Daedalus 2019

A D L E U A S D

Dӕdalus, the ancient Athenian, created the Minotaur's famed labyrinth and invented wings so that he and his son could escape from King Minos.

Dӕdalus reminds us that we are all creators and all inventors.

Editors-in-Chief

Brooke Lange, Anisha Laumas, Emmy Sammons

Art Editors

Lily Berger, Sofi Gallegos, Zoe Morris

Senior Editors

Avery Barakett Rachel Dong Emma Gallagher Keaton Abbott Elysée Barakett Celeste Batres Sam Cannon Whitney Carmichael Kaia Close Carina Daruwala Else Esmond Madison Farello* Manasi Garg Mia Garvey Sofia Giannuzzi Ellie Harris

Helene Leichter Anna McCormack Sarah Packer

Staff

Maya Hurst Izzy Kalb* Laura Kapp* Alex LaTrenta Sachi Laumas Sydney Liu Abby Lonnegren Natalie Majd Clodagh McEvoyJohnston Lulu Meissner Megan Meyerson* Kathy Mintchev

Sutton Mock* Aiyanna Ojukwu Rachel Ong* Laurel Pitts* Noor Rekhi Sanah Rekhi Emmy Sammons Evie Scinto Cate Spaulding* Elena Tan Kate Wilson Anna Wright Emma Wu *Junior Editor

Over the last 30 years, Daedalus has earned more than 50 national awards from CSPA and NCTE. We continue to be inspired by the community of writers and artists at Greenwich Academy. Five times a year, Dӕdalus sponsors a Writer-of-the-Month contest. All submissions are sent by email and read anonymously by the entire staff. Throughout the year, the art editors select from 1000s of original pieces. In March, editors narrow the selections and begin production, which continues through April with graphics and layout using InDesign. In May, the editors collaborate with our printer through weekly stages until our final assembly, where we read from the issue, show slides of all art, and celebrate!

Faculty Advisor Jeffrey Schwartz

Visual Arts Advisor Sherry Tamalonis

Printer Graphic Management Partners, Port Chester, NY Colophon 800 copies of Dӕdalus have been printed on 80 pound Euro Gloss stock with 120 pound Euro Gloss for the cover. The text is set in Palatino, a typeface designed by Herman Zapf and originally released in 1948.

CONTENTS Cover: Painting Inside Front Cover: Painting Section Pages: "Women's Voices" Paintings Inside Back Cover: Pastel, Painting

Charlotte Sorbaro Charlotte Sorbaro Kaitlin Ganshaw Rachel Ong

Wings Fiber Sculpture On "Sheltered Garden" by Hilda Doolittle Why Are Odd Numbers So Odd? Clay Mixed Media sixteen Graphite Drawing How Old Is Old Pastel Painting eos Charcoal Drawing How To Be a Boy Stone Walls Mixed Media Oil Crayon Puff and Talk The Girl with the Pencil Paper Cut At the Corner of Ocean and Ocean Painting

Laurel Pitts Laurel Pitts Brooke Lange Andrea Jemiolo Hannah Rieder Noor Rekhi Sutton Mock Avery Barakett Isabel Allard Isabel Allard Emma Wu Charlotte Gillis Evie Scinto Brooke Lange Hannah Rieder Isabel Allard Sachi Laumas Laura Kapp Cate Spaulding Madison Farello Else Esmond

8 9 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Avery Barakett Alex Stengel Keaton Abbott

34 35 36

Labyrinth The Divorce Clock Clay Bills

Mixed Media Burlaki Pen and Ink Nighttime Driving Digital Design Vader Takes a Taxi Two Paper Cuts How to Watch I Love Lucy Colored Pencil Pen and Ink confederate Pen and Ink Fútbol Photography Sculpture Siren Za'atari Painting Photography Photography Find X Pen and Ink

Emma Wu Emmy Sammons Angela Dai Sachi Laumas Dan Dachille Megan Meyerson Angela Dai Izzy Kalb Anabel Howe Rachel Ong Emma Gallagher Chris Ramos Celeste Batres & Valentina Carreño Steve Lopez Katie George Carina Daruwala Sanah Rekhi Anna Wright Zoe Morris Zoe Morris Anisha Laumas Elena Tan

38 40 41 42 43 44 48 50 51 52 53 54 56 57 60 61 62 63 64 67 68 69

Mortals and Immortals Mixed Media Black Lake Safe Zone Photography and Digital Design Watercolor Back in My Day 38 Michael Street, Kilkenny, Ireland Photography and Digital Design Here Is My House Digital Design Watercolor The Plot

Sofi Gallegos Laurel Pitts Helene Leichter Haylee Ressa Clea Ramos Rachel Ong

72 73 74 75 76 77 Clodagh McEvoy-Johnston 78 Steve Lopez 79 Madison Farello 80 Sutton Mock 81 Anna McCormack 82 Cécilia Lux 83

Ocean's 8 Pictures Ticking Boomerang!

Safe Zone Unfolding Drawing Accepting That Girl Colored Pencil

Scratchboard

Film II Lexi Tramontano & Henry Nagler Emmy Sammons Adam Morris Dance Corps Maddie Galbraith Hannah Rieder Helene Leichter Sutton Mock

Serena Wecker

An Abandonded Room in Two Poems Laura Kapp

86

88 88 89 90 94 95

But the Air and the Sky are Free White Flash The Big Screen Sculpture A Quick Tour of the Universe Paper Cut Mixed Media Blue Jay Mixed Media Pen August Nostalgia A Cry for Yelp Colored Pencil Portrait of Rita Pynoos to the tiny pink hairbrush I keep in my backpack Mixed Media Mixed Media Wyoming The Devil's Appointment Graphite Drawing Pen and Ink Watercolors

Lily Berger Anisha Laumas Caitlin Lefferts Aiyanna Ojukwu Mackenzie Reynolds Zoe Morris Katherine Mintchev Chris Ramos Lily Berger Kate Wilson Noor Rekhi Isabel Allard Elena Tan

98 100 100 101 102 103 104 107 108 109 110 111 112

Maya Hurst Sterling Mock Sofi Gallegos Alex Stengel Megan Meyerson Charlotte Gillis Charlotte Gillis Anna McCormack

113 114 115 116 118 120 123 124

Wings

8

On "Sheltered Garden" by Hilda Doolittle

Laurel Pitts

A poem told me not to winterize my garden To let the wind at the plants Instead of wadding them in straw— That a melon would taste better once it suffered So I left my cherry tomatoes on the vine Through October and November Leaving the red ones unpicked Hoping the green ones would ripen But it wasn’t just wind and frost as Hilda said Because the stems hung out over the street It was heat and cold and humidity and so, so much rain And bugs and fumes from cars driving by I look at the plant— brown and drooping In other words, dead Suspended by white string, now discolored Is this the resilience I was told I would find?

Or is it only a melon that can withstand the cold?

Not because of any universal plant vitality, But simply because it has a rind to protect it Why didn’t you tell me, Hilda, That my tomatoes would look red but turn to mush when I touched them That a tomato isn’t a melon That I should have just eaten them in August Instead of wasting my time?

Laurel Pitts

Fiber Sculpture 9

Why Are Odd Numbers So Odd?

Brooke Lange

“Here, swimming near the bottom of the tank, we have a Convict Cichlid and a Betta.” Karen watched the second graders’ eyes dull at the odd names. It was Monday, and Karen was filling in for her friend, Sarah, who had gone to see her niece’s college graduation in Chicago. She was becoming conscious of the fact that she knew very little about fish, despite working just down the hall from the aquarium as a reptile caretaker. Unfortunately for her, the aquarium on that Monday morning was abuzz with school trips and people with free time, craning heads and hands onto the glass of the fish tanks. Karen had been told to simply put two fish in the exhibition tank and BS her way through a presentation to the elementary students.

Easy, right?

She had all the information she needed about the fish on their identification cards, and she could Google the rest.

As Karen realized that much like the second-grade children gawking at her, she was disinterested in the annoying fish names, she decided to rename them. “OK, everyone. Do we see how one fish has seven stripes and the other has nine?

Well, we are going to call the one with seven stripes ‘Seven’ and the one with nine stripes ‘Nine’. Is everybody with me?”

A little girl took her hand out of her nostril and raised it.

Karen nodded her head encouragingly.

“The lady from last time let us touch the fish.” All the little heads perked up and their eyes went to Karen’s, round with hope.

