutionary tool with the power to enhance our lives. You can reach broad audiences, share your opinions, and connect with people worldwide; brands can advertise and endorse their products, creators can share their projects, and people can make new friends. There is no reason to shut down social media or boycott it altogether. However, social media is currently causing severely dangerous problems, and it requires attention and reform. On a personal scale, we can limit our spontaneous use of social media. Picking times that we designate for social media use, rather than just going on those apps when we are bored, will significantly decrease our social media screen time. When we are on social media, we should also be mindful of our actions and words and know our principles. Finally, we should help spread awareness of these issues to our family and friends. Ironically, we can even use social media to do this. We are in a new era of never before seen

23

opportunities to access social networks. Although numerous problems have arisen, our awareness of those problems has too. If we learn how to identify and navigate social media’s treacherous paths, we can create a safer, better online space for everyone.

24

The Endurance of the January Dandelion: What McClellan's Flower Teaches Us About the Human Spirit

Alex Lu Every frostbitten winter morning, I think of the poem “A January Dandelion”. It is so deceptively simple, a dandelion frozen to death by the late winter cold. Yet somehow, I continue circling back to it, forever mulling its timeless words. In his lines, George McClellan is able to capture something touching and meaningful even in the mundane. Through its nuanced depiction of a tiny flower, George Marion McClellan’s poem reveals the timeless struggles of the human heart through the winter of life.

The poem is set in Nashville, in a scene of dead winter and January snow.

The setting is innocuous, yet it lends a deeper meaning to “A January Dandelion”. The desolate streets, covered in “powdered blast[s] of January snow,” contrast with the vitality of the bright Dandelion, which continues its bloom despite the chill (McClellan). Even in these first few lines, before the poem even mentions its subject, there is already a premonition that the Dandelion does not belong here. In the cold, faceless streets of the city and in the midst of a blizzard, a dandelion has as much chance of surviving as in the gelid reaches of the South Pole. Furthermore, it is January, no time for a spring flower. These details show that the Dandelion is an explorer, a journeyer into an inhospitable and foreign land. The description of the snow covering the streets “[l]ike desert sand” further suggests that the Dandelion’s fate is sealed before it has even bloomed (McClellan). With no water, no companions, and no sunlight, McClellan shows the reader the futility of the Dandelion’s early growth.

The description of the Dandelion ridicules its foolishness in daring to bloom in January. McClellan points out the folly in “freezing on [a] slender stem,” when several months were all that stood between the Dandelion and spring. In the real world, it is also a warning to not “be misled/[b] y a few warm days” (McClellan). In McClellan’s time, the poem may have forewarned the dark days of the two world wars ahead, or of the societal problems in the early years of the twentieth century. However, it remains relevant a century later, as a symbol for the harsh reality that invariably follows hollow hopes. No matter what the case or crisis, McClellan’s poem is a word to the unprepared, hoping for the best and unseeing of the

25

worst. He seeks to warn the reader of the imminent threat of tragedy when things are done without regards to the consequences. In addition, it is also an urgent critique of the shortsightedness of our society and the devastating results. He implies that if we follow the words of others mindlessly, we may end up like the Dandelion, left to take the brunt of the punishing winds.

The Dandelion is also a social metaphor for the inexperienced and naive person. It reveals the vulnerability of someone entering into the vast society of life, unsure of how to step and when to trust. Just like the Dandelion, many young people have to take a fall before they realize the norms and restrictions of society. McClellan suggests that there is a time to bloom, and a time to stay buried underground “in [the] natural bed”, waiting for the right chance (McClellan). As an African-American poet in the early twentieth century, McClellan likely understood the brutal awakening the Dandelion faced; in an unforgiving world, especially for him, he faced the isolation and bitter snows alone in a similar way. Furthermore, the theme of unrequited love, seen in the case of the Dandelion when it bloomed for nothing, may hint at boundaries that prevented people in his time from seeking their true purpose and passions (McClellan). In many ways, the Dandelion was a reflection of the racism and alienation McClellan and many others experienced and continue to experience.

In spite of the Dandelion’s uninformed and fatal decision, the poem also portrays the Dandelion in a sympathetic light. Instead of being described as a weed, the Dandelion is described as a “yellow-coated gem” (McClellan). In many ways, this is a metaphor for the scarcity of hope in everyday life. There are many people who complain about everything that goes wrong, but too few who are willing to embrace the feather-wings of hope.

And although the author does not seem to agree with the Dandelion’s decision to bloom early, he implies that the Dandelion’s action is noble and necessary in a way as well. He describes the Dandelion as having a “common boon” with many, and relates the Dandelion’s brilliance in the midst of a stark winter to a heart “bloomed by the touch of love’s warm breath” (McClellan). This association with love further strengthens the symbol of the Dandelion as a symbol of valiant foolishness, but also of optimism in the face of despair. The Dandelion, despite snow being sifted into its heart, still does not die, even though it is wounded. This mirrors the mind-

26

set of people who refuse to give up through the darkest times, and, in the present, of doctors and essential workers who show their brave dandelion face to the world to help keep hope alive. The Dandelion also mirrors the perseverance of humans to keep loving, even through betrayal and heartbreak. Though the heart may contain “blast and death” after trauma, the Dandelion’s heart “[s]till may beat,” even after all the injustice that it has experienced (McClellan). In all these ways, the Dandelion is a reflection of McClellan’s own struggles to find meaning and love in a world that did not want to offer him the bare necessities of existence. The Dandelion may have failed, but McClellan hints that perhaps there is still some reason to flower, as spring always follows winter.

Despite its folly, the Dandelion is a symbol of hope and perseverance in the face of difficulty. It is a message that despite its shortcomings, we as a society can bloom and thrive, even under the icy fingertips of freezing January snow. It is a sign that even amid the bleakest days, when all was lost, someone was willing to stand up, speak out, even if it meant certain destruction. And the January Dandelion, too, is a harbinger of more dandelions to come, a forerunner bravely sacrificing their tender stem to allow the rest to open their bright yellow flowers. I can always see many puffy balls of white in my yard every summer, and can feel the tenacity with which dandelion roots cling to the muddy ground. It is a testament to their strength and their selflessness; the dandelions grow where no other grass can, and their roots pave the way for others to thrive where the ground was once barren. Now when I look to the streets, I see no silence, but life in its brimming richness and intensity. Despite COVID and the other difficulties we have faced in the last year, we still loved, grew, and opened our yellow petals. In spite of his writing’s reflection of the unforgiving cold of society, McClellan still wrote works of incredible power and beauty that brought their own warmth to the world.

Although the poem ends on a somber note for this January Dandelion, it also ends with a promise, a destiny. It calls on me, and everyone, to imagine “all the blooming life that might have been” (McClellan). These words can be applied anywhere, everywhere. Just like the teeming parachutes of the Dandelion, they spread hope for a better future, the possibility of a “yellow-coated gem” where there once was “chilling snow” (McClellan). It is a call to action, to make that future a reality, not just another “January

27

Dandelion”.

28

Title

Running Out of Time: How the American Educational System Punishes Its Deepest Thinkers

Lucia Moxey If you have ever read the story about the tortoise and the hare, you would remember that the tortoise was not fast at all, but he moved steadily. The hare--on the other hand--moved extremely fast, but he was not steady like the tortoise. At the end of the story, the tortoise wins the race, his steadiness rewarded. Most would say the tortoise was better because he moved at a steady pace, except maybe the American education system, that is. America values speed over steadiness in the administration of standardized testing. The timed practice testing system is unfair because it allows advancement for hares: faster thinkers, less anxious testers, and those who arrive at the answer most quickly but not necessarily most deeply.

In a recent episode of the Revisionist History Podcast, the host, Malcolm Gladwell, talks about how the LSAT, a test for getting into law school, is a test for "hares not tortoises."

“The LSAT is not a test of someone's ability to solve difficult problems. It's a test of someone's ability to solve difficult problems quickly. It is five sections of 20 to 25 questions and you have a hard limit of 35 minutes for each section. You have to rush. As one LSAT tutor told me, the test favors those capable of processing without understanding. It favors hares; not tortoises” (Gladwell, 2019).

Testing in America seems extremely difficult and unnecessary compared to other countries that do not have time limits to answer questions. In fact, tests in many other countries are taken home to complete in the time frame that works best for the student. Testing in other countries may take other forms like writing a paper, which shows the ability to explain ideas and communicate them clearly. On standardized tests, you just have to bubble in answers. Math tests, especially in Eastern European countries, sometimes only have a few very challenging questions, requiring more work to be done to prove that you have the question correctly.

Tests like the LSAT, ACT and SAT only allow for about a minute per question on average, which means they have to give questions that do not require much work. Other countries value a student's deeper understanding of the material. Therefore, why would America value speed if other countries do not? People say that in America, tests are made to award

29

those who work the quickest and to see who works well under pressure and that those tests are also a tie-breaker between people who get correct answers, but the problem with this is that the tests are only favoring one type of person. Hence, tests should allow students to have the freedom of having their own time frame, pose fewer questions to those students, and demand a deeper understanding of concepts.

The tests value hares over tortoises, particularly male hares over female tortoises, causing inequality among men and women in later life.

One recent study of math competitions found that boys outcompeted girls until the time limits were removed, at which time scores flipped and girls were better on the same assessments. According to a research study conducted on 500 elementary school students in Utah, "the...advantage for boys disappeared if the time element was removed from that competition" (Richmond, 2013). Who knows what women could be achieving if limits were removed. If one is wondering why girls are put at an unfair advantage, timed tests are biased against those with perfectionism who like to be careful, which girls tend to be. Some of the deeper thinking female students might be disadvantaged when college entrance and advancement in law are based on timed assessments. Everyone should have an equal advantage in all types of competitions and testing. If girls, people with anxiety, perfectionists, and many more individuals were taken into account for jobs that are biased against “tortoises,” there would be so many different profound perspectives. Thus, tests should equally value fast and slow thinkers because humans have different ideas.

Just because one student is faster at arriving at an answer than another student doesn't make him or her better or more deserving of advancement. Gladwell mentioned a man named Jeff Sutton, who went to Ohio State and is an absolutely brilliant lawyer and Supreme Court clerk.

Sutton did not do well on the LSAT considering that he is a slow worker.

“So Sutton is in the category of brilliant person who didn't do all that well on the LSAT. What does that make him? It makes him a tortoise, and not just any tortoise, a giant tortoise. He's one of those tortoises from the Galapagos that's five feet long” (Gladwell, 2019). After all, speed doesn't prove higher intellect. Therefore, do timed tests give us the rankings we really want if we have many examples of talented thinkers who underperformed on speed-based tests? Gladwell (a Canadian) also questions why everything is about speed and not thoughtfulness in the United States: “Why do Americans do this to themselves? Do they play Scrabble with a stopwatch? In literature class, do they get extra points for reading Tolstoy's War and Peace overnight? Is there an Oscar that goes out every

30

year to the movie that got shot the quickest? I really don't get it” (Gladwell 2019). Why is everything about how fast one can do something? Our obsession with timed testing only ensures that we do not get all the brightest thinkers at the top of every field; instead, we get the brightest who happen to be the fastest. We even use timed tests to judge elementary school students and even to decide whether their teachers are effective. Hence, Americans are obsessed with getting to the answer the fastest, but that does not show any signs of anyone being more intelligent than others.

The timed part of the tests also causes pressure on students and hurts their focus. “These parents [of SAT test-takers] went to such great lengths to get extra time for their kids only because these tests run at breakneck speed—a feature that routinely stresses out test takers of all abilities” (Escobar, 2019). Escobar shows that the tests run at high speeds, which causes students to read through passages lightly, and so timed testing and preparing for the test is anxiety-forming. Many lawyers have said that their most nervous moment was taking the LSAT, which is the test that people need to take to get into law school, meaning the legal system is filled with pressure-resistant hares not just anxious tortoises at the highest levels of the justice system What is the most important rationale for timed testing? Timed tests are made to award those who work the quickest and to see who works well under pressure and that they are also a tie-breaker between people who get correct answers. So why do I disagree with that reasoning?

Tests in other countries are taken home. In Eastern European countries, they only have to answer a few questions with no time limit. This shows that you do not necessarily have to answer questions fast to get into the best school. The tests put more pressure than they need to on students.

People even said that they were the most nervous on the LSAT. So why is this debate important? Why should the system be fairer to tortoises?

Colleges should accept people who are more thoughtful, slow, and steady in their work because not everyone is a hare. How might the system be different if everyone could finish assessments at his or her own pace? We may never know if the system is made for only hares to succeed.

31

Just Taxes: Outlining a Philosophical Framework for Redistributive Taxation Mathilde Robinson

“We can either have democracy in this country or we can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” ~ attributed to Associate Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (Campbell, 2013) I. Introduction In 2020, the wealth of Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates exceeded the wealth of the entire bottom half of the United States population (Collins et al.). More broadly, as of 2017, the highest 1% of earners in the U.S. brought in 29 times the income of middle-income households, on average; the wealthiest 1% held an average of 263 times the wealth of middle-income households (Looney, 2021). And economic opportunity—perhaps America’s most vaunted ideal—has become a mirage, thanks to the enervating effect of inequality on social mobility (Rank & Eppard, 2021).

Although the United States has a progressive system of taxes and transfers, along with every other country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a 2010 study found that its taxation scheme nonetheless does less to reduce inequality than that of all but three of the thirty-one OECD countries examined (Huang & Frentz, 2014).

In the face of soaring disparities, it is necessary to examine how the U.S. can change its fiscal structures to better confront economic inequality.

(After all, is any human being—no matter how hard-working or astute— worthy of billions while others can’t afford food, housing, or medication?)

Yet we should not only explore what policy changes would make our tax system more just, but also interrogate what the aim of taxation ought to be. As law professor Charles O’Kelley writes, taxes are “part of society's distributive mechanism and must be designed in accordance with the governing principles of social justice” (1981). In this essay, I contend that reducing inequality should be a priority in any just system of taxation— sometimes, although not generally, to the exclusion of other social goods.

II. The Laffer Curve is Not the Arc of the Moral Universe To arrive at a normative idea of how taxes should be used, we first have to examine how taxes are used in contemporary policy. Law professor Reuven Avi-Yonah suggests that taxes operate with three principles in mind: revenue-raising, redistribution, and regulation (2006). In today’s

32

discourse, it is the former two purposes—raising money for the government, and levying higher taxes on the very wealthy—that are characterized as being at odds.

Since the 1970s, the Laffer curve—introduced to American political discourse by supply-side economist Arthur Laffer—has been a fixture of conservative politicians’ tax-cutting crusade (Berman, 2019), revived during the Trump administration’s passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (Baker, 2017). Laffer’s argument was intuitive: As tax rates increase, incentives to work and invest diminish. Eventually, the behavioral changes caused by higher tax rates reduce the revenue collected by the state (Berman, 2019). The revenue-maximizing rate, the “tipping point,” is sometimes denoted T* (Hayes, 2021). As recently as this March, former Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow criticized the Biden administration’s proposed tax increases, claiming “[T]he way to get upper-income people to pay more in taxes is to lower their tax rate” (Porter, 2021).

However, economists dispute that we are anywhere near T*. A 2012 survey of forty leading economists found that none believed lowering federal income tax rates would increase tax revenue over the course of five years (IGM Forum). More recently, Swedish economist Jacob Lundberg calculated that the Laffer curve in the U.S. would peak at a 76% top marginal tax rate for the highest income bracket (2017). For comparison, the top rate, which affects households earning over half a million dollars annually, currently stands at 37% (Internal Revenue Service, 2020; Tax Policy Center, 2020).

Lundberg’s model examines only labor income, not capital income. However, closing capital gains tax loopholes—perhaps the Biden administration’s most notable proposal when it comes to taxing wealthy individuals—would actually increase the revenue-maximizing capital gains rate.

In other words, they would move the curve itself, instead of moving the tax rate along the curve toward T* (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget [CRFB], 2021; Hanlon & Hendricks, 2021; Ricco, 2019).

The significant question, therefore, is not whether proposed policy changes would put the U.S. on the wrong side of the Laffer curve—they won’t.

Instead, we must ask whether revenue maximization should be the highest policy priority. While this question is, at present, hypothetical, asking it allows us to more clearly delineate our conception of what duties a government faces as it sets tax rates.

Justifications for maximizing revenue originate from perspectives spanning the political spectrum: fiscal responsibility and debt reduction on

33

the right (FixTheDebt.org) and social welfare on the left (Cochrane, 2021; Grimley, 2015). Yet criticism of this principle can also be found on both sides of the aisle. Daniel Mitchell (2012) of the Cato Institute advances a conservative argument against revenue maximization. He contends that even if we are on a segment of the curve where raising the tax rate will still increase government revenue (that is, left of T*), we should not raise taxes if doing so would reduce private-sector taxable income significantly more than it would boost revenue.

However, a progressive critique of revenue maximization can be arrived at by examining the assumptions, and flaws, underlying Mitchell’s claim. His argument treats private-sector productivity as an end in itself. However, prioritizing private-sector growth is not necessarily beneficial to society if its benefits are not broadly distributed. In the U.S., inflation-adjusted CEO compensation increased 1,322.2% from 1978 to 2020 (Mishel & Kandra, 2021). Meanwhile, median worker compensation grew only 15.8% from 1979 to 2019, compared to a 59.7% increase in productivity (Mishel, 2021). In other words, the benefits of productivity increases do not accrue equally; the vast majority of society does not profit from maximizing growth when that growth is not accompanied by equitable distribution.

What materially impacts most Americans is not the size of the proverbial pie, but the size of the slices they receive.

Thus, increasing equality can supersede maximizing revenue as a priority when deciding the ideal tax rate, since extreme economic inequality becomes incompatible with a stable, democratic society. Gilens and Page (2014) found that the probability of policy change is similar (about 30%) regardless of what proportion of average Americans support it; however, when a policy change is supported by a majority of the economic elite, it is adopted around 45% of the time, compared to 18% when the economic elite oppose it. Power disparities engendered by economic inequality, beside their per se injustice, provide openings for authoritarian populism and feed democratic backsliding (Ingraham, 2021).

Essentially, the harms of inequality are not restricted to a loss of material resources; they also encompass a loss of political and social power, and the degradation of civil society. Therefore, perhaps, taxation that reduces inequality generates external benefits, not only the potential to transfer revenue to members of lower socioeconomic brackets. So, in certain cases, it may be appropriate to tax wealthy individuals above the revenue-maximizing rate, if doing so breaks up concentrations of wealth that would otherwise “capture” democratic decision-making.

Generally, we approach the reduction of inequality with a focus on the

34

reduction of poverty and privation—as, given the crushing realities of economic need, we should. Yet it also seems that greater equality qua equality may be a necessary political goal. How, then, should we weigh these competing needs against one another?

III. (Re)distributive Justice Here, I will attempt to define some of the parameters of a just system of taxation using the concept of “justice as fairness” as outlined by political philosopher John Rawls. Rawls’ ideas are particularly relevant because of their focus on the “basic structure” of society, i.e., the institutions that distribute the “benefits and burdens of social life,” including wealth, income, and social recognition (Wenar, 2021). Taxation is one component of this basic structure. Indeed, there is considerable precedent for analyzing tax policy in the context of Rawlsian justice (see Bird-Pollan, 2013; O’Kelly, 1981; Sugin, 2004).

In Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, Rawls presents his conception of justice as fairness through two principles: First Principle: Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all; Second Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle). (Rawls, 2001, as cited in Ten, 2003, p. 564) In practice, the difference principle stipulates that the accrual of more wealth to the already well-off is just if, and only if, it elevates the position of the worse-off in society. We’ll call this Scenario A. In contrast, if this accumulation of wealth harms those at the bottom of the distribution (we’ll call this Scenario B), it is unjust—even if the overall amount of wealth generated is greater in B than A. Rawls derives these principles from the original position, a thought experiment in which each real person in the world is represented by a hypothetical negotiator. The representatives stand behind a veil of ignorance: that is, they do not know the characteristics (race, gender, class) of the people they represent. Debating from a free and equal standpoint, these representatives are tasked with negotiating the basic structures of a society.

35

Each representative, Rawls reasons, would wish to assure certain equal basic liberties for all members of society. This stands in contrast to a utilitarian system, which could justify the restriction of a minority’s rights to protect the happiness of a majority—a consequence that the representatives would reject, unwilling to gamble away the civil liberties of their real-world counterparts. Moreover, a system that safeguards equal basic liberties encourages cooperation and respect within the polity. Therefore, the representatives would endorse Rawls’ first principle.

To arrive at the second principle, Rawls supposes that his representatives would contrast it with the idea of restricted utilitarianism, or a theory of maximizing utility (i.e., well-being) that is limited only by Rawls’ first principle, not the difference principle. Under restricted utilitarianism, the representatives might fear that the worst-off in society would become resentful, feeling that they are making sacrifices to make the best-off even better-off (as in Scenario B). Thus, the difference principle, which considers only Scenario A just, allows all members of society to participate more fully in public life, without requiring undue sacrifices from those on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder (Wenar, 2021).

Of course, one could argue that other theories of distributive justice are preferable, e.g., a libertarian stance that advocates minimizing state interference with property rights. Of these frameworks, perhaps the most prominent is that of Robert Nozick. Nozick’s libertarian argument claims that any patterned theory of justice (i.e., one that pursues a particular pattern of distribution, such as egalitarianism or Rawlsian justice) necessitates ongoing interference with liberty. Instead, per Nozick, we should recognize the absolute right of an individual to property which that individual acquired in a just manner, a doctrine known as “historical entitlement” (Mack, 2018). The trouble with applying Nozick’s principles to tax policy is that, as Nozick himself noted, any historical theory of distributive justice requires that property entitlements have indeed been justly acquired. This, of course, is not the case—a fact which probably contributes to our present economic disparities—and rectifying these countless injustices would be practically impossible. Thus, “it is difficult to see how Nozick’s entitlement theory could provide guidance as to what the current distribution of material holdings should be or what distributions or redistributions are legitimate or illegitimate” (Lamont & Favor, 2017).

Therefore, because it is more responsive to the conditions of the world we live in, a Rawlsian principle of justice seems suitable for evaluating the theoretical role of tax policy.

IV. Applying Rawls’ Principles to Taxation Acknowledging the validity of claims in favor of revenue maximization, there appear to be conditions under which it is nonetheless desirable to prioritize redistributive taxes over revenue-maximizing taxes under a Rawlsian framework.

In order to be considered just under the difference principle, a redistributive tax must reduce inequalities in a manner that benefits the worse-off.

Viewed in light of the competing priority of revenue maximization, this poses three constraints: First, tax rates must be raised in a manner that actually promotes equality more effectively than maximizing revenue would. The effect of the higher rates must be to reduce the proportion of wealth held by the very rich, not to cause tax evasion or tax flight. Considering that risks of tax flight have been exaggerated (Young & Varner, 2014; Young, 2017), and that increased IRS funding could significantly reduce tax evasion (Marr et al., 2021), this condition may be easier met than it seems.

Second, tax revenues must remain high enough to provide necessary social services. An expanded safety net kept millions out of poverty in 2020 (Haider et al., 2021); for a tax increase to comply with the difference principle, revenue should not be lowered to levels that jeopardize such gains.

Third, the decrease in the concentrated wealth of the economic elite must not result in decreases in the well-being of the worst-off. As it turns out, despite the prevalence of “trickle-down economics” in contemporary political debates, allowing the wealthy to become wealthier does not generally benefit everyone else. Zidar (2017) found that tax cuts for the top 10% of the U.S. population by income have little impact on employment growth, while tax cuts for lower-income groups have much larger effects. Globally, a 2015 analysis by researchers for the International Monetary Fund examined the relationship between GDP and inequality (using the Gini coefficient, an index that accounts for taxes and transfers) and found that “increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth” (Dabla-Norris et al.). Most recently, a 2020 study identified that tax cuts for the very rich increase income inequality, while having only statistically insignificant effects on GDP and unemployment (Hope & Lindberg 2020). Thus, lower levels of tax progressivity are rarely compatible with Rawls’ difference principle.

Applied in conjunction, these three conditions are stringent, but the first and third conditions may at least be met with greater ease than political

37

pundits might suggest. The second condition largely depends upon which programs and social goals a government prioritizes in the face of budget cuts. Yet, if we consider factors beyond the bare distribution of economic goods, a Rawlsian framework actually provides a broader—and less restricted—justification for redistributive taxation.

To understand this, we can turn to Rawls’ first principle of justice, the requirement of equal basic liberties. At first blush, this principle seems less directly related to the distribution of material resources, but it is actually central to our discussion of economic inequality. Because of the corrosive effects of inequality on democracy, redistribution should not be conceived only as a question of economic justice but also of individual political rights. When demoralized, divided, and dominated by powerful interests, members of a society are no longer able to interact as free and equal citizens. Therefore, as Linda Sugin argues, “where concentrations of wealth produce concentrations of political power, the first principle would require the tax system to break up politically threatening concentrations of wealth so that equal liberties of citizenship are possible” (2004).

Indeed, Rawls is explicit in stating that “a departure from the institutions of equal liberty required by the first principle cannot be justified by, or compensated for, by greater social and economic advantages” (Rawls, 1999). We could conceive of a redistributive tax system that reduces the absolute material standing of the worst-off in society, thereby failing to satisfy the difference principle. However, if that tax regime was necessary to disperse agglomerations of wealth and thus protect the equality of basic political liberties, as outlined above, it could be justified with respect to Rawls’ first principle, without needing to invoke the second. So, even if a redistributive tax system fails to satisfy the economic constraints of the second principle, it may still be considered just under the first.

V. Conclusion Designing actual tax reforms requires expert analysis of policy options— taxes on income, wealth, capital gains, consumption, etc.—and a throng of lawyers. This paper has explored a more basic question: What makes a tax just?

Many contemporary invocations of the Laffer curve represent ideological panic, not economic reality. In all likelihood, we are nowhere near T*, and the tradeoff between revenue and redistribution remains purely hypothetical. Therefore, the ideal system of taxes and transfers—one that promotes a fairer post-tax distribution, without reducing government revenue—is, in all probability, entirely possible.

38

If we entertain the prospect that raising taxes on the wealthy to a sufficiently high level necessitates moving beyond the revenue-maximizing rate, the criteria for a just tax become more complex. Under a Rawlsian framework, such a tax would ideally increase equality without reducing the economic status of the worst-off in absolute terms. Such a system would satisfy the difference principle.

However, it may be possible for a tax to violate the difference principle and still satisfy Rawlsian justice. Because, among Rawls’ two principles, the first is lexically prior—that is, it must be satisfied before any consideration of the second principle—and concentrated wealth may undermine our scheme of equal basic liberties in the political sphere, a tax designed primarily to disperse wealth can be justified on the basis of preserving liberal democracy, without appeal to economic performance.

Essentially, Rawls’ principles of justice as fairness provide a broad justification for redistributive taxation, with several contingencies. If a tax that produces no tradeoffs is possible, it is the most just option. Yet, when unequal wealth jeopardizes the ability of citizens to participate in democracy on equal terms, a Rawlsian framework may deem a heavily redistributive tax necessary, even if it carries economic consequences.

39

A "Pressing" Issue Mathilde Robinson

In 2006, media mogul Rupert Murdoch proclaimed that we are living in a “golden age of information.” Cynics might observe that Murdoch himself is the patriarch of a disinformation dynasty. But today, even as Americans are inundated with news and punditry from all corners of the Internet, we are losing the journalism that matters most to our communities.

A 2020 study from the University of North Carolina found that nearly a quarter of community and regional newspapers have closed since 2004.

The researchers, led by Penelope Muse Abernathy, created a map of “news deserts”— communities “with limited access to… credible and comprehensive news.” Out of the over 3,000 counties in the U.S., two-thirds no longer have a daily newspaper. Half have only one paper, in most cases a weekly. Two hundred have no newspaper at all (Abernathy, 2020).

As local newspapers—many of which have been fixtures of their communities for decades, if not centuries—vanish, we need to examine the implications of our changing media ecosystem. Why are local papers in decline?

How does that affect our society? And how can we bring back vibrant local reporting?

The Presses Stop: Why Local Papers Are Dying Out On May 5, The New York Times ran a headline straight out of its employees’ worst nightmares: “Newspaper’s Top Editor Is Now a ‘Homeless’ Blogger.” Although The New York Times is thriving (Berr, 2021), the story of Rich Jackson illustrates the fate of many local papers. Mr. Jackson became the editor of The Herald-Times—the paper that has served Bloomington, Indiana, for over a century—when its holding company, Gannett, was bought by GateHouse Media. Not long after, he was laid off and evicted from his apartment in the paper’s headquarters, eventually landing at a Motel 6, where he started a blog entitled “The Homeless Editor’ (Tracy, 2020).

Although Mr. Jackson’s life was upended, my hometown is fortunate that The Herald-Times is still going. But the processes that led to his layoff are chipping away at our local paper and at papers across the country.

Local papers face a financial squeeze as advertisers look elsewhere. The

40

Brookings Institution reports that newspaper advertising revenue in the U.S. plummeted 68% between 2008 and 2018. Digital advertising makes up “a growing share of [this] shrinking pie,” but as newspapers move operations online, they find themselves crowded out by Internet giants.

Facebook and Google control 77% of the digital advertising market at the local level (Hendrickson, 2019).

As advertising revenue drops, mergers and acquisitions start to seem like the best survival strategy. Now, after a wave of consolidations, the largest 25 newspaper chains in the U.S. own one-third of all newspapers in the country—up from a fifth in 2004. Unfortunately, these new newspaper conglomerates operate under a slash-and-burn business model (Abernathy, 2020). Companies like GateHouse and Digital First Media buy up small newspapers, then lay off journalists to cut costs in a process that leaves behind what Abernathy terms “skeletal newsrooms with beleaguered editors and reporters struggling to provide … coverage of their communities.”

Bad News: The Dire Consequences of News Desertification Of course, not everyone would be devastated by the demise of local reporting. Thomas Jefferson complained that papers “present only the caricatures of disaffected minds” (Harris, 1973). Richard Nixon considered reporters “enemies” (Benac, 2017). And, as we all know, Donald Trump is tired of all that “negative press covfefe” (Hunt, 2017).

There’s a reason why politicians throughout history have loathed the news: because it acts as an additional check and balance, a “fourth estate,” against both government corruption and corporate misdeeds. From crumbling river walls in Johnstown, PA, to squalid conditions in Tampa Bay housing programs, local newspapers have exposed travesties and tragedies, spurring local reforms, legislative advocacy, and grassroots activism (McDevitt, 2019; McDevitt & Siwy, 2019; Pulitzer Prizes, 2014). It’s no wonder, then, that a 2018 study found that when newspapers reported on toxic emissions from consumer goods manufacturing plants, those plants reduced their emissions 29% more than plants whose emissions remain uncovered. Since newspapers were more likely to write stories about emissions from plants close to their headquarters, local papers were essential (Campa).

Local news is also vital to democracy. When the Rocky Mountain News shut down in 2008, civic engagement in Denver—measured in terms of activities like contacting representatives and boycotting products—declined 30% relative to comparable cities (Shaker, 2014).

41

Unfortunately, newspaper closures don’t just weaken democracy—they also poison it. As local papers disappear, unscrupulous alternatives crop up to fill the void. An investigation from The New York Times last October uncovered a network run by businessman David Timpone, consisting of over a thousand websites that spread paid propaganda from companies, conservative think tanks, and Republican operatives. These sites use innocuous names, like the Des Moines Sun, the Ann Arbor Times, the DuPage Policy Journal, and Empire State Today, yet their business model relies upon low-paid freelancers who churn out biased coverage at the behest of P.R. professionals and big donors. In September, the entire homepage of one such fake newspaper, the Illinois Valley Times, was plastered with paid puff pieces praising Sue Rezin, a Republican state senator (Alba & Nicas, 2020).

Without access to reliable local news, Americans are pushed toward more polarizing sources, such as social media and cable television. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, Americans who get their news primarily from social media are less informed, have lower levels of political knowledge, and are more likely to report being exposed to conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic. Disturbingly, members of this group are also among the least likely to express concern about the impact of “made-up news” on recent elections—suggesting that they may not be aware of the prevalence of mis- and disinformation (Mitchell et al., 2020). In fact, a 2017 study

by M.I.T. researchers found that misinformation spreads “farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth” on Twitter; tweets containing false news were 70% more likely to be retweeted than those containing factual information (Vosoughi et al., 2017).

The decline of local coverage also drives audiences toward national news, a trend that sows further division nationwide. A study led by Joshua Darr of Louisiana State University revealed that the loss of local newspapers contributed to the “nationalization of local politics,” as Americans increasingly relied on national news sources. This, in turn, caused a decline in split-ticket voting, where voters were more likely to cast ballots for presidential and senatorial candidates from the same party (Darr et al., 2018).

A later study examined tens of thousands of broadcasts made during the 109th through 112th Congresses, finding that cable and broadcast television coverage “vastly overrepresents extreme partisans on both sides of the aisle.” Essentially, the most provocative politicians get the most airtime (Padgett et al., 2019).

Although a credulous public, poised to accept conspiracy theories and partisan pandering, may pose a danger to democracy, the overall decline in trust of the media is equally threatening. A 2019 study released by Gallup

42

and the Knight Foundation found that 45% of Americans trust their local news sources, compared with only 31% who trust the national news. Yet trust in local news is declining, perhaps because people feel it isn’t doing enough: 60% of Americans think their local news does only a “fair” or “poor” job of holding elected officials accountable, and similar numbers wish that local news provided more coverage of K-12 education, drug addiction, public works projects, and the environment (Sands, 2019). These demands create a Catch-22 for local journalism: Newspapers lose subscribers when they can’t meet readers’ expectations, but declining revenue makes it impossible to provide quality coverage. Between 2008 and 2021, around 30,000 newspaper reporters lost their jobs (Walker, 2021)—and empty newsrooms can’t produce the sort of journalism that cultivates a community’s trust.

When Americans have nowhere to turn for the information they need, our public discourse and the democracy it sustains are truly in peril. As researchers from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism wrote in their study “Public Trust in the News,” “Without some people or institutions that can be trusted to inform us, the task of informing ourselves would become so laborious and unwieldy that public knowledge would be … confined to narrow and parochial experience” (Coleman et al., 2009).

Turning the Page on a New Era of Local Journalism In counties across the U.S., local news is teetering on the brink of extinction. Fortunately, communities are coming together to save their local papers.

In some cities, online news sites have thrived even as print papers have floundered. After a series of layoffs when The Denver Post was acquired by the private equity firm Alden Global Capital, a group of reporters and editors from the Post went rogue. They resigned from the Post and established the Colorado Sun, an online startup providing local news to the Denver area (Markus, 2018). In California, news sites like Berkeleyside and the Voice of San Diego serve cities that have experienced newspaper closures (Pérez-Peña, 2008; Schmidt, 2019).

Unfortunately, the success of these outlets won’t be easy to replicate nationwide. The Colorado Sun only became possible because of an infusion of venture capital. Berkeleyside, meanwhile, raised $1 million in a Direct Public Offering, a strategy that required soliciting thousands of dollars in investments from Berkeley residents (Schmidt, 2018). In lower-income areas, that’s simply not possible. Using 2018 data, Abernathy’s team found that ninety percent of such news websites are located in affluent parts of cities and suburbs, probably because those areas have more ac-

43

cess to funding (Abernathy, 2020).

To guarantee equitable news access for all Americans will require commitment and vision at a national scale—to keep local papers in business, and to provide alternatives when they go out. The Brookings Institution proposes two solutions: First, lawmakers could offer financial support to newspapers and subscribers, by making subscriptions tax-deductible and newsroom revenue tax-exempt. Second, the government could use antitrust law to level the playing field between news and Big Tech. By allowing newspapers to negotiate collectively against Internet platforms, lawmakers can help local news take back its share of the advertising market.

Historically, journalists and the public have been reluctant to involve the government in media funding, for fear of allowing the press to devolve into a propaganda machine. When erstwhile Indiana governor Mike Pence attempted to launch a state-run media outlet, dubbed “Just IN,” it swiftly gained a new moniker: “Pravda on the Plains” (Graham, 2015; LoBianco, 2015). Yet, considering the dire situation of local news, direct federal funding may provide necessary scaffolding—not only to prevent local newsrooms from caving in, but to allow them to reconstruct themselves.

The challenge is devising a plan that preserves journalistic independence.

Communications professor Robert McChesney, whose research has delved into the history and political economy of journalism, advocates for federal legislation known as the Local Journalism Initiative, which he characterizes as “a Green New Deal for journalism.” The LJI would provide over $30 billion a year to local news outlets, who could use the funding to fill immediate needs, develop a long-term business model, or convert to nonprofit status. Voters in counties that received LJI money could democratically select which local news outlets received the funding, allowing communities to support the journalism that informs them (Schiffrin, 2021).

Conclusion The future of local news will, almost certainly, look very different from its present or past. In an increasingly online economy, local papers have suffered, and the readers they served have faced the consequences. However, as elected officials consider plans to bolster journalism—the Biden administration’s proposed Build Back Better legislation includes $1.7 billion designed to benefit local news (Tracy, 2021)—and researchers debate the best ways to sustain local papers, there is room for hope.

44

Individualism, Collectivism, Colors and Kung Fu Dylan Stringer

One of the oldest arguments in human history concerns the relative importance of self versus society. The desire for personal freedom and expression has always been contrasted with the benefits of conformity and common unity, creating a rift between cultures of different viewpoints. In the United States, for example, individual rights are considered paramount and are even codified in our constitution. China, however, is a much more collectivist society, in which the good of all is prized over any one person’s liberty. While this form of community creates a stronger sense of nationalism and loyalty in its citizens, it inevitably leads to problems for many Chinese people. The main issue is that individualism is a major part of human nature. At the very same time, in all of us, there is a natural need both to satisfy our personal desires and dreams, as well as to form groups and share a collective identity. When we combine these two ideas, it is possible to understand how humans cannot align themselves with just one of these philosophies, but instead need to find a balance between the two. In recent culture, this is nowhere more perfectly expressed than in the twin films of Hero and House of Flying Daggers by Zhang Yimou. While known primarily for their expressive use of color and artistic kung fu, they form a Yin-Yang pair of opposites that together shed light on this philosophical conundrum.

Since the release of these films at the beginning of the new millennium, the battle between the state and personal expression in China has become even more intense. In a way, the films have gained emotional power because of current events, so it helps to understand the political context. Over the last two decades, the Chinese government has engaged in multiple strategies to strengthen collective society and stamp out individualism, while certain citizens have rebelled and become internationally famous. Thanks to the internet and social media, the rest of the world has access to a lot of information about recent events, and can witness this fiery debate at the heart of Chinese culture.

One major way for the government in Beijing to monitor and control the everyday actions of people has been the development of the controversial policy known as the Social Credit System. The origins of this system can be found in the credit scores assigned to people by banks in many countries of the world, according to which a person may have a higher or lower rating depending on their financial behavior. The difference is that in China, the system has been expanded beyond financial

45

transactions: points can be awarded or deducted on the basis of people’s good or bad behavior as citizens. Each person is given a starting amount of points, and points are given or taken away as a reward or punishment after a person does something in the public domain. A donation to charity, for example, will raise a person’s score. In contrast, even something as insignificant as being caught cheating in a game will lower their score.

Having a bad score can ruin people’s lives, leading to an inability to buy train tickets, to buy certain items, or to leave the country. Such a suppression of freedom pressures people to think collectively and be conscious of the good of their community, city, or country, but it also enables those in power to severely punish anyone who disagrees with them.

Such rigidity of social control and suppression of any form of dissent has led to a generation of prominent citizen leaders criticizing the government. Leaders come in many forms, and in China, artists are some of the most powerful. One such artist that is challenging current norms is Ai Weiwei, someone with a deep knowledge of the struggle of the individual against the state. When he was a baby, his father, who was a poet, was declared an enemy of the revolution, and the whole family was forced to live in exile. They did not return to Beijing until Ai was nineteen years old.

A few years later, he moved to the United States, and eventually became a world-famous artist. On his return to Beijing, he remained critical of China, but was nevertheless part of the team that designed the Beijing National Stadium (the “Bird’s Nest”) for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

He soon regretted this, and disowned the work. Ai Weiwei is much more famous for works concerned with individual artistic expression, such as Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, Sunflower Seeds, and Surveillance Camera that rebuke the communist agenda.

Shortly after the Beijing Olympics, Ai Weiwei became a true enemy of the state with his work Remembering. In the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, thousands of schoolchildren died because of cheap school construction, but the government hid both the death toll and the true cause from the public. Ai wanted to do something about it. He and his team knocked on all of the houses they could find in the area, and learned that at least five thousand, two hundred nineteen kids had died. At his next show in Munich, Ai covered the front of the museum in backpacks, spelling out a sentence he had received from a mother of a victim: “All I want is to let the world remember that she had been living happily for seven years”. Such displays of individual expression do not escape the notice of the Chinese government. Since that time, the government has hounded Ai. He was arrested several times, the police harassed the mother of his young child, and his studio was demolished by the government. In 2015, he managed to leave China, and since that time he has lived in exile, in Germany, the UK, and Portugal.

46

The struggle between the Chinese state and Ai Weiwei is happening in the real world, but one of the greatest explorations of conflict between self and society can be seen in the films Hero and House of Flying Daggers by Zhang Yimou. These two works can be seen as mirror images, the first suggesting that the good of all is more important than any person, and the second implying that, in fact, sometimes it is worth sacrificing all social ties for the sake of individual happiness.

The story of Hero is set during the Warring States Period in China, in which seven regions are trying to keep their independence as the Qin state threatens to conquer them all. The movie begins when a nameless assassin, under the guise of a local Qin prefect, is meeting the Emperor.