“Well, Sweetie, today we are not allowed to touch the fish, because these fish don’t like to be touched.” Karen actually had no idea if the fish liked to be touched or not, but the last thing she needed was for one of them to squeeze the fish to death, or eat it, or whatever it was the heathens had in mind.

The small brown-haired girl gave a long look at her teacher, then let her lip quiver, and with a dramatic yowl began to sob. Karen, unused to children and their frequent tantrums, 10

did not know what to do and so, in an over-enthusiastic carsalesman-voice blurted out, “FISH FACTS!!” The children’s attention split between their sobbing classmate and Karen.

“Yea, OK, um, so...” The child let out another hysterical wail. Karen cleared her voice, fidgeting with her bracelet.

“Seven here, is native to South America, he’s an omnivore, and he’s extremely low-maintenance, except for his particularly aggressive nature, and Nine here, is uh, originally from Cambodia, he has this long somewhat striped tail, so that he can attract a mate.” She continued without comprehending any of the words she was spewing, just hoping that the child would stop crying so loudly. She finished her spiel and the kids looked up at Karen expectantly. “Any questions?”

“Why is the fish purple?”

“Can I have the fishes?

“Why is Seven eating Nine?”

“Do you have a fish?”

“Wait! What did you just say?” Karen pointed at a boy wearing a T-shirt with a shark on it.

“Look,” he pointed at the tank, and the whole group gasped. The fish Karen had named Nine was nowhere to be seen. “Don’t you see?! Seven ate Nine.”

Andrea Jemiolo

Clay 11

Hannah Rieder

Mixed Media

sixteen

Noor Rekhi

How do you describe the way it feels to listen to your favorite band? When sounds echo from every corner of your room and you can feel their power as you jump up and down singing the words and feeling their magic. And it doesn’t matter that you’re off-key or your dance moves lack choreography because you can finally understand why civilizations have sought to create and preserve the wonders of sound.

How do you describe the first time getting behind a wheel?

So nerve-wracking and exciting, fingers that pulse in the thrill of it all— both freedom and fear grasp your heart so tightly that you know what it means to feel control and out of control, but to love it all the same. And though your father’s white knuckles may grip the edges of the seat your eyes remain mesmerized in the once ordinary beauties of the road and wonder why anyone should dare complain about long car rides.

How do you describe that look in your parents' eyes? To feel shame heat up on the edges of your cheekbones, staining them bloody crimson and to stare at the hardwood panels and murmur an apology because really you weren’t thinking, you didn’t think this would hurt them.

How do you describe what it means to gamble? Not with cards or chips or slot machines, but with your heart. To know what it means to fall in love and out of love, as mascara stains your cheeks while you curse all those sappy rom com actors with their cheesy smiles and starry eyes.

How do you describe reading a book? And knowing it to be more than the pages your classmates called the burdens of English class. To befriend every character seemingly because of their invincibility and fearlessness, but really because of the happy endings promised in the opening pages.

14

And how do you describe what it means to be sixteen? To be caught between the awkward throngs of adolescence, with a sort of fear and pride of adulthood, while clinging to the innocence of childhood. To have a voice, but not yet know how to use it. To want to fit in and stand out. To feel so many powerful emotions and be unable to articulate how they capture your soul.

Sutton Mock

Graphite Drawing

15

How Old Is Old

Avery Barakett

I recognized the exit immediately: it was the one my mother and I used to take when I was craving disco fries (fries topped with gravy and mozzarella cheese) from the Darien Diner. Pulling off the exit ramp, I leaned my head to the right to see past the car seat in front of me. Sure enough, everything looked as I remembered it. Even the river that ran along the side of the road was flowing in trickles as it used to.

We headed left past TD Bank, where I set up my first savings account, and the car wash. If I had another thirty minutes until my interview, I might have asked my grandfather if we could have dinner at the diner, but I decided that Chipotle was a safer and quicker bet.

“It’s up ahead on the right,” I called.

“I don’t see it,” my grandmother responded.

“It’s right there. I can see the sign,” I assured her.

My grandfather pulled into the parking lot and my grandmother declared, “I want pork!” excitedly. As I had grown accustomed to doing, I stepped out of the back row and walked around the minivan to help my grandmother out of her seat. With the door slightly ajar, she waited for me patiently with her arm out. Holding my bent forearm at my side for her to rest on, I led her to the front door, stopping once for her to slowly step from the road to the sidewalk. I held the door open for her and, as was habit for me, led her directly to the high top tables. She allowed me to guide her, and when she reached the hip-high stools, she paused only a second before attempting to lift herself up.

“No, Yaya!” I called out suddenly, remembering her age.

“These ones are too high. There are lower stools on the other side of the restaurant.”

She lowered her leg, which was raised as far from the ground as she could manage, and I led her across the restaurant while my Grandfather followed behind us.

“What do you want, Cen?” my grandfather asked.

“Pork!” she cried again. “Baba, tell Tiki your order.”

16

Isabel Allard

Pastel

17

“That’s okay,” I replied, “I’ll order my own.”

Tiki turned to wait in line while I settled Yaya at a lower stool. She took her time lowering herself down, and I enviously eyed the table with chairs at which another family was eating.

“Pork,” she reminded me as I turned to join Tiki.

Waiting in line, I began to question when it was that I noticed my Grandmother was getting old. I remembered her sitting on my bed in a Naples, Florida hotel room while I changed out of my bathing suit and asking her when I would have to go back to school. I must have been no older than six or seven.

“Today is Friday, we get home on Saturday, and on Monday you have school,” she responded. I waited for her to tell me the number of days.

“That means you have two full days left,” she concluded.

How young she had looked back then. Her face was wider, her hair darker, her posture straighter, and her eyes less tired. There was a day that I found out about her scoliosis, and that she had Parkinson’s, but there was no day on which someone told me that she was getting old. Perhaps that seemed obvious, but it never occurred to me.

“A burrito bowl, please,” I told the girl behind the counter.

She shuffled some bowls around and asked me and Tiki if we were taking our food there or to go.

“Here,” we answered in unison.

“How old is old?” I asked myself.

I remembered watching Yaya or one of my parents scoop food onto two plates, one for me and one for them, while I sat at the table.

“Miss? Would you like beans?”

“Yes, both kinds. The brown rice bowl,” I reminded her.

Realizing that my English was less accented than Tiki’s, she turned to me for further directions.

“Black beans, pinto, both...”

Was Yaya old? Her mother only died a year ago, and she lived to nearly 100.

“Chicken, por- what do you call it? Carnitas?”

18

She looked smaller and more fragile now than in my memories.

“Queso, guacamole, cheese, a little bit of lettuce...”

I watched the girl put the garnishes on our bowls and align them on a tray. Balancing the tray on my palms, I walked towards the table at which Yaya was sitting, while Tiki paid. I placed Yaya’s bowl in front of her and turned around to grab three forks from the utensils area. Watching her start to eat, I noticed her hand shaking, but only slightly. It was more of a wobble than a shake, as if the fork was heavier than she expected. Tiki returned, and I watched as he ate less than a third of his bowl before saying that he was too full to finish.

“He had heart surgery a month ago,” I reminded myself.

Did that make him old?

“Don’t rush,” I told Yaya, as I finished my bowl too.

Tiki stood up and walked back to the counter to ask for three to-go lids, and I watched Yaya pick at her bowl. She was eating, but slowly. She seemed slower than I remembered.

Or was it that I had never given her eating speed enough attention before? Maybe she was just the same as she used to be. Tiki returned with the lids while Yaya finished her meal and I watched his hands move around the container as he pushed the edges of the lid down around the lip of the bowl.

“T for Tiki,” he said, carving the letter into the aluminum lid.

Yaya handed him her bowl to place in the bag, and I drew an A on mine, copying his method. I held my arm out to Yaya, and she used my forearm as a bar to pull herself up, pushing off of the table with her other hand. She smiled and stared up at me, and took her time drawing herself up from the seat. I watched her and wondered if I had ever really seen her before. Her hair was thinning at the top, and she seemed shorter now. Or was I taller?

We waited for each other. When she paused to let me know that she was ready, I began walking towards the door while she rested her arm on mine. I asked her out of courtesy how her food was, but the sound of her answer never reached my ears. Maybe it was my approaching interview that was 19

making me nervous, but I began to feel light-headed. As we crossed through the glass doors and made our way towards the car which Tiki had parked out front, I noticed that she was staring at me.

“It’s the circle of life,” she said to me with a half-joking smile, and nothing more.

Isabel Allard

20

Painting

eos

Emma Wu

Luminous little droplets of water adhering to the side of the glass.