He presents the weapons of three assassins he claims to have killed: Sky, Broken Sword, and Falling Snow. After each tale, he is allowed closer and closer to the emperor, which will allow him to fulfill his true mission: to kill Emperor Qin. The Emperor doubts his stories, and realizes that Nameless has been working together with the other assassins in order to kill him. Nameless is impressed by the emperor, and reveals the true narrative. In the end, the assassin chooses not to kill the emperor. Nameless eventually chooses to value the good of society over the importance of the individual, and allows himself to be killed in the service of a unified China.

It might seem strange that Yimou Zhang made The House of Flying Daggers immediately after Hero, because the story is so different. This film is set about a thousand years later, during the Tang Dynasty, and concerns a pair of doomed lovers. They begin as enemies: Jin is a police officer working for the government and Xiao Mei is a blind girl working for a deadly resistance group called the House of Flying Daggers. After Xiao Mei is arrested, another officer, Leo, conspires with Jin to free the girl, so she will lead them to the resistance headquarters. However, as Jin accompanies her, fighting off various enemies, they fall in love. In the end, they are each forced to choose between loyalty to their factions and loyalty to each other. They come to feel that they are just pawns on a chessboard, and they need to save themselves by running away together. They both realize that nothing is more important than the love they feel, and they are willing to sacrifice everything for each other.

The two films are only successful in highlighting these philosophical questions because they are beautifully crafted and achieve the status of cinematic art. They are internationally known not only for their emotional drama but also for their excellent cinematography and balletic kung fu. One similarity between them is Zhang Yimou’s artistic use of color.

For example, in Hero, the entire color scheme changes to one dominant color for each distinct storyline. The theme is black for the main story, red for Nameless’s original explanation, blue for Qin’s reasoning, green for flashbacks, and white for the true story that is revealed in the end. In

47

The House of Flying Daggers, scenes are also set in beautiful, dominant color schemes, but in this case, they do not reflect storylines. Instead, they reflect the changing seasons and the changing emotions of the characters, from the spring to the winter of the lovers’ relationship. The director put just as much effort into creating memorable choreography for both films, as characters engage in kung fu confrontations that seem like dances.

Viewers can never forget the lone swordsman on a temple roof fighting off a hail of arrows in Hero, or the young blind woman leaping between bamboo stalks as she thwarts her enemies in House of Flying Daggers.

The films are completely different in their messages for the audience.The most important takeaway from these exceptional movies is the question that they leave us with: which is more important, the good of the collective, or the freedom of the individual? Each film gives a definitive answer, but the films together undo their simple conclusions. One reason that they resonate beyond Chinese culture is because they deal with universal human questions. At some level, we all believe that there are times when we need to be selfless and think of the wider community, whether it be our neighborhood, town, or country. Yet at other times, we value our individual freedom to make choices, express our thoughts, and resist coercion by collective forces. Like the Yin-Yang symbol in Chinese philosophy, these two striking films actually complement each other, and while seemingly contradictory, actually fit together to present us with a coherent vision. When viewed as a dyad, they suggest that the true answer to this puzzle must be in finding some kind of balance between these impulses to defend individual freedom and to create a just and safe society for the benefit of all.

48

What is My Reality?

Lee-Ann Kao 49

`

personal essay & memoir

Refuge of the Cosmos Rex Burkman Indiana, 2021 My First Lesson on Home I stared at the old man, swaying back and forth in his rocker, his hair as thick as a blanket of fresh midwestern snow. On the surface he seemed plain; a cucumber farmer who had lived his whole life confined to southern Wisconsin. But his mind always seemed to be somewhere distant, like it was a master puppeteer manipulating his mind from the surface of the Moon. He always cooked for all of his cats first, generously scooping out seared skillet potatoes and bass into their many bowls. He did this even when the fresh snow was so thick that his ancient legs couldn’t walk through the thick, white afghan to get groceries. And when he couldn’t get groceries, his sparse energy melted away, and he sunk back into the rocker while his mind drifted off into space. He rarely talked to anyone, always saying it was too much effort, that he would rather stay at home.

I turned away from his murky green eyes. Then suddenly, like the sun cracking the ice on a frozen winter lake, his eyes regained a dim turquoise glow and he called me over. He stuck his frail hand under the sofa reserved for the cats, and out of the jungle of cobwebs he pulled out a book and placed it in my hands; it was titled The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars.

Then he looked at me through his ancient glasses as he prepared to depart from his frail body again to the cosmos, and said something I’ll always remember, “you do not have to be in a home to be at home. Your imagination can set you free.”

Breath of the Forest I stomped on the leaves hard, so the crunchy red ones broke and the soft yellow ones tore. The tepid breeze caused the red trees to bleed in little droplets and the orange trees to throw-up piles of dark, golden debris. I picked up a pile of scarlet leaves being pushed by the breeze, and I imagined my teacher had colored them with her battalion of beloved red pens,

51

the same pens she used to mark up my math test. I crushed the leaves, the wig of red exploding into a thousand tiny pieces. I remembered the funeral, all those flowers stacked about the casket, all of the people asking me questions. A salty tear from my eye fell into a fresh puddle on the ground, a small lake of man absorbed by the ocean of nature. I looked up at the dark sky, feeling myself covered in a blanket, alone and at home in the woods.

The Eyes My room is in peace, the only noise the soft chirping of finches, One of their golden, sunstruck feathers occasionally drifting in The night painting my walls with black rose petals The palms and cacti that my grandmother picked out for me The star’s light spreading over the white carpet through the open window The wild breeze dancing with the curtains under the moonbeams I feel free as the cool wind blows through Stable, knowing the distant moon won’t move in the night Liberated, like the stars moving boundlessly Till that first solar beam strikes my window, always red, The refracted ruby beams that cling to my carpet Like the red arteries clinging to an eye’s soft white As my blinds become covered in circular shards of hazel and amber I know it all means I have to leave the palms for the eyes Sometimes I want to cut away a piece of the dying night sky And use it to make a great black tarp to hide in all day Star Catalog Venus: the brightest star in the sky and a real hot-head. The favorite star of my grandmother, who always left out hot crisp white sugar cookies for the raccoons, sleeping with boxes of cats that lived in her basement.

I feel a tear come to my eye, the star’s yellow glow like the sun-kissed cat fur she used to comb Neptune: very dim, hard to see and understand. Reminds me of Joann, who hid so much behind her velvet glasses, always saying she was ready for a coffin, everyone trying to tell her she still had life left in her.

Far in the distance, I think to myself. It takes light a long time to travel

through the vacuum of space, so far in the past, too.

Orion (the hunter): the pattern reminds me of Loretta, who planted bright red and blue pansies in the same patterns as the great hunter’s belt, never wanting to leave her garden behind, being swept up into the stars too early.

I breathe in the scent of peach sugar radiating from the orchard, feeling near to my family under the dim star light. I feel the blood that is their blood rushing through my veins, now only connected to them by the fading star light, nature connecting my mind and the ghosts.

The glare of the road brings me back to the coffin lying on the wooden stand. Every person staring forward in that room, each of their faces painted in darkness. My mask lay broken on the ground, painful as my face burned from the eye’s fire turned my tears to acid.

The Garden I walked over and then began to sob onto her garden. She seemed dismayed, so she walked over and picked up my arms. The solar flares blazed over the horizon, the sun flaring out orange light like a squeezed tangerine. My grandmother stared at it for a moment with me. Then she turned and took out a rose, the color of salsa, the color of rage. She placed it on the ground with me. The next day we planted hibiscuses, so red it looked like my blood had colored them. We planted a patch of buttercups, smelling like seaweed mixed with mulch.

On the last day of school, we planted a black pansy, in its roots all of the hatred from that time, all of the black, ravenous fear. She hugged me tight.

A Letter Sent Home Dear Grandfather, I just want to thank you for what you gave me. I know it’s been many years since I saw you last, but after the chaos of a day in the halls of school, I always find refuge and home in nature, just like you taught me to. I have a cactus garden in my room and a small palm tree on my shelf, just like the one that sat on your maple coffee table. I open the windows to let the stars shine in, because they always shine brightly in the west by

53

my room. I open the windows even when the rain is plunking like marbles on the roof and let a little drizzle onto the carpet. I go to the park often and count the number of birds with green eyes I see. After all the troubles I face with the outside world, I find home in the early blooming of a daisy, the fiery flares of a sunset, and the spine-tingling vastness of space.

Most importantly, you taught me that through imagination, I can touch other worlds and meet new people, no matter where I am. This is something I will always value.

Hidden

Jessica Ding I was behind the couch, keeping every inhale and exhale as quiet as possible. I was filled with expectation, the level of it rising upwards and upwards like a tsunami before it crashed upon the shore. I was playing my favorite game of all time: hide and seek.

Hide and seek was, and has remained, one of my favorite games. I played it often as a child, and I preferred hiding much more than seeking. Finding the secret nooks and crannies throughout my house to hide away from my brother was always the best part of the game. I loved hide and seek; maybe too much. So much so that I found myself playing it in the other parts of my life too.

One time I hid myself away was after I moved back to Indiana from San Francisco. Driving out of the airport and looking through the car window, everything was unfamiliarly familiar. Looking up, the sky was the same crystal blue, the clouds frozen in place. Looking down, I was transported back into my childhood. Around me were the neighbors I woke up to every morning, the aisles of the grocery store I visited every week, and the streets that I walked down everyday. Everything was the same. Except something was different, but it wasn't the sky above me or the house down the road. It was me. I was different. I was thrown back to my childhood but my body and my mind had already grown past the girl I used to be; the life I used to live.

Returning to my house was strange. The dogs next door still recognized me. On the way home, I knew where we were even if my eyes were closed because I had memorized every bend in the road. I knew everything and everyone. Whether that was good or bad, I didn’t know; I still don’t. Maybe it was both. Maybe it was neither. Maybe it just was.

A couple weeks later, I found myself standing awkwardly in front of the door to my new classroom. When I tried to close my hand over the doorknob and push open the door, nothing happened. I was frozen in time,

55

my gaze fixated on the dull wood in front of me. It was idiotic that I stared at such an unremarkable door for so long. Still, I couldn’t look anywhere else. I was paralyzed, my mind suddenly flooded with new fears. Do I still know the people behind the door? What if I remember them but they don’t remember me? Will they think I’m weird? Will I be liked? Accepted?

Eventually, a teacher found me in the midst of my struggle.

“Hey honey, you okay?” she asked, tapping me on the shoulder.

Lifted out of my trance, I blinked before realizing I should answer her.

“Oh, sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize, sweetheart! I understand.” The teacher’s smile was warm. “First days are hard for everyone. Here, let’s get you to class, though. I’m sure your classmates are eager to meet you.” Pushing open the door, she gently ushered me forward.

When I stepped foot inside, a gasp ran through the room. Recognition lit in the eyes of my former classmates. Everyone immediately rushed to my side, speaking over one another, their questions all flooding overwhelmingly into the same space at the same time. At a loss for what to say, I stood there, plastering a smile on my face to mask that I didn’t know how to respond. The first few days of school continued in the same fashion.

The wave of positivity I received in my return was rather unexpected, but I soon settled into life frighteningly quickly. It was as if I never left.

At the same time, though, it was blatantly obvious what I had missed.

I knew many of these people, had watched them grow and had grown with them. But I didn’t really know them at all. Over the course of the past year, all of them became versions of themselves that I couldn’t recognize. When I reached out my hand to what seemed to be a familiar face, I was greeted by a stranger instead.

Then, another game of hide and seek began: hide away who you are and see who comes to seek you out. But no one did. Usually, when you’re the new kid, everyone wants to get to know you. But when you’re both new

56

and you’ve also already lived there before, everyone assumes they know you already.

So the game became a little different. The conversations I sparked with others never felt genuine. The person I would be talking to would always jump in and interrupt with something they thought they knew about me.

I never felt comfortable talking to anyone about my feelings. I didn’t feel known. And because I couldn’t show them to others and I was too afraid to face them myself, I hid from my own thoughts. My joy became dampened, my confidence diminished, but no one even noticed.

My sadness became quiet. I held it in my chest, in my eyes, but it was never expressed aloud. My mouth was a graveyard filled with the words that had died on my lips.

I was filled with resentment. Towards others and the circumstances I found myself in, but ultimately the resentment turned inwards and I began to begrudge myself. I wondered how I could be so selfish, how I could be surrounded by people who loved me but still feel alone. I wondered if that love was even real. I wondered whether or not I even could be loved when I wasn’t whole, when I had hidden away parts of my personality because I thought they were so hideous they wouldn’t be accepted by those around me.

But that wasn’t the case, even though I didn’t realize it. I didn’t realize I was worthy of love regardless of what my brain told me. I didn’t realize that I was like the moon: beautiful, even if it was dented with a couple craters. Stunning when bright and full, but also just as worthy of admiration when I was only a sliver of what I could be. I didn’t realize that I had worth and I was worthy of love, regardless of the things I felt like my classmates felt, the disgust I saw in their eyes when they landed on my face, the resentment they experienced when they thought of my name, the utter hatred I thought they held for my existence.

But let’s go back to the beginning, where all that is far away. I haven’t even seen the California sky yet and I’m still just a seven year old playing hide and seek with my brother. But then, here’s the thing: the problem with playing hide and seek with just two people is that sometimes the other

57

person gets bored and stops looking for you.

So there I was: behind the couch, crouching in the closet, underneath the bed--not wanting to give up and come out of my hiding spot just yet--because maybe he’s still looking. But maybe he’s wandered off…

Maybe he went downstairs to finish eating the rest of the Cheetos.

But I waited. I waited until I forgot that I was waiting, until I forgot that there was anything more to me beyond stillness and quiet, and it didn’t matter anymore whether or not my brother came for me. The hiding was enough.

(You see, you win a game of hide and seek when no one finds you. Even if they aren’t looking.)

Eventually, though, I came out from hiding, and when I did it, it was because I wanted to. I broke myself out of my own trance and pushed open the door without a teacher’s hand on my shoulder.

I emerged from my silence and came back into myself like I was breaking the surface of the water that I was drowning in. At first, my breathing was sharp and unsteady and I struggled to take my next breath. Every other inhale was interrupted by me sputtering out the water that had seeped into my lungs when I was still beneath. My throat was sore from coughing and my lungs felt damp and maybe I didn’t breathe as easily as I did before, but I was free from the way I used to live: empty, aimless, drifting away and further and further below.

I had finally come out of hiding. I had rewritten the game and decided it was time to play it by my own rules.

Ready or not, here I come, I call out. To myself, to my peers, to the world.

Here I come, ready or not.

58

These Four Walls Bree Johnson

The four walls of my bedroom kept secrets that nobody would ever discover about me. They saw the way depression and I danced around each other. Tip-toeing throughout my bedroom, trying to avoid one another.

They see the way insomnia takes up half my bed, and they see the way anxiety and I swoon to a song only we hear. They also saw the way I held the remedy to my pain in my hand. The lifeless bottle sat speaking a million words to me, and whispering a thousand lies. I had always kept it hidden away, knowing there was a way out was the most comforting thought of all. The weight of the decision made the bottle so much heavier than I imagined it would be. They told me to follow my dreams, but what if I only had nightmares.

The ultimate feeling of insanity was astronomical. The emotions of loneliness and loss was something I felt like I had to face alone. I didn’t know how to tell people about the battles I would walk into without armor. The bombs that would be dropped on me without warning. The way I would fall down, bruised and damaged. I would think I was getting better, but then I fell apart again. My heart shattered everywhere, and I didn’t know how to put the pieces back together. The numbness I felt after taking the drugs was overwhelming. I gulped up all my emotions until I felt sick, and just let myself drift away.

My four walls saw the way my mom barged into my room, panic and despair written on her face. They saw my puzzled and drugged face. I saw what a blur my life had become. A beautiful mess that I slept in day and night. I saw the loveliness of my cracked walls, and the beauty of the stains on my carpet. I saw the rush of buildings as I was dragged to the hospital. I heard the nurse’s questions. I saw her write things down. I thought how could she write down something that I couldn't even process? How can she put into words my emotions, when I don’t even know what my emotions are?

The hospital walls saw the way doctors handled me like a fragile china doll. Cautiously touching my stomach, and whispering questions to me.

They hooked me up to machines to monitor my heart, but how could they monitor something so broken? They pumped me full of liquids, but how come they couldn’t pump me full of hope? The next morning I woke up,

59

cramped and empty. My bones ached, but nothing could compare to the undeniable sensation of grief that I still had.

I left the hospital aware of every little thing.The precious plants that grew outside the hospital doors. The splintered wood on the doorpost.

The scratch on the right bottom side of our car. I noticed how odd it was that I was alive. The feeling of life overwhelmed me. I noticed the look of anguish on my mothers face. The way her wrinkles seemed more evident, and the way her brows furrowed up together when she looked at me. I noticed how suicide was a permenant solution to something so temporary.

I see the way I’m changing. I recognize the way depression and I occasionally bump into one another. How we say our hello’s and quickly withdraw from old habits. I see the way anxiety and I shake hands, but my fingers don’t end up trembling. Insomnia and I, romantic partners that come to a solemn agreement each night. I see the way my medication beams with joy when I take it. I see the way emotions don’t control how I view the world, but I do. I see the way that my heart is being glued together piece by piece. I see the way my four walls look at me, and how they smile because they echo now more often with the sound of my laughter than with my sobs.

60

Fried Rice: The Flavors of My Childhood Alex Lu

I close my eyes as the smell wafts through my nose, the pores of my skin, my mouth. The rich, heavenly aroma of fried rice permeates through the room. The first bite is pure bliss. Everything around me disappears into the moment, like a realization, an epiphany. The golden grains coated in oil and spices are fragrant jasmine. The taste soon fades and is replaced by the complexity of ingredients that creates a good fried rice. A touch of carrot, minced pork, onions. Then it blends together again, bound up by egg yolk, golden and ambrosial, like a food for the gods. The grains reveal their pleasant texture as they roll in my mouth and I chew, savoring the taste before gulping them down. All the implements are put to good use. Chopsticks gathering piles of rice from the top of the bowl, carefully arranged into a mountain of flavor. Spoons sifting deep within, dripping with oil and scent, umami rich. By the time I have finished the last bite, the smell has soaked through my hands, my whole body, warm and inviting. Long after the bowls are washed and dried, the fragrance still remains, elusive and powerful. Most of all, it is ubiquitous to any Chinese restaurant, every house.

Each bowl tells a story, the ingredients mixing together in new and different ways. It has been a story I have been told, and experienced time and time again. Since childhood I remembered the plates of steaming fried rice set before me by my parents. In my haste to capture its flavor and savor the grains, I would often burn my tongue. As I grew older, more varieties of food beckoned to me; soups, baked fish, nearly every type and form imaginable. I grew more patient, allowing each bite of the familiar rice to intermix with a whole table of rich piquancy. However, I have never forgotten my taste for fried rice, paramount among my favorites. I have tried pork and olive leaf, shrimp and corn, or even Chinese sausage and peas. Each pairing of ingredients is a new adventure for me, an experiment in flavor. Most of all, it is not only this or that. It is everything, combined in a way that makes it more than the sum of its different chapters.

In each bowl I can see a little of me. The ingredients are simple, plain, mostly unhindered. The rice is white, a blank slate undrawn with the

61

letters of life, unaltered by sauces, flavors, or artificial colors. It is undrawn with the flavors of the world, gently steamed, releasing its own mild fragrance. It is the mind of an infant, ready to accept anything, everything, full of the promise of change. As the other ingredients are added in, the rice slowly changes to accommodate them, adapt, shift its grains to allow the others in. It is seeing a human mind at work, accommodating new ideas into the existing framework, adapting the multitude of neurons to make new connections, and shifting their new bonds, to be coated with spices, flavors, and ideology. Sometimes I can see myself in the bowls of fried rice I eat; each one a little different, to match the mood of each capricious, unique day. The basic ingredients, the rice, the oil, the salt, soy sauce, are unchanged. Maybe a touch of egg. Yet the things on top turn each bowl into its own unique personality, mirroring how our quirks turn us into humans.

There is a fried rice for each mood. When I have the time to languish, to enjoy the moments of silence between bites, the flavors are more sensitive and more nuanced, as if they are opening their hearts to me. There is time for everything to rest on my tongue just a moment longer, and to marinate. Each moment is more intimate, and it is like a private conversation between my taste buds and the spices on each shiny grain. When I am rushing to finish before the school day, the flavors are hasty, sketched in faint pastel. The taste is watered-down, a sleepy, slumbering version of its true self. I have only time to brush through the flavors once, before they fade into the early morning darkness. There is the fried rice for disappointment, and the flavors are muted gray, tears staining each grain with salt. Sometimes the rice tastes bitter, and it sits like lead, weighed down by my heaviness. And when I am caught in ecstatic excitement, the smoke and the fragrant air enhance each bite with an ethereal, effortless brilliance. Each emotion captures a different aspect of the rice, the flavors glowing from all angles through the prism of my thoughts.

I think that fried rice is a window into the soul, a mirror of the personality of the chef making it. In my mind’s eye I see my dad taking the cold rice out of the fridge, his hands nimbly chopping the onions, dried scallop, lamb, and breaking eggs into a bowl. His fried rice is rich, the scent almost overpowering, intensely flavorful and filled with different spices. It reflects his personality: somewhat overbearing, strong, driving forth with vigor.

62

62

Yet his fried rice also tastes like home, outer layers hiding a deceptive simplicity at the center. Just like a person, fried rice has many sides, as many as the grains that make it up. My mother’s fried rice exudes a simpler aroma, less overpowering, more nuanced. The flavor is simple, with a small taste of the sea, for her homeland. The flavor is closer to the original rice, less exotic, more down-to-earth, seeking not to impress, but to capture the basis of the ingredients and use them to tell the story.

Recently I have been thinking about what kind of fried rice I will make.

Perhaps it would be an amalgamation of everything I have known and loved. Even so, I think that I will add a little something different. Maybe a little spice, some curry powder, the chili peppers vibrant, but not scorching my tongue. I want to add something of all the places I’ve traveled to, but leave a little room for my origins, and my future. The best of Houston, the blend of sizzling oil and seafood. The delicate gardens of Suzhou, a backdrop to the smell of the air, breakfast cooking in one thousand streetside stalls. And to tie all the flavors together, a touch of the earthy, simple flavor of Indiana that I’ve slowly warmed to over the past five years. Fried rice has grown up with me, and it will continue to change throughout my lifetime. The best part is that for each day, there is a new bowl and a new journey to a different place.

I smile as my chopsticks dig into another steaming bowl of fried rice, golden rich, soothing aroma catching at my nostrils and gently stimulating my appetite. I feel myself dissolving, melding with the taste into the fried rice, reflected in the oil droplets on every single grain. My tastes have changed, yet the fried rice has changed too, shifting its versatile boundaries to match mine. I wait for a moment in anticipation, pausing before turning the pages on this new adventure, this time completely fused into my own creation. I can catch a touch of everything I added, wrapped up in the classic flavors of soy sauce, jasmine rice, and oil. I sigh in pleasure inside as the first bite rests on my tongue for a moment, blending, before disappearing.

63

63

A Gift and a Curse Leah McKay

In some ways, having siblings are the easiest and hardest relationships to maintain. On the one hand, you are bound by blood to them, they will always be around, and you have such a strong connection through this that your friendship isn’t even a question. On the other hand, you live with them, and you go through life with them. Together, you go through the good, the bad, and the ugly, and you will always have to reconcile after a fight or negotiate your way through a disagreement because it is expected of you. Having siblings is a curse for some, and a gift for others. For me, it is a bit of both, but the connections I have with my siblings are different than most, and the place that I share with them is most important of all.

I was three years old when my brother was born, and six years old when my sister followed. Being the oldest was never hard for me, but it did cause me to disconnect from my siblings in some ways. When I was in elementary school, my mom worked night shifts at a busy hospital. Caring for my siblings and keeping them quiet as my mom caught up on her sleep became my main priority, and I spent most of my afternoons doing just that. As I got older, they stopped needing as much help, but my transition to middle school meant that my brother and sister had more time together and my brother became the kind of figure to Hailee (my sister) that I used to be. I also had less free time, secluding myself in my room to do homework while listening to the neighborhood kids play nearby. Of course, I still had my own connection to both of them. Rafael (my brother) and I were distinguished by being the oldest and bonded over that, complaining about homework to one another and dividing up the harder responsibilities. Hailee and I were the only girls and loved to talk about meaningless things together, snuggling under her My Little Pony bed sheets and rambling on about life. It was harder to make time for family as I got older and my schedule filled up faster. I would find myself catching glimpses of them as I dashed in and out of the house, headed for extracurriculars, social events, or school. My dad worked, my mom organized, my siblings played. Right before middle school started, my dad accepted an offer for a new job that he loved but required a lot more work from him. While the stolen moments of family time were nice, they became fewer and far between. Even though I feel disconnected from my family at times, there are still moments that make me think about how strong our bonds are.

I’m lounging on my bed doing homework when a knock sounds at my

64

door. It slowly creaks open, and my little sister’s large, hazel eyes peer at me in my room through the crack of the door. My room is small and packed to the brim, but neatly organized. On the far wall is an understated mirror and plain bed, seemingly unoccupied. On the far wall, there is a window that lets in the late afternoon sun, alive with the colors of the changing leaves, surrounded by shelves of bright books and dark bins.

“Can I come in?” Hailee tentatively asks.

“Sure,” I reply, scooching over on my bed and watching as she flops down beside me, the light playing across her freckled face. I note with concern that her eyes are red and puffy, and her small lips are parted as she seems to be breathing funny. “What happened? You look like you’ve been crying.” I question her.

“Emma and May started playing with each other at recess, and when I went over to play with them too, they said I couldn’t and they wanted to play by themselves,” Hailee sobs. I realize that I will have to tread carefully, as Hailee is sensitive to anything whenever she cries.

“I’m really sorry,” I start hesitantly. “Did you go and play with someone else?”

“Yeah, I went and played with Zoe and Katie afterward but I can’t believe that my friends just ignored me like that.” Hailee sniffs.

“Sometimes people do things without thinking of how it makes others feel.

I’m sure that Emma and May weren’t trying to hurt you on purpose, and if they are, you have so many other great-” A knock sounds at the door again. I jump and watch the door crack open as my brother pokes his head in, waggling his eyebrows as he does so. His dark hair is mussed up in tufts on the back of his head, and he wears his shirt backward, probably unwittingly. I roll my eyes, knowing that Rafael is a huge gossip and is half here for the story. He lets himself in and plops down on my window seat, assessing the situation, noting Hailee’s swelling eyes and my furrowed eyebrows.

A twinkle in his eye appears and he says “Did you hear that Mom got a new brand of fruit snacks from the store? I’ll give you some if you cheer up and play with me.” Hailee perks up, her 6-year-old mind distracted almost instantly by this new thought. Sighing, knowing that another hour will soon be wasted, I grab a fruit snack from Hailee, and after more food has been distributed, she settles down and stops crying.

65

Once she is completely calm, she turns to me and asks “Can I stay with you for a bit?”

I’m surprised. ‘She has never done that before. Why is she asking now?’ I think to myself, but I nod my head yes and pull out my homework again.

Rafael slips out and returns with homework for himself, and for the next three hours, we relax in my room together, talking and laughing and working, a rare moment of unity.

My room, the one place in our house that has become a refuge for my siblings and I. For as long as I can remember, my room has always been the place we go to just to have some company with each other. I have a known penchant for cozy and soft things, and I have decorated the little space I have with pillows and blankets galore. If any sibling is having a bad day or needs to wind down, they come to my room, and the other sibling usually follows. Relaxing, we sit and talk about life or simply wind down. I do my homework, Hailee reads, Rafael plays a game. It’s frequent enough that it doesn’t feel strange, but rare enough so that it feels like you have to come when this unity does happen. Some of my earliest memories are from the traditions we have made in my room, such as meeting in my room before present time on Christmas morning, coming in when we want company, or bedtime tuck-ins when we were small. My sister and I used to have sleepover parties together when she was scared of the dark. I would wake up to her sleeping beside me without ever knowing when she came in.

Once again, while we have had our ups and downs, our arguments and our reconciliations, they always took place in that room. No other place has ever given me the same feeling of peace, and while I’m biased, the memories, the pictures, the stories, the arguments, and the events that I so vividly remember having with my siblings will remain with me for the rest of my life, and the place that I shared these memories with is most important of all.

66

Down to the Lake Lucia Moxey

Wrapped in our beach towels, my cousin Farah and I ran out of the house in our bathing suits, the air on the small Indiana lake pleasant but reeking of burned gunpowder. Even though it was not quite the 4th of July, the rim of the lake was laced with explosions of bright and booming fireworks that sparkled as they fell, mirrored by the waveless water.

Grandma's cottage was overlooking the lake in a mosquito-swarmed, rural area mostly populated by the over-65 crowd, with modest lake houses and a sad-looking gravel-covered RV park a block or two from the water.

Grandma drove us down to the lake in her wobbly golf cart. These quick rides and our turns driving gave the visits a much-needed adrenaline boost. It was already around ten and some neighborhood kids and a few parents were watching the fireworks, both the official town show and the impromptu display by the locals. The adults were sitting on the benches with green paint peeling off on the “beach,” which is really just handfuls of sand, rocks, dead fish, and perhaps some hidden shards of glass– a sick fusion of a dumpster and a child's sandbox. Eventually, Farah and I waded into the small lake, which was tepidly warm, like a newborn baby's bath. I seemed to be the only one who felt uncomfortable in the browngreen probably polluted water. Perhaps my overly cautious mother was right when she would tell me this lake could contain poisonous blue-green algae.

“The seaweed here feels gross,” Farah said with a squirm.

“Let me feel it.” I touched it with my foot, shyly testing the slimy texture. By this time, we had attracted some of the locals, whole families, who were also touching their feet to this perplexing pile of slimy goop.

Other than the fireworks, the mysteries of the lake were the only source of entertainment and adventure here in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by cornfields.

67

As the scattered fireworks sparkled and faded, some of the explosions of color morphed into smiley face emojis, leaving ghostly smoke trails. Everyone's attention shifted downward into the murk, and we all wanted to know what the unidentified slippery thing in the goo pile was.

Suddenly, one brave boy decided that he would pick up the mass of slime based on the collective peer pressure mounting. He used both hands to locate it and quickly lifted it up as if he were performing a ritual. My body jolted away reflexively, but I didn’t– or couldn't– look away. I could see a slithering outline that could only be a snake. The dangling creatures defined jawline and thin body swung like a pendulum from the gooey muck until the boy chucked it deeper into the water, and my cousin and I shrieked as it splashed.

Excited chatter about the mysterious serpent crackled, lit by flickering, spewing roman candles along the shore and the continuing fireworks in the sky, for around five minutes until the onlookers tired of the conversation. Shouldn't we all have been more concerned about the submerged broken beer bottle pieces and environmental contaminants than perceived threats from the local flora and fauna? Eventually, all of us went back into the water, except me. All of us forgot about the snake, except me. I still to this day have one thought insistently creeping back: dead or alive? Nobody knows, as snakes–and my childhood memories–drift away into the lake.

68

Blizzard Hunting Jacob Penola

“You got what for your birthday?”

There it was again: the same exact question that I had been asked a million times before. I rolled my eyes. I mean, is it really that weird to have parents who drive you across two state borders for the sake of experiencing a blizzard? I certainly didn’t think so.

I was twelve years old. My most upbeat dreams consisted of elements that most would consider nightmarish: relaxing in the basement of a house as the roof gets blown off by a tornado, witnessing the eerie calmness of the eye of a hurricane, or being in the top floor of a building as a tsunami violently inundates the first few dozen floors. Like any other person, I wanted my dreams to come true. Unfortunately, even at twelve years old, I recognized that it would not be a reasonable birthday request to chase EF-5 tornadoes or travel across the world to witness a tsunami. So in my mind, I made a compromise. I asked my parents if for my thirteenth birthday I could drive into a blizzard with my dad. Knowing the weather was my greatest fascination, they, to the confusion of many others, approved of my request.

That winter, I religiously checked the national forecast, hoping for a potent winter storm to miraculously lash the Midwest on a day that my dad and I could carelessly venture right into it. November, December, and January brought forth days upon days of false hope and grave disappointment. My young, impatient mind quickly became disheartened, thinking this birthday gift was inevitably going to become a bust.

One gloomy February day, I was proven wrong. The minute I got home from my basketball tournament, I hastily opened my computer, clicked on the google search bar, tapped the ‘w’ key, and smashed my half-broken enter button. Just like any other day, I found myself staring at the National Weather Service’s hazards map. I saw that dozens of counties in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska were displayed in bright red. I immediately recalled what hazard this color corresponded with. One word rapidly began ricocheting throughout my mind: BLIZZARD! My eyes widened and a mischievous smile crept across my face.

69

Like a toddler begging for a toy, I without pause asked my parents if my dad and I could vacation to frigid Iowa the next day. It perfectly lined up with the weekend, and it was only a mere seven hours away (not adjusting for the time zone difference, of course). My dad, despite having a myriad of legitimate excuses, nonchalantly answered with an apathetic ‘yes.’ My disappointment of losing my basketball games was subsequently drowned out by feelings of immense excitement. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I was actually going blizzard hunting.

The next afternoon, we were making our preparations for our trip.

By preparations, I mean casually tossing a few blankets into the trunk of my sister's small but mighty 2008 Honda Civic. We said goodbye to my mom and brother, thinking we were fully prepared to embark on our journey. After ducking into the passenger seat, I typed in ‘Grundy County, Iowa’ into my dad’s GPS. I then opened my computer, obsessively tracking the storm like a nervous parent obsessively checking up on their child. I analyzed the latest developments, learning that blizzard conditions would persist through the next day, with some locations experiencing complete whiteout conditions. For most people, this would be scary considering we were driving right into it. For me, however, it was thrilling; my bizarre mind was giddy with excitement.

Seven hours later, our black car matched the black sky of Grundy County, Iowa. The wind howled outside the windows as snow drifts slowly but steadily became impassable mountains as we traveled farther northwest. My mom had thankfully completed her preassigned homework of finding somewhere for us to sleep. Considering we were in what appeared to be The Kingdom of Corn Fields, the place that she found wasn’t all that bad. A+, Mom. We parked as close as we could to the entrance of the motel and quickly grabbed our belongings, eagerly sprinting to the door as if we were being chased by a murderer. The sound of whistling wind was met with the sound of our laughter, creating a most pleasant noise that sung to our ears. Through the subzero temperatures, we finally reached the door. I speedily clutched the handle with my numb fingers, trying to open the door against the wind. Only with the help of my dad did the door reluctantly swing open.

We trekked inside. I kicked the rug on the floor, attempting to rid myself of the matted snow that appeared to be restrained to the bottom

70

of my dilapidated, two-sizes-too-small sneakers. When we arrived at the front desk, the only employee working in the motel - Bill - instantly exclaimed how terrible the weather was. My dad then provided his typical Dad-explanation, tirelessly elaborating on how the weather was what lured us into Iowa. I could see the gears in Bill's brain turning, trying to come to terms with what he had just heard. He blinked. “Wait wait wait, let me get this straight. You traveled from Indianapolis, Indiana to Grundy Center, Iowa, for the blizzard?”

“Yes. Yes we did.”

Once we were settled into our hotel room, and only after my dad was getting ready to fall asleep, I asked if we could go out into the parking lot and play in the snow. My dad sighed and gave me a conflicted look. I persuasively raised my eyebrows and grinned. He half-heartedly smiled back. “Fine.”

We skipped downstairs. As he saw a teenage boy and his father about to voluntarily exit a cozy building to go ‘play in the snow,’ Bill shot us a look not only of disapproval, but genuine concern. I stepped outside and immediately eyed a giant snow pile on the perimeter of the parking lot. I darted up the mountain and formed a snowball in my oversized gloves. I instantly fired it at my dad, only for the wind to shove the snow right back at my face. My dad scoffed at my pathetic attempt. He then formed a snowball of his own and launched it at me. Once again, the wind was my enemy; a hurricane-like wind gust amplified the already impressive throw, leaving my face stinging as the tiny ice particles pierced my skin. Through the pain and debilitating laughter, I grabbed another handful of snow and strategically positioned myself, using the wind as an aid this time. My dad agilely dodged the snowball, bringing him right back to his so-called ‘glory days.’ Unfortunately, our snowball fight soon ended as it became difficult to breathe due the fierce, brisk wind.

When we got back to our room, my dad collapsed onto his bed and instantaneously fell asleep as his head hit the pillow. Trying to ignore his deafening snoring, I found myself peeking out the window. I was wonderstruck. The screaming wind and the blasting snow and the parking lot that was essentially a mountain range all took my breath away. I had been dreaming of this moment for years, and it had finally come true. I was finally in a blizzard.

Next thing I knew, it was light outside. I unpleasantly woke up to a

71

powerful roaring noise that shook my brain inside my skull. At first, I was worried that my dad and I might be in danger, considering the magnitude of the unknown sound. But then, as I looked around the room trying to use my fuzzy eyesight to locate the source of the cacophony, I quickly realized it was nothing to fear. While my half-awake mind was anticipating a lion or something of the like to be standing next to my bed, all I saw was my dad – my snoring dad.

No longer worried about the monstrous sound invading my ear canals, I stretched my arms and yawned. After a few instances of “accidentally” throwing the remote at the floor and loudly exclaiming “OOPS!” in the hope that my dad would wake up, I eventually gave in and actually turned the TV on, acknowledging there was no chance that I could interrupt his unending sleep. I flipped through the channels, eventually finding myself indulging in The Weather Channel. I learned that the storm had been dubbed Winter Storm Quiana by the news network. The meteorologists conveyed blunt warnings to the people of Iowa and southern Minnesota. Allegedly, even though the snow had stopped, rural roads would still be treacherous to drive on due to blowing snow that could cause whiteout conditions. Yeah right, I thought. How can there be whiteout conditions without falling snow?

After brushing my teeth and changing my clothes, I was ready to dismally return to my safe, snug home. Even though I was disappointed the adventure was coming to an end, I knew I would treasure the previous night forever.

A century later - after my dad had finally woken up and completed his extensive morning routine - we were back in our car. Once we got on the roads, we quickly realized that this cramped vehicle would have to prove its mightiness to us. As soon as we drove away from the building, I found myself profusely apologizing to the TV meteorologists for ever doubting them; it was as if someone had spray painted our windshield white. Having lived in upstate New York for a significant period of time, my dad was an experienced winter driver. Even so, he blankly stated that this was the worst weather he’d ever driven in. Watching his knuckles progressively get whiter and whiter, I began to worry.

The winds gradually picked up, exacerbating the driving conditions. At this point, looking through the windows hurt because of the pure, pervasive whiteness surrounding us. My dad found himself relying

72

on the sporadic ridges in the middle of the street to keep us from drifting onto the grass.

“What happens if an oncoming car is doing the same thing?” I innocently asked. He didn’t answer.

Oh. After about an hour, the winds had temporarily died down. We could clearly see that the upcoming road was completely submerged by snow, with several cars spun off the road, stuck in the middle of the deep snow, or entirely rolled over; it was as if the street was leading us into a warzone. My dad persisted nonetheless. As our tires began having trouble gripping the concrete, a large luxury SUV confidently cruised past us on the left. Through the windows, I could see the driver - a young guy - laughing as he looked down at our sedan persevering through the snow. This irritated me. Only a few seconds after the driver sped past us, he got stuck in the snow. Ha. Unfortunately, this feeling of schadenfreude swiftly morphed into a feeling of uneasiness as it was now our turn to get stuck. When we reached a small hill, we came to the stark realization that the car was unable to scale the wall of snow. We also realized that the car was unable to reverse out of the situation. Helplessly remaining seated in our car, we became deer in the headlights. Thankfully, heroes were living in the house right off the street; three men had seen that we had gotten stuck and promptly came out to rescue us. Almost immediately, my dad and the three men were pushing the back of our car. I panicked, realizing that my questionable decision making had left me without any shoes on my feet. Sitting in the passenger seat while four other men pushed me as if I were royalty, I felt pathetic. I hurriedly threw shoes on my feet, allowing me to haphazardly step out of the vehicle. Regrettably, I hadn’t spent the time to properly put my shoes or socks on, causing the back of my heels to be fully exposed to the blowing snow and arctic temperatures. My feet rapidly became heavy rocks attached to my legs. It was hours before I could feel my toes again.

Eventually, we got the car unstuck and back onto a drivable road.

When we tried to get onto the interstate, a police officer enlightened us, letting us know that the highway would remain closed until they cleared it of hundreds of abandoned vehicles. My dad shot me a look of concern.

Not sure what we would do, we aimlessly drove around. Soon enough,

73

we parked our car on the side of a secluded street. The next five hours consisted of binging Manifest in our stuffy car, eating one bite of repulsive midwestern Chinese food before throwing out the rest, hanging out in the Pizza Hut that somehow redeemed our taste buds, and repeatedly interrogating bitter officers about when the interstate would open back up. But most of all, it consisted of true joy. We had not had a reason to be concerned.

After the sun had set, the officers began going door to door of the parked cars, spreading word that the interstate had opened back up. Along with what felt like the rest of the town, we drove away. While my dad breathed a sigh of relief, I found myself feeling content as I looked back on our adventure. My dreams had become real life. What more could I have asked for? Some might say that I could have asked for a warmer adventure. Some might say that I could have asked for a smoother adventure.

Some might say that I could have asked for a safer adventure. But what is adventure without a little bit of chaos?

74

Reborn

Mary Wang In old Chinese legend, there was a bird known as phoenix. Phoenix would bear all the pain and enmity accumulated in the world, and every 500 years they would burn themselves in the blazing fire. Their bodies had to experience great pain and reincarnation before they could be reborn out of the ashes the next day. The dying phoenix fell and rejuvenated in the fire, therefore its feathers were richer, its voice was clearer, its soul was more marrow, and then became a beautiful and brilliant fire phoenix...

Thirty days ago, I ran out of the school in excitement as the summer break finally started. Getting off the school bus, I took a deep breath with a big smile on my face, the air tasted sweet as if someone put sweetener in it. Happy life began today, May the 28th. When I opened the front door, I saw mom busy packing her suitcase. She smiled and took my heavy backpack from my shoulder.

“Mary, make sure to pack your suitcase tonight. We are leaving early tomorrow to Detroit then to Shanghai for vacation!"

antly.

“No worry Mom, packing will be done in an hour." I replied pleas-

The next day went by extremely fast, it almost gave me weird feelings about what would happen next. Mom and I first went to a small COVID testing center in Detroit as required by the Chinese government.

We also had to take pictures of each other while doing both testing to show to the Chinese Consulate that we were actually there. I was never a photogenic person, but those two pictures can easily be on my top mostwanting-to-delete pictures of the year. All these procedures were required due to COVID. I guess I did not realize this at first, but now as I looked

75

back these changes had indeed foreshadowed a different trip than previous ones.

That afternoon the airport was crowded with people, everyone seemed like they had a destination to go to. As the airplane took off and shot up into the night sky, Detroit became smaller and smaller until it disappeared. We left the US on the last day of May, and there were 7,442 new COVID cases that day.

The morning of June the first in China time, my mom and I had successfully gone through all the “obstacles” to get on the bus to our quarantine hotel. Back in the airport everyone had to show their negative testing results from the US. We also got a “nice” surprise which was to run another COVID test! This time was the worst. The nurses who all had to wear protection garments that only showed their eyes, stuck the swab in both of my nostrils and let the swab stay in for ten seconds long! I felt the swab poking the back of my throat. I forced myself to not look too painful in front of the nurse, but tears slid down the second the swab was out of my nose. COVID tests surely woke me up, it worked much better than the alarm clock in the morning for school. I was sitting on the bus to the quarantine hotel - highways, tall buildings, traffic, the feeling of the city hit me as I stared outside the window. The bus made a sharp turn and stopped in front of a local hotel that was used specifically for quarantine. All of our suitcases got sprayed by sterilizer before we entered the hotel. The hallway looked “dead” as I walked towards my room. I could hear light TV voices down the hall and there were bags of trash by the side of some rooms.

The sunlight shone through the windows of the hotel, but somehow it just couldn’t get through completely. That night, I laid on the white hotel bed with the cucumber face mask on and thought about what a unique 14 days I would have… There was an old saying, “Change happens faster than you plan.” I would have never thought that my plans would be absolutely destroyed by a phone call in the morning.

“Buzzzzzzzz, buzzzz…”

It was 9 am, I was lying in bed when the hotel phone rang. Man,

76

it scared the crap out of me, my heart beat probably went up to 180 that second. I reached across the bed and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is the front desk, is this Wang Miru (Mary) speaking?”

“Yes.” “Your result for the COVID test in the airport yesterday came out positive. We have contacted your mom already. The ambulance will come pick you up in the next hour to take you to the hospital so have your stuff ready to go...”

No, no way it came back positive. I heard a voice in my head saying, “How could this happen?! I passed the test in Detroit with a negative result! I did catch COVID months ago, but I recovered quickly within a week, and all the testing afterwards was negative. What is going on here?”

Riding in an ambulance was a first for me. The ambulance sped through the streets like a rocket. It bounced up and down with squeaking noises coming from the wheels like a roller coaster. With this style of driving, I got sick in the stomach real fast. Mom called me before I got in the ambulance. She was afraid that I would be scared to go alone, but I actually felt excited about this. To me this would be a quick trip because I knew that I had no symptoms of COVID, so all I had to do was to prove to them that I was fine. I tilted my head towards the window and watched the people on the street. I saw a mother and daughter sharing laughter, teenagers running down the street, and a couple holding hands with each other.

Outside the ambulance, everything looked so normal and casual like every other day. The light breeze moved the leaves on the sycamore tree slowly in a calming rhythm. I held out my hand and wanted to feel the breeze, but the cold window shocked my hand like an electric fence. Somehow I felt disconnected from the outside world. I couldn’t reach the life outside of this ambulance door, instead I was going the opposite direction and I

77

didn’t have the power to turn the steering wheel back into the right way.

Right at this second, I felt something inside of me, like a seed was planted deep down in my heart.

In the hospital, they did a series of examinations on me, which included: COVID test, blood test, temperature check, lung scanning, measure blood pressure, oxygen level, and a test where they put a swab inside my butthole. As you can imagine, I was absolutely worn out after all of these procedures. I waited seven hours inside a room that was the same size as the bathroom back in my house in the US, and the result for all those tests came out positive again!! Later I found out the reason I got tested positive in China and not in the US was because China had a more strict standard for testing and due to the fact that I got COVID back in early May, there were probably still remains of COVID in my sinus although it was not contiguous at all. The testing result might change between positive and negative depending on where the nurse stuck the swab inside my nose.

It was nine o’ clock at night when a nurse came in and walked me to the hospital room. It was a tall three-level building with the top two levels for adult patients, and the bottom level for 18 or under. I overheard that there were 80 adult patients and 3 (including me) juveniles patients in this building right now. The nurse stopped in front of the third blue door and opened it by stepping on the button located inside a wall. Wind blew across my face and made my hair fly as the door opened its “arms'' and welcomed me in. The room was big with three patient beds numbered 11, 12, and 13. My bed number was 11 and I had the whole room to myself with a bathroom, sink, toilet and shower. This type of room was called the negative pressure ward. It had no windows but was equipped with an advanced system of air filtering which allowed the germs that patients breathe out to not spread into the air outside, thus greatly decreasing the number of COVID cases. I unpacked my suitcase once again, and went straight to bed in the white and green striped hospital gown not feeling like taking a shower. That day, June the second, there were 16 new COVID cases in China including me.

The first week went by fairly fast for me, however, it felt like everyday was the same just like the movie “Happy Death Day”. I woke up at 7:30 for breakfast, eating was the only way to get me out of bed. I lied in bed after breakfast and read to kill time until lunch, which was around 11:30. Then dinner at 5:30. I was not allowed to go outside of the ward

78

at all, so the nurse brought three meals to me. I felt like I was in jail but actually I wasn’t. What a joke. The only comforting thing was that I made friends with the nurse who came in every day to deliver my meals. From her I learned that COVID had affected their lives as well. She had to work in this hospital for two months and then got quarantined for two weeks in order to see her son back home. The frustrating part was after 1 month, she would have to come back to this hospital and continue this cycle until COVID was over.

My mind started to tangle into a dead knot in the second week.

The seed inside me grew intensively. The excitement of the hospital “trip” left me hollow like a shell. Commencing from the second week, I was tested (COVID & blood) every three days. I was in a positive attitude hoping I would be tested negative the first time...the second time… but the test results were always positive. The nurse tried to talk me into not having too much hope for my results, because the more hope I had, the harder disappointment would strike me. To be honest, I probably would already have a breakdown if the nurse was not there with me. There was no medicine or treatment for me since I had no symptoms, but I had to wait endlessly inside this ward till my testing result “magically” turned negative. This constant mental state of waiting was driving me nuts.

Tuesday of the third week was the first time I was allowed to step outside of my ward for 20 days. I felt incredibly happy and satisfied from walking upstairs and seeing clusters of clouds hanging in the blue sky.

However, it didn't last long when I saw the number on the scale. I lost all the muscles I gained from lacrosse, I was out of shape, and I could never get enough sleep. To make the day worse, my nurse friend left the hospital today since her 2-month shift was over. Until the moment she left, I still didn't know what she looked like other than her brown eyes. I only knew she liked deserts because it made her happy.

Even food could not excite me anymore. The breakfast repeated itself every week, the lunch and dinner repeated every two weeks. My family tried really hard to find ways to get me out of the hospital. Dad emailed the Indiana governor, and mom was asking around desperately. However, all these efforts didn’t help as China took COVID extremely seriously, a single increase of COVID cases could cost the local governors their jobs.

79

I stopped turning on the lights in my ward and started wrapping myself in darkness all day. Endless stress caused pimples on my face. My mood dropped to a whole new low. I found myself strapped in the situation- my hands and feet were tied together, my mouth was taped, and I could not call for help. Spikes grew around my heart, hurting everyone who wanted to give me a hug and everyone I loved. I poured all my negative emotions on Mom. I was annoyed when she called and avoided communicating with her. I realized that not all seeds would grow into beautiful flowers, this one was the seed for spiky vines. Knowing my COVID result was positive again for the fourth test, I buried my head under the pillow crying. I wanted to scream so badly, I wanted people to hear my grievance, I wanted them to see me breaking into pieces, how I was being torn apart painfully, and I wanted them to see my bleeding heart other than my bruised arm from blood drawn…

That evening, I thought about death and whether death was the end of relief or the ultimate end for torture. I thought about my death on this hospital bed, and how my life was being drained out of me like water running from the sink.

What is death?

Death is when a bullet passes through your heart. Death is when a spear pierces your lungs. Death is the knife cutting through your wrist and the blood dripping on the cold hard floor making the “click, click” sound…I pulled the blanket over me and closed my eyes. I saw a phoenix diving into flames and burned into ashes in my dream that night.

A ray of sunlight hit the blanket the next morning. It traveled 94.1 million miles through the clouds overhead, the gloomy hospital, and the dark ward to find me. The golden dot stayed on my blanket quietly. It was there for me. Time seemed frozen, it was only me and the golden dot staring at each other. I pulled my left hand out of the blanket and reached out slowly toward the dot. My hand shone under that ray of sunlight, its warmth filled me up as if the sunlight held out its hands and pulled me out of the death bed. I then turned the palm of my hand towards the sunlight

80

feeling it's comforting. It. Slowly but gradually the energetic blood started running down my veins once again, I felt like a phoenix was about to be reborn out of ashes.

I got permission from the doctor to clean my sinus every day to get rid of the remaining virus there. The doctor did not want me to do that at first because it hurt so badly even for adults, but I was determined. When I cleaned my nose, the feeling was intense like putting rubbing alcohol on a fresh wound or eating a huge chunk of wasabi, just that the pain lasted 10 minutes instead of 10 seconds. I also created an exercise list that week and watched my diet closely. I walked for at least 1 hour a day in the wardroom and did full body workouts. My summer class also started that week which kept me busy most of the nights. During that productive week, I finished reading the book for my English project. The spiky veins cut deep into my flesh as I pulled my body out of its grip. Covered in blood and scars, I grew into a much stronger person, like a reborn phoenix with richer feathers.

I had three COVID tests that week. The first one was positive, but the second one came back negative. I was too shocked to say anything at first, it was like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel! When a nurse came in to announce the third test result, I saw three white angels coming in through the bright light to save me, and they did. With negative COVID results, I was released from the hospital back to the quarantine hotel after 30 days of isolation in the hospital. The outside world did not change at all. The long traffic, the busy people, the large sycamore trees were all still there. Shanghai was the same, but somehow everything looked different compared to 30 days ago.

Hotel room was way more pleasant with a window view, many times I put my head out of the window and smelt the air of freedom. I continued my exercise routine and healthy diet throughout. At the end of 14-day hotel quarantine, one final COVID test was required. I was nervous to death - what if the result was positive? I would have to go back to the hospital again and restart this whole process.

“Buzzzzzzzz, buzzzz…”

81

“Hello?” I could hear my own voice cracking.

“Hi, Ms. Wang. You will be free to go tomorrow morning at eight.”

“Y...Yes! Thank you!” I replied in a shaky voice and hung up the phone with overflowing excitement.

On July the 17th, my 45-day quarantine ended. I stepped into the sunshine when the hotel door was opened. The warm sensation vibrated through my skin, the wind brushed my face and made strings of my hair fly freely. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, the air of freedom tasted so sweet. I opened my eyes and saw mom right in front of me. I couldn’t tell when we Facetimed, but she grew some gray hair over the last months. I walked to her with a big smile. She took over my suitcase as we laughed and walked to the car. I turned back at the hotel and saw a phoenix diving into the sky and flying away. This trip allowed me to discover a new me, a reborn me, and my experience would surely be something interesting to tell as a story. Did my experience become part of me, or did I become part of my experience?

82

Keeping It Together Maxwell Robinson

journalism

Vaccination Apprehension Katherine Strunk

Vaccines are a controversial and complex issue. While getting a vaccine is treated like it’s everyone’s choice to make, there’s a group for which the choice isn’t theirs at all.

Some parents of students at CGHS have decided to not let their children be vaccinated, or even tested for the COVID-19 virus. For these people, the decision of others to get vaccinated isn’t just controversial, it’s life and death.

“Going to school every day, I know I'm at risk,” an anonymous student at Center Grove High School said. “I really want to keep myself and others safe, but… I was not even asked for my opinion or really given a choice.”

This student asked their parents for a vaccine as soon as their age group was able to get the shot, but they were met with apprehension and denial.

“I asked my parents to let me get the vaccine right when the news dropped. My parents wanted to wait and hear more information since it was so new. I was willing to wait a little while because I myself hadn't researched the vaccine properly, but I assumed they meant a couple months at the most,” they said. “It has now been over eight months and I still haven't gotten a dose.”

Pediatrician Dr. Joanna Smith hears lots of perspectives on vaccines from both parents and students.

“There seem to be two groups of people who refuse vaccines. The first are people who for whatever reason have decided that vaccines are dangerous and that natural immunity is better. I find that this group is not interested in discussion about the science, safety, or efficiency of vaccines,” Smith said. “The second group are hesitant or resistant to a specific vaccine, usually because they have heard about someone having a side effect from a vaccine. This group is much more likely to be willing to discuss vaccine science and risk to benefit ratio with me.”

When parents do want to discuss risks and benefits, she has a simple response.

85

“I try to give the science of the vaccine, pointing out how well they have worked and how they have been proven safe through generations of children,” McIntire said. “I specially address concerns regarding the development of the COVID vaccine. I feel like the name Project Warp Speed may have unwittingly given the impression that the vaccine was a rush job. The actual part that was ‘rushed’ was the manufacturing of the millions of doses of the vaccine was done prior to FDA approval. If the vaccine had been shown not to work very well, then all those doses and money would have been wasted. No part of the studies, the testing or the research was rushed at all. Every step of the approval process was normally followed.”

For many students whose parents refused the vaccine, the response wasn’t expected. In fact, one student was shocked to find out their parents didn’t want to do what they knew was safest for them.

“When I asked for the vaccine, I was very disappointed by my parents' responses,” the student said. “I thought that they would want to keep me healthy and safe. You see, when COVID first became a thing, me and a few other people got really, really sick. The doctors did every test they could think of and couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. It was a miserable two weeks. When the coronavirus started to gain more media attention and cases started popping up, my parents put two and two together. That's one of the main reasons I'm disappointed I can't get the vaccine. They already believe I had COVID and was at risk, but they aren't willing to let me try to prevent it from happening again.”

For this student, this is more than a political fight. The politics surrounding this issue has created an incredibly tense home life.

“I think biased media and politics definitely was a role that influenced my parents’ decision,” the student said. “Throughout the pandemic, one of my parents complained about how coronavirus was comparable to the flu and that the media was trying to convince us otherwise. The rise in cases was not given much thought at all.

“COVID quarantine and restrictions were considered deplorable at my household because they ‘infringed on the personal and constitutional rights of Americans,’” they said. “This sort of rhetoric has already been infused and enforced in the everyday conversation of my family, so I have been kind of isolated in my own household. This has definitely put a huge strain on the relationships in my family. Overall, my parents have disregarded and keep disregarding my opinion on keeping myself and others

86

safe right now, deciding on what I want for my future without my input.”

To receive a vaccine, minors must have the permission of a parent or guardian. For students whose parents refuse to give them this, they are left feeling trapped, powerless and vulnerable.

“It makes me feel absolutely horrible to not be able to do anything. I feel ashamed when I go to school and people find out I'm not vaccinated. It gives people the idea that I willingly chose to forego something that will keep people safe and prevent me from endangering others. No one even remembers that as a minor I can't get the vaccine without parent permission.”

It’s not just one or two cases of this. This issue has been politicized so much that some parents won’t let their children get tested for COVID if they are having symptoms of illness. “[I had] been feeling sick, and in interest of erring on the side of caution and keeping others safe I wanted to be sure I wasn't spreading something like COVID,” another student said. “The first day I was sick I told my mom I wanted a test and she said no because I couldn't miss more school and there weren't any appointments for today. I asked the next day, and she got very upset saying no was final and I just had a cold.”

This student has been vaccinated, but there has also been some tension between them and their parents about their conflicting political views on issues surrounding the pandemic.

“I think it's only because it's a left-leaning issue. She's been vaccinated and wore her mask, but now she's ‘tired of the pandemic’ and I think she's upset that I'm still being safe, but she had very little reason behind it besides ‘it's time to move on.’”

While there are a lot of strong opinions on vaccines, the truth is not a fine line between safe and dangerous. Some risks do come with this vaccine, just as with any other.

“The COVID vaccine, specifically, has a slight risk of inflammation of the heart muscle,” Smith said. “This is called myocarditis and is a rare side effect of COVID vaccine. However, infection with COVID has been shown to have a much higher risk of myocarditis than does the vaccine. The vaccine related cases have all been mild and all patients have fully recovered.”

McIntire says the vaccine is not just a matter of self protection. With something as contagious and far-reaching as COVID, the consequences to

87

others can be very serious.

“In the high school age group, risks of serious illness or death with COVID are small. However, anyone who is unvaccinated is a risk to family and friends. Getting vaccinated against COVID is not just for yourself, it is to stop the spread of the disease through our schools, our families, our communities, and our country. It is something that is important to do as a good neighbor and citizen since anyone at any age can have a severe course of illness,” Smith said.

As for the student who couldn’t get vaccinated at all, they have a plea for everyone who is on the fence about getting vaccinated.

“If you have the option to get the vaccine, I beg you to get it,” they said.

“Please choose to protect yourself and others around you. Be grateful that you even have the option. If you still decide on not getting it, try to wear your mask as often as possible to prevent an increase in cases.”

88

Title

Should Colleges and Universities Be Test-Optional?

Yurun Zheng It was a Saturday morning. The sky appeared dark and gloomy without even a shimmer of sunlight. The wind hollered through the air, picking up old rotten leaves as it swept across the street. With her loose hair and open jacket, Jenny rushed into the office building, carrying a backpack in one hand and a cup of warm coffee in the other. She hurried to the nearest elevator and pressed the button, glancing anxiously at her watch every few seconds.

The elevator landed. She dashed in with a group of people and waited impatiently for it to land on the tenth floor. Before the doors fully opened, she squeezed out of the crowd and ran straight towards room C in the office, not even bothering to greet the teachers that she passed by. In the classroom, everyone was already sitting in their assigned seats and waiting for the class to begin. She hustled to her seat breathlessly when Mr.Chen, the reading teacher, walked in with his thermos cup and laptop.

He wore the exact same pair of blue jeans as yesterday and had a pair of reading glasses on top of his head. He greeted the class briefly and connected his laptop to the projector as if wanting to start the lecture as soon as possible. Then, the fun began.

While he rattled about the different types of SAT reading techniques, a few of the students started dozing off. Despite her coffee, Jenny, too, was slowly dropping her head onto the desk. After the tiresome class, Jenny and her classmates proceeded with the set schedule. Tick-tock. 1 hour, 2 hours… The clock eventually hit 11:00 pm when Jenny finally finished the last set of practice questions.

I met Jenny at an SAT tutoring center during the summer of 2018; we were in the same tutoring class for two weeks. This is a typical day for students like us, who spend the majority of their free time in SAT or ACT tutoring centers taking hours-long classes, studying massive lists of vocab words, and doing practice questions to improve our SAT or ACT scores.

What’s more demanding? We have to wake up earlier than the birds and go to sleep later than owls. And the next day, we do it again. * * * Over the past two decades, standardized test scores have defined success

89

for many people. College rankings, reported annually by the U.S. News & World Report, rely heavily on students’ average SAT and ACT scores.

Scholarship programs are closely linked to standardized test scores, and some companies even consider the scores for potential hires. Moreover, students with high SAT or ACT scores are deemed “smarter” or “having higher IQs” than those with lower scores. Critics of the SAT and ACT have long asserted that these tests are biased against poor, Black, and Hispanic students and naturally in favor of wealthy, white, and Asian-American students. Students like Jenny, who can afford the considerable cost of private lessons and tutoring, are at a clear advantage.

The debates around standardized testing ultimately lead to one central question: do standardized test scores accurately reflect a student’s true ability and potential to learn? The answer has always remained controversial. In recent years, though, the global pandemic has helped expose the flaws of standardized testing to the public and bring a definite answer to the surface.

After the surge of COVID-19, many states in the U.S. have started to consider the implementation of a test-optional policy, having been granted permission by the Department of Education. In the past year, the pandemic has forced many SAT and ACT testing dates to be canceled, causing a total of 1,240 colleges and universities across the country to drop the requirement for a standardized test score, according to FairTest, a group that has pushed to end testing requirements. The test-optional policy significantly increased the number of undergraduate applications for Fall 2021. The University of California system, for example, received more than 200,000 freshman applications, a 16.1% rise from the past year.

Without standardized test scores, UC admissions officers have said that they were able to evaluate students’ applications more thoroughly using other factors in the review process, such as students’ high school GPA, course selection, extracurricular activities, and awards. By putting greater focus on these other crucial factors, not only can universities have a better understanding of their applicants, but they can also expand the diversity of the student body on campuses. Overall, the test-optional policy has helped to break the mindset that students’ abilities can be measured solely by their SAT or ACT scores, leading several major universities to reconsider the role of standardized test scores in their admissions processes.

On November 18, 2021, the University of California system made a shocking decision to end the use of standardized test scores for admissions processes, making it the biggest system of universities in the U.S. to terminate the long-lasting debate around standardized testing. Michael Brown, the UC Provost, affirmed that “​​UC will continue to practice test-free admis-

90

sions now and into the future.” Due to UC’s size and global influence, this major decision is likely to impact the admissions processes of other colleges and universities. Bob Schaeffer, executive director of FairTest, said, “UC already is and increasingly will become a national model for test-free admissions.” In addition, he provided statistics showing that the number of campuses that do not require standardized test scores has increased from 1,075 two years ago to 1,815 today.

Even though the decision was a surprise, it is a win-win for future UC applicants. To start with, students can spend less time worrying and preparing for standardized tests. Unlike Jenny, who spent all of her days off in the center prepping for her upcoming SAT test, these students can instead devote more time to academic or extracurricular activities such as sports, competitions, or volunteering. This allows them to explore and find out what their passions are (studying for the SAT or ACT is definitely not one of them). Furthermore, the test-optional policy boosts minority students’ confidence when applying for high-ranking and reputable UC schools. In the past, standardized test scores have consistently served as a barrier, preventing minority applicants from standing out during the admissions process. Now, with the removal of the requirement, these students can finally demonstrate their actual strengths to the admissions committee.

According to last year’s data, the University of Los Angeles (UCLA) saw a substantial increase of applications from racial minorities: 48% from African American students, 33% from Hispanic students, and 16% from American Indian students.

Standardized testing is not suitable for everyone. For Jenny, spending a tremendous amount of time in SAT tutoring classes neither helped her learn nor improved her score. Fortunately, UC’s new test-optional policy offers her and similar students an alternative method to display their real skills and passions.

All in all, students should not be defined solely by the number on their score sheets. Every student is more than their scores. Without the restraint of standardized test scores, students can better benefit from the education system and strive for a brighter and happier future.

91

fiction fiction fiction

Carnage Lydia Jones 93

dramatic script

Ingrained

Alexander Kutza INT. GROCERY STORE PHARMACEUTICAL SECTION – NIGHT Indistinct pop music plays in the otherwise quiet aisle. SEAN, a shorthaired, Venezuelan-American teenager wearing an oversized sweatshirt, scans the rows of medications. He glances around anxiously, and his hands tremble slightly as he reaches into his pocket to retrieve a list scribbled in shaky handwriting. He looks around, then snatches up a white bottle of painkillers.

RACK FOCUS TO a yellow tag displaying an exorbitant price. Sean glances down the aisle then stuffs the bottle into his hoodie pocket. He does the same with a few others, then turns to leave. As he rounds the corner with hurried strides, a MAN with white hair and a walker nearly collides with him.

SEAN (stepping aside awkwardly, avoiding the man's stare) Sorry INT. GROCERY STORE CHECK OUT – NIGHT A pack of Tic-Tacs glides along a conveyor belt until they reach a middle-aged CLERK. CLERK (speaking in monotone, fatigued eyes glancing Sean over) Is that it?

Sean nods furtively, hands stuffed in his pockets.

CLERK

95

That'll be 50 cents.

Sean places coins on the table and takes the Tic-Tacs from the woman’s hand. As he walks away, there’s an exhilaration in his expression that gradually fades to shame. Once he leaves through double doors, PAN TO a blinking camera above the exit.

INT. HIGH SCHOOL HALLWAY – DAY NOLA, a Korean-American teenager wearing a trendy argyle sweater, walks laboriously down the crowded hallway with a pile of textbooks, a blazer, and a thick red binder in her arms. She reaches her locker and struggles with the combination as her friend MAGGIE walks up beside her.

MAGGIE Hey Nola. Do you...need any help with that?

NOLA Ah! Yes, thank you.

Maggie takes the stack of books from her as Nola continues with the lock.

NOLA (CONT'D) I don't know what I'd do without you, Maggie.

MAGGIE (smiling, a warm satisfaction settling on her face) So what do 'ya say we come to my place after the tournament?

NOLA (wincing as she pries open the jammed locker) Are you gonna steal my books if I say no?

The locker springs open and Nola’s expression darkens with austerity. She glances with determination at the ribbons taped to the walls with "Debate" lettered in gold.

NOLA (CONT'D)

96

96

I wish I could, but...you know I'm usually wiped out afterward.

Maggie nods quietly, then looks up with a devious glint.

MAGGIE (with exaggerated disappointment) Well, I guess I'll just have to order egg rolls without you.

NOLA (shaking her head as she shuts her locker) You're cruel.

PAN TO the locker latch is slightly ajar.

NOLA (CONT'D) (letting out a shaky breath) Let's just get through tomorrow first.

INT. SMALL APARTMENT – EVENING Sean's house is a dark one-story with somber, golden light filtering in through partially-opened blinds. He glances around the empty kitchen at prescription bottles, empty dishes, and scattered envelopes.

OFF-SCREEN Sean?

Sean peers down a hallway to face a stout MAN in pajamas sitting in the living room. As Sean approaches, the harsh shadows of the man’s face become more visible, illuminated by the blue light of his television. Sean rests his forearms on the top of a reclining chair to peer mindlessly at the game SHOW.

SHOW (softly in the background, as one of the contestants buzzes in) What is...take me to the rooftop?

SEAN'S DAD You're not going to sit with your old man?

Sean hesitates, immersed in the rowdy applause of the audience. Then he

97

97

sends his father a quick glance and sets down his backpack to slump down onto the chair.

SEAN Do you need anything?

SEAN'S DAD (ignoring the question) They giving you trouble at work again?

Sean lets out a sigh, then furrows his brows in exasperation.

SEAN'S Dad You still going to work?

SHOW What is...a kleptomaniac?

SEAN (quietly) I got you your meds, ok?

Sean's Dad leans down to rub his forehead.

SEAN (sitting up violently to face his father) Do you expect me to just...take it when they're shoving me aside every timeeverytime I do something wrong? If I stay there that'll just...prove them right that—that I'll never leave!

SEAN'S DAD Do you really think that's what this is about?

SEAN (standing up to go turn off the TV) Do you remember at the checkpoint...when you left us for 12 hours?

SEAN'S DAD (face sagging with strained remorse) Sean.

SEAN (tears welling up)

98

98

You told me I had to be strong. And now anytime I stand up for myself I'm in the wrong?

SEAN'S DAD My head hurts.

SEAN (throwing the remote across the room) Don't do that! I'm not going to end up like you, just keeping my head down!

Sean's dad leans on his armrest to slowly rise to his feet. Sean moves over to yank him up by the shoulders.

SEAN Don't you see they're destroying you!?

SEAN'S DAD (shrugging off his son) If you keep going like this, neither of us are going to make it! Quitting when things get tough is not strength!

Sean's father trembles, but his jaw is firmly locked in place as he stares commandingly up at his son. Finally Sean grunts and snatches his backpack from the floor, heading down the hallway into his room. He slams the door shut behind him and throws himself on the bed, wiping tears from his eyes. After a moment, he sits up, opens his backpack, and pulls out a red binder.

INT. LARGE SECLUDED RESIDENCE – EVENING Nola enters through grand mahogany double doors into her living room. A combination of retro 1970s and modern, it prioritizes style over comfort.

Stairs lead down to a half-basement containing a spotless kitchen and bar. A rain garden outside is visible through the windows, and bamboo shoots scatter the room in elaborately-designed pots. Nola walks across the hardwood floors toward her room, stopping as she hears a WOMAN's indistinct voice through the cracked door of the study.

NOLA'S MOM

99

99

Well, I'm so sorry to hear that, Eliza. Maybe she could try out for varsity again next year?

Nola pauses to listen in on the conversation.

NOLA'S MOM (CONT'D) Oh, she's doing well! She's preparing for a big tournament tomorrow. I swear that girl can't seem to focus on anything else—she's always been so driven!

A slight smile flickers across Nola's lips.

NOLA'S MOM (CONT'D) I'm trying to find a tutor to help her with that scholarship application.

Nola's eyes sink, and she walks to her room with a blank expression.

NOLA'S MOM (CONT'D) (in the background) Yes...oh, Teriyaki sounds great! Well, have a good night.

As Nola puts one hand on the doorknob, her mother appears from the study. She's dressed in business attire, with her collared blouse still buttoned all the way.

NOLA'S MOM I thought I heard you out here. How was school?

NOLA Good.

NOLA'S MOM (pausing, as if trying to come up with something to say) I'll leave you to it. Set out your pants and I can iron them. Don't stay up too late!

NOLA (with a professional smile) I won't.

Nola closes her bedroom door and lets out a deep exhale. She grabs her

100

100

headphones, puts on fast-paced indie music, then crashes down on her bed.

CUT TO: INT. HIGH SCHOOL BATHROOM – EARLY MORNING Nola stares in the mirror at her crisply-ironed suit and slicked-back hair.

She frowns in frustration, then reaches down to undo the top button of her shirt.

MAGGIE (from outside) Come on, the bus is leaving soon!

She flicks water into her reddened eyes, then exits the bathroom.

MAGGIE How you holdin' up?

NOLA (with a shaky exhale) I need to stop by my locker first.

INT. HIGH SCHOOL HALLWAY – EARLY MORNING Nola opens her locker and retrieves her blazer. She slips her arms through it, then reaches out to grab her binder. Her perplexed eyes scan the tiny space but fail to locate it. Suddenly she begins tossing aside textbooks and clawing frantically around the locker.

MAGGIE (dodging a heavy book that falls near her shoe) What is it?

NOLA

101

(beginning to pant) It's gone.

Nola steps back, one hand gripping her still-strangling collar, and the other running through her soft black hair.

MAGGIE Your binder?

NOLA (tears welling up) It's gone!

Nola reaches out and begins violently ripping pictures and ribbons from the walls of her locker. When everything has been stripped out, she pounds her fist against the metal, producing a BANG that echoes down the halls. Tears run down her face as she enters a fit of hysteria. Maggie, worried by her friend's distress, reaches out to help stabilize her.

MAGGIE It's ok, Nola. I'll—I'll go stop the bus! Wait right here!

Maggie sprints down the hallway. Slowly Nola slumps down onto the floor amidst the scattered pictures, ribbons, and books, left completely alone in the empty hallway.

INT. SCHOOL CLASSROOM – EARLY MORNING Sean doesn't listen to his history teacher's dispassionate lecture. He reaches down to check his phone, only to see a barrage of phone calls from his father. He stands up and charges from the room, heading to the nearest stairwell to take the call.

SEAN (tightly clutching his cracked smartphone to his cheek) Dad?

102

SEAN'S DAD (speaking from a chaotic room of police officers) What happened Sean?

SEAN (horror glazing his eyes) Dad, where are you?

SEAN'S Dad (cutting in and out) Sean, they say you stole again...the camera...they're coming to get you too!

You've got to get— SEAN (in pleading disbelief) Dad! Another man's voice cuts the conversation short, and the line disconnects.

Sean stands in silence. He cups a trembling hand to his mouth, dropping the phone. It clatters down the stairs, landing in a pile of broken parts on the first floor. Sean, startled by the noise, looks over the railing, then slowly pans his head upward.

EXT. PARKING LOT – EARLY MORNING Maggie sprints toward the parked team bus. She knocks frantically on the glass doors until the DRIVER flips a switch to release them.

MAGGIE (out of breath) It's Nola! You've gotta hold the bus!

The driver glances at his watch, clicking his tongue nervously.

DRIVER (apologetically) We've really got to leave now. I can wait another minute, maybe.

TEAMMATE You coming, Maggie?

103

Maggie glances between the school and the steps of the bus. After a moment of contemplation, she develops a sympathetic expression.

MAGGIE (earnestly, to the driver) Forget about it. You'd better get going.

With that, she turns away and heads back into the building.

EXT. ROOFTOP - SUNRISE Sean enters onto a flat, concrete roof bathed in golden light, surrounded by a gentle breeze. Slowly he walks toward the ledge. Images of the checkpoint, his father's humble gaze, and the gameshow flash through his mind.

Finally, tears begin to fall as he stands at the edge, gazing out over the school's parking lot.

As he closes his eyes, there's a sudden screeching sound, followed by a crash. He opens his eyes to see a bus toppled over in the middle of the intersection. Flames begin to billow from below, and teenagers scramble from emergency exits. Some people run from their cars to help them escape. Sean, bewildered at first, steps back and heads for the door with powerful, resolute strides. And when it closes behind him, the abrupt slamming of a school locker rings out.

CUT TO BLACK THE END

104

1966 Sophia Yang

105

flash fiction

All of Her Circles Grace Choi

“Ok Younha, that’s it,” her mother told her. “Since the pink button is shaped like a little circle,” her mom explained, “we can slide it into the purple buttonhole on your jacket.”

Then, Younha would proudly reply by haphazardly buttoning up her jacket which would prompt a little head shake and faint smile from her mom. Her mom would then undo the jacket to practice again.

With her mom’s patient encouragement, Younha quickly caught on though not without a few questions and occasional tantrums. In a few weeks, she would tell her mom to go away and that she could dress herself. She learned circle matches with the circle right across from it, not the button above nor below. These buttons marked the beginning of the lessons from her mother. ********* A few years later, the lessons became different. During lesson time, a shadow eclipsed the normally present sunshine on her mom’s face. Without her father and older brothers, her mom quietly told her that “The circles on a woman’s clothes should be closed at all times. Women should be modest, my daughter.” So Younha absorbed this new match like all the others that came before it.

But when she went to school, Younha saw that all the girls in the cafeteria wore short, tight tops or ones with the buttons undone at the top.

These girls all wore the latest trends, but Younha felt out of place with her turtleneck and loose-fitting sweater.

Once, Younha had tried to put together an outfit carefully created from longingly observing what the other girls wore. However, her mom told her to go back up the stairs and change in the morning. The outfit was discarded for an oversized shirt. While the other girls seemed to express their empowerment and personalities in their clothing, Younha was stuck in the blob that was her clothes.

The first day, Younha had come home conflicted, so she had asked her mom, “Why can’t I wear clothes like the other girls?”

Her mom replied, “Well, those girls are American. Younha, you are a good Korean girl. You get 100s on tests, but you know those other girls get

107

Bs. But Mommy knows that Younha doesn’t want Bs, so she shouldn’t try to be like those other girls.”

The conversation on clothes was soon dropped, but Younha added an amendment to her mother’s lesson. Instead of all women, there were two groups. Girls that got two zeros on their tests couldn’t wear unbuttoned clothes, but girls who got only one zero on tests could open some of their buttons on their tops. ********* Younha’s third lesson spanned a much longer time than her first and second. By day, she would go to school, but by night, she would go to night school, math with her father. From arithmetic to algebra, Younha would solve a few math questions every night and have them graded by her father. Circling a question denoted a correct answer, but a checkmark was a wrong answer. Each night Younha dreaded the checks and hoped for circles. Soon the focus on circles seeped into her days as well. 100s and papers covered in a sea of circles lessened the pressure on her heart.

However, each check, each absent A+ was another strike at her heart.

Sometimes she wondered what it might feel like to be American, free of the circle counting.

It was during these times where Younha felt the hyphen between Korean-American was the longest. She spoke English, attended school in America, enjoyed American culture, and didn’t know that much Korean. But she also knew that the girls who got the most circles weren’t the American girls. Like the push and pull of tug-of-war, the intersection of the hyphen caused her much tumult. ********* The fourth lesson came from herself. Weighing herself after taking a bath had become Younha’s new addition to her daily checklist, but she would be disappointed with each measurement. She would never see those golden two zeros of 100 lbs no matter how hard she tried. Instead, the number that reflected up into her eyes had one zero. Instead, the two ones of 110 mockingly stared up at her like eyes from the scale. She would then get off the scale with a pat on her stomach and a forced laugh, but she couldn’t forget those eyes.

She was always on the lookout for circles, but when clothing shopping, the circles she came home with weren’t size zeros. Instead, it was the little, circular muffintop of her stomach that she would bring back.

When she asked her mother about the circle of her stomach, her mother

was surprised and reassured Younha that her appearance was perfectly normal. She wasn’t convinced though. Instead, her conclusion to the lesson was that now the student, herself, was ready to leave the guidance of her teachers and find her own circles. ********* She was introduced to the circles in life from a young age. Despite her initial hesitation and opposition to them, circles slowly infiltrated her reality. They appeared everywhere around her. But then they gradually sucked her into their centers deeper and deeper.

Mid-July, The Nursing Home Amani Severson

Cicada wings on the lawn, broken off and catching rain like spiderwebs.

My great-grandmother sitting in the little fenced-off prairie, blessing stems: mountain mint, milkweed, switchgrass, switchgrass, kicking away the sour walnuts rotting at her feet.

She dreamt again, she says, that I was eaten by a bear.

I tell her about all the rain, about the trees down in Witch’s Hollow, about the frogs rioting in the streets. She wonders aloud how the farm is doing and whether her sister knows about the weather, though the farm has been gone for eleven years and her sister gone for four.

I make a cowardly little hum and feign reflection. When I take her wrist all the veins jump away like guitar strings.

“How's it been here?” I ask. “Not too bad?”

“Eh,” she says. I watch her watch a window. Inside, there’s a man trying to bear the bite of cough syrup. Loose, hanging skin curtains ruptured eyes.

“Eh?” I ask.

She nods toward the man in the window. “Look at that,” she says. “Look.

Life and its hangover.”

There’s a little piece of false light in Witch’s Hollow, a smear of glowing honey on the road that isn’t really there when you get close enough. Every time you see it you slow down, in case someone’s coming around the corner, golden headlights, but then you make the turn and you’re still alone.

I feel a sort of shattering relief—we’re finally angry, finally inconsolable.

110

To 1961

Amani Severson It was a year of false epiphanies, of cruelty and bitten fingers, of a vast and gaping anguish.

Eat the little things first, she said, just the little ones and we’ll save the big stuff for later.

Whatever, I said, whatever. I knew the metaphors and there was no use. Clementines, urchin shells—either one would break my jaw and all my failing teeth.

There were men and they followed me everywhere, men in Jaguars polishing revolvers below the dashboard, peeling secrets from apple-skin lips, beetle eyes and pocket knives, black suits and blue ties.

She took away my cigarettes and swallowed them all down, saying that’s enough, that’s enough of all of this.

Still there were ghosts in flagboys’ uniforms, bleeding into the bathroom mat.

She took me between coffee-stained hands, to the sanitorium, saying you’ve lost it, I love you but you’ve lost it.

This is the rifle we polish beside the fireplace, this is my body in the wrong lane, cocooned in fog, waiting for headlights to devour me.

Eleven days in gray rooms, one-hundred and twenty volts.

111

The rifle never gets clean. She comes and picks me up in a Jaguar and she doesn’t love me anymore and I’m sweating more than I thought I could.

On the way home I want to be cruel. I want to frighten her, I want her to know I’ve finally escaped.

Her parchment fingers on my knee, I want to light the cigarette, I want her to see me light the cigarette. Our young bodies in the prairie, light falling through our eyelids. Twenty years, a paper cut.

On the phone. My first love. The man in Paris, I’m saying now, whose face isn’t a face anymore, tell me who he was.

I’m sorry, you tell me, hands around the telephone. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t remember.

112

SMILE! Cat Sergi

113

humor

An Epic Light Battle Zoe Amerman

Th’ lonely wind sang the most chilling of sighs; Pale silver snowflakes dusted the skies.

Reflective metal structures lay in fate, the space Where the most fearsome of fights on this morn would take place.

Begun this tale have I, and I do humbly request, O muses, to assist me in telling the rest.

A shopkeeper trekked quietly, steadily traveling With th’ string of Christmas lights he was slowly unraveling.

“Hah!” proclaimed he as he surveyed the scene, “Putting lights o’ th’ holidays in place is a breeze!

Year after year, and incidents none!

No decorations hath malice, not even one…

Nothing have they been but entirely stable!

And I’ll even read the tag,” said he, squinting at the label: Lights mean holiday cheer, wherever they’re brought!

And no danger of tangles, definitely ‘knot’! ;) Electrical Danger, read the sole tag of warning.

“Is that all?” asked the shopkeeper. “How frightfully boring!”

Unsuspecting, he raised the lights to a nail Yet they snagged in a tangle, and his face shone pale.

“O gods,” he muttered, “What terrible pain here.