Red and yellow glares coming from cars that creep by her house.

The Collins’s blinding porch lights shining like they always do.

Watching all of it, a girl sits on the edge of her bed.

Her dripping hair, currently gifting its water to the back of her shirt.

The faintly refreshing brisk air sneaking through the gaps between the framework.

A tightly wrapped blanket embracing her shoulders.

The exhales of her warm breath fogging up the window panes.

Matchbox Twenty’s "If You’re Gone" playing in the background.

Dawn. Practicing "Hot Cross Buns" on the trumpet, downstairs.

Aaron. Reciting dialogue for his Spanish class, dialogue that she cannot understand.

Not one word leaves her lips as she stares at the street.

The smell of cinnamon oatmeal dancing up the staircase, slipping through the space between the door and the floorboards.

Her gym clothes sitting in the hamper.

The vanilla candle her great-grandmother gave her a month before she passed.

Her hair lathered in the same old mango conditioner.

Mint chocolate chip ice cream is dissolves on her cool and raw tongue.

Pieces of chocolate hide among the rubber bands binding her still crooked teeth.

Her capillary-containing, alien-like muscle bleeds after trying to dislodge the doses of theobromine stuck behind her lips As she winces at the taste of crimson metal that fills her mouth.

21

22

How To Be a Boy

Evie Scinto

1. Don’t look back— just use the scissors and let the tangles of hair fall to the floor.

2. Wipe off all the makeup and let the imperfections show.

3. Let them see the dark circles under your eyes from lack of sleep.

4. Let them know that your eyelashes aren’t as thick and dark as they seem.

5. Put away the dresses, put away the leggings.

6. Take off the heels and and put on worn-out sneakers.

7. No need to let your feet suffer any longer.

8. Only wear baggy khakis or sweat pants and don’t forget about the old T-shirt under a piece of flannel.

9. Stop worrying if you happen to wear the same dress as someone else; only make sure that you do not have a stain on the back of your pants. (after Juan Felipe Herrera’s “Five Directions to My House”)

Charlotte Gillis

Charcoal Drawing 23

Stone Walls

Brooke Lange

My dad tells us that these stone walls were used by farmers to separate their land.

Now the well-stacked rocks serve a vestigial purpose merely an aesthetic barrier to the road but I am small, and the gray stones are a good stand-in for a castle, which the green foliage and maple trees do not provide me.

Hannah Rieder 24

Mixed Media

balck and white sofi

Puff and Talk

Sachi Laumas

Francis’ neck craned back as he lifted the glass to his thin lips, shaking it to savor the last drops. Ice cubes clinked against the sides of his glass as the wind chimes from the patio echoed the noise. His companion’s glass sat untouched as Francis rose from the chair and retrieved a golden bottle from the stand. The blackened ashtray accompanied a forest of honey-colored bottles with twist-tops snaking into the air.

Williams sat perched like a blackbird, his back straight and gaze downward. He opened his mouth but to his surprise, no words came out. A bird with no song. His gaze rose, his eyes glazed over with a thick layer of adolescent innocence. Francis raised his pipe to his lips and puffed, feeling the smoke glide into the cold stale air the way it always did. He exhaled through the side of his mouth and clutched the pipe between his teeth.

Kline wiped his hands on his silk slacks as perspiration gathered at the top of his brow. The late-afternoon glow of the sun filtering through the small square window highlighted the particles of dust gathered in the air, as if the room had collected every word spoken in the room. Sentences said long ago hung suspended in the air as the two men waited for the boy among them to speak.

Williams' mouth gaped open, his song refusing to leave his mouth.

The words he meant to say clung to the insides of his rosy cheeks, holding on for dear life. He seemed to be deeply concentrating, but the nervous tapping of his right foot against the argyle carpet said different. His hands warmed and moistened as sweat collected under his freshly starched shirt. His shoulders drooped back to their regular posture and his hands found a comfortable resting place in the wide arms of his leather chair.

The corner of Francis’ mouth curled up in a sly grin as he chewed the end of his pipe raw.

Isabel Allard

Oil Crayon 27

The Girl with the Pencil

Laura Kapp

My roommate liked to write stories about girls who were nothing like her. Her funky socks and white tennis sneakers and blue mechanical pencil tucked behind her ear contrasted with the big pink bubbles that her fictional girls blew just so they popped, just to get heads to turn, just so they could wink at the boy in the front row.

She liked to sit on the top step when we hung out outside the dorm, just so she could see everything, or rather, so she could appreciate everything. She was always looking for something to write down in the tattered notebook that was as attached to her as my phone is to me.

She cursed frequently, but meaningfully, if that’s possible.

Every article of profanity she chose was carefully decided upon before execution, every swear had significance, each one just fit, like the word had been designed to be used in just that context.

She ate mostly mixed greens and shaved carrots, but she made ice cream sundaes in the cafeteria just to give to people so that she could arrange the toppings meticulously— one Lucky Charm here, one there, and make sure to place the cherry right on top with the stem at a 60º angle. She played the ukulele but detested the people that only knew mainstream, “basic” ukulele songs.

Her favorite word was “amazing,” but she only said it ironically, pronouncing it “a-MAZE-ing!” while tilting her head up into the sky and smiling so wide her eyes nearly closed. She was progressive in a nuanced way, and her fervor for equality on all levels was intellectually driven. Each and every opinion had facts and ideological, logical explanation to back it up. In fact, everything she did was intellectually driven. There was nothing spontaneous about her choices, which she was always so sure of it seemed she’d made them years ago.

She detested the hierarchical nature of the college system and was determined not to go to an Ivy League school, despite 28

being undeniably qualified. The name didn’t matter; she was going to find the place that best suit her, be that in Cambridge, Massachusetts or Tinyville, Minnesota. And with her degree from Tinyville College, she was going to be someone you’d have heard of. She didn’t say that, but everyone who met her knew.

She sprayed her hair purple and left her mascara and lip gloss standing upright on the corner of her desk, only ever touching them once in the week I spent with her. When she untied her running sneakers after taking several laps around campus each morning at 6:15, she twirled them into a coil and placed them back inside the shoe. She was unbeatable at Bananagrams, coming up with words that seemed to have no practical use whatsoever, but when I challenged her, she didn’t hesitate for a moment before using them meticulously in a sentence.

When I confided in her my annoyances-- a boy was being manipulative, a friend growing distant-- she listened better than anyone I knew, and I’d only known her for a couple days. What’s more, she understood. She rephrased my words to reflect her own understanding of them and she was spot on. She gave me better advice than any I’ve ever gotten. Her eyes locked fixedly on mine as she spoke, not creepily, but not relenting until I had to look away, which was how I knew for certain: this was a girl whose name I wouldn’t forget.

Cate Spaulding Paper Cut 29

At the Corner of Ocean and Ocean

Madison Farello

The place where Ocean Lane meets Ocean Drive is surrounded by small light-colored houses with low ceilings.

If the car keeps going down Ocean Lane, then it eventually leads to the highway where my mother’s hair salon is in a large center she shares with a drug store and a store that sells clothing for women with “extra curves� right across the street from a family auto shop where Noah always wears a tank top and makes sure I notice him cleaning off old Fords.

If the car keeps going down Ocean Drive, then houses get larger and larger, but still smaller than those luxury fifty-five and over communities, until the end which is at the water.

Not a beach, just the ocean surrounded by mangroves and private pools.

But the corner of Ocean and Ocean is where I waited for Liam who never appeared. Here is where the young girls emerged to sell lemonade to cars heading down Ocean Lane.

Here is where the mothers who think fast-walking in tandem is exercise turn around after pausing to buy the lemonade.

Here, before I was born, is where my brother accidentally spilled his paper lunch only for seagulls to steal it. Here is where the police cars came for the old man who lives at the other corner. Here is the grass that borders the yard my brother mowed. Here is the pile of sand whose origins are unknown but where I made little hills and pies as a child.

Here, at the corner, is how far the scent of dinner and dessert reaches out of the pale blue house with white shutters. Here is where I watch my mom come from Ocean Lane to Ocean Drive in her recently repaired Kia. Here is where I stand.

30

Else Esmond

Painting

31

Labyrinth

The Divorce Clock

Avery Barakett

Time passes differently when your parents are divorced, or at least if you spend time between two houses. One week your baby brother is barely making vowel sounds “a-a-a-e-a” and the next week he is saying “mama” and “dada.” You remark on how big he has gotten and how advanced he seems, but your father says, “he has been speaking all week” as if that makes a difference. Last week you were at your mother’s house. When you return to your father’s house two weeks later, you hear that he has said his first real word, and you wish you could have heard it. You smile politely and nod your head, hoping to hear his second word, but knowing that second words are hardly ever remembered.