Holiday deities help me! Rudolph, most red-nosed of reindeer!”

Was Rudolph really god-like? He did not truly know.

But no hope could come hither, but from this nose aglow.

Then he drew a deep breath and eyes shining bright, Took on th’ Great Battle o’ th’ Untangling o’ th’ Light.

The day wore on, and in the fading light of sun Still the wiry knots refused to be undone.

Our hero twist’d and pull’d, yet these knots grew only tighter; The lights seemed to snicker, and glowed a shade brighter.

“They told only of electric shock, as to be efficient But the warning labels on our packaging were insufficient!

We’d wish you to enjoy the holidays, but we doubt you ever will!”

115

And the twinkling maze of tangles grew tighter still.

Our hero yelled in anguish, sweat forming a sheen On his forehead, and freezing in cold, icy beads.

“You’ve messed up now, o silly mortal one!

We lights hold great power, and our weaknesses are none.

Victory is ours, in knots of violet, green, and blue!”

And our hero stood in sorrow, wondering if it were true.

But then in the heat of the moment, he realiz’d the sight: At the center o’ th’ tangle, red was the light.

Cried, “like th’ nose o’ th’ reindeer!” in a wild-eyed gaze.

And the flames of adrenaline soared through his veins.

He knew in that moment ‘twas a day t’ remember.

“I shall not give up! I’LL NEVER SURRENDER!” A flicker shiver’d through the tangle’s very heart As the mighty snarl began to fall apart.

The colored lights twitched along the plastic cords; Rivaling the soaring sun were th’ shifting orbs.

And at long last, a shining line of the tangle broke free.

“So it dies,” spoke the shopkeeper, face shining with glee.

“The tangle has lost, I’ve defeated the snare!”

Then he took a step backward and yelled he to the air, “Henceforth, any lights left living shall see, That thou shalt mess with Rudolph if thou foolest with me!”

The string of lights was pulle o’er every shop’s door, And on that street, tangles returned nevermore.

116

116

A Fragile Heart Malana Kramer

117

short story

Silver Bullet

Meredith Carnahan The judge—a stout man with a fading ring of hair around his tonsure— raised his arms high, calling to the crowd, “Please, please, calm yourselves!”

If the people heard his words, they ignored them, continuing to throw food, stones, and handfuls of mud at the man being led up the stage steps.

His hands were bound in thick iron shackles, and his head was hung as low as a praying monk’s. Gashes and bruises covered his exposed arms.

The three men surrounding him held flintlocks to his back as they dragged him to the front of the stage.

“My friends,” the judge began as the crowd quieted, “I understand your passion, I do. But we must allow the process to take place.” He wet his lips, and with a glance at my father, said, “Who would we be if we did not grant a complete, fair trial?”

The people murmured begrudging sounds of agreement, though they didn’t lose their scowls and glares.

The judge faced the man. “According to the accounts of six separate townsfolk, you have been accused of the high crime of lycanthropy, as well as the cold-blooded murders of Mathilde Fletcher, William Payne, and Beatrice Godfrey. Have you any counter to these accusations?”

The man finally looked up. His face was pale and thin, and wild eyes shone through his entanglement of dark hair.

“Please,” he began, gazing out at the crowd, “I never killed no one. I carry th’ blood of a beast—that, I admit. But I can’t change tha’ an’more than you can. An’ I never took a human life. Those who accused m’ of it can’t prove a thing.”

“Rubb’sh!” someone cried. The group parted to allow a ragged woman to hobble to the front of the stage. “Th’ marks on th’ corpses were those of a foul creature. I saw ‘em m’self!”

“It was an animal,” the man pleaded, “or another—” “Lies!”

“He’s just tryin’ to ge’ away wi’ it!”

An eruption of shouts broke out. Cries of “kill ’em!” and “he's guilty!” circled the people like a swarm of angry wasps.

119

The judge raised his hands again, trying to quiet the frenzy before it grew too strong. After a fruitless attempt, he resorted to raising his voice, announcing to the man, “I'm afraid the evidence does not support your claim. Seeing as you have no further proof—” “Wait, wait!” the man cried. But his words were drowned out by the buzz of the crowd. One of the flintlock-holders kicked in his knees. The man buckled to the ground.

“—you are officially pronounced guilty of all charges—” The mob surged to the front of the stage in a flurry of arms and dirty bodies. Grey-toothed smiles appeared as they realized what was to come.

“—and you will face immediate capital punishment by our executioner.”

The crowd broke into a series of chants and shrieks, resuming the throwing of items at the stage.

“Your fate will be a warning to the others,” the judge told the man.

“With this beast’s death,” he cried to the crowd, “a hundred men will be saved!”

Everyone cheered as a tall man entered the stage, carrying a long, rusted flintlock in one hand. The screams grew louder than ever as he pushed a silver ball into the barrel, aiming it at the head of the kneeling man.

BANG! ** They carried off his body not long after, marching through the streets in search of a pike to place his head on. It was decided to put the pike in the center of town.

“It’ll ward off th’ others,” one said as the judge embedded the wood into the soft, bloody dirt. “Keep ‘em away from our fam’lies.”

“Tha’ monster d’served it,” another agreed. “Wha’s one death matter if it’ll save all of us?”

The town entered their homes that night in peace. Some stumbled through the door, sloshing tankards still in hand and the taste of victory on their lips. Everyone slept well that night, comforted by the warm blanket of hope.

But another body was found two days later, and another appeared a week after that. More came in the autumn months, found buried and ravaged by claws and teeth. And each day, the townsfolk passed the decaying, misshapen head that was planted in the middle of town, wondering why their silver bullet had not worked.

120

They Called Her Mademoiselle Vila Miller

Mom insisted on bringing me when she moved in five years ago. We lived only a few blocks away from the house—we were just stopping by—no, we wouldn’t stay long—she knew I was busy. Yes, just seeing an old friend.

I think it must have been July. Maybe early August. The air was probably humid and nasty just like it always is during the infamous Midwestern summers, but that is not what I remember from that night.

The house was on Cheryl Lane—not that there was any house to see when we arrived; more people were gathered in the streets around it than the entire turnout of the town’s annual Hotdog Fest. (In the little town of Frankfort, Indiana, we took our identity as “Frankfurters” very seriously.)

As my mother dragged me towards the nauseatingly large crowd, a bearded man adorned in a mustard yellow turban and a faint accent remarked, “Ha! There must be ten people per square meter here!” And he shoved into the sea of flesh and bright clothing.

Mom fought through the dense foliage of people with a death grip on my wrist, nearly pulling my arm out of its socket. But even the strength of my mother could not entirely penetrate the Great Wall made out of us. My mom did not look exasperated for a minute; it did not take long for her to find old acquaintances and to leave me in the middle of this dreadful ocean. My head spun around and around as people wearing every tint of color imaginable milled around and around until everything blurred together.

Of course, my natural instinct was to escape the congestion. When I finally found my way to the shores of the crowd, I stood there. Just stood there aloof and alone as the tide of people fluctuated in and out. As I caught my breath, I stared at the colors. Most people were wearing shorts and T-shirts, but I saw some people in other things. I saw people in clothes that marked different religions and cultures—they seemed to be from everywhere I could fathom in my wildest dreams. I even noticed a discarded Frankie the Hotdog costume (the town mascot, of course) on the road. I heard unfamiliar languages and foreign bursts of laughter. I smelled that summer sweat in the air. I stood there, a person admiring a painting at a museum gallery. So many details. Yes, I stood there, mesmerized by the crowd.

121

There was an elderly woman in her eighties or something on the fringes of the crowd, and she was surrounded by a herd of children who ran in every direction. She wore her hair in the usual old lady fashion—the short head of white curls. She wore a cheery yellow blouse and seemed to be running with the kids (one could call it running for an old person). She was standing about a dozen yards away when one kid slapped his hand against her side and screamed, “Tag, you’re ’it’!”

And the lady looked up—in my direction. She accelerated—in my direction. Straight towards me. I am young, but there was no way I belonged in the game of tag full of little children. Even so, the woman touched me on the shoulder. “Tag, you’re ’it’!”

I froze. I looked at her. She looked at me, “Aren’t you going to tag someone?”

I stared. She finally seemed to acknowledge the awkwardness of the situation and said, “Oh, okay. I’m still ‘it’.” She winked mischievously and ran back towards the children who were shrieking with joy as she pursued one of the bigger ones. After finally tagging a smaller kid, she slipped into the crowd.

I was fed up with this party or gathering. I called Mom. She didn’t answer. I walked home alone.

The neighbors talked about it for a week—which is about a record extent of time to gossip about a single topic. There were all sorts of speculations and rumors that Mrs. Janson, the lady across the street from my home, who was commonly referred to as “Batty,” would tell anyone within earshot. The people who were too polite to shut her up never heard the end of it until something else interesting caught Batty’s undivided attention.

I stayed away from her at all costs, but Mom was one of the unfortunate.

Never before had I met someone who could carry on prattling pointlessly like my mother until we met Batty.

I had learned nothing about the identity of the new neighbor from neither Batty nor my mom, but from my little brother, Jaime, about a month after the party.

Mom told me I should keep an eye on him while he roller-skated; he was eight years old. I followed him closely as he skated from street to street.

Jaime eventually led me to Cheryl Lane. I couldn’t help but stare at the house that had been blocked by people a month ago. It was quite small—the front yard even smaller. The front of the house was light blue,

moss-covered vinyl. The lawn was well-kept, along with the little garden bed with colors that reminded me of all those people that visited. By the garden bed, there was an elderly woman. It was the same one who had tagged me!

As I stood there, Jaime started to circle around me in his skates. This was the perfect opportunity to show off to me.

“Look, Jenni,” Jaime called out to me. “Watch this!”

He raced forward on the sidewalk as fast as he could. When he stopped, he looked back at me, hoping I’d look impressed. Disappointed, he started to skate backwards.

“Watch this!”

That provoked my attention.

“Be careful, Jaime!”

“Bravo, Jaime!” I jumped. And turned around to see who had applauded him. It was the old woman.

Jaime had an audience now. It was time for his greatest feat yet.

“Watch this!”

Jaime skated forward again to gain momentum. And he leapt.

“Jaime, no!”

It was too late. Jaime had hit the ground. Jaime shrieked like a banshee in a cemetery. I dashed immediately to his side, and the woman wasn’t far behind me.

Jaime’s elbows and knees bled the most. We were several streets away from home, and it would be a difficult task to drag a bloodied screaming child that distance.

I looked at the woman. She looked at Jaime and shook her head.

“I think we’ll have to bring him inside. Will you help me lift him?”

I promptly obeyed. Somehow, we got the screaming and flailing kid inside

123

and on one of the chairs around the kitchen table. The interior of Mademoiselle’s house was plain, and there was not a lot of furniture. She had a large bookshelf with all sorts of books and handmade art that looked like they came from a safari, a hike in the Amazon, and a journey across Europe and Asia. I didn’t have time during Jaime’s screaming to really look at them, so I forgot what they even were, but I know they seemed out of place. I called Mom while the woman grabbed cloths, medicine, and bandages with little characters on them.

When I finally hung up after explaining Jaime’s injury to Mom, I turned around. Jaime was quiet. He sat placidly on one of the kitchen chairs, blissfully slurping on a blue popsicle. The woman had applied ointment to his knees and was finishing bandaging them up.

“You’re so brave,” the woman said, sticking on the last bandage which had a blue tiger on it. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Jaime. That’s my sister Jenni,” He pointed at me as I stood there listlessly. “What’s your name?”

The woman smiled, “You can call me ‘Mademoiselle.’”

“Mademoiselle? Is that a name?”

“That’s what friends call me.”

“Are we friends?”

“Sure! We can be the best of friends,” Mademoiselle declared.

Jaime was pleased by this idea. I was ready to go home.

“Jaime, do you think you can walk home?”

Jaime remembered his pain and sniffed loudly. “Yeah.”

“Tell—” I paused, not knowing how to address the woman.

“Mademoiselle,” Mademoiselle prompted.

“Tell Mademoiselle, ‘thank you.’”

“Thank you, Mad-mwuh-zell.”

124

Jaime liked to frequent Cheryl Lane every subsequent summer. Mom started letting him skate alone, and when he came back, his tongue and mouth would be bright red or blue.

I was naturally curious about Mademoiselle. Mom said that Mademoiselle visited Frankfort often before she decided to travel. I think Mom met Mademoiselle at a wedding or something like that. Mom said she was super nice and spent most of the evening talking to her. Nothing very interesting. I think she said that Mademoiselle grew up in Frankfort, and had several friends still living there. According to Mom, Mademoiselle knew seven languages and had traveled around the world. She couldn’t say much else that was worth noting.

I didn’t see Mademoiselle again that year until that winter when Mom baked Christmas cookies that were intricately decorated with red and green frosting. She told me and Jaime to deliver cookies to all the neighbors. Jaime got to take his wagon to all the neighbors on our street.

Mom told me to make a special delivery to Cheryl Lane.

Mademoiselle warmly invited me inside and had me sit down on her old, brown couch. She set the large plate of cookies on the coffee table in front of me and brought in a silver tray with a thin green teapot and two short, round handleless mugs that matched the teapot. She poured a mug of tea for me, and then for herself.

“Tell your mom, ‘thank you’ for me. These cookies are works of art.”

I nodded, and said that I would.

“What do you like to do? Are you in any sports or do you have any special hobbies?”

“Umm, I like writing.”

“I love writing too! What are you working on? Could I read it?”

“Umm, maybe. I don’t write very much.”

“Well, keep writing. I want to read something of yours. Bring it to me, okay?”

I nodded. I think the conversation lasted maybe ten minutes until I said I probably needed to go.

125

125

When I got home, I went to my desk and got to work.

Those years came and went fast enough. Mademoiselle never went past her garden bed, but every festival, holiday, and event acknowledged in Frankfort came to her. Men always came during the Christmas season to decorate her home with the extra lights from the TPA park’s light show.

After the Christmas parade, families would intermittently arrive at Mademoiselle’s door for hot chocolate. Some of the floats even passed through Juniper Lane and stopped in front of the vinyl-sided home, while Mademoiselle would clap her hands and wave exuberantly. During the town’s annual Hot Dog festival, flocks of neighbor children would stop by to grab a popsicle, and their parents would visit with Mademoiselle. There was even another time when Mrs. Janson saw a llama in Mademoiselle’s yard after a 4H competition.

Mademoiselle often had company, but her regular guests always had very specific times they came. Batty explained this to everyone. She never left her house, but somehow, she knew. She said there was someone who always visited from 3-5 p.m. on Thursdays, another who visited on Monday evenings, another who always spent their Sunday mornings with her, and so on.

She made friends with every single child who set foot in the town; her free popsicles on a summer’s day were legendary. Her backyard was an excellent place to build a fort, and she always let them help her in the garden when they wanted. Many children pridefully brought home fresh zinnias and tomatoes that they helped cultivate in Mademoiselle’s haven.

She was also popular with other people. The adult neighbors would bake cookies or make soup for Mademoiselle. I made deliveries every now and then, and Mademoiselle would read my latest writing in front of me. I started a novel, and with every time my mom baked bread or cookies, it grew and grew.

“Keep writing,” she always said to me.

I was finishing my final draft when my mom called me to report the news.

The funeral was yesterday, at her house by her request, of course. That is to say the block around her house; it was that summer night five years ago again. I met my mother in the parking lot of the little Catholic church on the street perpendicular to Cheryl Lane. She stepped out of her tiny Volkswagen wearing a matching canary yellow dress. As Mom ran off, I looked on to the rainbow of people ahead. I must have been the only person wearing black.

126

I stood on the shores of the sea of people again. I stood alone, thinking about Mademoiselle’s life. I realized I never even learned her name—her real name. I knew almost nothing about her, but she knew everything about me.

People talked and laughed and cried in English, Spanish, Arabic, and who knows what else. I stood silent. My face was unfeeling and stoic.

As I paused to ponder, I noticed a group of children playing tag. They were running and laughing, forgetting about the woman who had joined them five years ago.

As I watched the children play, a girl—probably about twelve—bolted in my direction. She had her thick, dark hair in a long braid that flew behind her, and she was wearing a solid red dress and a large, childish grin that I knew.

“Tag, you’re ‘it’!”

“Mademoiselle?” I knew it was her.

“Oui.” “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I just wanted to stop by. I always wanted to go to my own funeral.

This is almost as good as the time when I got pulled into a street fight in the fish market in Buenos Aires.” Her smile grew even more. Her eyes sparkled with life and energy.

I looked down at the girl and gaped.

“I also wanted to talk to you one last time while I’m dead.”

“Am I hallucinating?” I had to check just to be sure.

“You might be. Who cares.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You never visited me again. I never got to congratulate you on your bestseller.”

Author Name 127

“My what?”

“Bestseller, duh,” the girl rolled her deep brown eyes. “It’s a phenomenon.

Go call the publishing company. It just became a New York Times bestseller.”

“What?” I stared at her.

“I know, you should have seriously visited me when you got that thing published in the first place.”

I think I may have cried a little. Mademoiselle spread open her smooth, new arms and embraced me.

Finally, Mademoiselle said, “I bet your Mom will be looking for you.”

“Yeah, probably.” I doubted it.

“Keep writing.”

She paused for a moment.

“Let’s keep my little visit between the two of us, okay?”

“Um, okay. Goodbye,” I teared up more. “Thanks for everything.”

“See ya!” Mademoiselle turned her back and slipped into the crowd, never to be seen on planet Earth again.

I wiped my tears and stood looking at the place Mademoiselle departed.

To my surprise, Mom appeared from the crowd with Jaime behind her.

“Oh, Jenni!” She gushed. ”You’ve missed all of the stories! She’s been everywhere! Oh, I wish you could have known her better.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I pushed aside my most recent draft and grabbed a fresh spiral notebook.

I took my pen and scrawled across the first page: “They call her Mademoiselle.”

128

Title

The Dead Man and the Moss Joel Robertson

There is a dead man on the warehouse floor. I’ve seen him, though I’m not sure anyone else has. He’s tucked away in the corner of the warehouse between shelves K37 and K38 with his head slumped down onto his yellow safety vest. Dried spittle mars his chin. I don’t know how long he has been there.

I stand frozen at the scene. I don’t know this man, but he must work here.

He isn’t an old man, but he certainly isn’t young. He floats in the void of middle age. Perhaps, he’ll rot some day, but right now, I doubt he ever will. He’s leaned against the metal shelf just as naturally as one might lean against an oak tree for a nap, the line of dry spit a wheat stalk hanging from his mouth.

My heart catches up with my brain. There’s a dead man on the warehouse floor. I need to do something! Run and grab my supervisor. Try and remember CPR. Move the body away from the shelves. Instead, I stand still.

Terror rises up from my stomach like moths seeking the light. It comes from my throat as a moan that turns into a sniffle that turns into a sob that turns into a wail until suddenly I am screaming from the top of my lungs.

A hand grabs my shoulder.

“Corin! What’s wrong?” I open my eyes which I didn’t realize I had closed.

Rob is standing over me. “Here, take my hand. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. That’s right.”

I sit up from where I have collapsed on the concrete floor, my breath still hitching in my throat. “Th-thanks Rob.” I move to stand, but Rob blocks me with his arm. “Woah, easy there cowgirl. Let’s keep sitting down for a little bit.” I groan. “Have you ever had a panic attack before?”

129

“Rob, I’m doing fine. Look!” I point to the dead man. He looks over his shoulder then back at me.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“The dead man! Right there between 37 and 38.” He turns around to look one more time, a slight frown on his face.

“Corin, there’s no one there.”

He looks back at me and I see it. Clumps of moss are growing from his pupils. I only see them for a millisecond before they dissolve.

“How about you go home for the day? You’re obviously shaken up and I don’t think you’re gonna get much work done like this. I’ll call a ride for you okay?” I nod, and he helps me to my feet. The dead man stares holes into my back. ### My father died two months ago. We weren’t ever close. Far from it. I stayed in my corner of the world and he stayed in his.

He wanted a son. That much I know. He and Mom tried for years. They had two miscarriages, one stillbirth, and then me, his spitting image in all but genitalia, which didn’t help matters. They began trying again after my diagnosis. A miscarriage later my mom said no more.

To his delight, I was a rough-and-tumble child. You could always find me playing with our dog in the small wooden garden behind our house.

Sometimes, he would join us, and in sitcom fashion, Mom would playfully yell at us to get in and get cleaned up for supper.

At 13, I had my first schizophrenic episode. I became utterly convinced flesh eating parasites were in everything I ate. Mom made all my favorite foods: apple pie, mashed potatoes with chives, biscuits and gravy. I refused it all because I could see worms crawling in and out of every dish.

After that, my father became convinced I was made of glass. Even after it was under control at twenty, he still felt I could break at any moment.

There was no release for me at the funeral. No secret revelation of how much he loved me and wished he’d been there. He left me his boat and some money and a deck of gold foil playing cards. Everything else went to Mom. ### I’m a stocky woman. Big-boned, my father used to call me. He often wondered out loud how “someone near 190 pounds could be scared of so many things that are so small.” After some help, I turned out pretty stoic, but he never believed I had changed. After last week, maybe he was right.

Because of my size, I usually end up assigned to tracking down and moving larger products from inventory to shipping. Right now, my tablet is sending me on a hunt for a small TV somewhere on shelf L40. Not thinking, I cross through shelf K37 on the way.

Even weeks later, the dead man is still there.

His body has begun to grow. It twists up and around the rungs of the metal shelf like a grape vine. The man’s skin has turned green but not with rot. It has simply shifted hues. It somehow feels more natural.

I reach into my pocket and pull out my orange tube of lurasidone, swallow a tablet, and wait. The man doesn’t disappear. He doesn’t even shrink.

“You doing alright?” Rob asks from behind me. I turn around. His eyes are filled with moss.

“Yeah. Just trying to find this TV.” I show him my tablet.

“Gosh, I saw that back there a few days ago. You want some help with that?”

“No, I'll be fine.”

He looks back up at me with moss-filled eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

I swallow and push past him. The pill did nothing. This was all real. ### I’m on the lowest dose of lurasidone that I’ve ever been on. Dr. McGraw thinks I’ve reached stability. Schizophrenics don’t really recover, we just learn to cope. Dr McGraw says that someday I might not even need drugs.

I’ll just be able to subsist on talking through my feelings with her.

I really don’t see that happening. Even on lurasidone, I still hear things sometimes. Lately, I’ve been hearing people snapping, but I haven’t had a visual hallucination in years. Dr. McGraw thinks I’m being pessimistic.

My pill bottle is my lucky charm. I keep it in my pocket at all times. Sometimes, when I’m feeling nervous, I’ll rub the cap clockwise with my thumb.

I read somewhere that repeated finger motions help mental stability. It rearranges your neurons or something. Beyond that, it tethers me to reality, reminds me that my eyes can no longer lie to me.

The man keeps growing and I know he is real. His neck is now as tall as the shelf itself. It spirals over and through the rungs like a broken giraffe.

His limbs twist about the concrete floor. People step on them on their way to and from grabbing packages. I can hear his bones cracking from shelves away. They don’t notice though. Their eyes are filled with moss.

I have begun avoiding that part of the warehouse. Whenever I get an order from K or L, I ‘accidentally’ get the wrong item. They can dock my pay.

I don’t care.

The moss has begun to stay in their eyes even when they’re not looking at the man. Some of them even have it running down their faces like bleeding mascara now. It is becoming increasingly harder to breathe.

“Corin!” I jump and my tablet falls out of my hands. Rob comes out from behind a shelf.

“What did you do that for!?”

132

“Still jumpy huh?” His eyes are free from moss. I sigh in relief.

“A little. What do you need?”

“Nothing in particular. I just thought I’d ask if you wanna get lunch with me today?”

“Oh, sure.” I try to muster up as much excitement as I can. I don’t like him that much, but I will do anything to get out of this godforsaken warehouse.

“Cool! I know this great little cafe down the block. They have these amazing croissant sandwiches. Last time I was there I had three of them but-” I tune him out, and notice the package he’s holding under one arm. It’s dripping.

“So see you by my car at 11:30 then?” I snap back to reality.

“Uh, yeah… sounds great.”

“Perfect!” He turns to leave, but the package he is holding collides with the side of a shelf. The soaked bottom gives out.

The dead man’s head rolls to a stop at my feet.

It is even more green than when I last saw it. The same line of dried spittle hangs from his lip. Moss that is more slime than solid leaks from his neck onto the floor.

I scream, partially because of the head at my feet, but more because I finally recognize the man. It’s my father. Well, not exactly. My father had all of his hair on his face while the dead man has it all on top, but structurally, they are identical. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before.

I fall back onto the floor, and I can no longer hear myself. Rob looks down at me, moss dripping from his eyes. I feel myself scream. He reaches down to touch me.

I slap him. He recoils and brings his hand to his face. A chorus of snapping fills my ears as I fumble for my pill bottle in my pocket, but I can’t

find it. I grasp my face with my hands.

The world shrinks as I look out between my fingers. The shelves and boxes have become nothing more than ants. They crawl up over my shaking body until I am the warehouse itself, a living breathing storage closet.

Here, on my wrist, a flat screen television. On my lower back, packages of dog food. In my hands, the dead man. Everything else is still shrinking, but he is growing. I grasp him tighter, trying to stop him, but he breaks free. His body twists around mine. Every place where his skin touches mine feels like it’s on fire. I hear his spine cracking as his torso loops around me. His fingers slowly grasp my throat andRob pries my hands from my eyes. A mossy handprint marks his cheek. I look down.

My hands.

My hands are leaking moss. ### I haven’t been back to work in two weeks. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back.

I don’t know if I’ll ever go anywhere again.

I sit in my apartment with swollen rubber gloves. I put them on as soon as I got home that day. I’ve gone through ten pairs and am about to go through an eleventh. The moss fills them up and bursts through the rubber. I only have one pair left. When those burst, I will move onto mittens, then real gloves, then paper towels, then bed sheets, then anything that can possibly contain it.

I begin what has become a habitual procedure. I carefully remove each glove by the fingers and make sure to keep all the moss inside. Then, I take a nail file and scrape the remaining moss into the gloves with the rest.

I tie the ends of each glove like a balloon and open the cabinet beneath my sink where I keep the trash with my foot. I toss the nail file and the gloves in, confident I have not contaminated my home. I will not contaminate my

home. My phone buzzes in my back pocket. Another call from Dr. McGraw. Despite myself, I pick up.

“Corin? Are you there” “Yeah.”

“How have you been doing? Your work called me about what happened.”

I say nothing.

“What were you hallucinating Corin?”

Again, I stay silent, but this time she does too, waiting expectantly for me to answer. I break first. “I haven’t been hallucinating.”

“Corin, I haven’t been completely honest with you lately. I’ve just been so confident about your recovery and-” The cabinet beneath the sink begins to rumble. “-this is extremely difficult for me to confess. I want you to know that I did this with every intention of helping you. The pills I prescribed you last-” The trashcan falls out of the cabinet. “-were not lurasidone. They were a plac-” I drop the phone as the dead man’s head rolls out of the can half formed.

I pick my phone back up and throw it at the head. Instead of hitting it head on, my phone slowly sinks into its ear like putty. I scream and run towards my apartment’s door. ### I douse my hands with kerosene. It cascades down onto my garage floor.

The moss yellows as it soaks in. Where are my matches? I tear through the storage cabinet. Pliers. Rat Poison. Aha! There it is.

I slide the white box out of its sleeve and remove a match. Something is wrong. I’m missing something. Suddenly, it hits me. I take two jugs of kerosene out of the cabinet as well and walk over to my car. I put them both inside my trunk.

Author Name 135

### You can no longer tell where the dead man ends and the warehouse begins. His limbs, glowing in the dark, now carpet the floor in overlapping zigzags. Spirals of fungus grow out of torn skin. The room smells dank and moldy.

The closer I get to shelf K37 and 38 the denser the limbs become. They loop over and back on each other creating mounds of flesh. I climb up, stumbling every few steps. My foot gets lodged in a hole. I yank it out. The alarm I tripped on my way in continues to ring. I’ll be done before anyone can stop me.

The limbs begin to recede. They become more structured, woven together.

Then, I see it. Right below K37, the limbs have formed a casket.

I lift the lid of arms, legs, and elbows. My father’s body sits inside, glowing fluorescent green. His head has regrown correctly this time. Dense moss forms his goatee. The scene feels almost religious. The moonlight streams through the limb-strewn shelves like a stained glass window.

I set down the cans of kerosene, and pry his mouth open with my hands.

I pick one can back up, unscrew the lid, and pour it down his gullet till it's empty. I do the same with the other can. Police sirens begin to blare outside as I strike the match and flick it into my father’s mouth. His body is immediately consumed, and his limbs are like fuses. The fire eats them up with a hunger leaving behind ashen butterflies floating down from the shelves. I sit down on the charred ground where my father’s casket was and smile at the ceiling. A butterfly lands on my nose.

I’m free.

136

Title

s/He

Madeline Stuckwisch I opened my eyes to the early morning, my forehead dampened with sweat. Most of the anxiety was gone, leaving just a small fire that continued to burn within my skin, but was always there. The more I thought about it, the greater it burned, so I tried my best to push it out of my mind. It couldn't have been any later than 6:30am, but with the days beginning to get colder and shorter, it was as dark as midnight. My back ached from having fallen asleep on the floor. She and I were both covered in a thin blanket. Both dressed in the clothes that we wore last night because we all had drifted off to sleep unexpectedly after having much too deep of a conversation about the texture of the carpet with my sister.

Perhaps we were much too high.

I got bored of waiting for her to wake up after a grueling ten minutes of lying on the floor in silence. It was nice, at first, the quiet. I got up as quietly as I could to not disturb her from her sleep. I was already surprised she hadn’t woken up from a lone arm hitting her side, a result from my thrashing movements in my sleep as I tried to escape the nightmare.

I walked around the kitchen wondering if my parents were home. Most likely. I don’t know where else they would be, though the quiet house seemed so abnormal. Usually, it was filled with berating and arguing.

That was another thing I envied about her; she had all the freedom to live her life without worrying about constantly not caring enough, not being enough. My parents would never.

It was never ending micro-parenting. It made me anticipate the year where I could get out of this hell hole and never look back. It wouldn’t be much longer now, only about a year or two, though then I’d have to worry about applying to colleges, and before that I’d have to graduate. Neither are things I could picture myself doing. I’m not sure why, the pictures just weren’t there.

I made my way to the bathroom, turned on the lights, and stared into the mirror.

“Hello there.” I said to the girl staring back at me. Truthfully, she didn’t look like a girl at all. Broad shoulders, flat chest, short brown hair

137

that barely made it past my ear, and brown eyes that looked dull as dishwater. I was also much taller than most of the women I know, officially meeting six feet as of freshman year, and my hands were large, making me look like Rachmaninoff’s heir. There was no denying I looked like a man.

Maybe that was the point.

I do this every morning, talk to the reflection and expect it to disagree with me and call me beautiful, dissecting each part of my body like a middle school science student studying each part of the dead rat placed in front of them. Fitting analogy, a dead rat. She never does say anything though, understandable considering she was my reflection.

“How are you doing?” I continue, starting with a simple question.

“Not very well.”

I titled my head to the side and so did the girl in front of me, mirroring my movement. “Why is that?”

I had to think about the question. “I’m not sure, I kinda always feel that way. It’s just a staple in my life at this point.”

“I don’t think that’s normal.”

“No, I don’t either.”

“Maybe you should see a therapist about that, get some actual help instead of talking to yourself.”

“Spill my guts out to a complete stranger and let them judge me and tell me all the things that are wrong with me? No thank you, that sounds like a waste of my time and money. I can do all of that by myself, and for free.”

“Trust issues much?”

“Actually yes.”

She rolled her eyes. “Suit yourself. Just continue talking to yourself until the day you die, or the day your mother walks into you talking to yourself and books an appointment for you, without your knowledge.”

“I doubt she would care. She probably already thinks I’m screwed up in the head.”

“You are.”

“We are.”

“No. You are.”

138

138

“Maybe, but not for that reason.” This voice didn’t come from the reflection, but rather right behind me, a voice much quieter and higher than mine. She was awake. I turned around to face her, beautiful as always, almost my complete opposite. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a symmetrical face in general (not to mention a nose that was much more appealing to look at than mine and a jawline that was much softer).

“What’s so wrong about talking to yourself?” she said. “It’s just a way to process your thoughts. I’m sure many people do it.” Though I wasn’t sure about that last statement, I didn’t respond, not having the energy to argue with her. Instead, I followed her out of the room, back to the living room where her sister was still sleeping on the couch, and sat back down on the floor covering myself with the thin blanket, still as a rock.

She was still too, both of us silent as the night.

She lay on her back and her eyes were closed for such a while I wondered if she was sleeping, or if she was just lost in her own thoughts.

The only sound that surrounded us was from the rain, drizzling from the grey clouds outside, and the waves of the lake slowly receding and then creeping back closer to us inside. Not long after I had the original thought, I got the answer to my question as she opened her eyes and stuck her leg up towards the ceiling. Her dress fell towards her waist as she pointed her toes towards the small discoloration staining the ceiling, likely from water damage. She faced towards me, staring her blue eyes speckled with solid gold flecks right into mine.

“Let’s go.” She said in a voice no louder than a whisper as she motioned her head towards the general direction of the shore. I grabbed her arm as she got up to stop her but she disregarded it and headed for the door anyway, opening it while letting cold air melt inside, leaving me shivering and alone with her disregarded, half-smoked joint lying on the blanket on the floor.

I quietly got up and followed her outside. She didn’t seem to care about the late fall, early morning weather though, stripping her dress off as she slowly bounced down the wet path towards the water, lazily cartwheeling on the sand and falling into the water that flooded over her. I envied her and her confidence. She was never afraid to show her skin, and if I lived each day in her body, I'd be just as confident. Instead I stayed fully clothed to cover up my wide yet somehow scrawny body as I slowly stumbled into the cold water.

139

139

The goal was to lose track of myself. My thoughts, my feelings. Let them drift away from me, blown by the breeze that runs over my skin and sends chills through my body. No matter how cold it got, I stayed standing knee-deep in the water, unable to bring myself to move a muscle. I almost felt heavier out here, anchored to the cold, wet sand. The reflection of water was beautiful when combined with a rising sun. It looked like tiny crystals floating around. The breeze felt like ice when accompanied with the cold and my body stung with each second, even through my sweater.

But I didn’t care and she didn’t either, half in the sand, letting the water pour over her legs submerged in the frigid lake. It’s not like the feeling was anything new, as each day passed I felt myself falling farther into corrupt thoughts. If I closed my eyes the only sound left was the chirps of the birds, but even that became painful to my ears. Sharp. Loud. I clenched my eyes even more in an attempt to force my mind to focus on the darkness, the numbness, but it didn't work. Everything around me became more violent. My own senses turned against me, a punishment from my prison. The wind picked up, a gust suddenly whipping my short, blonde hair from one side to another, until it seemingly receded again and everything went back to calm. The fire burning through; a sensation clawing its way throughout my body. As I watched her lying on the ground, staring at her figure that lit a thousand candles burning my body from the inside out, I envied her more than I ever had. Perfect, feminine, beautiful. It made me want to claw myself away, and I would if I could. Everything was painful. This weather doesn’t exactly help the feeling. My legs. My chest.

My face. I wanted it all gone. I wanted to scream. My body was screaming.

Instead of disturbing the peace I just walked back inside, shortly followed by her maybe ten minutes later when she began to cook breakfast for herself. She asked me if I wanted something but the pit in my stomach stopped me from ingesting anything. I knew it’d just come back up if I tried. Watching her sit down and begin to eat, oblivious from the nerves freaking out inside of me, awaiting the time when it was best. My heart was racing so fast I could hear each beat echo in my head, but I have to tell her. If she didn’t already know.

“I think something’s wrong with me” She continued eating. “No shit.”

“Thanks.” I muttered under my breath, but she heard anyway.

140

She giggled. “What? You’ve got a few screws loose in your head for sure. We all do.”

“I mean I’m transgender.” That’s when it all became blurry, a result from the embarrassment, from saying it out loud. My nose started to sting too, but at this point I was used to the feeling. I cried too often, too much, even if I hid it from everyone else. Men aren’t supposed to cry.

When she saw the tear crawling it’s way down my face, she stopped eating and just stood there staring at me. I guess she was intending to keep listening to what else I was going to say, but I was speechless and for the first time in years, thoughtless. I didn’t have anything else I could say, I couldn’t even bring myself to apologize. It’s what she deserved, an apology for dealing with this, so instead of speaking I hung my head low to the ground, awaiting the laughter, the pointing fingers, the hisses I constantly see in my sleep.

We’ll never accept you as one of us. You're a freak. A walking sin.

A broken record. That’s what I expected her to do and say but she was still just silent, most likely too repulsed to talk. Scum of the Earth. But after a long period of quiet, she broke her silence.

“Ok. That’s ok.”

I looked up to find her not face not repulsed but…. Accepting?

That may have just made it worse. Does she not see how wrong this is?

“Do you want me to call you something else or is there anything else—..”

“No.” I cut her off with a sharp response. “I don’t.”

“Ok. Do you want to talk about it anymore?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“How are you just okay with this?”

“What do you mean? I’m your friend, of course I’m okay with it.

Why wouldn’t I be?” Her tone sounded as if she was debating her whole existence.

I scoffed. She really didn’t understand it. “Because it’s wrong.”

“Why? It’s not something you can control it’s—” “Wrong. It’s wrong. I was born male. I was meant to be a male.

141

That’s what God planned for me to be.”

“God?” She furrowed her brows. “What are you talking about, are you even religious?” Not anymore. I used to be, but after a while it became easier to pretend like no such deity existed, as to save me from constantly worrying about what I was going to face at the end of all the misery, even if I could feel her eyes judging me as each thought passed through my brain. I tried to repress them. I really did.

“Hey!” She snapped, grabbing my attention. “Listen to me, there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s okay to be trans. Don’t listen to all those old privileged fucks who claim it’s wrong. Who gives a shit what they think anyways? You’re just as valid as anyone else so stop with this, seriously.”

“I can’t.” This wasn’t even just self-hate. It was despair.

I melted to the floor, bringing my knees to my chest, buried my face away and everything got quiet again. The thoughts slithered back to feed me more poison into my brain and I let them eat away.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Leave.” She didn’t have to, she could have refused, but she abided by my wish and left the room. Left me crying on the floor. Weak.

After a while of sitting in my own self pity, I left too, just walking straight out of the house, away from the water, it’s own kind of poison, in the opposite direction. I just walked, walked, ran, and ran some more.

It was to no avail. I couldn’t run away from my own mind and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t run away from her. No, I’d see her again. I have to.

The fire was growing larger. I recognized the expiry of my mind. Slowly I was more and more drifting off into a mentality of sin, obsessed with the beauty of another human being. That was her. I loved her, but even more I hated her for being perfect, being okay with me. It hurts to have someone else accepting something about yourself that not even you can. Yes, jealousy was thickly spread within my veins, but it always was. Even if the feeling was there, I still was ashamed of it. She didn’t do anything wrong, that was all me. It wasn’t even her whom I truly hated. It was myself. My body. I can claw my skin over and over again with no avail. I’m stuck.

I let out a sigh, back at the lake again. Each time I leave I know I’ll return, and here I am. I’ve returned. It was a sight for sore eyes, the lake, now frozen over. If you listened intensely, you could hear it singing.

142

It was strange, the sound. I wonder how something so remarkable could exist. Just another natural marvel of our world, just like the seasons themselves. Death was all around but when you breathed in, the air masked itself as something that was cold, crisp, and refreshing. It’s like Mother Nature was mocking me, making a spectacle of the transition from life, to death, and back to life again, year after year after year. Most people devour it. They take photos of the reds, oranges, and yellows on the trees and look forward to the cooler temperatures. Even those who hate either the winter or the summer are reassured by the cyclical change that their favorite seasons would be back again. In the end, everything would be okay. Many of us craved that reassurance. But now, winter was officially here, and snow plastered the ground outside, smothering the dead grass beneath it. So beautiful, so pure, so soft and delicate.

I think I think about myself too much. Well, I think about her too much. Not that I can exactly do anything about her invading all my thoughts, telling me that I could be just as beautiful as I desire. I could be the snow and the lake. I could be her. What I was currently being is unreasonable for even entertaining the thought. If I tried to transition, went through with it, I’d end up scorched, disappearing into the sun from the inside out. The ball of fire that burns inside me would finally consume me.

I wanted to accept myself, but I couldn’t bring myself to face my own feelings. Sometimes I wonder if I should let it consume me. Let her consume me. It's not like I can blame her for trying so hard. Working to convince me it would work. After all, there is a part of me that is, and as much as I try, I can’t go my whole life hating all parts of me.

Not even her.

143

The Disc

Hanna Warren I force myself to ignore all previous warnings, digging into the heart of the box with my cto knife. It feels like I’m actually turning the knife point in on my own chest, but there isn’t time to think about morals. I unveil a thin disc with a piece of Scotch tape on the clear casing, displaying the words “For Annie” in scribbled Sharpie. Tracing the words with a quiet resignation I slowly slide papery fingers up and down the smooth writing. *** Every Sunday morning, I host brunch at my home for my fellow waitresses, sizzling up fat sausages and gooey chocolate crêpes for their enjoyment. Our friendship began in a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop where we scrape grime off the cappuccino machine in exchange for minimum wage.

Naturally, our husbands function as the main topic of conversation as we spread jam on our toast and take small sips of scalding coffee. Pamela’s husband is very handy as she always points out, talking in a carrying voice about the newest tool he’d scavenged from Home Depot. (“He always forgets his hacksaw in the backyard. Men.”) Melissa’s husband is coaching their son’s Little League baseball team. (“And they’re undefeated, did I mention?”) Kim’s husband is into stocks. (“Jimmy has been going on about how profitable the market is looking these days…”)

The girls are kind enough to never ask me about Henry. I can sit on the sun-stained wood of my kitchen chairs and pretend that I am one of them, looking up at the embroidered message over the back door and trying to act like I believe what it says. “Here comes the sun,” it promises. It used to be my favorite song.