The dog your mother bought a year after the divorce, a red-brown skinny birding dog of six or so years old, starts to grow a few white hairs on his beard. One week there are two or three, and two weeks later there are colonies. Little islands of white that appeared out of nowhere. Maybe while you were sleeping. When he climbs the stairs, he doesn’t run full speed. He stands by your ankles and takes each step one at a time. When you walk through the front door after a long day of school, you see his tail wagging from the couch but he doesn’t rise. He is happy enough that you are home, but too tired to show all of his affection (even if he has been sleeping all day).

When you start to get used to one house after three or four days there, you feel a bit like an imposter. Last week when you said to your friends, “I’m going home” you meant a different house. Calling this other house “your house” feels a bit like cheating on the first house. If each house is only half of your house, do you really have a home? Sometimes when you come in on a switch day (Fridays, for example) you notice a new couch. When the couches change or the chairs or the carpets, sometimes it feels like years have passed. You walk around like you would at a friend’s house, with rigid posture, attempting to remind yourself of their habits. Do 34

they take their shoes off at the front door or at the side door?

Do we take our shoes off? Did we take our shoes off before the divorce?

Perhaps the saddest part of having two houses is when you visit the house you are not at that week. The lights are off when you enter, and the place is dark except for the sunlight streaming through the opaque curtains. The entryway is silent, and the sounds echo of your slipping off sneakers and placing them underneath the center table. At your mother’s house there is a cat, but you are not close to him. Sometimes you hear his paws padding on the wooden floors as he comes to inspect you. On the weeks when you are living with him he is disinterested, but you can see that even he is lonely in this lonely house. When you close the mudroom door and slip outside, you can hear him meowing forlornly, so you tune the sound out and walk toward the car. “This is my house,” you remind yourself.

The baby is advancing, the dog is aging, neither house is your own, and the house cannot hold the family long enough to make it a home. “You get double the presents at Christmas!” someone reminds you, “and even two birthday parties,” but those things become trivial, even excessive. You missed your little brother’s first words, your dog seems to be living half as long as he is supposed to, you wish you were able to fall asleep comfortably in two different beds, and you know that no amount of presents makes up for the things that you miss— time included.

Alex Stengel

Clay

35

Bills

Keaton Abbott

Bill walked up to his co-worker.

His name was also Bill.

Bill said, “Hi Bill.”

“Hello Bill,” Bill replied.

“Nice weather,” Bill said.

“Indeed,” Bill replied.

Bill continued on his way through his office to his desk.

They were all tan desks with black chairs.

On the left side.

All the Bills had matching desks and cubicles.

With the same pictures of the same family on them.

Pinned with the same blue pins.

And with the same computer.

With the same keys that didn’t work right.

Those pesky W keys.

And they all had the same phone.

All with the same numbers.

It did get confusing.

All the Bills on one joint call.

But that didn’t matter.

They liked each other's company.

All the cubicles had the same trash bins.

With the same pieces of paper in them.

But they were blank pieces of paper.

Because the Bills don’t use paper very much.

Because they have nothing to write about.

The Bills don’t think a lot.

All of the Bills had the same notepads But they weren’t used for notes.

Because the Bills don’t get very many ideas.

The notepads were there just for aesthetic effect.

And all of the Bills had the same Post-It Notes left over from Breast-Cancer Awareness Month.

All of the Bills liked to make tiny paper airplanes out of them.

36

But the Bills didn’t fly them.

Because none of the Bills were very good at making paper airplanes.

So the paper airplanes went into the trash.

On Bill’s way, he bumped into Bill.

But Bill’s decaffeinated coffee didn’t spill.

And neither did Bill’s.

“Sorry Bill,” they said simlultanelously.

“It’s all right Bill,” they apologized simultaneously.

“Nice weather today isn’t it?”

And the Bills continued on their way.

There were 1000 Bills.

But there were 1001 people in the office.

There was a Jack.

Who was shunned.

He is in a permanent timeout.

He has to sit there and think about what he’s done.

While the Bills go about their day.

And Jack thinks a lot.

That's why he got shunned in the first place.

Jack is only allowed to come out of the permanent timeout on one condition.

It is when their boss comes.

To give them their paychecks.

The Bills always get their steady income.

But Jack always receives more.

The Bills don’t know why.

They all once thought that maybe it is because of Jack’s strange thinking.

And his strange ideas that come from thinking.

But they all thought that couldn’t be so.

That would be too ridiculous.

Jack does earn more money.

But they just don't know why.

Because the Bills don't get very many ideas And not one Bill thinks to do what Jack does.

Because then what would all the other Bills do?

37

38

Emma Wu

Mixed Media 39

Burlaki

Emmy Sammons

The thick air of mid-July fell stagnant, pressing itself on the mud-crusted clothes of the eleven men. The leather straps, smelling sour with sweat, chafed perfect lines through their wrinkled flax shirts. Today was like every other day of the summer; the river banks of the Volga were damp (as was everything else), littered with twigs, dotted with the occasional fish carcass. Pink flesh turned green, with a rancid stench so strong it made it hard to inhale. With every step, their shoes, or what was left of them, stuck to the brown sand, popping from the ground at the last second. The occasional gull screamed as if to mock the eleven. One of the men, a new addition to the pack, his face still rosy from untainted adolescence, asked a man in his randem for a smoke. “уходи, маленький мальчик,” he said. He had no interest in sharing his pipe. There wasn’t anything in it anyways.

The tobacco had been smoked away a long time ago; the pipe hung from his cracked lip out of habit.

The fresh-faced boy stood up, offended by the man’s response. The others groaned as the weight of the boat behind them seemed to double without the assistance of one more body.

One of the men in the final tandem turned towards the massive ship behind the Burlaki. Its mast standing tall against occasional wisp of a breeze. Its inverted flag rippled, vibrant colors flipping in the breeze. The hum of a steam-powered boat barely cut through the thick summer air. There was no purpose for the Burlaki; their labor was obsolete. Yet, every day they looped the rank leather straps over their shoulders, stood in their sloppy formation, and trudged up the soggy banks of the Volga. With the unrelenting heat of July, each of the eleven men waited for the day only ten Burlaki would show up, and a new, pink-faced boy would fill the missing place, ask for a smoke, and continue down the Volga.

Angela Dai

Pen and Ink 41

Nighttime Driving

Sachi Laumas

Traffic lights still change at night Our experience with them is fleeting They signal impatience the rhythmic sound of tapping fingernails on a steering wheel waiting for the green glare to flash along our windshield But in the darkest hours when the wheels of our cars don’t roll along pavement the phantom cars— the ones we can’t see or honk at–– wait leisurely for the lights to flash back and forth before leaving them shivering and shaking in the wind And when our cars pass by the ghosts stay hidden and we perceive the lights' slight movements quivering in a breeze waving us goodbye in our rearview mirror

Dan Dachille 42

Digital Design

Vader Takes a Taxi

Megan Meyerson

Open on a busy Manhattan street. Cut to TAXI DRIVER as he scans the sidewalk, looking for potential customers. He sees a couple waving to him.

TAXI DRIVER Oh, yes! They look like they might tip me…

He pulls over to the curb, and the couple open the door to get in, but a tall man in black pushes firmly past them and closes the door behind him, leaving the couple standing, annoyed, outside the taxi. The taxi driver looks, rather taken aback, at his customer. His surprise turns to astonishment when he sees the man is, or is at least dressed as, Darth Vader.

Where to, sir?

The death star.

The one that blew up?

TAXI DRIVER (cautiously) VADER TAXI DRIVER

VADER No, the bigger one after that.

That one blew up too.

TAXI DRIVER

VADER Really? I don’t remember that…oh well. Third time’s the charm.

TAXI DRIVER Hate to say it, but…I think that one blew up too…

44

VADER Seriously? They need to dismantle the self-destruct function on these things. I’ll use the Force to tell…who’s the new guy?

Kylo Ren?

TAXI DRIVER

Thanks. (Using the Force)

VADER

TAXI DRIVER (looking at him sideways) You know, if you want, you can borrow my phone…do you know his number?

VADER You underestimate my power.

TAXI DRIVER I’m just not sure that the Force signal is all that good around here…

VADER I find your lack of faith disturbing.