My friends pretend to not be aware of the fact that my husband has forgotten how to drive, write, make phone calls, and can barely walk. He asks me what the weather was like five times in the same hour, frequently forgets where he has put the remote (on the ottoman every time), and has taken to calling me by the name of Jessica.

“Now wait a minute,” I always tell him in a calm, low voice, “you know my name is Annie. Jessica—that’s your dentist, don’t you remember?”

A flash of reality will wash over his see-through blue eyes and he always flashes his practiced aw-shucks grin.

144

“Darling, how could I ever forget your name? Just because me and Jess have a thing on the side doesn’t mean I don’t love you!” I always sigh in relief at this demonstration of his old humor, but shudder at the fact that he’s already made this same joke, more or less, dozens of times.

I routinely frown at the Early-Onset Alzheimer’s pamphlet sitting on his desk in the study, a second copy (he lost the first) of the pamphlet we received on the day of his diagnosis right after that stormy night. *** I remember I waited at the kitchen table. Clutching a leathery cookbook in both hands and trying to decipher a recipe on Pecan-Maple Salmon, focus was impossible with the nagging hint of worry sitting, heavy and obtrusive, somewhere near the very back of my cranium. My heart was in my throat, pounding as though my veins had constricted and it was trying to pump the same amount of blood as usual into my overactive brain. His absence hung on my shoulders, grinding deeper into my tight muscles until I physically couldn’t take it.

Sheets of rain were dumped, ton by ton, on our fragile roof, torturing the thin planks of wood as they groaned in distress. The lights flickered out and left me in a pool of darkness, phones dead and all communication lost. I simply, helplessly perched myself near a front-facing window, watching the uniform inky blackness outside for any sign of him.

He never came. I pressed my fingers against the unyielding glass like a child. The wind screamed into our chimney and lightning created strange shadows on the living room furniture in the blackout. The tiny house shuddered ominously, creating the feeling of being trapped in the belly of a storm-tossed ship at sea.

Eventually, two pinpricks of light yielded themselves to my vision, and I threw open the front door without thinking. A sheet of rain flew in, splashing on my rug as a figure emerged somewhere near the pinpricks on my driveway. The person stomped through my front door and promptly slammed it shut.

“Annie,” he groaned as I embraced him before realizing this newcomer was not my husband, but my neighbor Jack.

I faltered and pulled back. “Why are you here? Where’s Henry?” He pointed at a person on the floor who I hadn’t noticed somehow. I stared blankly at my husband on the floor, unconscious. *** I asked all his friends and family to send in things from his childhood,

145

letters he wrote, accounts of things he’s done and said so I can show him.

On good days, he nods or smiles, sometimes saying a few words or a sentence if he’s up to it. On bad days, his watery clear-blue eyes look truly translucent, and he merely stares at what I have to offer as though I’m holding air in my hands. He may say nothing at all.

I can’t pretend like I’m the best candidate for Housewife of The Month.

Every other day in the long, twilight hours of the evening it comes down to a screaming match between me and the walls. My curls fly askew and I know my face gets beet red, and yet Henry’s capacity to tease me about my tomato face is forever gone along with his ability to drive. He just stares at me, slack-jawed, eyes twitching to follow me from room to room as I pout.

I spit profanity into the dense air as Henry watches beneath one of my homemade quilts, I rant on the unfairness of life, of this particular life.

Henry’s not the one who’s suffering.

Every time I say that sentence I feel the stab of satisfaction coupled with a mountain of hate for myself and my selfishness. Henry always used to say that I love too deeply, too completely, which is probably true. I’m in love with a dead man. There is no escape. *** His slick, pale hands were pressed violently against his eardrums as if to block out sounds of the shrieking thunderstorm. His dark hair was rough and matted and his face was smudged with grime. Clean tear tracks shined on his dirty cheeks, and his limbs were tensed into one tight knot. I dragged my knees across the wet carpet, putting my shaking hands on his damp face with a slightly slap-like sound.

“No—what—what happened?” I asked him, propping Henry up on my knee. For all the good it did he might as well have been dead.

“Found ‘im,” Jack said gruffly, sitting up wearily, “I was driving home and I found him on some curb, getting completely pelted with that onslaught out there,” he gestured vaguely toward the rain hammering on the windows. “He was just sitting there.” I looked into Henry’s slackened expression and closed eyelids.

“Thanks, Jack,” I murmured, nodding at him in gratitude. Thank goodness for good neighbors. Henry was completely out for an hour, but while pressing my fingers to his icy wrists, I could still feel a surge of life.

He woke up with his head on a damp pillow, fat beads of sweat rolling down his temple. His baby blue irises rolled up in my direction as he coughed up a thick spray of water into the air.

146

“Let me go,” he said unsurely, slurring his words into near incomprehensibility.

“W-what? Henry?” I stammered, truly alarmed.

“Need to get home,” he said plainly, trying to roll into a sitting position before running out of breath and simply staring at me and Jack from the ground with an intensely psychotic gaze. Rain—or drool—dripped down his chin and sunk into his already doused shirt.

“Henry, buddy—you are home! It’s Annie, this is Annie! Your wife,” said Jack, trying and failing to seem conversational and nonchalant.

“What?” said Henry, scrunching his face up, “Wife? Who’s Henry?” *** This morning, as his lungs stop working and he is actually choking for air, I’m so desperately searching for any kind of solution—something to keep him here for just a bit longer. I tell myself that this is just a minor setback, that he can keep on living with the disease somehow—just as he has been for three years.

You can never accept the truth, says that sarcastic half of my brain that's responsible for the hissy fits and Alzheimer-related tantrums. Stop lying to yourself.

WHAT ELSE CAN I DO, the angel on my shoulder bellows, maddened with some sort of sickening pre-grief. The beeps of hidden machines in his sterile hospice chamber actually sound morbid. Maybe these beeps sound the same no matter how the patient is doing, but I don’t care. I have everything I need to know from the fact that his lips are practically the color of that forgetful fish from Finding Nemo.

Forgetful. If his disease is based on forgetting, what if— Thirty minutes later, I’m clawing through boxes, bags, and old Christmas trees in our tiny, poorly-lit attic. I rip plastic and paper indiscriminately, thrashing into the heart of the clutter as violently as my heart is currently scraping against my ribcage. I find the box, the box he gave me on our wedding night. *** Dancing on top of ivory tiles in a spacious ballroom with a faint bluish backlight, I distinctly remember him pulling something small from his inner coat pocket and handing it to me. It was a shiny disc reflecting glints of rainbow onto his porcelain face.

“If ever you find yourself without me, and only then,” he whispered,

147

raising his eyebrows so I knew he meant he was talking about till death do we part, “play this CD. I love you, Annie,” he said with a goofy grin, to make the whole thing seem less serious. Even so, he warned me many times after to never, ever open the box until he had finally departed to a place I couldn’t visit. The fragile little disc rested in a box collecting dust in our attic for ten years. *** I find the little box in a moss-covered corner. So what does it matter if he’s still alive? This is an emergency. I force myself to ignore all previous warnings, ripping the tape from the cardboard box, wedging the stiffly shut folds open and stabbing my X-Acto-knife through layers of styrofoam. It feels like I’m actually turning the knife point in on my own chest, but there isn’t time to think about right and wrong. My hands fumble on a light, plastic disc that shines like some fluorescent beetle in the copper-colored light. There’s a carefully denoted piece of Scotch tape on the clear casing around the disc, displaying the words “For Annie” and reeking of Sharpie fumes. I trace the words with a quiet resignation, softly sliding papery fingers up and down the smooth writing.

At the hospital, I pop the disc into a CD player by his bed. In the corner of my eye I can see the machine recording the beats of his heart, relieved to see that the line still forms peaks and valleys. With the help of drizzled oxygen, Henry is slightly propped up and staring vacantly into space. My voice does not stir his interest. Nevertheless, I let the disc play. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll remember something when he hears…

There’s a crackling sound. A muffled something. And then a melodious blend of notes hovers for a moment before a voice is audible through the previously stagnant air, proclaiming “here comes the sun” over overlapping guitar harmonies.

And it continues. In the wide, wide world of seemingly endless English vocabulary, I have nothing to describe my reaction to that tinny singing taunting me from that CD player. A stupid song—that stupid song does exactly what he wanted it to. I furiously bite back the tears—tears for my expectancy of something that would save his life, for my disappointment that this was all he had left to offer me, for the fact that he knew exactly what would reduce me to tears. Tears for the fact that right about now his innocent face has about as much emotion on it as a Saltine cracker as his grotesquely cheerful requiem sings him to death. There’s a reason it’s not my favorite song anymore. The beeping sound in the room condenses into

148

one continuous note, and my eyes catch a glimpse of the heart monitor where all I see is a straight line. The unending beep adds to the tune still warbling from the CD player, twisting into a horrible cacophony that distorts the air around me as I listen to the melody of my suffering.

149

Unforgivable Eli Whitcomb

Why? That is the question we all ask ourselves when we are given a task that isn’t really necessary to a certain person. Why must I do this task?

Why am I the one doing this? Couldn’t someone else do it? Those were the questions I asked when that man... when that blade... when it was placed in my hand, I looked at him with a horrified expression and then, I said it. The most terrifying moment in my life raged upon me just as the word escaped my lips. Why-DON’T YOU DARE QUESTION ME! Just do as I say, and no one gets hurt. I still remember it, clear as day.

That catastrophe all started when I got called down to the office during 5th period. Cassie Alisando, please come to the office. I stood up; the gazes, stares, and glares of other students piercing the back of my neck.

Murmurs and whispers filled my ears and the classroom around me.

“What did she do? Why her? I told you something like this is going to happen.” I picked up my things. My backpack and my pass are the only things I have as I walk down the hallway towards the office. As I get there, the vice principal is waiting for me. My eyes start to sting, salt blurring my vision. “Follow me.” Her tone was formal, with a glimpse of sympathy. I walk with her down to one of the meeting rooms in the back. I expected my parents, the principal, and the counselor to be there, but instead, there was a man that I never met in my entire life.

“You’re Cassandra Alisando?” He had a Russian accent, and was wearing a black suit with a red tie. I couldn't find any facial details of him, the hat did its job covering his face. “I hear that you have a party that you’re attending at this address.” He handed me a white envelope that hadn’t been sealed yet. I took out the piece of paper inside and began to read it before the man spoke again.

“Out loud.” I took a deep breath and parted my lips to speak. “Dear Cassie A, the junior prom after-party is taking place at 615 Chauncey Hill Rd. Please email to staceyw@wl.k12.in.us as soon as April 3rd, 2021. Make sure that you have a ride home in case you plan to go home early. Hope to see you there, Alice Baxeton, Student Council.” I looked up at him.

He seemed pleased. “So, why I summoned you is to tell you that, at this party, lots of secrets from my business have been taken by one of these students. I do not care who stole them.”

150

Then, from the inside of his coat, he pulled out a knife. The blade was made out of pure obsidian while the handle was crafted with pure gold adorned with black leather. “I want you to exterminate every last one, mercy or no.” I gazed at the knife, then at the man. Something about it didn’t seem right about the knife. I started to speak with a frightened tone.

“Sir, why-” He slammed his fist on the table, startling me. If that was meant to silence me, it worked.

“If you aren’t willing to comply,” he opened the briefcase that rested on the table. Resting inside, there was a bomb. The clock only gave the victim two minutes to get out, which was barely enough time to evacuate the entire school, teachers, students, and all. “You won’t be the only one losing your life today.” He held the remote in one hand, the knife in the other. I realized that I had no other choice.

“I’ll do it.” The man closed the briefcase. He then proceeded to cloak the knife in red silk and handed it to me. I grabbed my things and the knife and walked out quickly, but I heard him say, “Good girl.”

I had chosen a dress that had a swirl of purple and white, the hem flowing down to my knees. A lovely golden purse complimented the look. My hair flowed down to my shoulders, giving me that Southern belle look. I gave a twirl in the mirror and smiled. My reflection, oddly, wasn’t. In the reflection, my dress and shoes had splatters of blood and my hair was a mess. I was wearing an old fashioned masquerade mask. But the thing that stood out the most was that I was holding the knife the man gave me, and it too, was dripping with blood. I checked my purse with a panicked feeling growing in my chest. Of course, it was still there, wrapped in red silk, in my purse. I shook my head, my eyes meeting the reflection again.

The ominous me was still there, looking at me with her crazy empty eyes.

Instead of frowning, she was grinning at me, manically. She was wearing an orange jumpsuit that criminals wear. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, slowing my heart rate. I opened my eyes, and this time, she was gone. Only my scared self reflected back in the mirror. I got up, brushed my hair and dress, and walked confidently out of my room.

When I got to the house, the party was in full swing. Blacklights were in every room of the house. A disco ball hung like a chandelier in the living room. There were bottles of different kinds of champagne and wine. Loud music blasted throughout the house, nearly obilerating my eardrums.

Confetti was everywhere. I did help myself to a glass of wine, and told myself not to tell my mom that I had alcohol over at the house. I was leaning

151

up against the wall and was casually watching everyone.

T here were many types of people, especially at a prom after-party: the gossip girls, the alcoholics, the true lovers, the football players, the party gamers, the DJs, the boys, and a whole lot more. I wasn’t any of those stereotypes. I watched the girls squealing over their prom dresses and the guys drinking champagne and commenting about the girls that they chose and how good-looking they were. I noticed that there was a tray full of masquerade masks, so I decided to take one and put it on.

Hours go by of the same hype pop music on repeat. People are probably making out at this point. I had removed the mask earlier, for it was very uncomfortable. The prom king and queen are talking with each other about their future lives. Everything is boring to my appeal. I’m starting to get tired. I still don’t know if it was too much wine or if I managed to listen in to a conversation accidentally, but I heard someone, or something, calling my name. Cassie. Cassie. I breathed in deeply, trying to calm myself down.

Suddenly, I saw a figure. I couldn’t tell if it was a person or an otherworldly creature, but I saw it. When I laid eyes on the thing, a burst of pain ran through my head. Although the pain was unbearable, the creature began to become more clearer on what it really was. It was a woman, shrouded in a black cloak. Long black hair. She looked like she was hovering above the ground, but I couldn’t really tell. She was coming closer to me. My breathing became heavy, although my heart was going a mile a minute. A horrific grin spread across the woman’s face. “Let me help you, little one.” Her voice sounded so soothing, like a hypnotic gaze of a snake. Too hypnotic, almost. Her bony hand reached for my head, and darkness consumed all colors that made up my vision.

“FREEZE! PUT YOUR HANDS UP, NOW!” I jerked my head up at the sound. Bright lights surrounded me, flashing in a familiar pattern. Red, blue, red, blue. I didn’t move. Part of it was out of fear, and the other part was the overtaking spirit of curiosity. I knew who they were, but why were they yelling commands at me like I’m a criminal? I then looked down at my dress.

I muffled a cry of horror when I realized what was waiting for me. Blood soaked my dress, turning the original colors into different shades of red.

I was holding that knife the man had given me, and it was drenched in blood as well. The insane part of me wanted to say Don’t worry, I’m dressed up as a character from 50 Shades of Red! But then, I’d be lying. I immediately started to feel dizzy, so I decided to rest my head in my hand.

152

Soft skin brushed against my hand, as well as….paper mache? That masquerade mask, how did it get back out? I moved my hand farther down my cheek. The panic attacked my head and heart when I felt thread digging into my skin, along with dried blood.

I felt a surge of anger through me. That woman I saw before I blacked out, she must’ve done this to me. Before I could react, electricity was coursing through my veins and once more, my vision was consumed by darkness.

I don’t know how long it's been since I’ve been living in this prison. I would’ve graduated high school at this point, but I never did. Time did seem to stop after all. I sit on my mattress in my cell. They never put two inmates in the same cell, that would lead to a bloodbath, one inmate fighting the other inmate, until either they themselves were killed or they successfully killed the other, adding one more murder to their charges, which them more closer to the day that they enter those two rooms, when they sit in those two chairs.

Footsteps. Probably I’m having another flashback. More footsteps. Loud and quick, echoing down the hall. My heart rate is raging in my chest. I can only expect the worst. I close my eyes.

“Inmate F-0416, step out of your cell.” I didn’t move.

“Inmate F-0416, step out of your cell, now.” I stood up, and began to walk towards the metal barred doors of my cell, obeying my orders. Until the mirror caught my eye. Mirrors were always a weakness that I couldn’t resist. Looking back at the reflective glass that stood before me, the visual of me now didn’t shock me. I felt like I deserved every part of me that was real. Back then, I had luscious wavy brown hair. Freckles had dotted my pale pink cheeks, complementing my calming smile. Dark brown eyes gave the impression that I was a good listener. But, that was in the past. I was younger then.

Now, I had indented cheeks, my face similar to that of a ghost’s. The waviness had become straight, long, and some reason, almost greyish black.

I had become a thin person in an oversized orange jumpsuit. My eyes glowed like embers due to my now amber eyes. Black and red liquid oozed from my sewn-on mask, drying and harding almost instantly. My mouth had a permanent smile, both from my mental state and carved in.

I always joked with the other inmates that I would become a ghost if my marked day ever came to pass. But they never answered me. Probably because of their mixed perceptions of what I’d become to them. Now,

153

with the man in blue standing in front of my cell, it’s as if I wanted this to happen.

“Let’s go, F-0416.” The harshness in his voice didn’t bother me. Back then, it would stress me out. Instead that reminded me of something. No, not something. More like someone. If I hadn’t recognized the tone, I might as well have, because the tone reminded me of that man of the mafia who put me here to begin with. I trudge out of my cell with a psychotic grudge that even I don’t know who it’s for. I now see that the man in blue isn’t alone.

He’s got armed guards with him. “Today’s the day, isn’t it?” I croak. The man doesn’t say anything, just walking away. One of the guards tapped me on the shoulder with his gun, nudging me on. I stood there, but soon I moved forward.

Later, I sat down in a wooden chair. I knew what this was. I’ve seen this countless times, over and over. I don’t cry nor plead to do it on a different day. I sat just there with a blank face. There were three steps to this process. First, the last meal. Anything you want, they’ll bring it to you on a plate. They then asked me the question that made my stomach roar with hunger.

“So, what will be your last meal?” I sat and thought about it. I’ve been given different kinds of food by the guards, but this is the only and last chance that I will eat my favorite foods, so I will have to make it count.

After a while, my raspy voice emerged out of the silence. “One sirloin steak, two tilapia filets, macaroni and cheese, and a beer glass full of root beer.” The other person who was listening walked out, slamming the door behind him. Exactly 30 minutes later, the same person returned with a gigantic plate. On it was the food that I ordered.

After you eat, someone will walk into the room and sit down in front of you. That’s the second step, the last recording. A couple minutes later, a reporter, a cameraman, and a guy holding an overhead mike entered the room, along with a couple of armed guards. I looked down at the table, my face still blank. After this, I will sit in what the other inmates call, “the lightning chair.” And that will be the last thing I ever experience. The electricity jolting through me as the switch releases 1,750 volts, and I can’t escape because I’m strapped down to the chair.

“So, you’re the 50 Shades of Red girl?” The man in front of me speaks.

His voice sounds nostalgic, which is supposed to be a part of his job as a reporter. I nod. I know that the camera’s on and recording. The mike is hovering over me like a demon trying to whisper things to do in my ear.

“So, do you remember why you killed everyone in that house back then?” I

154

shivered. He asked the question that I already had the answer to, and this was the moment, the chance, that I can finally tell the truth, whether the world thinks that I’m crazy or not.

“Well,” I rasped. “I didn’t decide on my own. I was forced to kill them all.” The man nodded. “But,” I continued. “When it came time to strike, there was a spirit in front of me. She took control of me. She made me do this.” The man chuckled. “50, there is no such thing as spirits, ghosts, and ghouls in this world.” Did...did he just give a nickname?! “But, I saw it!

So it’s real, I’m telling you!” My voice croaked. The guards moved a little closer toward me, I could hear them.

“Alrighty, then. So, on to the next question. Why do you wear that mask?”

I moved my hand to touch the paper mache. And, of course. I had to feel the stitches that were embedded into my skin. The root beer flavor went sour on my tongue.

“Well, when I snapped back, it was stitched on. It was originally a party favor, and it had an elastic band. I didn’t know that it would be an iconic symbol to identify me.” The man then laughed. I began to smile. It wasn’t in a psychotic way, but as a gentle gesture. I know that this is the last conversation that I will have with anyone.

“Alright. Final question.”

My shoulders sag. I don’t want this conversation to end, not when it was at its highest point.

“So, if you have anything to say to anyone, what would you say?” That was a question even I wasn’t expecting to answer. I just sit there, in silence.

I’m thinking about what I have to say. I don’t want to say anything stupid, that’s one thing for sure. I definitely want to say something that’ll leave a mark on whoever is listening.

“Well,” I rasp, my voice trying to sound confident and inspirational. “If you try to do something, make sure it’s more than forgivable. You have to have a mind full of willpower, you have be cunning, and you have to play dumb. But, most of all, all the actions that you have to take will have to be unforgivable.”

155

A Melancholic Flame Gabrielle Woehr

Dorothea bolted upright, a threadbare blanket covering only her legs.

Gazing outside, she saw the soft earth in her garden painted with glistening, white flakes while stubborn trees whipped in the bitter wind. Dorothea sighed, turning now to look upon her bedroom. Her broken space heater sat against thin walls, seeming to taunt Dorothea with every glance it earned from her. Her dilapidated mattress lay on the floor, almost unnoticeable among stacks of foreclosure notices and bank statements, mountains of hand-me-down clothing, and an assortment of overdue library books. Dorothea’s mother had always reminded her to return them. She would check in on Dorothea every week, searching for books that tended to accumulate and tidying Dorothea’s bedroom when needed.

Dorothea had not returned books in over a month. In fact, she found forgetting about late fees was quite easy when no one prompted her to deal with them.

She equated her situation to that of an alarm clock. When your alarm screams at you to get up, you learn to hate the clock and every harsh remembrance it delivers. You are filled with disdain until the alarm clock is ripped from your powerless grasp. When that happens, it becomes impossible to wake up.

Starlight washed over Dorothea’s room and sank into her melancholic eyes, masking the tears surfacing as she shivered and drew her knees towards her chest. She drifted back into the comforting realm of her dreams, but as was customary for her, her peace was short-lived.

Soon after she fell into sleep, Dorothea was shocked alert, choking on smoke. It burned her throat, filled her lungs, and consumed her thoughts.

The books carelessly strewn around her room were ablaze, flames creeping toward her mattress.

It only takes two minutes to die in a fire.

120 seconds. Less than Dorothea needed, more than she wanted.

Even as she sat in solitude, knowing the incredible horrors that she would soon face, Dorothea found herself not desiring to be anywhere else. She watched as the flames danced across her bedroom, trampling countless

156

memories and possessions. Dorothea’s eyes reflected the image of a single picture giving way to ashes. The photo captured the last perfect moment she and her mother experienced together. The last moment before a montage of blaring sirens and intense lights pervaded her mind. The final instant before the smell of disinfectant and tragedy haunted the air inside the hospital. The last moment before the thud of a coffin against soft earth was all Dorothea could remember.

Pushing notions of destruction aside and noticing the light emulating from the fire, Dorothea traveled in her mind to a distant memory from her childhood.

Dorothea and her mother were positioned cozily on the floor, enveloped in blankets. As Dorothea giggled, a confused expression on her face, her mother contorted her left hand into a strange position while her right hand clutched a flashlight. Directing the light towards the wall’s blank canvas, she placed her oddly twisted hand in front of the flashlight. While Dorothea’s eyes were glued to the butterfly on the wall that she now saw, her mother’s eyes never wavered from Dorothea. Dorothea’s eyes widened, like rays of sunshine spreading to reach every shadow. She gasped, unable to resist the awe and fascination she felt in that moment.

A laugh escaped from Dorothea as she morphed her hand into that same posture in which her mother’s hand had been arranged. The silhouette of a butterfly now joined her, much like the one that ignited such wonder in her many years ago. The butterfly pranced along the walls as the blaze closed in towards Dorothea, and when the fire finally reached her, she smiled.

She was grateful to finally be warm.

157

Lunchtime Chloe Sun

158

science fiction & fantasy

What Resides in the Mirror Emma Crandall

Alicia stood in front of the full length mirror hanging on her bedroom door, frowning at what she saw. The tiny, black dots coating her cheeks, nose, and forehead were unacceptable. She had been following a rigid, time-consuming skin care routine every day for the past month, and the blackheads refused to leave. Her fingers ran across her cheeks as her eyes carefully searched for the most noticeable blemishes.

Alicia found a particularly large blackhead and began to squeeze the surrounding area. It wouldn’t budge, so she dug her nails into her skin, pressing as hard as she could. The skin seemed to push up as the gunk started to make its way to the surface. Alicia quickly repositioned her hands to squeeze in a new direction, and with a small sting, the pore released the dead cells and oil residing in her skin.

She brushed the grime away and continued her war on her face. Alicia prodded, poked, squeezed, mashed, and crushed her skin until small, red indentations from her perfectly shaped nails were decorating her face.

She only realized the effects of her horrific massacre once she leaned back from her reflection. Anger surged through her, and she harshly rubbed the dents she created, hoping they would go away faster. They didn’t, and she released an annoyed huff.

Scowling, Alicia spun around and snatched her makeup bag from her dresser. She clawed at the contents until she found her foundation and concealer. She dropped the bag on the floor next to her door and resumed her previous position in front of the mirror. Alicia dotted her face with foundation, and as she rapidly tapped it in, the redness faded from view while the blackheads that tormented her vanished. Alicia added a bit of concealer under her eyes and blended it in quickly, eager to move on to the more enjoyable part of applying makeup.

Alicia dropped to her knee to place the bottles back into her makeup bag before she removed her contour stick along with a brush. The creamy

160

texture helped the stick glide over her skin as she applied the lighter color under her eyes, on top of her cheekbones, and across her forehead.

The brush’s soft bristles swept the makeup outwards, blending it with the rest of her face. Alicia flipped her contour stick to reveal the darker shade at the bottom, which she placed under her cheekbones and jawline.

She repeated the blending process until her cheeks and jaw were sharply defined. Her lips curled up at the sight as her round face was never something she could be proud of.

Pulling out her phone, Alicia glanced at the time. It was six thirty-five.

There was only twenty-five minutes to finish her face and put on the tightfitting, black dress she selected for the party. There never seemed to be enough time when it came to beauty, but Alicia was determined to beat the odds, even with the tremendous task she had to complete. It wasn’t easy making herself presentable.

Motivation traveled through her veins, mingling with her blood to instill life into her limbs. She would not look like a monster in front of all her peers. Alicia cringed at the thought of her friends seeing the imperfections her face held. Small bumps made her forehead look lumpy, and her round cheeks never seemed as alluring as all the models she followed on social media. Her jaw was not defined, and she had to carefully hold her head up in a way that spared the world from seeing anything resembling a double chin. Her eyebrows were too bushy despite her plucking them the day before, but they were nothing compared to the distraction her fat nose was. Alicia was relieved she had lessened the negative features with the little makeup she was able to complete.

Alicia took a step back to examine the rest of her body. She sucked in her stomach, vowing she wouldn’t touch food at the party in case she started to bloat. She already had a small food baby forming from when she ate lunch. Her stomach stuck out too much already, no matter how much she exercised and how carefully she watched her calorie intake.

Alicia pursed her lips. She didn’t look this fat yesterday. Her face was fine, and she thought she was actually pretty. Now, each fault created an eyesore that she could hardly drag her eyes from. Even once she managed to stop gawking at one feature, her eyes would fall on another that was

161

161

more unsightly than what she had just looked away from. Like how her eyes were already criticizing her curved back.

Alicia put her shoulders back and straightened herself until it was a perfect line. Not a single vertebra could be out of place. However, every second that ticked by only made the painful position harder to hold.

Her shoulders hurt and every tensed muscle in her torso made it hard to breathe. The breath she held exploded out of her, and she relaxed as shame took its rightful place in her chest. Why was her back abnormal?

Everyone else had perfect, straight backs that didn’t look like the droopy branches of a willow tree. Why did hers look so wrong? Surely everyone noticed like she did. Her hand tightened around the contour stick.

As she looked at herself in the mirror, the lights in her room flickered.

The bursts of light disoriented Alicia, and she closed her eyes until no light tried forcing its way through her eyelids. She slowly blinked and found darkness surrounding her, but a spotlight of white light enveloped her. She shielded her eyes and looked up to find the source, but there was nothing. The mirror floated in front of her and her confused reflection stared back.

“So, why are we here?” her reflection asked, pressing her hand on the glass.

Alicia shook her head. “I’m not sure, but I need to go.”

“Why?” “I have a party to get ready for and I still have so much to do.

“Oh, I see. Maybe I can help you.”

Alicia rolled her eyes. “You are a reflection. You can’t do anything.”

Her reflection smiled. "Without me, you will never know what you look like, and you will never get done on time. Let me stay."

Alicia sighed. "Fine."

162

162

"Tell me, what do you want to look like?"

"How is this going to help?" she snapped.

"Trust me. I can do it."

Alicia pursed her lips. "I just want to finish my makeup and leave."

"How do you want it done?"

"Like how I usually do it," she said, her foot beginning to tap the ground.

"Are you sure?"

Alicia turned away, looking for an exit. She waved her hand behind her dismissively. "I don't have time for this."

"But I am finished."

Alicia whipped round to see her reflection had already applied her makeup. Two wings of eyeliner matched on both eyes with smokey eyeshadow making her eyes pop. Her cheeks had a rosy tinge, and her lips were slightly overfilled with nude pink lipstick. Everything was exactly as Alicia would do it herself.

Her reflection smiled, pride shining in her face as Alicia took in her work.

"That would take another thirty minutes, at least," she stated in wonder.

"How did you do that?"

"I can do everything."

"Everything?"

Her reflection laughed, her voice dancing in Alicia's ears. Her voice sounded the same as Alicia’s but lighter and more appealing.

163

163

"I can make myself perfect. I can make you perfect too if you will let me."

Alicia raised an eyebrow. "So you’re only able to make changes to yourself? This isn't any help to me."

"No, no. I will be very helpful. Just give me a chance."

Alicia frowned, but she was curious to see what else her reflection could do.

"Fine. What am I supposed to do?"

"I will take care of everything. I know what you want, so I am sure you will love it."

Her reflection squinted her eyes, studying Alicia. She leaned closer to the mirror as her eyes flit from one side of her face to the other. Her lips curled into a smile as she stood up straight again.

"I suppose we must do something about your cheeks."

Her reflection lifted her hands and slowly pressed her fingers into her cheeks just under the bone. She ran them along the ridge, and as her fingers left the skin, it compressed until the bone was clearly defined.

Then, she pressed at her jawline, which sharpened the lines until her face was flawlessly angular.

Alicia's eyes widened at the sight. Her reflection had gotten rid of her round face that she despised.

“How did you-?”

She heard only a giggle in return.

Her reflection was soon molding her nose so the nostrils weren’t so wide and the bridge was narrow. She pinched her eyelashes and drew them outwards, causing them to lengthen. Then, she curled them up so they would maintain their volume. Her reflection’s fingers danced around

164

164

her eyes, sculpting them to become rounder to show off the irises. She blinked, and the rich brown irises swirled to a bright, icy blue. She took care of her bumpy skin and large, dirty pores with a single brush across her entire face to smooth it.

“Is this what you wanted?”

Alicia blinked. Her reflection knew everything. She could do everything.

Alicia carefully touched her face, but she only found her soft cheeks.

"It's beautiful," she said, her words trailing off as she was sucked into studying her reflection, “but you still didn’t do anything to me.”

“I will just make changes to myself first so you know what you will look like. Afterwards, I will do the same for you.”

“You’re not trying to trick me, right?”

“I have no intention of deceiving you.”

Alicia took a deep breath. “Alright. What else are you going to do?”

Her reflection didn’t respond. She just rolled her shoulders back and moved her back until it lost its tragic curve. Her reflection placed her hands on her waist and pressed inwards so it shrank down to a more slimming appearance. She also pressed her stomach in so it was flat just like everyone else. She pointed her toes down, lengthening her leg. She repeated the process with the other side.

“I didn’t even realize that was something I wanted,” Alicia said, looking at her reflection's long legs.

“I know you best.”

However, her reflection’s eyes squinted, the vivid blue darkening as she analyzed herself.

“This is not right.”

165

165

“What do you mean?”

“This hair is disgusting.”

Alicia jumped at the sudden harshness her reflection’s voice took on.

“What are you talking about? My hair is the only part of me that I like.”

“But I can do so much better. Do you not want the more trendy styles?

Bleach blonde has not been popular for years. Do you not want to highlight your features with black hair? Your eyes would stand out even more.”

Alicia hesitated. “Do you really think that would look better?”

“I know you best,” the reflection repeated. Her voice was back to those light, musical notes that twirled through the air. The reflection offered a kind, encouraging smile and Alicia smiled back.

“Ok, let’s do this.”

“I knew you would come around,” the reflection laughed. “It will be beautiful.”

Alicia embraced the praise and pushed away her doubts. It was crucial to sacrifice to be pretty. Her hair could look even better than it did now. She watched it cascade down her back, curling with soft waves as the blonde pigment was overpowered with darkness. Alicia could admit her eyes were shocking with the dark hair, but she wasn’t convinced she looked better this way.

“I’m not so sure about this change,” she started, her head tilting to the side as she looked. “Maybe it would be better if we kept it blonde.”

The reflection frowned. “Why? This looks magnificent.”

“It just isn’t me.”

166

166

“I made you look better,” the reflection protested, her voice gaining a hard edge. “Are you really going to tell me now that my work is not good? I have done so much for you. I know more. Why do you think it is alright to tell me I am wrong about this?”

“You’re not wrong,” Alicia quickly said, raising her hands in defense. “I think it works, but I prefer my old hairstyle.”

“You are being selfish and ungrateful. You wanted to be pretty, and I did what you asked. Your hair was hideous, and I fixed it. It is like you want to be ugly.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You act like it. You can not just be pretty. You need to change to get there.”

“I know,” Alicia exclaimed.

“Then, stop complaining.”

The reflection glared at her, its eyes narrow slits in her face. Its dark hair fell in its face, covering half in a wave of inky black that contrasted its pale skin. Its pink lips were twisted in a scowl. The angular features Alicia liked seemed too sharp even if nothing changed. For a brief moment, her face wasn’t her own. It was hauntingly beautiful.

She watched as if she was in a trance as the reflection’s arms rose up. Its hands skimmed her waist again before violently crushing it so its fingers were able to touch while encircling its body. The crunch from the force sent nausea through Alicia, and she stumbled back, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. The reflection grinned a wide, toothy smile.

“I think you will have to remove a few ribs for this look, but I am sure you are the skinniest person now. You may want to stop eating so much, too. You will get fat and ugly again.”

167

167

Its legs started to grow, but its height didn’t change, so the top and bottom half were largely disproportionate.

“No one wants a tall girl, but you must have long legs. Make sure you get the right size skinny jeans. You might need them tailored specifically for you.”

It cocked its head and blinked.

“Have you ever noticed how hairy your arms are?” it asked, starting to rub its arms. The rubbing got harsher, and red splotches began to dot her skin. Bits of dead skin flew off and larger pieces started to fall on the ground around it. Soon, its skin was partially rubbed off.

Alicia choked back the vomit rising in her throat. The grotesque creature focused on her discomfort.

“I would just let that out. The less you have inside, the better looking you will be.”

“What are you?” Alicia asked, fear causing her voice to grow louder.

“What do you mean? I am you. I am everything you wanted to be.”

“None of that is what I want.”

“You wanted to be skinny. You wanted long legs. You wanted to look like the models. I just put together the best characteristics.”

“No, you are going too far,” Alicia snarled.

The creature slammed its hand on the mirror, and the sound rang out.

“You don’t have what it takes to be pretty,” it hissed. “You want to stay hideous like everyone else. I am helping you, and you are trying to tell me what to do. I know what is best for you. You are fat. You are ugly.

Nothing you do will amount to anything unless I am here to guide you.”

168

“I am not what you say,” Alicia shot back. “Just leave me alone.”

The creature snickered. “You really think that? You came looking for me.

You accepted my help. Just admit what we all know.”

“I am not ugly,” she screamed.

“You were practically begging for me to help you before.” It smashed its hand into the glass again, and the mirror cracked. “You wanted this.”

The creature kept pounding on the glass, the piercing cracks growing in volume. Alicia moved back as the creature started shrieking. The mirror exploded, and she watched, horrified, as it stepped through the empty frame. Alicia backed away, but her eyes were glued to the monstrosity in front of her. She could hardly force herself to move as she stared at the figure she only recently admired.

In two strides, the creature cleared the distance between them, gliding over the ground. It looked her in the eye as Alicia trembled. It reached out and grabbed her hand.

“This is what we are,” it whispered, its voice sending a violent shiver down Alicia’s spine.

It spun Alicia around so her back was facing the creature. She screamed, hoping somehow, someone would hear her in this endless void. She felt the creature press against her back, and a rush of pain flooded into her body. She looked down to see the creature’s hand merging with her own.

Alicia tried to pull away, but she couldn’t escape the increasing hold it had on her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she cried out as her torso was squeezed into the tiny frame the creature had created for her. Her throat burned as her shrieks filled the air. The empty mirror stood alone in the fading light as her vision went dark.

Alicia screamed, and her eyes shot open. She tried to steady her pounding heart and sucked in large breaths to calm her nerves. She was back in her room, staring at the mirror on her door. Only her terrified expression looked back. She sighed and dropped the contour stick, barely hearing the

169

soft thud as it hit the carpet. She stepped towards the mirror and drew her fingers over her face. Maybe her round cheeks weren’t such a bad thing.

However, the single blackhead peeking out of the foundation caught her eye.

“It is alright to just remove one blackhead. Then, maybe you will be beautiful like me.”

170

Antithesis of Batesian Mimicry Claire He

The journey from Ki’lanfold to Cathigan was twenty-one days.

The battered path from the merchant capital to the fortress of the South was not a path most dared to tread. The Noranua River chiseled across the land, and from her vantage point on the mountain pass seventeen days in, it bent in the shape of a serpent’s spine, the riverbanks shimmering like scales in the summer heat. She thought it would look more beautiful if it wasn’t a wasteland.

She craned her neck, blocking the sun from her eyes. Since the civil war, broken spears dotted what was once a battlefield, across a valley too vast for anyone to clean. The ash had long been wiped away by the autumn rains. It was simply dull now—the color of sand and dust and all things lifeless.

Ahead of her, Commander Kanveth stilled his steed. In the clattering—and the silence—that followed, a falcon’s cry pierced the air. Her fingers tensed on the reins. Within seconds, their party had paused on the pass.

“Sir?” The Commander lifted his hand, signaling silence. She shut her mouth. It took seconds, but eventually she heard it too—the slight pattering of footsteps, the unnatural whistle of arrows. Beside her, a lieutenant asked a silent question with his eyes. What do we do?

She let go of the reins and reached for the sheath at her hip. They had done this a thousand times before. She was used to it. And she expected for the Commander to die today: he had been living on borrowed time since the ambush at Erindam, with a growing fracture in his left leg and lungs reminiscent of those who breathed in smoke from battlefields. A strong wind could kill him.

From the cliff above her, there was a rumbling noise. It echoed through the otherwise empty valley. She was suddenly exponentially aware of how high up they were. The glittering port city of Cathigan was only miles away, but a tip over the edge of the mountain would be fatal. Fallen into the serpent’s maw, impaled by jutting rocks from beneath beneath the languid waves, left to float in the 171

current until some inevitable fisherman would be generous enough to bury you.

The Drowned Desert showed no mercy to those who traveled upon it. And the bandits that roamed freely upon it, guided by the whipping wind, were even more deadly. In the years following the civil war, the capital troops had recovered countless wrecks from the edges of the mountains; those that could not be recovered rotted away beneath the blood sun.

The bandits were upon them in mere moments. The fragile order that the Commander maintained broke within seconds as soon as the first of the arrows rained from the sky, downward. The lieutenant beside her was felled quickly: he choked on the blood that gurgled up in his throat, and the second arrow silenced him, piercing his liver. She gave him a curt salute, but did not dwell on his glassy eyes. A third arrow sent his horse into a frenzy and his body tumbling over the edge of the narrow path—she turned away before his body could hit the water.

It was chaos when she glanced upwards. The Commander yelled indecipherable commands. The ringing in her ears persisted, but she attempted to read the Commander’s lips through blurry vision.

Careful of where she stepped—the gravel beneath her was littered with arrow shafts—she made her way to him.

His uniform was ripped in two different places, from where arrows had grazed past him in the initial assault. That’s fortunate, she mustered. His men were left to scatter like rats, struck down and stripped of their imperial belongings. Their arrows were long-range, and even squinting at their silhouettes would leave her staggering, blinded by the sun. The body of a dead falcon fell beside her, neck split cleanly in half by the poison-tipped steel. Showing off their archery, I see.

“Sir,” she gasped, as she had at the ambush at Erindam. “What do we do?”

He handed the reins of his prized stallion to her. The creature, whose amber fur was streaked distastefully with blood and dust, bowed its head at her. The weight of the rope rested like wire within her palm, and she closed her hands on it, as if a pearl in the hand of a peasant.

Cathigan was four days away. Erindam had cleaved their numbers 172

172

in half, had left the escorting troops battered and silent and so, so obedient. Their troops put up a good fight today, she admitted, but even with fire burning down her throat and blood rushing to her head, she knew they had lost. They had weighed their prim advantages against the desperation of criminals and paid the price.

And it was far from stopping. “Stay here,” the Commander ordered her with a firm hand on her shoulder. The arch of the cliff above made it so that they were in shadow for a brief second, protected from the chorus of arrows from a supply that seemed limitless.

“But sir—” she protested, wrenching herself away. “Lady Tong’ae!” Her gut burned with frustration. Any second now, the arrows would pierce the velvet palanquin that was flanked by nowdead steeds. With the bandits’ aim—likely deserters, if someone asked her to guess—the noblewoman’s life was in their enemy’s hands. Playing with their food, and she knew that they would tire of it once the pawns were dead.

She had sworn an oath to escort the noblewoman unharmed to the gates of the unforgiving fortress of Cathigan. But saving the Lady meant leaving herself vulnerable to the excruciating agonies of their stolen weaponry. How would she die: an arrow through the chest, froth threatening to burst from her lungs, dead long before she could hit the water?

The Commander grabbed her chin with his rough hands, turning her face to look him dead in the eyes. “Stay here,” he repeated.

“That is an order. I will retrieve Lady Tong’ae, and you will listen to me. Do you understand?”

She nodded, once, jerking her head away from him to collect herself. Nausea unsteadied her. The stench of iron threatened to make her heave. Visions of Erindam swam before her eyes, and she feared that if she opened her mouth to affirm his orders, her tongue would be caked with the dust of dead skin.

The Commander—soon, she would no longer need to call him by title—walked along the twitching bodies of his division. She watched him impale a bandit that had come down the mountain too early with relative ease, and for once she could perhaps see where the rumors of his old military prowess came from. The blood that he smeared onto the back of a fallen saddle glistened like the city in the 173

173

distance.

The palanquin curtains opened. A woman with powdered, pale skin, hardly touched by the sun, lifted a trembling hand towards him. Nominally, the noblewoman had been a war prisoner, captive from the West and brought to the South as leverage to her General father. Her captors’ idea of imprisonment had been to let her do as she pleased, and within a year and a half, she had been returned to her father, untouched, when they won.

She doubted the woman had seen the scars on the valley before, or if she had ever stared into the sun to determine in which direction the well-trodden paths were. A hundred soldiers had sacrificed themselves for her sake, in her first return to the South since the end of the war.

The Commander wrenched her by the wrist into the sun, not wasting a second. As if on cue, the arrows resumed their fire, ricocheting against his weapon. The woman’s breath came in gasps, as if on the verge of panic.

The first arrow that broke past his defense clipped him on the side of his stomach, and he stumbled, swaying dangerously. The meters between them shortened in length, yet it seemed as though the distance was longer than the path to Cathigan. Her sweat gathered in her palms, making the reins slick.

And she waited what seemed like a lifetime for the Commander to return. Her gaze fastened on his silhouette, watching as he was struck by another arrow, shielding Lady Tong’ae from the brunt of the assault. The blood splattered all over the woman’s pretty face, covering her lips with something redder than the cosmetics they used in the pampered city of Ki’lanfold.

The gap between them closed ever so slowly. The poor woman looked as if she would collapse under the weight of the Commander’s armor and the arrow wedged between it, cutting to his collarbone. Her heart pounded faster and harder, as if the thud of heavy footsteps. Cheeks flushed red from the sun, it took all of her strength to keep standing, leaning against the fur of a horse that was coated with dried fluids. She reached out, weakly, when the Commander was in hearing range.

He shoved the noblewoman towards her and pressed two days’ worth of individual rations into her left hand. Makeshift bandages 174

174

of torn velvet from the palanquin curtains were wrapped around her wrist.

With a parched throat that threatened to spill blood, he choked out, “Run.” So she did. He mouthed “keep her alive” and she turned away.

There was a myth that the nobles told at festivals in the winter, when the audience was too far removed from the heat to care. It was the story of a goddess that drank rivers as wine. This goddess— Noranua—was said to have been the most beautiful in all the heavens, her eyes as deep as the vast oceans on the borders of her domain, her skin like gilded porcelain, her lips painted with dye from the minerals deep in the desert.

But she had become ambitious, and envious of the other gods.

Noranua killed the queen of the heavens so that she could take the heavens for herself, as if another one of her male conquests. And here was where the storytellers of the festivals would lean forward in feigned excitement, accentuating the story with their motions.

This was the part of the story that had become muddled over generations, like the surface of the river beneath her.

Noranua knew she was weaker than the other gods, the storytellers would say to the audience. So she wrapped her wedding veil around a mask of wood and pretended to be the queen. The goddess, when discovered, was thrown from the heavens, into sand that ruined her beauty and boiled her eyes. Her lungs filled with coarse grains and she suffocated, her blood seeping into the salt river.

She had heard the story enough times to recall it by heart, even though more recent retellings left the ending open, as if the goddess had lived her life pretending to be someone else. The river and Cathigan served as a makeshift grave for the goddess, made by atheists who told myths simply because it was convenient. The civil war had spilt blood on the land once more.

She told the myth to Lady Tong’ae in the absence of conversation.

Tending to their wounds and turning hostile eyes from the sand to the sky, she thought she could see the heavens and Cathigan on the same horizon.

It took four days, at full speed, for her and the noblewoman to reach the city gates. She starved on the few provisions that didn’t rot. Lady Tong’ae’s pale skin blistered beneath the Drowned Des175

175

ert’s sun.

After they reached the main gate, she paused. Dismounting the stallion, she held her hand out for Lady Tong’ae to take—as a courtesy. The gates hung beads of bronze and ruby, traded along the Noranua River with the merchant capital. She did not belong here, but nevertheless, she had promised to escort the noblewoman to the gates.

One hand remained clenched on the reins, even though the rope burned her fingers. Her mouth failed to bring saliva to her lips.

“Thank you,” Lady Tong’ae addressed, putting her hands in a poor imitation of a salute. “For following your oath. My father will be pleased.” She paused. “My condolences for your commander’s death. He was a dutiful man.”

The noblewoman folded her hands nervously before her, and she could almost pity the poor thing. A falcon circled overhead, crying out as if in anticipation. She had half the mind to kill it, watch its bones crush and heart still beneath the weight of a blade like an offering splayed across the vanity of a diviner.

“Lady Tong’ae,” she began, “Kanveth was a necessary sacrifice.”

They had reached the outskirts of Cathigan, and that was as far as the noblewoman would go. War did not end: it was a fire which burned brighter in the dry valleys of a desert and in the shadow of unsettled debts. Soldiers followed orders, but she was no soldier.

She thirsted with the same desperation as the bandits in the mountains.

She dressed herself in the stained fabrics of Lady Tong’ae once she had slit the girl’s throat. With blurred eyes, she saw the reflection of Erindam’s fallen in the noblewoman’s visage. And she returned the blade to its sheath just as quickly, disposing of the body on the banks of the ophidian river. The indolent current would send the corpse far, far away. The girl’s skin turned the color of ash.

It had taken twenty-two days to leave Ki’lanfold far behind her.

Thirteen to abandon the wreckage at Erindam and march into the mountains. She took a knife to the reins of the stallion and sent it towards the desert.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she offered, talking to a ghost. Noting how her voice was not melodious, instead raspy from dust and sand, and how that should be remedied. “But my duty is not yours.”

176

176

And a woman who newly named herself Tong’ae rang the bells at the gate of Cathigan.

177

177

Bellamy Versus [Eternity] Maggie Hoppel

Bellamy worked at the airport. That morning, like every cursed morning, her [alarm] had startled her awake at 5:00 A. M. exactly. She hadn’t slept in, just climbed into the [shower]—scrubbed her body, shaved her legs and armpits, shampooed and conditioned her hair—and dressed herself in plain [clothes]. Her [breakfast], then her toothbrush went into her mouth after that. They tasted the same. She owned no makeup, nor a hair dryer—she braided her unruly brown [tresses] instead of drying them.

Grabbing her [phone] [keys] [bag] and sliding on her bland-colored [shoes], Bellamy had then proceeded with her usual trek down the apartment stairs to her car, but never before locking the [door] behind her.

File deleted: [HOME].

She wasn’t going to think about her apartment, about a million apartments, about huts, castles, fortresses, cottages, townhouses, with her husband—kids—pets—roommates—by herself because none of it was real.

The world she had just left, like all the others, had simply … stopped, when she turned her back on it, and it would be waiting to spring back into reality when she was ready to return to it this evening.

It didn’t exist.

It didn’t exist.

It didn’t exist.

Bellamy had placed her hand against the long, rusty railing by the stairs and stilled her fidgeting body. Closed her eyes, and opened them.

She counted: 5, she saw stairs and colorful, but teenaged graffiti and her boring slip-on shoes and her bag, far too large for the few possessions it carried, and the pastels of the dawn settling onto the city ahead of her like freshly fallen snow.

4, she touched the cold metal of the railing, then the rough cement walls, noting the feel of her wet rat’s tail of a braid against her back and the smooth cotton fabric of her shirt straining a little bit against her broad shoulders.

178

3, she could hear her own breathing and her heartbeat, proof that she was still alive. Bellamy was always, always still alive. She listened for one more thing and detected the distant chatter of another commuter exiting their apartment from the floor below, regurgitating the morning’s final farewells to a spouse or child or roommate.

2, she smelled hot, stale city and her deodorant.

1 … Bellamy raked her tongue across the palm of her hand. It tasted salty from sweat and railing germs. Maybe she would get sick.

Wait, no, she wasn’t going to think about sickness right now. Bellamy was not currently [sick], not coughing, hacking, bleeding, aching, oozing, so illness wasn’t—couldn’t be—part of her reality. Bellamy lived in a world of walking to her [car] and nothing else. So she put one [foot] in front of the other, her breathing steadier now. She clambered into her decade-old [Volvo] and started the [engine] and drove to work in moderate [traffic].

Then there was the airport.

Bellamy worked at the [airport]. It wasn’t anything interesting, really, not like the pilots or security officers—who, she reminded herself, didn’t exist unless one happened to pass by baggage claim while she was watching. And, yes, she worked in baggage claim. Sending lost [suitcases] off to Tokyo or Disney World or South Dakota to reunite with their owners.

The owners existed, or at least their stuff did. In a weak moment, Bellamy would open their bags and peer inside—you know, just to see how they folded their [shirts].

Today, like every day, she walked in right on time, waved hello to her [manager], and settled in at her designated [desk].

“What’s shakin’, Belinda?” asked the man in the cubicle to her left. He tried a different [name] each time since he could never remember hers.

She thought he might have one of those brain diseases, like Alzheimer’s.

He was sort of old and definitely decrepit.

Bellamy shook her head and allowed a slight [smile] to debut on her lips. “Not much, Milo, not much.”

Milo harrumphed. “Then whoever picked the radio station today did a rotten job.”

Bellamy chuckled, though Milo’s usual response never surprised her. It was more the idea of [dancing], which definitely hadn’t existed in Bellamy’s world for a long time.

Regardless, her pulse began to speed up at the foreign idea, already triggering a thousand memories of a million songs and steps and people and nights and days and—5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and she would calm down, play along with the old man who was here and now and real.

“I’d say something about needing a partner, but I’m not sure your joints could take that,” she admitted.

“Bah,” scoffed Milo, and then he laughed too. “You’re probably right, cruel as you are.”

She had known he would agree. Counted on it, for she’d never intended to dance at all.

“Guess I’ll get started on this paperwork, then.” And in her usual [dismissal], the two turned to their individual [computers] and began the day’s work.

Because Bellamy worked at the airport.

But the moment she opened her laptop and saw the fresh [feed] sprawled across the screen, everything changed.

To anyone else, the website would have looked like [clickbait]. Something to scroll past with a disparaging swipe. THIS UNNAMED “IMMORTAL WOMAN” APPEARS THE SAME AGE IN PHOTOGRAPHS ACROSS CENTURIES … WHERE IS SHE NOW? She found her fingers moving the [mouse], clicking on the [link] and inserting her [earbuds] before her brain could decide against this. If Bellamy would truly admit this FULL VIDEO BELOW into her world, right here right now. And, sure enough, there she was, in a photograph that dated back to the 1840s. Different [clothes] and [shoes] and [hairstyle] but still the same old Bellamy with her thick eyebrows and chiseled nose. There was a man sitting next to her. He had a clumsily trimmed beard and kind eyes and had wanted a picture of the two of them that day for Bellamy to keep when he was gone. Only later did she realize that the photograph was his gift to her, to take the edge off her loneliness as she lived and lived and [lived].

She hated this 1840s Bellamy, this woman who’d crawled from the depths of Uncanny Valley to create whole wicked universes in her head.

She hated 1900s Bellamy, too, for posing for a small watercolor out West, where a penniless painter had captured her heart with her sob story.

Back then, making it as an artist was near impossible, and making it as

a woman? Even worse. But Bellamy never should have allowed the lady painter’s brush to bring about anything close to her likeness. It hurt too much to look at now.

And 1980s Bellamy—that one, she hated most of all, with her perm reaching pathetically toward the skies as she wrapped her arms around a small boy—James—and beamed for the camera. In those years, she’d taken to fostering orphans with terminal diseases, having been thoroughly numbed to losing her loved ones. But James, James had gotten to her.

Wormed his way into her heart and made her smile so brightly for this miserable picture, made her scream so relentlessly at the doctors who failed him every time, made her lose touch with the adoption agency after she’d buried him.

But there was more, stretching as far back as the Jamestown colony and as recently as 9/11. The images paraded by in a dark carnival of debaucherous history, a man’s voice-over buzzing inconsequentially in her ears. Bellamy was chewing her tongue, gnawing it into a bloody gob of flesh in her dry mouth but she didn’t even notice, couldn’t look away.

She hated all the Bellamies and their memories, thousands and thousands of them drowning her in their immortal waves. If she could’ve died by now, she would have—but here she was, still alive, always, always [alive].

A wrinkled hand landed on Bellamy’s shoulder, squeezing in what was perhaps reassurance following the horrors of the video, but Bellamy wasn’t ready, didn’t want to be touched, and she screamed, earbuds ripping painfully from her ears as she stood up up up and slammed her [fist] into Milo’s [temple].

Milo?

The entire room of workers sucked in a breath as the man collapsed, unconscious.

Maybe dead.

His music still played on the radio, and Bellamy still didn’t feel like dancing.

File deleted: [FRIEND].

She thought no more of smiles and jokes and hands and trips and wrinkled faces and young, innocent eyes and the butterflies of someone who might become something more one day and the warm, safe feeling of

being in good company at long last.

Because Bellamy no longer worked at the [airport]. No longer lived at her [apartment]. No longer knew a [Milo].

This life, like so many of her other lives, couldn’t be allowed to exist anymore, or they would all come tumbling down down [down] on top of her, pressing against her chest until breath was a distant memory. Bellamy’s mind was the library of Alexandria, vast and beautiful and aflame, ashes fluttering around her eyes and lips.

But it was okay, really, she reminded herself. This happened a lot, this outburst-relocation-repeat song and dance. Right now, she had to focus on her escape.

Bellamy reached for her [phone] [keys] and added the company-issued [laptop] to her bag for later. While the other workers struggled to register what had just happened—Bellamy, quiet, vacant-eyed [Bellamy]!

Did harm to the only person who could draw her out of her shell, the only person to whom she ever spoke!—she was dashing for the [door], getting herself thoroughly lost in the bustling crowd of travelers.

She looked around for a [ticket] to anywhere —Baltimore, Philadelphia, the sunken city of Atlantis for all Bellamy cared—and spotted one in no time. She slipped it out of its owner’s jeans pocket, skipped [security] in an awkward maneuver that involved someone’s hot latte and some quick thinking, and was on the [plane] before the ticket was even missed.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 54321. It wasn’t working. Bellamy was only grounded by the familiar, the things that were supposed to exist, but this sudden exit was new and unexpected. Her eyes became glassy, her expression vague. When the flight attendant offered her a refreshment, she nearly attacked him too.

Bellamy was a fugitive now. A runaway. Her eyes brimmed with distrust. No one dared sit next to her, and it was a good thing, too. She might have hurt them just like she hurt … well, you know.

Unfortunately, she still had a few hours of her [flight] left before her destination would enter the world. So Bellamy looked out her [window] as she forced her mind blank and admired the view from above. Watched the [land] below, exploding into vibrant being and then flickering out as Bellamy’s [plane] passed by.

A Hidden Soul Lily Martinson

The day was somber and dreary. Ridley could tell a storm was coming, for the sky was darkened with clouds and all the creatures of the woods had vanished. Heading up the hill to the house he heard the Master’s hideous scream yelling at him to come or face a brutal beating.

He had been a servant to the Master for more than a year now, with the Master becoming ever more tortuous than before. After long hours every day, Ridley would stumble back to his room in the attic, eat some mostly smushed potatoes, if he was lucky, and collapse onto a makeshift bed immediately falling into a deep slumber.

When he was just a boy, his mother died and not long after his father abandoned Ridley and his two sisters and three brothers. After that, the sisters were taken in by the nuns to be turned into proper citizens and the brothers found work at factories away in the big cities. Thirteen year old Ridley, having nowhere to go, began a life as a thief, living off of scraps and sleeping in the musty and dark alleyways of the town. Two years later, he was caught for stealing a loaf of bread and wound up at the Master’s for punishment. Ridley spent his next year sweeping floors, preparing meals, and climbing the steep hill on his way back from gathering wood.

Once Ridley finally reached the top, he saw the Master’s house with its dusty shutters and rickety door that screamed in agony every time it was opened. A wire fence that was half rusted wound all the way around the property leaving a tiny gap where a gravel pathway led up to a very unstable front porch. Behind the house, there was a shed and wood pile that needed chopping and on the left side there was a circular brick wall covered head to toe with ivy. The Master had forbidden Ridley to enter this mysterious place but every night he would watch the Master from his attic window go through a door in the wall with a pair of clippers and return an hour later.

183

Just then the Master shouted for Ridley again. He ran inside and stopped before the Master. The Master was a rather portly man around his fifties.

He had silvery hair and a bushy mustache. He had on a suit and in the pocket of it, a freshly cut white rose. Ridley noticed the whip that had slapped him many times, resting at the side of the Master.

“Get dressed,” said the Master sternly, “We have guests” “Yes sir,” replied Ridley as he headed upstairs to change. He put on the dusty suit that was his father’s, combed his hair, and patched up the holes in his shoes.

A while later arrived two guests: a plump lady with a towering wig and extravagant dress and a man, who looked similar to the Master, who wore a top hat and carried a cane. Ridley took their coats but stopped when he heard the two whispering.

“Do you have to do this?” whispered the lady.

“Yes” replied the man, “Business must go on and he’s hogging all my workers! All competition is to be eliminated.”

Perplexed, Ridley quickly set down the coats and led them to the dining room then went back to the kitchen to receive the food. The Master and the guests were chattering away when he came back.

“Ridley,” said the Master, “Why don’t you bake that cake that you made for my birthday for our guests.”

“That would be wonderful!” exclaimed the lady, “I do love cake.”

“Absolutely!” said Ridley, eyeing the whip. He found it strange that the Master wanted a cake. When he had made one last time it took a tremendously long time but the Master still took one bite and threw it out the window saying it tasted like dirt. Suspicious, Ridley walked to the kitchen and pretended to bake a cake, then tiptoed back to the dining room to eavesdrop.

“The boy’s been with me for a year now.” exclaimed the Master. He had a

184

184

fake smile across his face, “Nice boy but sometimes stubborn. I do my best to please him while still fulfilling his punishment.”

“I thought his punishment only lasted two months.” questioned the man.

“Er… Yes! I pay him now. Very well too, almost five pieces a day!” said the Master. At that Ridley stepped back startled. He should have been set free ten months ago! He thought about running, for the Master no longer controlled him, but then an idea slowly formed in his head. A sly smirk spread across his face. Ridley would run away but first have revenge, on the pain he’d been through, on the Master, on his life. ....

The glittering key shone bright wedged between the two planks. This was where the Master had hidden it after his midnight ritual. The clippers, with its sharp steel blade, lay beside the key.

“Take it!” thought Ridley, “Take it! Take it! Take it!” He quickly snached the key and clippers and took off running to the forbidden wall. The key slid smoothly into the lock and Ridley pushed the door open. Inside was a magnificent sight. White roses grew all the way around the wall and up to the arch at the top. In the center was a basin of water where more roses floated like swans completely covering it.

Ridley slowly moved across the stone floor over to the basin. He watched the roses glide through the water. Just then all the roses parted, leaving one rose still floating in the middle. Ridley’s hand shifted to the clippers.

He reached out and cut the rose. Before he could grab it, the rose was rapidly pulled down into the murky water of the basin. Slowly a blurred image appeared in the basin. After a while Ridley realized that it showed the Master, and the Master was whipping him. Ridley quickly cut another rose. The next image showed the Master throwing the cake out the window and the next of the Master burning Ridley’s mother’s quilt, the only thing he was allowed to keep. Ridley cut every last rose and each showed an image of the Master’s evilness. When he was finally finished the basin started bubbling and all the roses emerged again only this time they were wilted. All that was left were some rotting petals and sharp thorns. All of a sudden the roses on the wall wilted too. The petals fell off one by one and the thorns lengthened twice their size.

185

185

Ridley knew he must escape and lunged for the door, but before he could run, it slammed open and standing there was a man wearing a suit and holding a whip. It was the Master.

“Do you know what you have done!” the Master screamed, “No person shall cut my soul and not pay!”

Ridley was frozen with fear but finally gathered his courage.

“You are the one who needs to pay! You’ve labored and tortured and cheated me, but I’m free now. I’ll never work for a despicable man like you again!”

The Master's face turned white but then changed into a sly smirk.

“You’re not free, you foolish boy, you’re trapped. Trapped here in my soul garden… with no escape.” The Masters whip cracked. Ridley looked wildly around for an exit but found the Master right. Panicked, he hurled the clippers at the Master. They soared through the air and landed right in the middle of his head. He fell down with a thud. The Master was dead.

Ridley raced out as fast as he could but in his rapidness he ran into the side of the wall. Thorns dug into his leg as he screamed in agony. Limping Ridley made his way toward the woods. Needles shot through his body tearing him apart. Every bit of him felt like it was being ripped to shreds.

Being whipped to death by the Master would have been ten times better.

Still Ridley had to keep going. Once deep in the thicket of the woods he stopped to rest.

“Why did I do it?” he muttered, “Why didn’t I just run away?” Why? Why? Why? Why? Ridley regretted everything he had ever done. He was a criminal once again, only now a murderer. The police would take him away and send him to a different Master. Only… the police didn’t know. Ridley could start a new life. One he controlled. One in a different town. One away from the dead body of the master.

“Free.” whispered Ridley, “Free, Free, Free! Free! FREE!” Joy flooded him. Was this what freedom felt like? Ridley had never been happier in his life. His heart swelled as big as a balloon, but all of a sudden it stopped

186

186

when he heard the snap of a stick. A whip cracked and Ridley knew, he knew he could never start a new life, because he was still trapped in his old one. Without hesitation Ridley sprinted through the trees. He ran for his life, but it was no use. The bang of a shotgun pierced the air and Ridley fumbled to the ground, Dead. ....

“Tell me exactly what happened,” said the police officer.

“Well…” exclaimed the man in a top hat, “I had visited the house earlier for dinner, and afterwards my wife and I decided to take a stroll near the woods for our ride was late. After a while I heard a gunshot and it had come from the trees. I ran in and found two dead bodies.”

“Can you describe the bodies?”

“One was a boy, maybe fifteen years. He had dirt all over him and his leg was all scratched up and bleeding like crazy, and it looked like he’d been shot in the chest. The other one was a man of his fifties. He had a bushy mustache and he had a pair of clippers jabbed in his head. There was also a big crack in the back. Think he cracked his head on a rock. He carried a whip and shotgun. Probably the one that blasted the boy.”

“Thank you for the information.” said the officer, “You are free to go.”

“You’re very welcome. Glad I could help.” The man left the building and walked toward the woods. He pulled out a jagged stone covered in blood from his pocket and chuckled to himself.

“Never saw it coming, did he, never saw it coming.”

Author Name 187

Children of the Sky Kaia Starnino In a land far away, where the gentle sun shines down upon the glimmering sea, and the moon beams down on the soft earth, there was a Village. A Village by a lake, clear as glass. In the lake’s silver waters, there lay a stone. A stone as smooth as marble and firm as diamond, yet sharp and honed. It had a glow to it, which, for the most part, appeared to be faint. However, once every full moon, it would shine brighter than the sun.

And if anyone ever swam to the bottom of the lake on a full moon, they would see a shadowy figure taking shape in the depths of the waters. And as the figure swam up to the surface, it would begin to take a human-like form. However, it did not seem to be truly human. There was always something ethereal about it. The human-like figure appeared to be a boy, no more than sixteen years old. Every full moon, the boy would appear in the flower fields near the Village by the lake. He stood in the moonlight, watching the night sky. The absence of the sun brought forth a beaming silhouette that cast light on the earth. Once in a while, a villager would catch a glimpse of him, but he would disappear before they could get a full look. Stories began to spread about the boy who appeared every full moon. He became known as “the midnight child.” Yet while his stories were told, not many believed in his existence.

The Village by the Silver Lake was very small. It consisted of no more than two hundred people. Each did their part in order for their village to thrive. Some were crop harvesters, some were blacksmiths.

Some were fletchers, and some were fishermen. Even the children, outside of their education, did simple tasks related to their parents’ trade. However, one child was an exception.

The scarlet girl’s parents had come from another land, a land that had been destroyed and demolished by war. They fled to the Village and decided to live there. However, the scarlet girl had lived most of her life without knowing the comfort of loving parents. She was only four when her parents died of scarlet fever. An old caretaker, assigned by the leaders of the Village, begrudgingly took the scarlet girl in, but was cold to

188

her, and never allowed her to play with the other children. “You’re different from them, I shan’t let you play. If any one of the children gets hurt, the blame will be on me.” And as soon as the girl turned twelve, her caretaker decided that she was old enough to survive on her own. That day, the caretaker showed her out the door and locked it behind her. Although it was difficult, the girl survived.

The inhabitants of the Village were not kind towards her. They shunned her and excluded her from the community. They criticized her for looking different, being different. Her caramel colored skin contrasted with the villager’s lighter tones. Her wavy, dark hair was unique among the lighter browns and reds of the villagers. And her silver-colored irises stood out from everyone’s eyes of blue, green, and hazel. Oftentimes, she would wonder, why do they hate me so much? Is it because I look different? Is it because my parents came from a different place? But I was born here, and I live here, and I’ve never done anything wrong.

Most of the time, the scarlet girl would wander the fields of flowers just beyond the Village. She liked it, because it was a place where she could be free from all of the hatred directed towards her. She would walk along the paths of soil and gaze at the beautiful hydrangeas and sweet orchids. These were the only times she could feel truly happy.

It was one day while she was walking in the flower fields that a strange occurrence happened. The scarlet girl had stayed in the fields much longer than normal, for the villagers were especially sour to her this time of year. The harvest had not been very good and the whole village was low on food. No one wanted to see her face in the village, so she left.

The shining sun was setting, and the purples, pinks, and oranges of the sky contrasted deeply with the white snow on the ground.

The scarlet girl wandered along a path leading to nowhere in particular, admiring the crocus flowers that bloomed in winter. The mysterious violet glow of the delicate petals cast a reflection on the soft snow. Although they seemed so breakable, the flowers thrived with great beauty, even in the harsh cold. Looking up at the sky, she smiled. I wish I could stay here forever. She shifted her gaze back to the flowers. They seemed to glimmer, as if light was being shone down upon them by something mysterious…

The scarlet girl jumped to her feet immediately. Her eyes darted around, eventually resting on a shimmering figure. Staring at it, she hesitantly began to walk forward. But it disappeared. The sky was

getting darker. The sun started to slowly sink, and the pinks and oranges of sunset began turning into the darker gradient of lilac to amethyst of twilight. Beginning to become slightly apprehensive, the scarlet girl picked up her pace and started walking toward the Village. But the shimmering light appeared again, slightly brighter this time. She unconsciously turned towards it. As soon as her gaze fell upon the luminous figure, it wavered and disappeared again. Moving her legs faster. But just as she saw the familiar turn in the road that signaled she was close to the Village, the bright figure appeared once more, this time dazzling and shining so bright that the scarlet girl had to squint to see. And then it was dark. Although not completely dark, for the full moon was starting to rise, seemingly floating up into the sky, lightly draping the earth with its silver glow.

The figure fully materialized, and the scarlet girl began to make out a boy. A young boy, who appeared to be around her age. He had raven hair, as black as midnight. His skin was pale and glowing like the moon, and his eyes were like a wolf’s, striking amber and sharp. His beauty reminded her of the silver waters of the lake: mysterious yet bewitching.

He was sitting on the ground beside her, staring at her. His presence was eerie, yet comforting.

“Hello,” the boy greeted.

Although she was stunned, the scarlet girl was not afraid. “Hello. Who are you?”

“Hmm… I’m not sure,” was his response. they are?”

The scarlet girl cocked her head. “How can one not be sure who “I don’t know. Do you know who I am?”

The scarlet girl had to think for a moment. “Are you the midnight child?”

“Perhaps. Is that what they call me?”

“You mean the villagers?”

“Yes, them.”

“That is indeed what they call you.”

“Strange. I don’t even appear at midnight. I wonder why they chose that name.”

“Perchance it was because you seem like the midnight sky. The luminosity of your countenance reminds me of the moon, and your hair resembles the dark heavens of night. And your eyes look like the sun.”

“Is that so? Then maybe ‘Midnight’ isn’t so bad. Will you call me that?” the midnight child asked.

The scarlet girl stood, with her blood-red lips, dark brown hair, and soft, caramel-colored skin, glowing. Her silver eyes shone, with long lashes that blinked at the midnight child. Her long, silky hair waving tranquilly in the wind. The midnight child smiled, his glowing amber eyes never leaving hers.

“Midnight.” The scarlet girl felt strange saying his name. It felt right, yet very wrong.

“Yes?” Midnight inquired.

“Will you call me ‘Scarlet’?” Scarlet looked at the ground, noticing small crocus blossoms beginning to bloom.

“Okay.” Midnight smiled. “What are you doing in this place?

Shouldn’t you be in your village?”

“I come here when I want to run away from everything.”

“Oh… Should I not be here?” Midnight sounded apprehensive. “...No, I think it’s okay. You’re rather comforting.” ly?”

Midnight grinned at her. “Really? But aren’t you usually lone-

Scarlet sighed. “No, I actually prefer being by myself. No one accepts me in the Village. They treat me like I’m not even human. I wish I could die.” tried?”

“You could.” Midnight looked at her seriously. “Have you ever

Scarlet tilted her head and gave Midnight an inquiring look.

“Why, yes, I have. But I realized I would have lived my life without being happy. So I kept on living. But now I wonder, will anything ever change if I continue living like this?”

“No, it won’t… But dying won’t help either. Death is lonely.’

Scarlet sighed. “Better to be lonely than to suffer.”

“Being lonely is suffering. I’ve been alone for eternity. My body

does not age, and neither does my soul. Solitude is the worst form of torture.”

“Is it?” Scarlet inquired. “I’d love to be you.”

A stormy look passed through Midnight’s amber eyes. “Would you really want that?”

Perplexedly, Scarlet turned her head at him. “Yes, I would.”

“I don’t think you would. I could make you like me. And then you’d know how I feel.”

“Really? Are you serious?”

Midnight nodded. “Yeah. But I would never do it.”

“Well, what even are you? How can I ‘be you’?”

Taking a deep breath, Midnight spoke. “There is a ritual that has been passed down since ancient times. In the depths of the Silver Lake, there is a stone. It’s not very large, nor does it glimmer. Yet I find that it is the most beautiful thing in the world.”

“Well, what does it do?”

“The Stone has some mysterious power. If you swim in the waters of the Silver Lake on a full moon, you will become cursed. Like me.

The stone will take your soul, and never let it go. And the only way you can remove the curse is if another person swims in the waters. The stone will take their soul instead, and free yours.”

“What is the curse, anyways?” Scarlet probed. “You appear to be like any other person. I can see you. I can hear you. I can even touch you.”

“I’m not the same as you, or any of the villagers. When the sun rises after a full moon, I find myself falling into a deep slumber. As my vision dims, my mind becomes foggy, and I close my eyes. When I awaken, I am on the pink shores of the Silver Lake. The full moon is out again.

I never know how much time has passed. And I wander through the fields and forests, desperately trying to find a reason for my being. I can try to exist. But no matter what I do, I can’t stay awake by the time the sun rises.

I can’t make friends. I can’t own any possessions. I can’t die, either. If I drown, I’ll wake up on the Lake’s shores again. If I fall off a cliff, I’ll lose consciousness, and wake up on the Lake’s shores again. All I can do is wander through this land, wondering if this suffering will ever cease.”

192

Scarlet reflected on his words. “So, if I swim in these waters, I can be like you?”

“Yes. But you can’t. I won’t allow it. Why would you even want something like that?”

Pausing, Scarlet admitted, “It may seem like a terrible thing-” Midnight nodded.

Scarlet slowly continued, “-but, I would do anything to get away from my life here.”

“Why is that?” Midnight frowned, shaken.

Scarlet chose her words carefully. “For all the time I’ve lived in this village, I’ve never been happy. I’ve lived for so long, fighting for my life, trying to find a way to bring myself into this society. I try to force myself to be the same as them. I live every day as a lie, trying my best to hide my differences. But I’m sick of it. I’m sick of it, and I want to do something about it. But I don’t want to die without doing anything. I want to die, knowing that I’ve made an impact on someone, so that they can tell my story, and I can live on. If I take on the curse for you, I’ll have done something, something that tells me, this is why you were born. ” With a pained expression on his face, Midnight protested. “This life of solitude is much worse than you would think… I can’t let you do this.”

“But what about you? I’m sure you want to be free. Don’t you want to explore these silver waters, this soft, purple grass, and the clear, blue air here, without any limitations?”

“Of course…!” Midnight proclaimed. “But I don’t want to take that freedom away from you…”

“You can live a happy life in a simple, cozy house made out of wood. It could be any kind of wood. The warm, white birch in the mountains, or the sturdy cedar by the river. Wouldn’t it be nice?”

Midnight turned his gaze to the scenery around him. “I know that it would.”

“Think of all the happy memories you could make. This land is beautiful when it snows. The crystal flakes that fall from the sky and land on your nose, the warm, crackling fire inside, the snowball fights that I’ve seen people have; don’t you want to experience these things?”

193

Midnight shook his head, his dark hair blowing slightly in the breeze. “Not if it’s at your expense.”

“But what about in the spring, when the snow melts to reveal sweet-smelling blossoms of varying colors, hidden in the grass? And the bare branches of the trees begin to flourish and blooming flowers appear, dropping their petals on the soft, fresh earth.”

Beginning to imagine what the life Scarlet described would be like, Midnight clasped his hands together, pondering his words.

Scarlet resumed talking. “And what about the summer? With the beaches of pink sand and the silver and mint green waters, the golden sun and the cotton clouds. You should see them!”

“But what about you? Why do you choose isolation? Why would you do that for me?” Midnight asked, clenching his fists.

Scarlet smiled, but she looked like she was in pain. “In a way, I’m being selfish. I’ll never be accepted here—I haven’t been since I was born. Instead of suffering through exclusion and torment, I’d rather be by myself, somewhere where no one can reach me.”

Midnight narrowed his wolf-like eyes, his amber irises barely visible. “Why do you choose to be alone? Why choose eternal isolation and anguish?”

Scarlet took a deep breath. “It wouldn’t be much different from remaining here. I am already alone. At least if I left, I wouldn’t have to suffer the torture of the villagers’ harsh words and cruelty. And it’d be better than dying.”

“Please, stop and think! Do you want this? What are you truly thinking, deep inside of your mind?”

What am I thinking…? Scarlet hesitated. Although I have suffered, being beaten and cast out, in reality, I haven’t done much to stop it. I haven’t tried traveling to another village, nor have I ever asked the villagers to understand me. But… Closing her eyes, Scarlet thought about all the times she felt like she wanted to die. All the times when the pain and misery were so bad that she wanted to end it all. If I went back, it would still be no use. I want to help Midnight. “I’m sure I want to do this.

Let me save you.”

Exhaling, Midnight shook his head. “It seems like you’ve made

194

up your mind. If you really want this, I won’t stop you, although I can’t promise that you won’t regret it. It’s a shame. I did enjoy talking to you.”

“If things had been different, I think we could have become friends.” Scarlet gave him a small smile.

Midnight hesitated, and then smiled back. “Yes, I think we could have.”

Scarlet took a deep breath. Then she ran. She jumped off the cliff that towered over the Silver Lake. And for a moment, she saw the true beauty of the land that she had grown up in. The beautiful forests, filled with all different types of trees. She remembered the crystal waters of the Silver Lake, and the gentle winds that caressed her hair. I’ll still see it again, won’t I? And then she fell. Her heart dropped, and she couldn’t breathe. But as she was falling, she looked at Midnight’s expression. He was happy. So she smiled. “...I’m sorry… Farewell.”

And then the girl named Scarlet was no more, and the boy named Midnight was. And the crocus flowers on the ground seemed to droop ever so slightly. And the sun seemed to shine ever so slightly less.

And the moon seemed to beam ever so slightly more.

A Still Motion Picture Alexandra Yang

Julian texts her at 10. j: are u coming or not? m: yes omw Marcy grabs her bag and steps out onto her doorstep. The sky paints her shadow blue. In the distance, cars pass on the highway like bursts of static and every time she looks up, the stars seem to have multiplied.

She rides her bike along the road to the station, avoiding the parts of the sidewalk she knows will be cracked. She’s come here enough to know this path by heart. Like always, she sees Julian’s Cheshire grin first, and the rest of him coming into focus a moment later. Conny stands beside him, his features outlined sharply by the light of his phone. Penelope slouches out from behind them, hands in her pockets.

They take the train. This late, the car is practically empty. Two teenage girls sit in one end, sleeping on each other, and there’s a man in a suit at the other staring out the window. She takes a seat near the middle and Conny slumps down beside her. Julian and Penelope remain standing.

Julian and Conny start a racing game on their phones. Under the fluorescent lights, she meets Penelope’s eyes, and her gaze is fathomless.

--She’s known Penelope her entire life. They attended the same daycare, same preschool, been beside each other all the way up to here, to now, to the night before they graduate high school. There’s intimacy there, in that odd way that there always is with somebody who’s been present to watch you grow up. It’s funny, she thinks, how enough time can become an adequate substitute for attachment. Julian and Conny may have brought them together, but there’s a lifetime of things that they’ve never said in

196

the space between them. // It’s a fall afternoon and golden light is streaming in through the windows.

Practice ended half an hour ago, and they’re the last two left in the washroom. She picks up her bag and starts walking to the door. Two steps past, there’s a prickling at her nape. She looks back.

It must be an illusion, what she’s seeing. In Marcy’s periphery, Penelope’s still bent over the sink, furrowing her brow as she scrubs at her fingernails. The Penelope in the mirror stares straight at Marcy, expression neutral, lips slightly tilted.

Time seems to slow to nothing. Marcy nods, slightly, to the reflection.

Her expression doesn’t change, but there’s a faint air of cool amusement around her now.

The wind blows, the leaves rustle, the light shifts. When Marcy looks again, Penelope is stepping away from the sink, and the mirror shows nothing but an empty locker room.

--They get off at Marion Street. She walks alongside Penelope, their elbows knocking against each other with every step. Behind them, Julian’s beaten Conny, and they’re laughing raucously, the sound bouncing off the buildings.

They file into the dimly lit 24-hour diner right off of Fifth and order loaded fries, nachos, and milkshakes. She’s memorized their order by now - mint chocolate for Julian, raspberry for Penelope, vanilla for her and Conny. She sits in the booth and Conny slides in next to her. This close, she can feel the line of heat coming off his body, hear the faint humming coming from the back of his throat.

--Of the other three, Conny is the one she knows the least. Something about

197

197

him always seems to melt away when looked at directly. // They’re at camp, the summer before high school, racing up the hill. Conny runs like no one else can, as if his feet have wings, as if his body is made entirely of air. He reaches the top first, before anyone else has even reached the half-way point.

He’s poised on his toes upon the summit, arms spread out, and Marcy can see it, so close to possible that it’s already happened. She can project his trajectory, map the tenseness of his muscles, and all of his lines lead straight into the sky. It seems entirely like a natural continuation of his path, as if there is a centrifugal force that’ll bowl him right past the limits of gravity and up into the air.

The sun’s starting to set by the time they run back. She sees his outline against the red light of the horizon, a single point taking an impossible, unfollowable path. Painted black on the ground, his shadow is unmistakably not shaped like the rest of him.

--They go to the beach, last. Penelope kicks off her shoes and wades ankle-deep into the water, and Conny jumps in and starts splashing her. She shrieks, and he laughs. Besides her, Julian’s eyes shine eerily in the light.

Sometimes, in her dreams, he blinks and the moon disappears from the sky but remains hanging, full and heavy, in his eyes.

--Marcy had nightmares almost every night as a child. Her mother says that she woke up every night, shaking, sobbing, screaming as if she were dying.

(Marcy, for what it’s worth, doesn’t remember any of this.) For years, her mother tried everything she could to fix it - sleep therapy, better mattresses, routine setting - but to no avail. Then, one day, they stopped.

Marcy used to have nightmares. Then she grew up, and she left them behind.

198

198

All of them.

Right? // The first time she met him was when she was walking home from school.

It was winter, and the sky was glowing dusky yellow, as if something very bright and strange were hiding right behind it.

He was standing in the middle of the road, looking up and grinning as if he had just discovered that he could fit the whole world between his teeth.