TAXI DRIVER begins gasping for breath as VADER uses Force to choke him.

Whoa, man, chill.

Fine.

Taxi slowing down.

TAXI DRIVER (in between gasps) VADER (releasing him)

45

TAXI DRIVER Ugh, I should’ve known we’d hit this traffic. Maybe I can get around it if I take the exit…?

VADER It is is pointless to resist, my son.

TAXI DRIVER (rolling his eyes) I think I’ll just take the exit.

I’ll check Waze.

VADER (taking out his phone)

TAXI DRIVER Is that the 8? I just got the X. The facial ID is so cool.

VADER Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you possess.

The ability to recognize a face is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

Right.

TAXI DRIVER

VADER That’s it – right up ahead.

(The taxi pulls up to the curb.)

TAXI DRIVER So…that’ll be…twenty-seven-forty-eight.

(Vader hands him a few blue, glowing tubes and begins to get out of the car.)

TAXI DRIVER Uh, sir? I only accept American dollars. These are…I’m not even sure what these are…

46

VADER I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further…

(Vader exits the taxi.)

TAXI DRIVER

Umm…

(The door opens again and Gandalf enters the taxi after a brief struggle to fit his staff and hat in.)

TAXI DRIVER (under his breath) Oh, you gotta be kidding me.

GANDALF (after finally maneuvering himself into the cab) Show us the meaning of haste.

TAXI DRIVER Don’t you have eagles on speed dial?

This is much classier.

Of course.

GANDALF

TAXI DRIVER (taking a deep breath)

End.

47

Angela Dai 48

Paper Cuts

49

How to Watch I Love Lucy

Izzy Kalb

Settle down into your big blue family couch just as you always do, the one that lived in this house long before you did and will probably still be living there long after you, as your mother says, have “gone off to the world.”

Circle your arms happily around the pale green mixing bowl that just yesterday your little sister proudly used to make pancakes all by herself “from scratch” using only Bisquick and water, but today you filled to its stretching point with sunny, goldeny, buttery popcorn, a few kernels precariously close to falling out entirely.

Pick up the smooth black remote and hold it in your hand for a moment and then realize you don’t actually want to wait a moment.

From the drop-down menu select Season 2, Episode 1 (“Job Switching”) and smile thinking about how many people this episode has made smile.

Push your pinky finger down hard on the little circular button.

Let yourself be carried away by the lightness and the joy in every tiny part of the scene, the sheer happiness that emanates from Lucille Ball’s every pore.

Lean forward and root for Lucy and Ethel as they tell off Ricky and Fred for thinking that housework is easy.

Don’t think about the implication that all married women exclusively do housework.

Sink your hand into the delicious glistening heap of greasy popcorn and pull it out brimming with salty crunchiness and bring it to your nose to inhale the scent of wide comfy movie theater seats and laughter with friends crammed into tiny rooms at 3:00 AM. Bring yourself back to the episode and laugh as Lucy and Ethel struggle in vain at a conveyor belt of chocolates.

Laugh until tears peek from the corners of your eyes as they stuff chocolate in their hats, their shirts, their mouths, and then try to brainstorm any job that could possibly be 50

better than that one.

Don’t think about gender roles and stereotypes. Don’t think about the subtext of this episode, in which the wives attempt to prove they can do a man’s job by working outside the home. Don’t allow yourself to notice these things.

Or if you can’t help noticing them, don’t acknowledge it. Let them sit there beside you, like the opposite of the invisible friends you always used to tell your mom had been watching I Love Lucy on TV while you had been doing your homework. Tell yourself these thoughts will go away if you don’t validate them.

Try to focus on the happiness. Try to get back that feeling of lightness which is really all you wanted when you decided it was time for another episode of your favorite TV show.

Give up.

Flip off the TV. Realize maybe you can’t watch I Love Lucy anymore.

Anabel Howe

Colored Pencil 51

Rachel Ong 52

Pen and Ink

confederate

Emma Gallagher 1.

In the fall of my junior year, I lived on a farm in rural Vermont, tucked into lush rolling hills far beyond the reach of cell service or any other traces of society. There were 45 other kids, and the vast majority of us were born and raised in the frantic pace of urban sprawl.

2.

One such girl was Trinity Barnes of New Orleans. She was well-known for her nightly face mask routine, her rib-splitting cackle, and her love of telling us that we were her first White Friends. If you played "Pop That" by French Montana, no matter the circumstances, she would quite literally drop whatever she was doing and begin to dance right on the spot.

I taught her how to swim that September, holding her up by her ribs in Vermont’s shimmering golden green lakes. She could make anything fun.

3.

One beautiful Friday in October, we ventured to the Tunbridge World’s Fair, where we could bet on which prized hogs and oxen could run the fastest, satisfy our insatiable adolescent appetites with corn dogs, and most importantly, strap into rickety carnival rides that would toss us into the air until our sense of gravity was permanently damaged.

4.

In order to enter a vast paradise of dangerous looking rides, we needed to buy tickets from a small wooden shack manned by three middle-aged men with grizzled beards and faces leathered by sun. They peered down with resigned amusement behind a smudged glass window as a large pack of us sauntered over, elated from our discovery of “Sweet Glazed Bacon On a Stick,” jostling and laughing, exchanging dollar bills between hands sticky from grease and the sort of heat that was more expected of late July.

53

54

5.

As we passed crumpled fives and tens over the counter, Trinity and my explosive laughter quietly dissipated when our tickets were pushed through a small slot in the window, directly next to a large, vintage lighter stamped with a red flag crisscrossed by harsh royal blue lines and white stars.

6.

I had previously only seen that symbol safely trapped within my history textbooks.

7.

We looked at each other for a split second, our childish wonder evaporated into the heat, before looking at the old man, who stared right back at us with no emotion in his eyes. I hurriedly crumpled the yellow papers into my palm before we strode away, hovering a few feet away from our friends as they bought their own tickets.

8.

I asked Trinity if she saw it, and she paused, just for a moment, before responding with the weariness of someone very old. “Yeah, I saw it.� She seemed to be shrinking, her larger than life personality vanishing as the eyes of the men pierced our backs. She had thought she was finally safe, and now these lush, green, rolling hills had been snatched from her, too.

9 As I stared at the rolling field, spinning rides catching the 4:00 PM sunlight, I understood how Dorothy felt when her emerald glasses are removed, and she sees Oz, once a god of mythical proportions, step out from behind the curtain as the small, swindling mortal he truly is. My Elysian Fields of Americana felt cheapened by the red hot violence still simmering just beyond the corner of my vision.

Chris Ramos

Pen and Ink 55

Fútbol

Celeste Batres & Valentina Carreño

Living Room–– Ximena walks in while Abuelo is watching soccer on Telemundo.

Hola Xiomara, como estás?

ABUELO

XIOMARA I’m doing okay. (Xiomara sits next to him on the couch.)

ABUELO Habla en español por Dios! (To the TV.) Ay, estupido! Patea la pelota! (Sounds exasperated then turns attention to Xiomara).

What are you doing? Go help Abuela in the kitchen, she has a lot to do. Make yourself useful!

XIOMARA Celia’s in there and I want to watch. Who’s playing?

ABUELO Colombia and Argentina, espera muchachita. You don’t even like soccer. Go play con muñecas.

XIOMARA Yes, I do! I play at school! (Kind of laughing not angry.) Soy la mejor!

ABUELO (Laughs.) What do you mean? I can’t even imagine you touching a ball. On Facebook, I only see your hermano. Now he’s really good. Have you seen him?

XIOMARA Of course I have! I go to all of his games, but I play in the women’s league.

Steve Lopez 56

Photography

57

ABUELO You? (Looks up and down at her.) But you are a mujer! I don’t hear anymore about this. Ve ayudar a tu abuela.

XIOMARA Pero Abuelo! Yes, me! I PLAY! I’m the most aggressive on the team. You should see esas patojas, they run from me.

(Laughs.)

ABUELO You? (Laughs and turns to the TV.) Girls don’t even play soccer. You see them? (Gestures to the TV.) These hombres, they are real hombres. They know how to play. Granted, they aren’t playing that good today. Ay Jesus! (Talking to the TV.) XIOMARA Are you serious? Millions of girls around the world play!

You used to play with your friends in Colombia, didn’t you?

ABUELO Yes, my parceros and I used to run around showing everybody we were true machos. All the girls were at home helping. They stayed in the house making it fit for the machos. A woman is meant to be kept inside the house. Me entiendes?

XIOMARA Well, didn’t some of them want to play?

ABUELO Even if they did, that’s not their place. Why are we talking about this? Let me watch the game.

XIOMARA But Abuelo, that’s wrong.

58

ABUELO No, it isn’t. That’s how it's always been, and that’s how it will stay. Los hombres son los que mandan. (She does a manly fist pump.)

XIOMARA So you don’t like that I play soccer? What if I told you I go to the gym?

ABUELO You go to the gym, too! Te vas a poner fea! Ugh que feo!

XIOMARA Yeah I love working out.

ABUELO Ay Dios mio! You need to stop doing that. You’re going to get all muscular and ugly. No guy will want you. Eres una mujer no un hombre. And on top of that, you’re gonna hurt yourself.

XIOMARA Quien te dijo eso? I do it because I like it, and I have coaches helping me. I don’t care if no guy will like me. I’m okay being alone. Soy independiente.

ABUELO What do you mean? Who’s going to take care of you mija.

You know you can’t take care of yourself. (Continuing.)

You’re distracting me. Why can’t you be more like your sister? She’s in there helping your grandma. She’s a good girl. Una verdadera mujer!

XIOMARA But Abuelo...that’s not the point…

ABUELO Me vale, go bring me a beer.

59

60

Siren

Carina Daruwala

As you explore the seas right below the island of Bermuda, you will discover the Jewel. A pristine piece of land that sits right in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. This island is called the Jewel because it glows green like a freshly polished emerald. It draws you in and captures your senses, while your eyes glaze over with an immense longing to see more of its beauty. While many sailors have attempted to reach the island, it always remains ever so slightly out of their reach. When your senses have been taken over, you and your crew don’t look out for what comes next. A song, piercing and clear, travels above the water. Each note matches every contour and dip of the waves that thrash against the side of the ship. A captivating melody lulls you to close your eyes and hang your head just over the bow of the ship. You sway, entranced by the music that has taken over every single one of your senses. The lullaby calms you and sends your head into oblivion. The music stops and your eyes snap open. You no longer think about reaching the emerald island. Now, you want to chase after whoever played that captivating tune and force them to sing it again. You must, you must hear it again.

Even if it destroys you.

Katie George

Sculpture 61

Za'atari

Sanah Rekhi

Khalil adjusted the straps of his backpack on his exhausted and worn-out shoulders, glancing over at his mother, father, and younger sisters, Reem and Hana. Noticing his mother’s slumped posture and tired expression, he offered to carry one of the heavy bags she bore on her arms. She smiled weakly and shook her head, but Khalil couldn’t help but notice her arms tremble and her smile falter. He took a bag from her.

The days of walking were endless, but nights were even longer. When his mother, father, and sisters fell asleep, huddled together for warmth in the cramped tent that they shared, it was Khalil who was awake. He would kneel down, knees pressed against the bottom of the tent that was nearly falling apart, and pray.

Khalil’s watch, a present from his grandparents on his sixth birthday, was his best and worst friend. It told him in the night how many hours he would have to wait until it was day again, but it also told him how many more hours he would have to wait, alone in his thoughts. Most nights he would often unzip the tent as quietly as he could and sit alone outside, gazing at the moon, his head filled with worry, but his heart filled with resilience.

It was in 2010, when Khalil was thirteen years old, that a civil war started in his beautiful country. His parents, afraid to leave the life and stability they had built for themselves in Syria, did not want to flee. Though as a year passed and the violence started to increase dramatically, they realized they had little choice and had to leave. Their journey began; they walked to find their new life. Overnight, everything that they had ever known disappeared.

On this particular morning, Khalil woke up to his mother packing up their few belongings used from the night before.

He silently helped her and then brought his sisters outside so his mother could zip up the tent.

His day consisted of one step after another. His one pair 62

Anna Wright

Painting

of shoes were too small and caused his feet to ache and bear blisters. He hoped that when he got to the refugee camp he might be able to trade shoes with someone for a bigger size.

Around midday, they stopped and his mother offered them each a sip of water and bread. Khalil drank a little water, though when his mother wasn’t looking, he gave his bread to his sisters. The feeling of hunger was a constant now.

They walked in silence for a couple more hours before it started to turn dark again. They started their routine of setting up camp for the night when they heard the sound of gunshots. They were fast and sounded close to them. Khalil’s father quickly reached his hand over and pushed Khalil and his sisters so that they were lying flat on the ground. The sound of gunshots sounded even closer now. Khalil’s heart raced and his whole body trembled. He dared not move. He looked at Reem who was crying and shaking silently and reached for her hand. He knew that now, more than ever, they must be there for each other. The gunshots continued for 30 minutes.

Even when silence came, Khalil’s father demanded that 63

64

they lie on the ground. They lay motionless for another hour.

Finally, he said that they could get up. Khalil tried to stand, but his legs were too shaky. Eyes pooling with tears, he finally mustered the strength to rise. He had to be there for his sisters. He had to be there for his family. He knew he had to help his parents. Silently, Khalil picked up all his belongings, took Reem's and Hana’s hands, and they walked for another 30 minutes in the pitch black before setting up camp for the night.

Falling asleep was nearly impossible for Khalil that night. Horrific images of what could have happened danced through his head, until he was nearly shaking with fear. He unzipped the tent, hoping that some fresh air would clear his head. Only a couple minutes had passed when he heard some ruffling in the tent and the tent being unzipped. Out climbed his youngest sister, Hana. She sat beside him for a couple minutes before resting her head on his shoulder.

“Khalil, are we going to be okay? Will we make it to the refugee camp?” she asked quietly.

“Of course, Hana. I promise you, we will make it. Okay?”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay.” She closed her eyes and in a couple minutes, she was asleep. Khalil felt his heart fill with sadness. Hana was so young, yet her childhood innocence had been taken away from her. He vowed to himself that he would keep his promise. He vowed to get to the refugee camp for his sisters.

They were much closer to the refugee camp now. Khalil’s father had told them that he only expected it to be a couple more days of walking. Khalil wanted to feel hope, but he knew that was dangerous. He knew that it was important to get through one day at a time.

The day seemed to get progressively hotter as he walked.

Khalil brushed sweat off his forehead and struggled to keep up with his family. After a couple hours of walking, they stopped for a brief water break. Khalil looked over at his sister, Reem, and noticed that her face was pale, and she was clutching her stomach.

Zoe Morris

Photography

65

“Reem, are you okay?” Khalil asked.

She shook her head feverishly, a tear rolling down her cheek. Then Reem threw up on the ground. Her mother rushed to her side to comfort her. They sat down for a few minutes. Reem was too weak to walk. Khalil saw that his father wanted to make sure she was feeling better, but every hour they delayed in their journey counted. Khalil knew the repercussions of staying there for the night, and so he did what he knew he had to, and mustered up the strength to carry her. By the time night fell, Khalil’s shoulders and back ached. Reem still was sick and her condition deteriorated quickly. They had not packed any medicine when fleeing Syria and they had nothing to give her but water and bread.

Khalil told his tired mother and father that he would look after her first and would wake them if anything happened.

They gratefully agreed and told him to wake them up in an hour so he could get some sleep for the rest of the night. Khalil knew he wasn’t going to wake them up though; he would rather sacrifice a night of his own sleep than make his hard working parents do the same.

Throughout the night Khalil watched over Reem, his heart plagued with worry. Why hadn’t he made sure she was eating enough food and drinking enough water? Why had he let her carry one of the bags the other day? He closed his eyes and started to sob silently. His sister. His dear sister. He would never forgive himself if anything happened to her. A warm hand rubbed his back and he looked over to see his mother beside him.

“It will be okay. It will be okay...”

All he could do was nod weakly.

Slowly, dawn crept up, and Reem woke. Even though she was still weak, she was feeling better. Khalil’s heart soared and he tightly embraced his sister. He had never known what true gratitude felt like until now.

Carrying his sister, he began his day walking, step after step. As long as his family was one, they would make it to the refugee camp. He was sure of it.

Zoe Morris 66

Photography

67

Find X

Anisha Laumas

Dating back to the first couple of centuries in the Common Era, the Arabic mathematician Muhammad Al-Khwarizmi needed to create notation for an unknown quantity.

The use of x in a mathematical context started when his work became popularized, thus resulting in the rise of x as the unknown variable. Although this theory explaining the rise of “x” as a mathematical variable is undocumented, it is a very popular origin story.