Then he had turned and saw her, and she had felt something like an echo, reverberating and cavernous in her chest, as if she were standing upon a very small boat above leagues of bottomless sea. There was something poorly hidden in his gaze, and she thought it looked a bit like recognition.

The next day, she met him officially when he was introduced to her class as a transfer student. He’d sought her out at lunch, his teeth perfectly straight. Hi I’m Julian, can I sit here? Her lingering unease had dissipated under the weak sunlight, and she had nodded. It had felt oddly natural, to have him by her side, as if a piece of her were slipping back into place.

She’s always thought of Julian in the abstract, in the possessive. It’s been three years, now, since they met. She’s seen him jubilant and anxious and scared, in his most human moments, and she still can’t shake the feeling from that first night. Something about him feels as if his edges do not fit in quite right with the rest of the world around him, like he’s standing at the boundary of something much wider than this small town.

Before the fear and the surprise, that first night - she knows the first thing she felt when she saw him was a brief echo of recollection. I’ve seen that face before.

The world is far wider than she can see. Forgetting is always the part that comes last in the story.

199

--Marcy wakes on the beach to the dawn painted in watercolor strokes across the horizon. There’s sand in her hair. Besides her, Penelope snuffles in her sleep, and a sudden fondness rises up in her. She’s struck with the urge to reach out, to hold on to Penelope and to never let her go, to keep her right next to her just like she’s always been.

Once they graduate, this will all disappear. This town has held them together up to now, but this bond has always been a little too fragile, weighted by all the things that they know, but don’t know how to say. She’ll miss them, but she’s also relieved to leave - some things can only ever be escaped.

Conny yawns from further down, propping himself up on his elbows. Julian’s already awake, scrolling on his phone. Penelope’s still fast asleep. It feels fitting, to remember them like this.

Marcy closes her eyes and goes back to sleep. She does not dream.

200

Self Portrait Victoria Simich 201

201

novel writing

Equally Unusual Bella Rosales Excerpt

Chapter One Do you hear that too? The jumbled sounds? The ringing? I do. I have almost all my life. Ever since I was the age of seven, my imagination and reality were always connected, like they were one and the same. Never two separate things. I had almost always heard voices. Discouraging ones.

Ones saying I was ignorant or that I was always doing something wrong.

“Joel,” they would say, “what’s the matter with you?”

I live in a world where there isn’t ever a moment of silence or alone time, or rather, a moment just filled with zen. Either my mind is racing, my heart is racing, or I cannot get away from life and all it has fast enough.

I try to speak but sometimes my mind wanders off in so many different directions I can’t keep up with my own thoughts. In elementary school I could muster a few words at a time but hardly ever urged a full sentence or conversation, which is why I got held back before middle school.

With this, I never was one to start conversations or even introduce myself to others. I was sort of a socially-awkward-isolated mess. And by was, I mean am.

As a teenage boy, not being able to confidently speak, having severe paranoia, multiple conversations with myself in public, along with apparently showing exotic emotions at inappropriate times (what does that mean????) were all definitely targets for bullying. One of the only friends I kept was one I made before being diagnosed with moderate schizophrenia. His name is Brandon, and although he is a great guy, he isn’t of importance yet.

It wasn’t like schizophrenia was a common thing in my family. My greatgreat-great grandmother had it when she was around seventy, not seven.

Being so young, not only did I not understand what I had (and still don't),

203

I couldn’t even pronounce ‘schizophrenia’.

But now and a few months before writing this, I know what I have and I accept it. It took time and lots of different emotions and plenty of help from others to be comfortable where I am today, but I’d like to start you a few years back, when I was a freshman in high school, or what it’s better known as, the root of all my inner problems.

Leunam, Florida Tuesday, September 1st, 2015 “Joel!” my mother called from the foot of my stairs. “You’re going to your first day of high school! You should be excited!” My mother, Ms. Deckard-Harrison, (or Heather), was definitely an optimist. I feel like every mother is or at least tries to be, and telling me high school was going to be a ‘fun’ and ‘healthy and insightful experience’ was an unambiguous lie covered with a sweet and cheery voice.

I wasn’t one to cover my anxiety for fear of judgment (around my family, that is) or for my own sanity, so I let my mom know my consternation about high school the day I graduated the eighth grade. Yet of course, I was told that there was ‘no need to worry’ when she knew well that that was all that I did.

“Let’s go, Joel! It’s further out of town!” she cooed.

Leunam’s population was just over 30,000 which seemed like a good fit for my semi-rowdy four person family. So high school being further out of town did not sound like a destination I would like, but what can you do?

Seriously, I’m asking.

I live with my mom who works as a doctor, my ten-year-old brother, Jayden, who is only not considered the problem child because of my existence, and my adopted five-year-old sister, Dorothy, who is the light of my life.

Our home was decent-sized, with four bedrooms and two floors, though sometimes it felt more crowded than an airport on Christmas Eve. Luck-

204

ily, I had my own bedroom and bathroom with its own shower, whereas Jayden shared his bathroom with Dorothy. I guess having a mental illness means more space for yourself? Oh, you know me, always looking on the bright side of things.

I groggily got out of bed and opened my second-story window for some fresh air. We lived right in front of a small local lake where the boat we shared with our closest neighbor stayed afloat. It’s definitely more theirs than ours, though. My family has been on it once, since my dad was the only one who knew how to operate it.

Now, feeling refreshed, I went to my bathroom to have a quick shower and brush my teeth. I threw on a pair of black athletic shorts, which was very ironic considering I was by far the least athletically built fifteen-year-old boy to exist, ever. To coordinate, I dressed in a shirt I got in late elementary school. I haven’t grown much yet.

“Joel, I'm not going to tell you again!”

“S-sorry!” I raced down the steps where I ran right into Dorothy.

“Ouch!” She screamed and grabbed her head where my knee hit her.

I panicked and instead of helping her I darted the other direction towards the living room, where I then ran into my mother, hearing Dorothy wail behind me.

“How is everything..." She asked, studying me to see if she could tell what was going on in my mind.

“Good luck with that,” I laughed.

“What?”

“I mean... fine. I’m fine.”

“Well,” she stammered. “You won’t have time for breakfast, honey. Take this instead." She kissed my forehead then handed me a crumpled $10 bill which I pocketed gratefully. “Take Dorothy and buckle her in her car seat,

okay?" She handed me my sister and continued to holler for Jayden who was still gelling his hair.

On the way to school, I had to sit in the back of my mom’s car while I was getting Dorothy situated, because Jay snagged the front seat before I could even call dibs.

“Now Joel,” my mom began. She always had a speech for everything, and sometimes you have to hear the same one more than once. “I want you to know that you should not be scared or worried. High school is a great time to bloom and come out of your shell. Do not worry about Crypt...”

Crypt was one of my first and most eerie hallucinations. He isn’t like an imaginary friend. He’s a monster. A nightmare that I have even while awake. Crypt is a pale, veiny, monster with black eyes, sharp teeth and he’s been visiting me more frequently.

Just the mere mention of him caused me to think about him, then become anxious, then overly anxious, and I shake when I am overly anxious. By now, I was losing my mind. I fiddled with the car lock so much that I had actually snapped it. The voice of Crypt is the only thing I can focus on when I hear it.

“Yeah Joel, don’t think about that dark, daunting monster that lives in your head,” Jayden snickered.

“Jayden! How dare you!" My mom flicked my brother on the side of the head and grabbed his iPod while driving. “You apologize to your brother, right now!" He scoffed and apologized but it wasn’t good enough for my mom.

“Like you mean it, Jay,” “But I don’t!” I looked up at him nervously, as his voice had gradually gotten louder. “I’m sorry that I don’t feel bad for getting made fun of at school for my brother’s hell of a life. Like, who else screams in the middle of the night because something like a bird hits your window, or can’t leave their room because they think spiders are on the other side? Why do you

think I don’t have any of my friends sleepover any more? Joel is a real-life horror movie and it scares everyone.”

“JAYDEN!” “It’s fine, mom!” I said loudly. She looked at me with hurt eyes, but I understood how Jayden felt. I wish I was sporty and artistic like him, but I’m not. I’m sure he wishes I was normal too.

The rest of the ride no one said anything, not even Crypt. My mother followed the traffic lady’s arrow to the entrance of Jefferson High, the place I was dreading most of all.

Inside was just like any basic high school, where kids who lived in the town had no other option than to go here. There was a bench on either side of the double doors, so I decided to sit down for a moment and pretend to get something out of my backpack till I found the sheet of paper with my locker number and classes. When I grabbed it, someone slammed their locker shut down the hall and started bolting at me. I kicked my feet up and held up my bag as a shield.

“Joel?" the voice called.

It was my best friend. Brandon Harnandez. Brandon was a darker version of myself, literally. His skin was just a few shades darker than mine, his eyes were brown while mine were an aphotic blue, and his hair was a straight black, whereas mine was a deep, semi-curly brown. I lowered my feet, then my backpack as I mustered a small, genuine smile. He sat next to me and gave me a hard pat on the back as I jerked.

“Sorry, buddy. I forget you don’t like that," I nodded an ‘It’s alright’ nod and he continued, “Can I see your schedule?"

I handed the crumpled paper to him and his eyes lit up. “Yo, you’re 114?

I’m 113. We’re right down there." Brandon pointed to where he had come from and said he’d help me get situated.

Brandon has dealt with every single one of my hallucinations on separate

occasions. He isn’t afraid of spiders anymore because of how often I false alarm them. He joins in on conversations I have with myself and even used to pretend to see and hear the things I did at school. He always stood up for me even if it made him look stupid. If I saw a giant spider falling from the sky, he would say he did too. Brandon was so great.

There was a moment of awkward silence (besides the rest of the commotion in the halls) as we approached our lockers, but it quickly ended when he began to tell me about his summer. We didn’t get to see each other much because the charity he was part of went to Puerto Rico for pretty much the whole break.

I n all honesty, I wasn’t paying attention. I was a little sour about the fact that I had to stay home the entirety of the summer, but I did my best to not show it. The only reason I knew he finished was because his mouth had stopped moving.

“So, how’s it going with schizophrenia and shi- stuff?" This question would make me feel uncomfortable if anyone other than Brandon asked it.

“Well,” I began, “I mean - I mean it’s going,” I knew this wasn’t a good enough answer for him; someone who actually cared about my mental health, but at this moment, I didn’t care.

He nodded knowing that was the best answer he’d get and told me his classes. I knew we didn’t have any classes together, so I didn’t know why I was sad when I saw his schedule. He was in a lot of classes that sophomores and juniors normally take. I had forgotten how bright he really was.

The rest of my day was extremely nerve-wracking and boring to tell.

Lunch was probably the most eventful. I took out my money and chose a blue Powerade and a basket of fries (which were surprisingly really good) and glanced at the cafeteria. Then, I maneuvered my way to the farthest bathroom away from the cafeteria, but closest to my next class.

Luckily, no one was in there, so I pulled out my phone (that I recently got for school) and my headphones, and probably had a major jam session alone, listening to my favorite rock songs.

I couldn’t tell you much about the first few weeks of school. Not only were they uneventful but my schizophrenia fogged my memory, so I don’t

remember much. Crypt normally only visited a few times a week. But because of school and the stress I was having, he visited almost everyday but only in small sections. I knew he would continue to, as school had plenty of months left.

There was one incident, actually. I was going to the bathroom during Algebra and when I went to wash my hands, a really buff kid came out of a stall holding a bag of what appeared to be dirt, but my better judgment knew that it wasn’t.

He asked, “Wanna hit?”

But like the good boy I am, I said no, thanks.

Other than that, the social interaction I had was minimal, with the exception of Brandon, my mom, and Dorothy. Jayden wouldn’t talk to me, which was understandable.

Thursday, October 29th, 2015 Halloween had and will always be my favorite holiday. My reasoning - a bit cliche, but true. Halloween is my safe haven. I really couldn’t be judged. I would have my hallucinations while I was out and many people just thought it was part of an act I was putting on.

My mother made Dorothy’s costume (a purple cat), Jayden thought he was too cool to dress up, and my mom suggested I dress up as Crypt to show I shouldn’t be scared. And I told her that she was crazy and that I might as well invite him over for a party. She laughed and said I could just go buy one since I was becoming a ’big boy’. To that, I agreed.

“You can go after school with Brandon tonight,” she said while making Dorothy’s lunch as I did yesterday’s homework on the kitchen counter.

“I’ll let you walk with him but make sure your phone is with you at all times. Brandon too." She sounded hesitant, but I wasn’t going to question her idea.

“Mom, I'm going to Drew’s house!” Jayden called while walking down the

stairs with his eyes attached to his iPod, as they always were.

“The hell you are! It’s almost time to leave! You're going to school, even if Drew doesn’t. Get in the car!”

“Tomorrow is Friday” “Yes and after that it’s Saturday, when you’ll be grounded.”

“But that's Halloween!”

“Damn right.”

“Mom!” I hastily gathered my books before the fighting got worse. Mom says it’s because he’s so much like Dad, but I think he’s trying to be as opposite from me as he can. I don’t know which is worse.

After the last school bell rang, Brandon and I ventured out of the infamous double doors from school to get the coolest costumes in the nearest store. As a sixteen-year-old boy I was the only one who didn't know what ‘cool’ was, exactly. But I did know one thing. Whatever it was, I was not it.

My mother had given me $20. She gave me extra to buy Dorothy cat ears because she had forgotten to make some. From what the two of us saw walking in, there wasn’t much. After all, it was a grocery store. But surprisingly, they did have some things. My $20 seemed like I could only buy a baby lion, or a sexy nurse, and neither of the two flattered my body.

I began to give up and head toward the back entrance when I saw an amazing Scream costume. I hollered for Brandon, who inevitably was looking at costumes that were far too revealing.

I showed him the costume and he smiled. I handed the bag to him, but his smile dropped. “This shit is over $30 bucks, neither of us have that." And he threw the costume on the nearest shelf.

But I wanted that costume. For some reason, that’s what I wanted and I wasn’t going to leave without it. I asked Brandon how much he had and

210

he dug through his jean pocket. He pulled out two ones and a handful of coins. Someone kept saying “no one will care!" and I was told to take it. So I did.

I grabbed the costume back and slowly walked towards the door, where the crappy metal detectors stayed. Crypt was back.

“Hey now,” Brandon whispered, “maybe we can go to your place and ask your mom for some more money, I don’t think she’d mind. But we don't need to do that.”

I realized what I was doing and went to set the bag down but stopped myself, “Cr-Crypt told me to." I admitted.

Brandon scratched his head and sighed, “Well you can tell Crypt to stay in his lane ‘cause we aren’t stealing. What about this one?" He handed me a cheap Chewbacca costume and tossed it to me. I stumbled back as it hit my stomach, but regained strength once I threw it back at him as hard as I could. “Okay, okay, chill. I’ll look for something else...”

As he walked the other direction I paced around telling myself I couldn’t just steal but everywhere I turned Crypt would be there and my heart would race and I just ran. Out of the doors towards my house. What was I running from? The trouble I’d get into? Brandon? Crypt?

Eventually, I made it home. I don’t know how I hadn’t stopped running. I burst through the backdoor to my home with a loss of breath.

“Hey Hon-” my mother said happily.

“Hey.” “Where’s Bra-” “Home.”

“The ears-”

Author Name 211

“Couldn’t find any…”

“Did you find a cos-” I nodded quickly and made my way up and away from that conversation.

I threw the costume on my bed and laid atop of it. Without thought of the time, or a change of clothes, I drifted to sleep.

212

Title

poetry poetry poetry

We Were Free Stella Bates

We were free, As we danced in the meadow, Grass tickling our feet.

The sunny shades of yellow, Following along with our beat.

We were free, As we laughed in the water, Trees swaying overhead.

Please, I am someone’s daughter, And yet I am filled with dread.

We were free, As we jumped the jagged wave, We climbed the rocky shore.

I will take this to my grave, For how could I ask for more?

We were free, As the breeze waltzed in our hair, The valleys below wild with terror.

I know it is not fair, For I gave them quite a scare.

Oh please, hear my plea, For, once, we too, were free.

214

on living (a house made of pages and ink) Sally Bradshaw

I. repeat the question in almost every year of grade school (at least the ones i can remember) we were taught that the first step to an answer was to restate the question:

1. What year was the Declaration of Independence signed?

The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. we were taught to make things seem true even if they really weren’t; to provide the illusion of knowledge even when we were grasping at multiple choice hand holds to keep us tethered to the test the desk is drowning in tips and tricks and paradoxes (or is it paradoxi?): we are taught to count our fingers for multiples of nine but never for addition or subtraction: to speak clearly and firmly but that only idiots need to speak when reading to themselves.

1. What is nine times nine?

215

Nine times nine is eighty-one. even now it’s stuck in my head like gum to the underside of a plastic chair grasping for answers i should know without counting or moving my lips (they are chapped) a simple answer is a wrong one maybe if i keep repeating the question enough the answer will be shaken out of place or maybe if i keep repeating the question enough i can make it true

1. Are you okay?

Yes, I am okay. Yes, I am okay. Yes, I am okay. Yes, I am okay. Yes, I am okay.

II. jimmy and kate Jimmy and Kate wait together between white walls.

Sometimes waiting is all they have. * Jimmy played ball in the fifties.

Sometimes he disrespects the black nurse, sometimes he forgets why she’s there.

Jimmy’s hands used to fit perfectly in Margaret’s.

He used to hum jazz melodies to her at night in their stuffy New York apartment, car horns blaring outside.

He used to go to every one of Michael’s T-ball, little league,

216

high school games and yell at the umpire every time.

His sister Alice used to make popsicles in the summer, and Jimmy remembers every flavor.

Jimmy knows all the songs Alice used to sing.

Sometimes he forgets the words. * Kate plays soccer for her school.

Sometimes she yells at the referee, sometimes she forgets to be angry.

Kate’s hands know their way around the trumpet.

She loves the jazz tunes her grandfather taught her back before she was big enough to blow a note.

She used to read comics, novels, magazines in the summertime, and sometimes she got sunburns at the pool.

Kate has a crush on a boy named Daniel who plays soccer for her school.

Kate knows all of Daniel’s favorite books.

Sometimes she forgets her own. * Jimmy and Kate wait together between white walls.

Sometimes waiting is all they have.

Kate knows this is the end.

Sometimes Jimmy knows it too.

III. skinny There is something missing from my body; the subtlety of soft curves and submissiveness lost within a maze of

217

jagged bones jutting out like the mouthguard of a professional boxer, gloved fists up and ready to fight.

Something lies terribly awry in the too-sharp cheekbones that don’t smile for anyone who calls me “baby”, too-tight skin curled over ink stained fingers ready to tear the sky apart if they weren’t always told to be painted like a carnival tent to welcome visitors inside.

There is something missing from my body; I can count every rib as they expand, my heart is a prisoner inside my chest beating its hands against sternum-bone bars that shouldn’t be visible from a stranger’s eyes, except they are.

Door-knob knees that can run for miles buckle under the weight of my insecurities, tendons and veins and ligaments like the rigging of a shipwreck holding onto the broken mast long after the last lifeboat has sailed toward safer shores.

There is something missing from my body; but maybe instead of building a being out of metaphors I should take comfort and know that some flowers, some people grow most beautiful from the hollow spaces the corners and cavities, that fit perfectly any gentle fingers that will hold them as they are.

IV. special place

218

When I die; I don’t want to be cremated or buried: locked away in four cold walls alone with the whispers of the dead.

Instead; I want a special place. a tree caressing the sky, its green leaves singing in harmony with the cerulean blue.

A bench of quiet stone leaning gently against the trunk to sit with memories or the pages of a book or the company of Solitude and watch time pass away.

There shall be no tombstone or carving; let my name fade into obscurity as surely as the stone bench shall weather and erode into nothing.

Instead; let my name pass on in those who have remembered it, and when they too are gone, in those who need a special place.

V. a poet and a novelist A poet and a novelist live together in a house made of pages and ink, thoughts and apostrophes.

She prefers to write on a typewriter, the kind that comes in its own little case, the ribbon often gets mixed up with the ones she ties on the ends of her braids.

He prefers to write on his hands, the walls, and whatever picture frame is closest.

219

As soon as he publishes his book, the house will smell of paint and tears as she lays out a fresh coat of writing material for him.

She spends her days half buried under a mountain of books; her meals uneaten and cold from the avalanche.

He spends his days wandering the house, the streets, the wild, searching for words that have yet to be discovered (or maybe just for an extra jelly donut).

She tapes love notes to the milk bottles; He puts flowers between each typewriter key.

They go to the symphony on Sundays: She scribbles away on her program; He is lost in the music.

He is in every book of hers, and she in every one of his.

They do not understand each other, and yet they will always return each other’s library books, pencil sharpeners, and catchphrases.

Some days, they do not say anything.

No typewriter keys click.

The walls remain untouched.

They know that they do not understand everything.

They know that is not what love is.

They leave understanding things for words.

Sometimes words are not enough.

220

Life After Death Jessica Ding

Many people are most afraid of death, But that’s not truly the case.

They’re not quite afraid of death itself, But rather what slides into its place.

So perhaps you’re not afraid of dying, But your name plucked from the air.

You’re afraid of the silence that surrounds something, When it’s just no longer there.

Maybe that fear comes from the fact, That you never know the lifespan of a sound.

How many years after your body disappears, Your name will stick around.

Maybe your name will last generations, Echoing one final time, then never.

And then the space it once filled is replaced, By the loss of it forever.

But perhaps there’s another way, For your name to live after your body fades.

It’s why you write your name inside of books, And all you’ve ever made.

It’s a way of remembrance, In a world so prone to forget.

The taste of who you are, Landing on the lips of someone you never met.

You hope that stranger will stumble on your stories,

221

Loved and worn down with age, And once they’re there they’ll find what’s left: Your name on the cover page.

And just for that fleeting moment, It’s as though you’ve beaten death.

That in the whisper of your name, You’ve taken one more breath.

222

blue dashers Alyssa Gaines

blue dashers dancing atop the lake, light strokes across the heavy landscape, eagles fly & bowriders call i was baptized in the blue waters of a red state & came to south of the mason-dixon & there i was, stagnant and black against the holy water in the land stretching its fingers to god heard the sweet hymn of deep trees, the timbre & hum of cicadas, closed my eyes & dreamt of how slow i could talk i was baptized in the blue waters of a red state & came to south of the mason-dixon blue dashers dancing atop the lake, light strokes across the heavy landscape, eagles fly & bowriders call free as a crystal sparkling surface on fire, sweat running wild & sticking me to a flowy white dress, rosy like a doll dipped in milk, drunk on honey, grasping at salt, but quiet and wishin & there i was, stagnant and black against the holy water in the land stretching its fingers to god then rising on the lake, in my dress, born again, washed, resurrected and all watching a flag fly off the back of the boat, reverent in- its gall i found an errant breath & heard a familiar whisper like god in the wind telling freedom stories in the tides of dreams passed like- prayer across kin blue dashers dancing atop the lake, light strokes across the heavy landscape, eagles fly & bowriders call light breaking thick mountain forest, to glimmer down, make this all gold. i watched in awe every hair standing up, mouth open to the chill wind & there i was, stagnant and black against the holy water in the land stretching its fingers to god

223

in branson my world distilled into lake and slowed to the crawl of a white chris craft and a southern drawl i was baptized and born again to a new religion blue dashers dancing atop the lake, light strokes across the heavy landscape, eagles fly & bowriders call & there i was, stagnant and black against the holy water in the land stretching its fingers to god but was it god or ghosts that made this promise land? voices in the wind of my kin asking me where i’ve been wondering how long it would take me to reclaim the land promised to them to jump unshackled in the lake and let them watch me swim and what if i drown in a memory of all they were amongst chosen people too proud & too taught to bleed red and me still black against the water and black as the swing of the trees and me trying hard to be blue like a dasher or water or sweet like honey golden light black as whatever breathes at the bottom of the basin and the undercurrent it came through and wishin still to rise to dance in the wind like the stars and stripes from the back of the boat in flight the first thing i saw when i finally opened my eyes.

224

Life of 5 Afgani Sonali Guttikonda

Mani (autumn) Mani, A festival of change with red gold spiraling, Covering the vibrant road.

Vivid dancers, Dressed in rich colors, Moving with the weeping, Trees, Taking joy, From their pain.

Shadowed By the magnificent Kush People, Cherishing the gifts of fall, While, it dies Slowly, Painfully.

The last of peace, Of joy.

A cold beauty, Nothing more.

The kind of beauty that guides A heartless shadow.

Seoray (shadow) Seoray, Cold, Evil.

A blanket, Of ash Thick, Horrid.

A comfort for some, A sorrow for others.

225

A force, More powerful, than the shine, of light.

Our bright colors, obscured, by thick black burqas.

Seoray, the last thing we see, Before we submerge, Into the depths of shadow.

Haunted by The bones of our people Taikha (escape) Taikha, Swift, Quiet.

The brush of twigs, the black of night.

Stars softly, Shine the way.

Enslavers pursue, Nimbly weaving through, Mangled trees.

Shots ring out, Bright cuts Adorn my skin Hope dims, And then I realize, Death is close.

Marheena (death) Marheena, Dark, Beautiful.

Desolate.

A wasteland, Thick with smoke.

My shadowed burqa falls, I hear A sound:

226

Piercing Silent I see Terrifying red, Deep, Bold.

Embracing me I feel, Marheena.

Rokhananye (light) Rokhananye, Warm, Kind.

The calm, After the storm.

Beautiful, True.

Light shined, Through ash and smoke And pulled me close, shining its colors on me again.

I wake The pain The sorrow The horror Fades…

Finally, I’m free.

227

corium encryption Claire He

yī. the paper cranes splay their wings across the northern sky. upon their folds i carve my mother tongue, an amalgamation of pointed brushstrokes and fevered birdsong. to fold is to compose. to write is to deconstruct. and what remains once you have stripped the paper to its heart? èr. sometimes, when they are threaded between my fingers, they do not take flight. wǒ xiǎng yào, wǒ ài, wǒ yǒu, and those words are bare, core exposed, drowning like mercury. my accent is one of a northern woman, sutured by the english lexicon. artificiality like taped wings. sān. pollux is the brightest star in gemini; my dreams are twin to bruised origami; and skin is more easily replaced than time. my tongue quivers upon needlepoint, brush to lips where girls once kissed radium. is it like atlas? i ask, because three thousand cranes are far from a hemisphere, yet devour my collar like carrion. sì. hang the entrails upon constellations so ink is blood is collateral, and year upon year when your mimicry of hollow-boned angels unfurls the night sky, sew paper like skin and pare a wish before your eyes. three flightless wishes taste like incense. your aftertaste is cyanide. wǔ. to take a plum’s flesh and stain tissue paper. the pit of a wish is unoriginal: the first thing i learn is to write them in layers of violet prose, through rose-tinted lenses—mandarin draped in morbit—and when you unfold them, remain empty. the words scrawl in vigenère on virginal lips. tell me: do i crush the cranes like jasmines beneath my palms?

228

fathom imitation Claire He

i. the river lethe runs through her fingers, and she will kiss her palms until her lips are stained white. she devours her precursor’s heart under the waning lune. eve ruptures the skin of fruit, chang’e drinks the archer’s elixir, persephone prods the lip of her lover: she shrouds pearls beneath her tongue and lets them froth in the tempest of her wine. ii. nine of ten suns bleed into silk. the last leaves icarus drowning. and your muse is not a temptress nor a siren, radial artery embroidered in gold. sew a cross to your breast and call the maiden a goddess. intimacy like asphyxiating: is this what it means to worship? open pandora’s box with a slip of the tongue and you have betrothed yourself to the promise of a magnum opus. iii. take her to the carnations beneath the moon. and there lies her predecessor: with lotuses carved into her eyes. you have tried sculpting artifices into atriums, draped a veil over the withered spouse of a long-forgotten muse, let a silver-tongued statue bask in gold. you have not known perfection by your hand, so tug divinity along her crimson thread and drink, cradling fire like prometheus. it is her dowry. iv. incense into her cathedral, preservation for one night more. her fingers plunge into inherited wine, temperance becomes antonym to temporary. and there is a story of bastardized devotion, and does it truly matter what her intent is, if chang’e still embraces the sky, wicked in one archive and untarnished in the second? does it matter what is the origin of your mastery, though it is not birthed by clarity, if it is still yours? v. prometheus bares his liver to the last sun, you bare yours to a vineyard. and she is the marriage of the scattered myths you have hemmed together. the pursuit of a masterpiece. muse whispers to you the script, brings your hand to her lips, your wrist to her tongue. a paragon which exists only in the midst of delirium, absent from your material incongruities. steal the

229

stars from her eyes. vi. she is your muse. sink your teeth into her lower lip when she dares to lead you astray. choking on asphodels wilting in her larynx, she drowns you in the lethe at dawn—and like eurydice, after you have bled her dry, call her beloved. turn to stare her in her stolen sight. when you wake, you know only two things: starlight rots beneath the sun, and nectar lingers on your fingertips.

230

thought experiment Claire He

i. the spring the missionaries find you, you learn to halfway kill a specimen. apatura iris, the nurse says in the language of divinity. she lifts a finger towards heaven, languid. snatches it midair, dragging it down from the gates of god. this is your first lesson: flight proves a metaphor for enlightenment—children are easily enamoured by gold-foil doctrine. the nurse pinches your chin; she tells you to be like the butterflies, that foreign species—beautiful. reborn by metamorphosis into some coruscating creature. a moment later, she pinches the featherlight film with equal force— placing the edge ever so delicately between your index and thumb—and teaches you to trim the wings into lace patterns. the nurse pins the snapping bones to worn oak and calls it revelation. the spare iron clatters at your feet. transformed beings are more wretched, perhaps, to have been left to the whims of needlepoint. god and science are not antonyms, she lectures. the laws of transformation are his alone. do you think a world without god can accomplish such miracles? a pocket watch dangling from a bronze chain, ticking. a telegram for the world’s most fervent storytellers. ii. long-forgotten superstition dictates that you can measure god’s favor with how long you stay in flight. humanity has no wings, only faith, but the nurse assures that it is enough. you gamble with a coin toss and find yourself teetering over a nursery’s rooftop. it is your father who drags you away, scratching and screaming, slipping over slanted panels, the rusting coin plummeting over the edge. the sun has long disappeared over the fold of heaven and sea. your father sets sail for the west sunday morning, leaving you with nothing but your name, half-dried taxidermy in his study, and the rotting bird feeders. with the nurse left in his stead, he, too, drifts into the horizon. by

231

virtue of luck, you catch his ship departing, the bell tolling like clockwork. so this is miracle before you: steam drifting to heaven, born from god-given mechanisms. iii. summer, the statue of a saint topples in the square. wood splinters; the last flakes of paint scatter into salt air. the sky turns humid and heavy. beneath the base of the statue, a brass plaque carved with the name of the saint shines. saint ———, the missionaries read aloud, their faces riddled with displeasure. no—this shall be our god. so they streak amber in ribbons atop his visage. your nurse paints his brocade turquoise and plates it with gold. what makes oak rot faster than rain. what kills saints more thoroughly than excision. fable becoming scripture for something divine. architect: remaker. for those who bleed heresy, they leave a changeling in her place. you clutch a coin in your palm and tell a story to an empty church booth. once, there was a man. once, there was a man whose stories sewed his soul into a god. once, there was nothing left of a man but his divinity and his name. to be holy, to be overwritten, is that death? is a man still himself when every inch is supplanted? the dusk light slits the marble in the hollow church. a grandfather clock chimes nine times. silkworm cocoons threading from the columns as likewise timekeepers. almost like fairy wings, apatura iris spools impossibility into truth. larvae, swallowing the garden, and bodies sculpted to be lovely. iv. a sunday six springs from your father’s departure, you stand on the mast, white sails billowing behind you like a satin chrysalis. if you have faith in god, he will spare you—if he has faith in you, that is. across the ocean, when a woman is named a witch, they drown her. if she lives, they take pins and nail her to the stake. she will be beautiful; unraveled cloth clings to her waist, heavy with the sea. if her lungs collapse with saltwater, she will be given a false-gold cross on a casket. to be rewritten as a witch or die beneath something unfathomable.

232

so when the sun bids farewell, the coin falls first. copper thread spindles between your fingers as if you’re weaving a fable, skin flaking with it. there is a prayer, somewhere between your larynx and your tongue. you don’t know if the god—surely not yours—hears it above the torrent. pinching foil between your nails, you dust the deck with trimmed corners, as if pollen in the arbour you leave behind, as if sacrosanct stories in the hands of missionaries. in the last sliver of daylight, you tip forwards. your name as binomial nomenclature. your body, suspended in the storm. make yourself a ship of theseus: will you be replaced with something exquisite?

233

waterpark surrealism Claire He

last night, i dreamt that you slipped into that liminal space in the Marriott

hotel— delirium in clouded neon reflections, the wallpaper chalk-white under your nails— sprawling yourself on the balcony. you told me that i’d regret you. the waterpark never shines that bright, but in the dream, it blinded me like the night you sank me in the bathtub—when i almost drowned, when you poured the champagne into the hazy lights, telling me to drink. it was the Fourth of July when you stomped the match out in the hallway outside the old hotel room. your brother’s cigarette smoke choking the air. i gasped, slipping on the pool tiles like i couldn’t breathe the way you did, chlorine in my nostrils. mascara smeared down my neck, where your lipstick faded. you said you’d show me thirst. bliss. suffocating me in your damp jacket. i hung my hair to dry on the balcony, tipping my head over the railing; there you were, holding out your hand. your kiss tasted like matcha. dancing like swallowing like falling all over again. playing spider solitaire at the arcade. you were right, you know, when you said i’d regret you. you, shivering in your blouse. you, brighter in my dreams. medical-white cheeks resting on first-aid kits. stealing the LEDs from the arcade before pushing me underwater. at 1 a.m., i bundle a match in your towel as the fire alarm goes off, winding your 90’s television cassettes, shattering a lollipop between my canines, and i plunge from overstayed liminality into the pool, pretending i’m reaching for you.

234

To Get a Boyfriend Maggie Hoppel

She asked me one day, sitting against the wall With her legs sprawled out in front of her, Maggie, Why is it so hard to get a boyfriend?

And I recited my usual spiel, Inconsequential words like beautiful and talented and Worthy dribbling from my lips Staining my jacket And I told her that The full forty nine percent of males on this Oversized rock we call Earth were bumbling Idiots for not falling to their knees and Proposing here and now To this breathtaking bride in her alligator Loki sweatshirt And low rise skinny jeans.

Unfortunately, my thoughts are a worthless currency.

My encouragement is forever inflating Her ego, confidence, but Each time it loses a little more of its value.

You could say it’s all hot air.

Because if the words I said to her were true Then they would echo Again and again and again Beautiful and talented and Worthy across A hundred tongues and a thousand mouths and Seven point nine billion minds.

Because if the words I said to her were true She’d have a boyfriend.

Why is it so hard to get a boyfriend, Maggie?

That’s not the question she meant to ask that day, Wondering why he flaked out on the football game Even though she did everything right, All smiles and mascara and Insta DMs playing it cool.

(But, you know, not too cool.)

235

No, the million-dollar question here is Why is it so hard to be content with the people who already love us?

As humans, we need each other.

To love and to be loved Is an essential part of who we are as a species But what isn’t essential Is a zit-faced, gangly sophomore to hold your hand And slime your lips with his spit And tell you you’re special Because you can’t believe it any other way.

Love is more than that— Parents and friends and teachers and your enormous senior dog who Snores through all your Zoom meetings Loud enough for the whole class to hear If you forget to mute your microphone.

And don’t forget self-love, either. I love myself. I’m a floral print Miracle of dad jokes and acne and loyalty.

Does that kind of love not count?

I know Taylor Swift doesn’t think so And Bridgerton and Titanic and Kermit and Miss Piggy and Donner and Blitzen and The boys in the south parking lot at school Singin’ them dirty rap songs With racist jokes and little girls called By their vaginas, never their names.

You know we hear that, right?

Why we want to give our love, our Bodies, to people who saturate their minds with Such prejudice and hate is worthy of Its own Buzzfeed Unsolved episode.

But we do.

We think we need you To give us value.

So, I say it’s about time you boyfriends waited for us, The full fifty one percent of women on this Oversized rock we call Earth Who are finally waking up from this Centuries-old nightmare of insecurity.

I say it’s time for us little girls to Cultivate the constant relationships in our lives, The ones that don’t begin and end over text, The ones that make us feel real and brave and alive and Remind us that what we actually need has been inside us all along.

236

And I say it’s time that the beautiful and talented and powerful woman In the Alligator Loki sweatshirt and low rise skinny jeans Stops asking why it’s so hard to get a boyfriend and Starts letting boyfriends wonder why it’s so hard To get her.

237

Where I'm From Clara Malek

I am from crumbling hardback copies of Swiss Family Robinson, From mashed potatoes, cat hair, and a dead redbud tree I was birthed from a pile of music boxes; Their gears weaving a cacophony of lullabies I’m from the hordes of mosquitoes that ate me as I fished for leaves, And the space between tree trunks and branches.

I am from the hard crackling of plastic-covered furniture The scents of Mediterranean food and the sound of accented English I came from the sound of a snapped string - pop and surprised faltering of fingers From the opening of a fresh book of music, and the scribbling of notes in the margins I carry the classic childhood scent of antiseptic and hospital hand sanitizer I am from the butterflies in the rehabilitation hospital’s garden, and the geese in a nearby pond From tan pants, red paint, and the cushions of a dark green couch.

I’m from time signatures, disappointed metronomes that move in unison with disappointed eyes From the cautionary teaching that practice makes permanent, not perfect I am from eyes that burn at midnight, under flickering lights.

My home is among plastic Sunday school chairs and animal crackers, Dunked in water.

Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, CDs of Latin chants and the scent of an eraser.

I am from knitting needles and tangled yarn, tangled hair But I am ultimately from a room of broken mirrors Ever reflecting Questioning Twisting Watching as my actions ripple through the layers And wondering if it’s really me.

238

The Witch's Tale Lucia Trujillo

for John Merrick How many have cried, I am not an animal chased down the street splattering the cobblestone with blood falling knees, pummeled with stones, Crying out for mothers poked and prodded and gawked at hated for beauty and killed for ugliness paraded, a party favor for the predator inventing every creature they kill “Make it move!” naked hunched over in a birdcage children hold cupped hands through the bars, offering seeds as some kind of recompense for pistol-whipped bodies let out only into the colosseum where men are given permission to massacre, And what do they do with the bodies? they string them up on branches for those to gather round and hear the last round of, I am not an animal! I am a huma-And see the awe at watching the last word choked as the bodies of witches begin to swing swing swing.

239

My Forbidden Friend Hailie Woodring

Look.

Breath inhaled again.

Like a forbidden friend.

Too close.

For their expectations.

Yet. We have no hesitations.

Her smile makes me sure.

Her scent my only cure.

Of sickness born from hate.

With a never-ending length.

This naïve fear so great.

My dear, they’re simply testing our strength.

Perfume dampened wrists.

And a tinkling laugh.

Two women in bliss.

And you loathe on behalf.

Of what?

Beat up sneakers and tousled sheets.

Stuck like skin.

Lovely scars from wonderful feats.

My holy sin.

Traced constellations.

Images only we know.

Gave in to your temptations.

Only eternity to go.

Their “love” is no release.

Compared to the ecstasy.

Of all-peace.

And novelty.

Disgust is.

Contagious.

Yet, we’re left.

Fazeless.

So let me lay.

240

‘Til our ultimate end.

Alone, I pray.

With my forbidden friend.

241

portfolio portfolio portfolio

Reflections Cara Ploughe

243

portfolio: Alexander Kutza

Means of Production Short Story

Fanny had mostly grown accustomed to the droning churn of the spinning machines as they clicked and sputtered and whirred, huffing and puffing endlessly, filling his ears with so much noise that it eventually became unnoticeable—that is until he finally stepped outside the factory into the dingy streets after the long hand on the clock had spun around fourteen times. What he hadn’t yet familiarized himself with was the profusion of dust and lint that swirled around him, settling a sting in his chest that rose until he had no choice but to cough—only after sending the sweeper beside him a vindictive glare.

Ms. Peckett, the prim and tidy attendant of the Clark Street Home for Working Youth who always wore a strangling, black collar, had a distaste for his cough, which often seemed to persist well into the evening.

At first, she speculated it was tuberculosis, but given that the boy hadn’t perished already—and that the doctor was too expensive—she had allowed him to eat supper with the rest of the children. Of course, cold beans and corn were nothing to rejoice about.

“At least you’re off the streets,” Ms. Peckett reminded with pretentious disaffection as the exhausted orphans filed past, dropping coins into the tin box outstretched in her arms.

It could be worse, Fanny supposed as he watched the girls strut down each tedious row, eyes scanning hundreds of thin white threads.

They’d reach over and fix a break, small but dexterous hands briskly tying the two ends together with natural precision before the metal belts could swallow up their fingers.

Fanny sat back with the other doffers, preparing to replace the bobbins. In a burst of energy, he gathered a few fresh spools from the basket and leaped up onto the machines, balancing precariously on a metal platform just inches from the spinning belt so that he could reach the spindles, overalls rolled up so the fabric didn’t catch any of the moving parts and suck him fatally into the machine, all while being extra careful not to drop anything—which would, of course, result in a treacherous mission underneath the spinning frames.

“Here.” A small voice was accompanied by an outstretched finger

245

pointing out a spot the boy nearly missed.

Fanny glimpsed a tenuous girl’s dirt-stained apron, worn leather boots, and braided hair that all seemed the same shade of brown. A fetid odor of sweat wafted his way. He pretended to ignore her, wondering why she felt it necessary to intervene in another’s task.

“You’re not to lend a hand,” Ms. Peckett always emphasized, “for you risk failing at your own task, and that task is…” She paused, heels clicking as she executed a sharp, theatrical pivot to face the class.