Another theory about how x came to be one of the most common variables in mathematics today traces back to Rene Descartes. As a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher, he contributed greatly to the connection between geometry and algebra as well as the development of the Cartesian coordinate system during the Enlightenment. In his book La Géométrie, Descartes helped popularize the transition to symbolic notation by using x, y, and z to represent unknown quantities. Why Descartes selected the letter x as the principle unknown in his landmark book is itself unknown, but it has become the basis for mathematical textbooks and tradition that continues today.

In addition to the mathematical uses for the letter x, it has been incorporated into popular culture through phrases such as “X marks the spot.” Although many think that phrase is primarily used by pirates trying to find buried treasure, the phrase originated with a magazine published

by Harold Andrews in the 1930s about gang activity within the city. His magazine was titled X Marks the Spot, alluding to how gang members would mark sites of various murders with Xs to indicate that a dead body had been found. The publication of the magazine caused outrage within Chicago’s gangs, especially Al Capone’s, as publishers aimed to tell the truth about gangs and publish photographic evidence of their crimes.

In all these instances, whether related to a long-lasting mathematical trend or exposing the truth about Chicago’s Elena Tan

Pen and Ink

gangsters, x represents the unknown element in the equation. I suppose that even though it has been possible to find x throughout history in many realms of the world, everyone is searching for their own version of the unknown, their own x.

Mortals & Immortals

Black Lake

Laurel Pitts

The lake has never been blue here. Kindly, by visitors, it might be called gray or green, but those who know the lake (those who’ve swum in it) know that it is black. Black winter, spring, summer, fall. So black that when the stratus clouds blot out the sun at 4 o’clock in June and turn the entire sky white, and you stand on the weathered gray dock with shivering pale hands, you may be frightened for a moment that your vision has turned black and white, or that all color has been drained from a ten mile radius. And then your eyes might skip desperately over the still water until you find your pink towel and breathe a sigh of relief. But, it’s likely that even your towel will look somehow more bleached or faded out than it did before, and you’ll be unable to shake the feeling that you’ll never see any vibrant color again. Or maybe not, but the lake has that effect.

The inside of the lake is also black, so that when you’re doing dead man’s float you will look down and see absolutely nothing. It looks endless— some people say it really is and some people believe it. Nobody knows how deep it is and nobody tries to dive to the bottom because it’s not that kind of lake.

Swimming, it’s all black around you except for the bubbles, which look white, fish, which look gray, your arms, which look blue, and other swimmers and driftwood, which are the same, sickly green, such that you may find yourself comparing the algae-covered logs to others who, from underwater, look as if they’ve been floating for years. It’s possible that you’ll even be surprised that when the people get out of the water they aren’t dripping in pond scum.

More important than the colors, though, is that the lake stays with you. Even after you climb up the ladder and pull the swim cap off your melted hair and take two showers and leave the lake and leave the dock and leave the county and leave the state, a week or six months or three years later you’ll wake up one day and you’ll feel it, because the lake is still inside of you.

Sofi Gallegos

Mixed Media 73

Safe Zone

Helene Leichter

School.

You think you know what to expect: An essay on World War II due Thursday, A biology lab due Friday, Lunch with your friends in-between.

You think that the sleepless caffeinated nights and The numbness in your fingers from typing are The worst that it can get.

You think you know what to expect.

School is full of expectations.

Follow the rules.

Do your homework.

Nobody ever tells you that Learning to count to ten on your fingers Will only be useful if at any moment you can Turn that ten into fists to protect yourself.

Nobody ever tells you that while learning how to read, You should also learn how to read the signs of a murderer sitting next to you in first period Because it may save your life.

Nobody ever tells you that while you’re out buying school supplies, Somebody else is buying a gun.

Stop.

The school lunch is beginning to smell an awful lot like gun powder.

The leaky faucet in the girls’ bathroom now sounds like blood braiding down necks.

I can’t look at a box of crayons without noticing that the black ones look like bullets.

Why is there so much noise?

Between the ringing of the school bell, and the laughing at recess, and 74

The anxiety-inducing sing-song of CNN, and The glass breaking, and the children screaming, and The police sirens blaring, and the mothers sobbing When do you take a breath?

How can you when you are constantly reminded that that breath might be your last?

How many metal detectors will it take for you to feel safe standing at your lockers or on the playground or in homeroom?

How many last breaths before you can finally exhale?

Haylee Ressa

Photography and Digital Design 75

Back in My Day

Rachel Ong

My parents tell their stories through Crow’s feet and frayed sweaters.

I listen to them, Roll questions up my sleeves, Fold up thoughts until They can be tucked deep into my pockets.

What is it like to be comfortable?

What is is like to know your place? to know What home is?

I never understood how my mother was so effortlessly American, While my father was so clearly and comfortably not.

What was I? Perhaps their adolescence was birthed from an era of innocent oblivion.

Sometimes, you, America, do not want to be a part of me, Nor do I want to be a part of me.

I want more out of America— Comfort, but maybe that's not enough. (after "Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes)

Clea Ramos

Watercolor 77

38 Michael Street, Kilkenny, Ireland

Clodagh McEvoy-Johnston

There should be nothing here I don’t remember …

A house with a weathered stain glass door The white curtains hanging in the window A glimpse of the sitting room inside A couch with a blanket hanging lazily off the back The worn red carpet welcoming me home There should be wind chimes hanging on the stairs And I should be five years old, reaching, reaching, reaching to touch them He should be there watching me, his laugh silent, his eyes bright like stars His walking stick should be in the corner Standing tall and strong, having seen a thousand long walks Ready to see a thousand more There should be nothing here I don’t remember …

He should be sitting in his chair in the kitchen Watching the daily news with the subtitles Three cushions piled behind him, teetering ever so slightly The ironing board still left out My grandmother should be attempting to press the wrinkles out of his shirt But “Don’t touch the iron unless you want your fingers burnt” The TV Guide sprawled on the table Big pen circles capturing the time of our favorite shows There should be nothing here I don’t remember …

I should be seven again Walking into the kitchen, knowing he’s there Waiting for a mug of warm cocoa and a biscuit Cocoa made from Dairy Milk mix Cocoa that closed the gap between us that words couldn’t A bridge of biscuits that made everything okay (after "Looking for the Gulf Motel" by Richard Blanco)

Steve Lopez

Photography and Digital Design

Here Is My House

Madison Farello

My house has power lines instead of a picket fence. They were low, so low I thought I could touch one. Imagine my surprise when my mother dragged me away. Did she not want me to be powerful?

The house was yellow. What a stupid color. At the local park little boys who were richer than me brought yellow trucks. When I open my closet door a pile of yellow trucks falls out. I finally touched power.

The door was cheap wood painted white. It had designs carved all over. It was supposed to look lavish. It looked like poor people who wanted to seem rich.

The wallpaper in the living room is green like money. I want to be rich. I can taste money wherever I go, it tastes like dirty metal and grass. But I don’t mind.

The walls are linoleum that’s meant to look like wood.

But little do they know what’s underneath. I smell it through the whole house.

My bed has springs that scream whenever I sit down.

But not as loud as the alarms at the houses with fancy new shingles and bricks.

My father has a gun hanging over the TV. It’s supposed to protect him, from who I can’t say. Probably from people like me.

The fridge is filled with things that smell like factories: cranking machines and rubber gloves. Not like money. Not like the vault.

My mother bought a new washing machine the other day.

Family money, she proudly told everyone with their raised eyebrows. She’s not wrong, technically.

The walls in my house are bare. Not as bare as my mind, occupied only by alarms and full fridges that smell rich.

The people on the TV are screaming. I’ve heard that before. Their doors are taller than the power lines. Their food doesn’t smell like a charity. But they follow me to my house.

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My father only turns the TV up. I scream back.

There is a tree outside our house. It is not tall, like some I’ve seen. I used to come out and smell it, newer and fresher than the house and like the color green. The type of green that would be on a throw pillow. We don’t have throw pillows.

But now it smells like the rest of the house, just with a little less dirty metal.

Sutton Mock

Digital Design 81

The Plot

CĂŠcilia Lux

On this particularly chill April afternoon, the sky resembled a sunny-side-up egg; the deep orange yolk an optical epicenter against the thick clouds. Mrs. White of Number Seven Pembrook Lane stepped onto her back porch and removed the half-rim glasses nestled in her silver hair. She fixed the wide brim sunhat on her head (a gift from her late husband) and squinted at the patch of land in front of her.

From its position tucked under her arm, the blade of her shovel glinted in the sunlight.