“All that we must do,” the children responded in apathetic unison.

Fanny corrected his oversight, then retreated to his familiar spot against the barrels lining the wall. He wiped sweat from his brow, unknowingly transferring dirt from the back of his hand.

As if the children’s grueling servitude wasn’t punishing enough, a man rounded the corner, lit cigar hanging from his lip, prepared to evoke terror in each and every young soul. The vigilant boys and girls straightened their backs and latched their eyes intensely to their work—except for one.

“You,” the sloven supervisor grumbled, arms crossed over his suspenders, belly protruding so that his body formed a comfortable s-shaped slouch that was starkly incongruous with the postures of the children. He paused directly behind the girl with the dirty apron, but she didn’t seem to notice him over the deafening churn of the machines.

“What’s your name?” he shouted, grabbing her arm violently, maintaining his natural baleful countenance.

She startled, then paled, furtive eyes brimming with trepidation and glancing no farther north than his chest.

“Julia.”

The man frowned imperiously, blowing an acrid puff before pointing to a bundle of thread snagged on the machine that was producing a repetitive, clamorous clicking.

“What’s this, Julia?” he interrogated.

Her cheeks reddened penitently. “Sorry, I didn’t—” But before she could produce an excuse for her ineptitude, she was thrust to the ground like one of the cotton bales they kept in the basement.

“Didn’t see?” the supervisor bellowed with excoriating, sadistic fervor. “Didn’t hear!” He stared at her for a moment, flames suffusing his glazed grey eyes, then adjusted his cap, returned the cigar to his teeth, and sauntered past her.

She lay in an enervated heap, dress sprawled out along the floorboards, hands still planted inertly where they’d caught her fall a moment ago, eyes fastened morosely to the space between them.

The boy’s gaze lingered on the hem of her dress, which lay just inches to the side of the rotating belts insatiably consuming thread. To the astoundment of the other children, he sprung up from the wall and approached her.

“You’d better move,” he said with feigned indifference, planting himself at a cautious distance.

Julia broke from her stupor and swiveled her head to peer up at him. Then she glanced at the hem of her skirt, tucked the folds under her knee, and rose to her feet. Brushing dust and grease from her apron— which had little effect at all—she examined the boy, brows shifting tempestuously as if deciding between shame and skepticism, only to finally settle at an authentic defenselessness.

She seemed close to speech, then caught a glimpse of the factory clock above Fanny’s head, and instantly a franticness overtook her.

“I should go,” she said, as if they had been in the middle of something.

Fanny considered turning away to leave the girl, as she was obviously perturbed by something, but felt as if he might miss something.

“I’d better put on the potatoes,” she continued with a lack of reticence, “It’s almost dinner.”

She gazed at him expectantly, and for a moment Fanny wondered if she was awaiting permission, but then she lurched to the side and moved swiftly for the door with a rickety, mechanical sidle that rattled the floorboards, probably sending showers of dust upon the workers in the basement—and on the cotton bales they would carry up to load onto the machines, which would spew out more and more dust that would eventually find its way into Fanny’s poor young lungs and accumulate until he had no choice but to cough.

Dim lanterns lined the walls, emulating the smut-covered windows as an insufficient source of light. Fanny stood on his toes to peer over the indefatigable machines at the ravenous children shoving food into their bellies, all crammed uncomfortably onto wooden benches. His spirits rose as they began to stand and scurry back to their stations.

247

“You lot. Five minutes,” the supervisor instructed languorously.

Instantly his row sprung from their positions, snatched tin boxes and paper bags from the barrels behind them, and scrambled for the benches with such animalistic frenzy that a few even slipped on the greasy floorboards.

Fanny missed the open seats and was about to settle smally on the floor when he noticed a leather boot peeking out from behind a column.

Approaching, he made out a shadowy figure scrunched meekly behind it.

She noticed him and smiled amiably, beckoning him over to the quiet hiding place. Overwhelmed by the raucous din of the childrens’ conversation, he pushed through the crowd to nestle shyly beside her.

Julia watched as he opened a pitiful tin box to reveal cold beans and a soggy carrot. She ripped off a piece of her fresh loaf and offered it to him graciously.

“Want some?”

Fanny examined the fluffy golden treat lustfully, then took it from her with a guilty, averted gaze.

“It’s not even mine,” she explained reassuringly, “I took it from the table.” An impish grin overtook her as she admitted the action unscrupulously. “They don’t ever notice.”

“What about your family?” he inquired.

She sighed, taking a slow, contemplative bite of her rosy-red apple.

“Not much of a family if you never see ‘em. No, it's… more a job I suppose. We’re just a bunch of workers.”

“How so?” the boy asked between lethargic bites.

“We cook and clean and work so that we can cook and clean and work some more because there's always more little ones to care for—an endless supply actually. Like the cotton. Sometimes I forget how many sisters I have. I never see them all at once anyway,” she added wryly.

Fanny sniffed in amusement, relating deeply to her rueful sentiments.

“If that’s a family, then I suppose I do have one—” he mused with exaggerated sobriety, “—just with about a hundred siblings and one cruel mother.”

They both chuckled, enlivened for an ephemeral moment.

After a pause, Fanny blurted out a pressing question. “Why didn’t you notice the clog the other day? It was making a horrible racket.”

She shrugged, a bleariness returning to her gaze. “My hearing isn’t

248

right,” she explains. “Never has been. And the machines don’t help. I was supposed to be a housekeeper like Martha but they thought I wouldn’t hear directions.”

She stopped chewing for a moment and looked up with pleading earnest. “You mustn't tell them though! Oh, they’ll— they’ll kick me straight out the door!”

“Alright. I won’t,” he assuaged. The idea had never even crossed his mind.

“Good.” She uttered a relieved sigh.

Fanny looked down to see a small slip of paper on the floor next to his knee. His discreet fingers reached out to unfold it: I am the cotton To be tossed around And twisted into what they want me to be Until I break in two I am the machine Working into the night Only stopping when I break But I am still the one Who will break free “Hey!” Julia exclaimed, flushing. She snatched the slip from the boy and returned it hastily to her pocket.

“What is that?” he inquired.

“I wrote it. Do you…like it?”

“It doesn’t really make sense.”

“It does to me.”

“Alright.”

Just then an unkempt, irascible man with a malevolent sneer and pudgy cheeks appeared from around the corner. “Back to work you two.”

A crushing grip fastened to Fanny’s arm and pulled him up with unnecessary force to callously cease the childrens’ conversation and end their fleeting moment of respite.

Fanny was trying to remember the words he had read on that tiny slip of paper when loud footsteps approached his row. He watched as brown

249

pouches were dropped into each child’s eager hands and treated like sacred gemstones.

Soon enough he felt a weight in his own palms—although he couldn’t help but detect that it was significantly lighter than usual…

Quickly he searched through the bag, brows furrowed skeptically as he counted the coins.

Emptier. Most certainly less. So depressingly fewer. So enragingly meager.

“It’s not enough,” he blurted out, heart pounding almost in time with the machines.

The supervisor stopped in his tracks and ever so slowly slipped the chewed cigar from his teeth, its red embers seeming to ignite something malevolent within him that had been desperately seeking an excuse to reemerge.

“What’s that?” He raised his voice obnoxiously, hushing the surrounding murmurs so that Fanny felt even more alone.

“I won’t—t be able to m—make board,” he repeated, waves of tremors converging like a deluge on his tongue, throat, and eyes as they began to crack under unbearable pressure.

“I’ll be on…the streets,” Fanny managed, swallowing painfully between words.

The supervisor approached to tower over the boy with the most disparaging, berating smirk that soon transformed into an expression of nightmarish, wrathful fury.

“How about you take your pay, kid, get another job, and don’t ever talk back to your supervisor or that’ll be the last sack you ever earn!”

In an impressive flourish, the man scooped up the small brown bag from Fanny’s sweaty fingers and flung it straight under the machines. His heart sank as he watched it disappear beneath the fast-moving belts and gears, swallowed up by the voracious beast.

But it wasn’t gone.

He knew that, for he had seen some of the other children squeeze their nimble frames flat underneath to fetch an expensive mechanical part or two. And they’d returned, their triumph casting doubt on the harrowing stories he’d overheard from the adults’ rows.

His mourning subsided, giving rise to a sudden gallantry.

“No!” a small voice implored as the boy crouched down in resolution. “Don’t do it. Oh please don’t do it,” Julia half- whispered, glancing

250

gingerly back at the supervisor.

Fanny shrugged her off and laid down, determined gaze scanning the dark, narrow crevasse for an indication of his earnings. There it was— one tiny lump amongst so much chaos and hazard.

“Stop it!” she pleaded, her hesitant tone giving rise to one of emotional conviction. She was torn between speaking to Fanny and his tyrannical oppressor.

“You can have mine!” she exclaimed desperately, “It’s a little less than yours but I’ve got working sisters and…and I’ll just make it up by selling some of my parchment at the market or—or I won’t buy any apples for a month—or—or I can sell them! That’s it! I’ll sell them too—for a profit! It’s not that big a difference to me, you see? Oh but I just can’t bear to see it happen oh please don’t…”

But Fanny could no longer hear her emphatic cries over the churning of the machines which was now rattling his eardrums, contorting his face into a woeful grimace of excruciating torment. The whooshing, tinny clamber above him rattled his skull concussively as his alternating forearms drug him deeper inside, shoulders rotating as flatly as he could make them. Irrepressible, viscous tears streamed down like blood, stinging his swollen under-eyes.

The sound seemed to be liquifying him—morphing him—molding him into a haggard creature that ululated screams of urgent distress and perseverance. He could barely see the sack through his blurry, doubled, unblinking vision. He reached out for it, straining every muscle and tendon in his feeble arms as he fumbled blindly about the crawlspace.

Then there was a bang and a shooting pain in the top of his skull.

He reached up to protect himself, only to skin his shoulder on something jagged and pulsating.

He cried out as a deep redness oozed into his eyes. He was under attack, but he couldn’t turn to see his enemy—couldn’t back away for he might risk a third defeating blow. He felt himself slipping, the sound draining away peacefully with his consciousness…

Something warm and sweaty gripped his ankle, and suddenly he was sliding back through the cave like a limp doll, his trail of blood lubricating the floor to expedite his journey back into the light.

When the boy emerged he sprung to his senses and clutched the gash on his shoulder, panting and sobbing in disorientation. He was swathed in a soothing embrace, and a girl’s voice was crying out in blus-

251

tering desperation. She backed him away from the machine, pleading helplessly for an indication that the boy would live.

All he could manage was a pitiful nod as he wiped his face on her dirty apron, painting it with sweat, blood, and tears to form an organic depiction of suffering.

The girl was so aghast that she released the boy and stood overwhelmed amidst the chaos of the factory children, who were all gasping and screaming, eyes fastened to the macabre scene—even though the boy was quickly coming around and would recover soon enough with a few bandages.

But Julia gazed with gaping eyes at her grotesque apron and trembling hands. She held them out foreignly and stood in petrification, unable to remove her apron or turn away from the boy to relieve herself of the horrific incident. She looked up at the slouching, corpulent figure ambling coolly away with his chipped, blackened teeth and chapped lips loosely holding his cigar in place.

In a sudden burst of bellicosity the girl bounded over to him, hands tightly fisted, braid slapping her back, knees rigid and powerful. Fanny watched in stupefaction as she thrust herself into the man, her shoulder bearing the brunt of the daring offensive.

The supervisor grunted with surprise and stumbled—and probably would have caught his balance had it not been for the thick layer of grease coating the floorboards in exactly that spot. He plunged for the ground, arms flailing wildly.

His cigar soared through the air, trailing amber embers onto the pile of lint and dust that had settled on the floor, right next to the grease…

In an instant the girl had defeated one malicious beast, only to create another. Small flames sprouted from the floorboards and spread across them fiercely, consuming every clump and particle of perfect kindling in its wake.

Fanny found his legs and sprung toward the girl, whose expression had settled back into an uncomprehending daze. He yanked her by the arm as someone needlessly shouted, “Fire!” and the children began climbing over each other, scrambling for the doors at the other end of the factory. They trampled and climbed and lunged over one another with violent grit and liberating exuberance.

When they finally emerged, there was smoggy air and a desaturated haze—which felt tropical in contrast to the smoke and soot filling the chil-

252

drens’ lungs inside the sweltering building.

Fanny and Julia didn’t stop until they had nearly reached the pier, where they turned back in awe at a tremendous picture of desolation.

Through the ashes floating gently like snow was an effulgent array of reds and oranges that captivated the destitute children. Shreds of cotton were floating as well, dancing and swirling happily, free at last from their imprisoning ropes and hands and machines—not at all so different from the children themselves.

253

Nothing Happens

Personal Essay & Memoir ~blink~ Nothing really happened at all. I was in the car—so dark, so many lights—I blinked so much that maybe I couldn’t tell the inner lane became grass. I pulled out into traffic, as if the others would agree to let me go home and rest; I had spent my Saturday night volunteering, after all.

And suddenly I was frozen in the middle of the highway, my mother’s frantic screams passing straight through me. Death was breathing down my neck, and my fingers were numb as I gripped the steering wheel and quickly got up to speed. And that was it. The only indication that the moment had happened was my mind’s whispered promise that it would punish me forever—punish me because my brain could have been everywhere but inside my skull, like the videos they show you in DriversEd that people told me I didn’t need to watch, because good grades mean I probably have everything figured out.

How could I have treated my life like a bubbled Scantron answer on a chemistry test (specifically, redOx reactions)? Putting everything up to chance, when I still need to schedule so many things: gazing at the stars on Monday, playing board games on Wednesday, crying with my whole chest on Friday. When I haven’t traveled the countryside in a cozy mtrak, or felt the passionate lacerations of love’s syrupy entanglement. When I haven’t even applied to college. ~wordy email rejection~ Why can’t it just be simple: being good means good things happen to you?

Why did a single email take away my love for life? Will I get it back? What lesson is it teaching me to fail at something I put my heart into? That I shouldn’t be empathetic, optimistic, passionate? Now, who is profiting off of my suffering? If I had succeeded, would I have paid my profits forward like I say, or would I have kept them for myself?

I wanted to feel something, because I was sick of sitting in place, staring at a screen, trying to do my work while my invigoration was

254

fading. And suddenly there was nothing to work towards, no reason to put down my pen. I forced out my tears—why is it so hard to cry? I wanted to wallow for just a moment, because otherwise I’ll force myself to go on, changing nothing until my eye twitches and I slouch and fold under the weight of my backpack, zippers always bursting at the seams. That’s the burden I was sold.

And yet I’ll go on tomorrow, scoffing at my angst, and forgetting the rashes on my skin. I’m sorry to myself. I’m sorry my health became an afterthought, and I put my future before my present. Because I truly thought things would get better in a week. And a week becomes a month, and a month becomes a year, and a year becomes…too much to let go of. ~hope~ I ponder ways to redefine my self-worth—to be more than statistics, and grandiose passions, and hard-earned accomplishments that somehow speak to my excellence. I strive to value myself for just existing, but I’m terrified of that. Instead I notice with relief as my motivation returns, gradually. I feel silly for thinking I could have received a different email. I wonder why I carried so much mistrust for my future self in those days, as if returning to normal would be just an illusion. If I’m wallowing forever, I might prevent myself from going on at all. It took a week to regain what the email stole from me in a moment. I wonder why hope clings to me always, fighting to drag me from despair and guide me forward.

Reminding me of the bigger picture, the bigger goal, the bigger battle— reminding me that I’m wasting time. I wonder if hope could let me go. ~paradox~ I can’t work. I can’t relax. I convince myself sometimes that I’m finally where I want to be, but that’s only when my obligations dwindle. And when they surge the cycle starts again. Will it ever stop? Or is my life a paradox? ~tether~ What is the distance between me and the one who stands on the ledge?

When I look back I see the tether wrapped around fragile laughs and hugs,

255

255

numbers and letters that fluctuate. Around things that don’t yet exist: trophies that mean something, change at my fingertips. Around nothing permanent. So I buy myself time, waiting for a day when I won’t have to clutch the harness, when I can let out a sigh and finally realize it’s not going anywhere. ~ping pong~ What is the difference between me and the one who lives a lie? Who fears the outcome of words so their throat has taught itself to close? Who’s stopped believing there’ll be a better time so they decided for good their freedom isn’t worth it? Is it my fault that I’m not prepared? For an end to the conjecture? For even a fleeting hint of disappointment in their wide eyes? For a definition I’d have to defend always? Maybe in the future, silence might stand for empowerment, instead of weakness. Too bad it’s so easy to forget dreams, because they might have spared me from the ping pong table. Where our paddles gathered dust, and it felt like we were magnets aimed the wrong way, and I lost so much of myself forcing them together. ~balance~ I used to try to balance the scales. The scales of science and writing and math. The scales of kindness and friendship and family (never together).

The scales of health and relaxation and joy. But eventually there were so many that I couldn’t fill them all. So maybe I’ll try to select the important ones to fill—but how do I find the right combination? And is that, in itself, just another form of balancing? ~running~ And suddenly I run for the brink, my fingers pounding the pavement like a techno beat coursing through my veins as I think about the spinning stars and moments of fluttering beauty and awe and desperation that seem so foreign sometimes but ignite me with the passion of a thousand years, and I feel my heart like it wants to rip out and become one with everyone who’s ever cried or hurt or hid from anything, though it’s hard to remember those moments when you grow so used to putting dots at the

256

256

ends of sentences, and finally closing your eyes deep into the night, feeling the pain fester within, never reaching the surface. But I remember it now, and I realize—in a moment that almost fades into the darkness—that I’m doing my best.

257

Your Absence Shelia Hernandez

portfolio: Joel Robertson

Daisy

Short Story Michael Whitaker slid the headset over his sweat-slicked hair. Elvis Presley was playing now. The Fireballs had been on when he left for his lunch break. He leaned back in his chair and pushed his hair back with both hands. Sandwich bits were still stuck in his teeth. There was no time to pick them out between his break and his sprint back to the small studio beneath the oppressive Texas sun. The stars had aligned for Michael.

JFK had been shot.

He took a deep breath and flipped a switch on the soundboard, cutting off Elvis mid, “Bossssssa Nova!” and pulled the mic closer to his mouth.

“Good afternoon. I apologize for cutting the music off a bit short, but not 10 minutes ago, I received some terrible news. I ran all the way back here to the studio from Nana's Diner to tell you. President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas.” His voice shook a bit. The words somehow didn’t seem real. The president had been shot. He took a deep breath, thinking about how far this story could take him if he just stayed steady, then continued.

“At 12:30, halfway through his planned motorcade through the city, a sniper fired a shot at the president and hit. The shot was fatal. We do not know much more at this time. The reverberations of this will be felt in our small community as well as the rest of the state and the nation. I think it would be wonderful if you all called in. We must grieve this moment as a community. Thank you.”

Michael flipped the switch and Elvis resumed “Bossa Nova Baby.” He smiled, then thought better of it, returning his face to stern solemnity.

He swiveled around towards the phone lines waiting expectantly for the red blinking light of a call. “Bossa Nova Baby” ended. Soon after, “Surfin’ USA” did too. Three more songs came and passed without any of the four phone lines blinking. The frown on his face was real now.

In between songs, he reminded listeners to call in and began waiting again. His fingers rapped against the corner of the soundboard. One song

260

passed. Then two. Then three. Michael sighed and walked towards his suit coat hanging in the corner of the studio. He knelt down next to it and fumbled in its waist pocket for his cigarettes. He was in desperate need of a smoke break.

He returned to the soundboard with a half-empty pack of Camel’s and a lighter in hand. He stuck one into the corner of his mouth and flicked the lighter. Nothing happened. He flicked it again. Still nothing.

Line one lit up.

Michael spit the cigarette out and hit the switch for the line.

“This is KSTR-AM. How can I help you?”

“Hi, I’m calling about Kennedy.” The man’s voice was weathered and had a growl like low thunder.

“Perfect. We’ll have you on after the next song finishes.” Michael’s smile stretched ear to ear. “Could I ask your name?”

“I would prefer if you didn’t.”

“That’s fine by me. What do y-” “You don’t legitimately think anyone is listening to this station right now do you?”

Michael paused for a second. “I would suppose there are at least a few people.”

“Nonsense. Everyone that cares about the assassination is already glued to one of those glass boxes by now.”

“You’re not.”

The man coughed. His throat sounded completely full with gunk. “I don’t trust televisions.” He took a deep breath. “Trust me kid, the only people

tuning in right now are like me or are only here for the Beach Boys and Presley.”

Michael winced. “I’m sorry to say I don’t believe you sir.”

“Alright kid, a good dose of skepticism is healthy. I’ll give you that one. I am right though.”

Michael’s face went solemn again. “Well, are you ready to go live?”

“That is why I called.”

Michael hit another switch just as the song ended. “Well folks, we have our first caller. Sir, when did you learn JFK was shot?”

“When you interrupted Elvis earlier. I can’t say the news surprised me though.”

Michael was not expecting this. He leaned forward in his chair and let out a stilted laugh. “The president was shot. I don’t think news can get more surprising than that.”

“I’m sure it was all planned.”

He leaned forward even more. “Planned?”

“Well, I see it like this. There are two ways this could’ve gone down. Either the communists finally got fed up with him and sent one of their men to shoot him, or some government higher-up thought he wasn’t being hard enough on the Reds and hired someone to shoot him. I’m inclined to bet on the latter.”

Michael sat in silence for a moment. This wasn’t what he had planned on, but it was good radio. He started again, “What makes you so sure?”

The man made an audible shrug. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.

There has to be some kind of conspiracy after all. The president was shot, not some random civilian. Let’s not pretend the US has ever kept its hands too clean either, and I believe we would do anything to defeat the communists just short of warfare. So yes, I think the government probably killed JFK.”

262

“Are you a communist?”

“Heavens no! I’m a skeptic. I don’t believe in no ideology but my own.”

“Would you describe yourself as an American?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, let’s say the American government did kill JFK. The people would revolt if they ever found out, and they would eventually find out.” The man began to laugh. “Sir?” “How old are you, kid?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Thought you were about there. Well, you’ll learn soon enough that Uncle Sam is wilier than you ever could’ve imagined and that the American people will guzzle up any slop that’s fed to them.”

“I don’t believe that either. We have the healthiest democracy in the history of the world, and that requires us to have some smarts. Not even two years ago we sent a man hurtling through space. I think-” The man started to cackle. “See, this is exactly what I mean.”

“What?”

“You really think we went to space?”

Michael turned an angry red. “Yes. Yes I do.”

“That’s just the problem here! Let’s put it this way. What is more likely: that we developed the technology to send a man shooting through the stars or that we just said we did all that to make it look like we’re on even playing ground with Russia. Hell, I don’t even believe Russia did it. It’s all just one big phony story.”

263

“So we’re not smart enough to fly into space, but we are smart enough to create massive cover ups.”

“It’s not that hard.”

“Really?” Michael let an ounce of sarcasm slip into his voice.

“Really. We used to get our news through the paper. Then, we got it through the radio. Now, most people get it through the television. What’s the trend there?”

“Technological advancement. Which brings us back to-” “Nope. The trend is cost of production. Any man can start a newspaper.

Few men can start a radio station. Almost no man can start a television station. Big money controls almost all the news we hear now, and they’ll always align themselves with the government.” Michael was now positive that this man was a communist.

“Well, I’m not big money.”

“True, but who listens to this station. It’s strictly local.”

“Let me get this straight. You’ve seen that we can send sounds and moving images halfway across the world, but you don’t believe we could send a man to space.”

“Son, an image and a man are two separate things.”

The conversation was spiraling out of control. Michael pulled out another cigarette and lit it, successfully this time. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand how you can deny all this. We know that man has been to space. We know that planes crisscross the sky. Not everything is a big conspiracy.

Next you’ll be telling me that six million Jews didn’t die in the holocaust, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still there, or that we never even built the atom bomb. You’re spinning stories just as well as you say the government does.”

264

The man didn’t respond. Michael could only hear his breathing through the headset. It was quick and shallow with a slight wheeze. He began to speak again. “We did build the atom bomb.” His tone was different. The smugness was gone, replaced by a quiet resignation. It was still underscored by that same low thunder. “Do you mind if I tell you a story?”

“Not at all.”

The man took as deep of a breath as he could then coughed a bit. “I was one of the few men that didn’t fight in the second World War. I wanted to, don’t get me wrong. What young man doesn’t dream of fighting overseas for his country? But, a month before America decided to enter the war, my wife, Libby, died, leaving me alone with our two year old daughter, Daisy.

Both Libby and I were only children, so I couldn’t just leave her with an aunt or uncle. It was just me and her in our small house down in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

“Ruidoso is a small town. Not many people have heard of it. Libby was born there. We moved back after Daisy was born because she insisted that Ruidoso was the best place for a young child with its wide open plains and tight-knit community. I never loved it there, but I stayed for Daisy.

“The war waged on and on, but with the exception of Pearl Harbor, it never came here. Well, in the cities, they were rounding up the Japanese. At the time, I thought that was a reasonable move. There was one Japanese man living in Ruidoso. I don’t think I ever said a word to him because he scared me. I regret that, knowing what I know now.

“When Daisy was four, I read her a picture book about Santa Claus. She pointed to the snow in the illustrations and asked, ‘Daddy? What’s that?’

I told her, and she became obsessed. On Christmas morning that year, I took my pocket knife to some old pillows and ripped out the stuffing. She came downstairs to her first snowfall. She was so excited she leapt into my arms. We built a fake snowman, had a fake snowball fight, the works. We did it the next year too, and she was just as happy. I miss those days.

“On July 16th, 1945, I was woken up by a loud crashing around five o’clock. I remember it like it was yesterday. I sprung up from my bed and checked on Daisy first. She was sprawled on her bed, sleeping sound as a

265

rock. I slipped on my shoes and stepped outside. A few others had as well.

We couldn’t find anything unusual, so we all went back inside. The first nuclear bomb had just been detonated in our own backyard.

“I was cooking burgers for dinner. Daisy loved them. She always only put lettuce on hers. She was a strange kid. I had just finished cooking when Daisy came in from playing. She was covered in gray dust.

“She basically screamed, ‘Dad! It’s snowing!’ as she dragged me by the arm into our backyard. The ground was covered in fine dust, but it wasn’t snow. It was 95 degrees outside and snow can’t be warm. She ran out and began to make a snow angel, but I yelled for her to come inside. I didn’t trust it. She kicked and screamed and bit and cried as I dragged her back in. She didn’t say a word to me as I washed her off in the shower.

“No one knew what had happened, but soon enough people began to fall sick. The government issued a statement saying that some loose explosives had ignited the morning of the 16th and that no one was harmed. I didn’t believe it. Something was wrong.

“Daisy got sick too. In mere weeks, she lost all of her childhood fat. She looked like a skeleton. I took her to a doctor in the city who said she had cancer and that there wasn’t much I could do. I didn’t tell Daisy anything.

She died two months later.

“Right under our noses, the U.S. government set off the largest weapon the world has ever seen. They knew it would harm us, but they didn’t care. They couldn’t tell us what they did because of their stupid war. Near everyone in that town, including myself, has cancer now.

“Everything is a game to them, boy. Everything. Trust me when I say they don’t have your best interest at heart. If we killed civilians to win a war, why wouldn’t we lie about piercing into space to get ahead? Why wouldn’t we kill our own leader and replace him with someone better suited?”

Michael sat speechless for a moment. His cigarette was down to a stub.

“I’m so sorry sir.”

“It’s alright child. Nothing you can do about it.”

266

Title

“I still don’t know if that’s enough reason to distrust everything though.

The government can’t always-” Michael looked down at the phone lines.

Two, three, and four were blinking. His eyes lit up. “I hate to cut you off, but I have some more guests on the line.”

“Hm, I suppose I was wrong then. Well, remember what I said. I’d bet my life on the assassination being an inside job.”

“I will.” He hung up the line and pumped his fists into the air. He’d hit gold. He answered line two with greedy fingers.

A woman immediately started yapping. “Now I don’t know what that man was on about, but I know for sure who killed JFK.” Michael smiled. He was going places for sure.

Author Name 267

The Dangerous Necessity of Belief: Cinematic Language in Mulholland Drive Critical Essay

It is hard to imagine someone walking out of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive feeling confident they understood exactly what happened. At first, you think it is the story of Betty, a rising actress in Hollywood, but the last half of the movie is not about Betty at all. It is about a woman named Diane, a failed actress who ends up killing herself. Both Betty and Diane are played by the same actress, Naomi Watts. Other characters undergo a similar name swap at the halfway mark. This dual narrative, sprinkled with out of place surreal sequences, seems to defy interpretation. However, you also cannot walk away thinking it was nonsense. Every scene exudes purpose. The simplest and most coherent way to understand Mulholland Drive is that the film is split into two distinct yet interlocked sections: Diane’s dream and Diane’s reality, but this interpretation limits the movie’s thematic depth. It locks the movie’s symbols into singular, literal meanings since any abstraction in Diane’s dream directly represents one thing in her reality. The problem with this interpretation is not that it is incorrect; it is incomplete because it puts its primary focus on the wrong dichotomy. The most holistic reading of Mulholland Drive focuses primarily on cinematic language over the film’s content. This reading reveals that the dichotomy between dream and reality is less important than the dichotomy the cinematic language creates between the audience and the film itself.

Two brief scenes lay the foundation for the entire dream-reality interpretation. The first of these is a first person shot at the start of the film that pans over velvet sheets only to finally zoom into a pillow. This scene frames the entire dream sequence of the narrative. The other scene takes place immediately before the reality sequence. The Cowboy walks into Diane’s apartment and tells her it’s time to wake up, signifying that the dream is over. However, as previously established, this interpretation seems to limit the film on a thematic level. Everything seems to have a literal answer. In reality, Diane is constantly scorned by director Adam Kesher, so in her dream, she ruins his entire life. Similarly, Diane’s apartment is small and dingy while Betty’s apartment in her dream borders on bougie. The dream sequence (the longer and seemingly more important

268

sequence of the two) becomes entirely secondary to the reality sequence.

The film as a whole seems to only be saying that believing in dreams is dangerous. Diane bet her entire life on the dream that she could become a Hollywood actress, a mistake which ended in suicide. If we take this interpretation to its logical end, Lynch seems to be suggesting that dreams are only lies and realities can only be truths.

The dichotomy of dream and reality becomes more complex when we consider how each sequence is filmed. The dream is filmed to feel like reality. With few exceptions, the editing is extremely standard. Time linearly marches forward. Dialogue is shown to us using shot-reverse-shots. The cinematography is gorgeous but almost never abstract. The color palette is bright and cheery with lots of light yellows, emphasizing the wonder Betty feels, but otherwise, everything is extremely naturalistic. Reality, on the other hand, is filmed like a nightmare. The editing is extremely non-linear, often seamlessly transitioning across time and space without the addition of any b-roll to ground the viewer. Sometimes, Lynch even switches scenes mid-conversation giving the viewer absolutely no buffer between scenes.

The jitterbug scene at the start of the movie (the only reality scene not in this sequence) feels anything but literal. Dancers and silhouettes are superimposed over one another as they fade in and out across a flat purple background. The cinematography during the reality sequence loses the bright yellows for grimy browns and often leans into the abstract. During Diane’s suicide at the end of the movie, two small, old people, seemingly filmed in timelapse then superimposed on the scene, crawl out from underneath Diane’s door and begin laughing at her. The pitch of the laugh is increased and is the loudest part of the mix. In doing all this, Lynch has shattered the line between dream and reality. Although the content of the movie tells us one part is fake and the other is not, the audience is not able to differentiate between the two on a first viewing. In fact, Lynch does not want us to. He is not concerned with explaining the events of his story.

The literal is not the most important part of Mulholland Drive.

The film’s language sets up the dichotomy Lynch is really focusing on: audience and film. The pillow scene at the beginning of the film implicates the audience in the act of dreaming. Literally, this scene tells us that Diane is asleep, but the audience has not met Diane yet. Lynch provides no contextual framework for this scene. Because of this, the scene takes on a less literal meaning. It is not just Diane that is falling asleep; the audience is too. By making this shot first person, Lynch implicates the audience in Di-

269

ane’s dream. Notably, Diane waking up is not in first person. The audience clearly sees her sleeping body on the bed as the Cowboy is speaking to her.

Diane may have woken up, but the audience has not. Here, Lynch is identifying cinema itself as a type of dream. This idea is enforced further by Lynch’s visual homages to Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, a film that famously broke the fourth wall by showing Ingmar Bergman and a cameraperson filming one of the scenes near the end of the story. Lynch’s subtle fourth wall break goes further than cinematic lineage. Twice, Lynch plays with the film’s audio track. During Betty’s first scene in the dream sequence, Lynch chooses to run the dialogue track out of sync with the actors’ mouths, a subtle way of telling the audience that they are watching a movie, not reality. This intentionally breaks the cinematic language of the rest of this portion of the film. By reminding us that none of this is really happening at the start of the dream, Lynch ties together the concepts of film and dreaming. He does this even more explicitly during the scene in Club Silencio. The scene functions under a similar logic, but this time Lynch tells the audience what he is doing. A man comes out onto the club’s stage and tells us that everything we are hearing is a tape recording. Then, another man comes out and begins to play a muted trumpet. He removes the mouthpiece from his lips, but the soft whine continues. Lynch does not only reference this to inform the audience about the logic of the scene, it is a larger comment on film itself. Film is just audio and video dancing together in synchronization. The audio track can play without the video and vice versa. Together, they make the audience believe in the illusion of film. Apart, all belief in the illusion crumbles. It is not a coincidence that this final reminder that we are taking part in a dream happens right before we transition into the reality sequence of the film. In terms of content, the dichotomy of the movie may be between dream and reality, but in terms of form, it is between dream and nightmare. This second, implicit dichotomy is the one the audience experiences.

The Club Silencio scene is more than a simple reminder that the entire film is a dream. It is the film’s pivotal moment. Here, Lynch drops all plot to show us, purely through cinematic language, how to read the film. After the rules of the club are explained by the man and the trumpeter, a woman comes out and begins to sing a Spanish cover of Ray Orbison’s “Crying.” The camera holds on a tight close up of her face, brimming with hope yet tinged with sadness. Most of the audience does not know what she is literally singing since it is in a foreign language, but they are taken purely

270

by this feeling of decaying hope and the musical talent on display. It is a shock when she suddenly collapses, but the music still echoes through Club Silencio. The audience knew it from the start. It was all a recording.

When this is applied to the rest of the film, Lynch’s vision become apparent. Mulholland Drive is not shy about reminding the audience that it is a narrative (i.e. a dream.), but it does not do this in a cold, ironic way.

The film is a dream, yet we believe it anyway. Not only do we believe it, we believe every part of the film even though they are all in tension with each other. We believe that Betty has the potential to become a successful actress. We believe that Diane is in a hopeless situation with little way out.

We believe Betty and Diane are the same person. We know all of this is contradictory, but we believe nonetheless.

The audience’s dream ends as the credits roll, and we are asked what part we believe in more: the dream or the nightmare? Lynch is unconcerned with revealing which part is “real.” If he was, he would have directed the movie so that would be clear. Lynch is more concerned with what part of the movie the audience believes in. Since the dream sequence is longer and directed to feel more real, it seems like Lynch wants us to err on the side of dream. Yes, believing in dreams too much is dangerous.

The film obviously knows this. However, we can’t simply stop believing in them. Diane’s dream was all that she had. When she stopped believing in it, she lost her reason to live. However, Lynch isn’t forcing you to believe this either. He is simply asking you to believe in something, anything, no matter how dangerous that might be.

271

appendices appendices appendices

Gold Key Winners Supplementary Information Zoe Amerman 11 grade, West Lafayette Jr Senior High School, Teacher: Marydell Forbes th

Stella Bates 7 grade, West Lafayette Jr Senior High School, Teacher: Lisa Mills th

Sally Bradshaw 11 grade, Cathedral High School, Teacher: Lizabeth Bradshaw th

Rex Burkman 12 grade, Park Tudor School, Teacher: Laura Gellin th

Meredith Carnahan 9 grade, Carmel West Lafayette Jr Senior High School, Teacher: Lisa Mills th

Grace Choi 10 grade, Bloomington High School South, Teacher: James Kerr th

12

12h

Emma Crandall grade, Zionsville High School, Teacher: Elana Cutter

Jessica Ding 9 grade, Carmel High School, Teacher: Linka Pace th

Alyssa Gaines 12 grade, Park Tudor School, Teacher: Laura Gellin th

Sonali Guttikonda 7 grade, Sycamore School, Teacher: Emilie Molter th

273

Claire He 10 grade, Carmel High School, Teacher: Amanda Richmond th

Maggie Hoppel 11 grade, Noblesville High School, Teacher: William Kenley th

Bree Johnson 11 grade, Covenant Christian High School, Teacher: Matthew Dix th

Alexander Kutza 12 grade, Bloomington High School South, Teacher: Juliana Crespo th

Brooke Liao 10 grade, Bloomington High School South, Teacher: Jingxiu Forney th

Alex Lu 10 grade, Park Tudor School, Teacher: Laura Gellin th

Clara Malek 12 grade, Covenant Christian High School, Teachers: Metthew Dix th

Lily Martinson 8 grade, Sycamore School, Teacher: Emilie Molter th

Leah McKay 9 grade, Carmel High School, Teacher: Linka Pace th

Vila Miller 10 grade, Center Grove High School, Teachers: Catherine Tedrow th

Lucia Moxey 7 grade, Teacher: Steve Moxey th

Jacob Penola 10 grade, Teacher: Lora Penola th

274

274

Joel Robertson 12 grade, Covenant Christian High School, Teacher: Matthew Dix th

Mathilde Robinson 12 grade, Bloomington High School South, Teacher: James Kerr th

Bella Rosales 12 grade, Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, Teacher: Alicia Drier th

Amani Severson 12 grade, Tell City Jr Senior High School, Teacher: Jennifer Williams th

Kaia Starnino 8 grade, Sycamore School, Teacher: Emilie Molter th

Dylan Stringer 10 grade, Bloomington High School South, Teacher: Ashley McGinnis th

Katharine Strunk 10 grade, Center Grove High School, Teachers: Catherine Tedrow th

Madeline Stuckwisch 11 grade, Noblesville High School, Teacher: William Kenley th

Lucia Trujillo 9 grade, Covenant Christian High School, Teacher: Matthew Dix th

Mary Wang 10 grade, Center Grove High School, Teacher: Catherine Tedrow th

Hanna Warren 10 grade, Park Tudor School, Teacher: Laura Gellin th

Eli Whitcomb 7 grade, West Lafayette Jr Senior High School, Teacher: Lisa Mills th

275

275

Gabrielle Woehr 9 grade, Covenant Christian High School, Teacher: Matthew Dix th

Hailie Woodring 9 grade, Delta High School, Teacher: Amanda Craw th

Alexandra Yang 10 grade, Carmel High School, Teacher: Casey Danubio th

Yurun Zheng 11 grade, Carmel High School, Teacher: Jennifer Bubp th

276

276

Writing Judges Pauline Attiyeh Diana Bailey-Boulet Terrian Barnes Theresa Barnes Sarah Batt Jen Bingham Brandon Butcher Dan Carpenter Alyssa Chase Mary Ann Cohen Ashley Coulter Caitlin Flowers Chris Forhan Steve Fox Adam Freeman Carrie Gaffney Ann Goeller Hannah Haas Nasreen Hannah Sara Harrell Kelsey Hawkins Ken Honeywell Ijada Jackson-Macon Lynn Jettpac 277

Alicia Johnson Lyn Jones Chris Judson JL Kato Tracy Kemp Andrew Kimmel Terry Kirts Karen Kovacik Sarah Layden Kim Lovejoy Tiffani Lovell Jackie Lutzke Alessandra Lynch Nathan Marquam Alex Mattingly Kaitlynn McShea Stephanie Meranda Kimberly Michaelsen Kyle Minor Debbie Montgomery Nathaniel Morrison Kit Newkirk Mary Nicolini Deborah Oesch-Minor Devi Pandit Julie Patterson Cory Pettit 278

Rob Rebein David Sabol Tiffany Shull Eric Sinclair Brian Skillman Jeff Spanke Kelli Stair Dawn Troyer Richard Turner Caleb Waggoner

279

Participating Writing Schools Arsenal Technical High School Avon High School Bloomington High School North Bloomington High School South Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School Carmel High School Castle High School Cathedral High School Center Grove High School Covenant Christian High School Crawfordsville High School Delta High School Edgewood High School Franklin Central High School Franklin Community High School Greenfield Central Junior High School Indiana Connections Academy International School of Indiana Upper School Jackson Creek Middle School Lora L. Batchelor Middle School Mooresville High School Noblesville High School Northwestern High School 280

Our Lady of Providence Junior-Senior High School Park Tudor School Plainfield High School Purdue Polytechnic High School Riverton Parke Junior Senior High School Roncalli High School Southwestern High School Southwestern Junior-Senior High School Sycamore School Tell City Junior Senior High School University High School-Indiana West Lafayette Junior Senior High School Western High School Westfield High School Yorktown Middle School Zionsville High School

281

281

Contributors

282

Zoe Amerman Stella Bates Sally Bradshaw Rex Burkman Meredith Carnahan Grace Choi Emma Crandall Jessica Ding Alyssa Gaines Sonali Guttikonda Claire He Maggie Hoppel Bree Johnson Alexander Kutza Brooke Liao Alex Lu Clara Malek Lily Martinson Leah McKay Vila Miller Lucia Moxey Jacob Penola Joel Robertson Mathilde Robinson Bella Rosales Amani Severson Kaia Starnino Dylan Stringer Katherine Strunk Madeline Stuckwisch Lucia Trujillo Mary Wang Hanna Warren Eli Whitcomb Gabrielle Woehr Hailie Woodring Alexandra Yang Yurun Zheng