Making up her mind, she descended the three stairs into the garden, grasping with her gloved hand onto the curved railing as she went. She made her way to a plot tucked behind a Japanese maple tree whose leaves had fallen onto the patch of flowers below, the cast-offs puncturing the white sea of crocuses with red.

From her pocket, Mrs. White pulled a folded scrap of paper and a measuring tape. Crouching onto the ground, she laid it out on the dirt and used her palms to flatten the crevices left from weeks of being tucked away. Inscribed in neat cursive were the words, Length: six feet and two inches. Width: two feet and five inches. Depth: four feet. Rising, she marked the plot by dragging the blade of the shovel to create a clearly visible furrow. Mrs. White stepped back to examine her handy work and sighed to herself. She lamented what a shame it was to dismantle her carefully placed bulbs when she had spent so many weeks perfecting just the right spacing and depth so that each season a new patch would emerge. But what must be done, must be done, so she sunk down near the south-west corner of the plot and began to dig.

The first layer was the crocuses. It was quite unusual to have a bed of only white crocuses, but Mrs. White had insisted. It had been a private joke between her and her husband when they were newlyweds; white flowers for Mr. and Mrs. White. Those early years had been too preoccupied with friends and children to spend time tending to plants.

Anna McCormack

Watercolors

However, once their children were grown, it hadn’t taken long for the house to descend into silence. After work, Mr. White would confine himself to his study and Mrs. White found herself pouring over gardening magazines and spending hours upon hours in the sun. As she ripped the last white crocus from its bed, she could have laughed thinking back to the poetry she had waxed to herself in the flower shop all those months ago. In her naivety, she had thought white flowers would be enough to reunite them as if a joke decades old could fix what was broken.

Below the crocuses lay the iris bulbs. They were Mrs. White’s personal favorite. She had wanted to name her daughter Iris but Mr. White had been swift to impress upon her his disdain for that name, too pretentious he had said and she had quickly agreed, as she always did. Mrs. White was, after all, a dutiful wife. But in the years that followed, she made sure that when the irises were in bloom, a bouquet always adorned the kitchen table. Placing the final bulb on the tip of the pyramid she had created, Mrs. White resolved to replant them as soon as she returned from her travels.

The sun was only hours away from setting now, but, Mrs. White persisted. There was only a single layer left, the calla lily bulbs. Pulling the first bulb from the earth, she turned the ugly mass over in her fingertips. It was incredible how something so beautiful could come from something so ugly. At her husband’s funeral, it had been calla lilies which adorned his closed casket. They had been all the neighbors talked of, for what was there to say to a woman whose husband went missing? Mrs. White hadn’t minded though; she preferred the soft admiration of flowers to the half-hearted apologies for her loss and empty remarks of what a good man Mr. White had been.

When Mrs. White deposited the final shovelful of dirt beside the plot, she dropped her shovel from exhaustion and sank onto the ground, not with despair, but with pride. When she had collected herself, Mrs. White made her way back inside and poured herself a well-deserved glass of lemonade.

Setting herself down on the back steps she waited for the sun 84

to set, for she knew that would be when the most difficult work would begin.

When the sun rose the next morning, she was there to greet it. The plot was smooth now, a perfect stretch of dirt where nothing would ever grow again. Mrs. White turned her dirt-smudged face away from her finished work and up to the sky where she watched the deep blue of the night sky replaced by a flood of orange, a broken yolk bleeding across the heavens.

Ocean's 8 Film II

Pictures Lexi Tramontano & Henry Nagler

Ticking Emmy Sammons

Boomerang!

Adam Morris

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Safe Zone Dance Corps

87

Unfolding

Maddie Galbraith

Pine needles tumbled down as the trees danced.

The sun rays bounced off of the water and twinkled in my eyes.

The lake and sky were intertwined like the comfort of Eliza’s hand in mine; Her bright smile lit up the surroundings.

The sweet summer air quickly transformed into the underlying scent of sterile bleach.

I couldn’t hear giggles in the background, Only sirens and screams.

I couldn’t see the lake, Only IVs and nurses.

I couldn’t feel her hand, Only the sturdy grip of a waiting room chair as I prayed for good news.

Hannah Rieder 88

Drawing

Accepting That Girl

Helene Leichter

It is 11 AM on a Saturday morning. The whirring of the fan in the corner of the room and the smell of leather ballet slippers seems to swallow the space around me. There I am, six years old, chubby in my pink leotard and shredded tights.

I look around at a row of perfect buns; the girls in front of me reek of Suave hairspray and their mother’s perfume. My bun sits on the top of my head awkwardly, as if waiting for the perfect chance to topple over into a rush of messy curls.

I probably smell like the Captain Crunch I ate for breakfast this morning.

“We’re going to go across the floor one at a time. Okay?” the teacher asks in an overly animated voice; her forced smile seems almost as tight as the ballet skirt that is triple-knotted at her waist. She places a green spot in the center of the room.

“When you get to here, stop and do your turn,” she says, tapping the spot with her foot. We make a line in the corner.

When it is my turn, I shuffle clumsily toward the green spot, place my right foot down, and begin to spin. “Use the mirror to help you, Helene,” my teacher tells me. My eyes stay focused on the scuffs on the floor. When I make it to the other side of the room, I finally look up, meeting my large, marble-shaped eyes in the mirror. I adjust my leotard at my hips, itch the side of my thighs with my palms and brush away a stray curl that has fallen across my cheek. I decide, then, that I don’t like what I see. I don’t want to claim these thick legs and bulging belly. I walk back to the corner to join the class.

I have always wanted to be one of those girls, the girls who stood in the front in ballet class with their long, thin necks and perfect posture and wrists so small you could wrap your fingers around them. Their thighs never mushed together when they stood in first position like mine did. Their leotards never seemed to dig into their shoulders or trace red circles on their upper arms like mine always did. It seemed as though I took up too much space, suffocating my danc89

Sutton Mock

Colored Pencil

ing in extra layers of skin. Those girls never worried about crowding the room with their long limbs and flat stomachs.

They just danced. They were perfect.

I thought I would outgrow my awkward stage by age twelve. I was mistaken. While those girls grew taller and their faces thinned out so much that their cheekbones appeared sharp, my eyes still drowned in the folds of my pudgy cheeks.

I kept promising myself that I would look like them one day.

I never truly believed that though.

My striving for the perfect ballerina body never stopped me from dancing. In fact, I started dancing more, hoping that somehow I could conceal my body’s inconsistency with the perfect form with hours of rehearsal. But the more I danced, the more obvious it became to me how different I looked from other girls in my class.

I remember clenching fists on the drives home from the studio, trying to stop myself from crying until we got inside the house. Then, I would catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror and the tears would begin to fall faster than I could brush them away with the back of my hand. I was thirteen years old, standing in front of my mother’s mirror, pinching extra skin on my arms and stomach until they were numb.

Staring back at me was that chubby six-year-old in her pink leotard and shredded tights. Her lips stretched into a smile, exposing a black hole where she’d just lost her first tooth. I looked down. I didn’t want her.

It took years of hating the way I danced, years of despising the way my belly folded over itself as I touched my toes or the broadness in my shoulders as I stood at the barre, before I could ever accept that little girl into my life. It took learning that not all dancing follows a strict rule book of conformity. It took recognizing that I would never look like those girls, for me to discover new ways to express myself. I knew I never wanted to give up on dance, so I searched for ways of doing what I love that fit me better than any ballet costume every could. Then I found choreography, and it changed the way I viewed both dance and myself.

There are no rules to choreography; there’s no place for 92

conventionality. This kind of composition stems from creation, from originality and complexity. My choreography is about designing a space in which movements, bodies, or ideas that don’t fit in suddenly feel welcome. It is about encouraging the rejects to speak as loudly as the accepted. Being forced to recognize at a young age the inherent imperfection of my shape, I have developed a unique form of artistic expression that celebrates the beauty of different bodies. One of the worst mistakes a choreographer can make is failing to take into consideration the fallibility and inconsistency of the human body. When I sit down to create movement, I shut my eyes and imagine a kaleidoscope of different bodies ebbing and flowing through the space, defying every rule. The persistent image of thin black lines on my mother’s scale suddenly fade into oblivion, washed away by a wave of empowerment and pure joy.

It is 11 AM on a Saturday morning. The whirring of the fan in the corner of the room and the smell of sweat seems to swallow the space around me. Here I am, seventeen years old, sweeping across the wooden floor, creating a piece I am about to teach. As I begin to turn, I catch my bright eyes in the mirror and stop myself. Hair sticks to pools of sweat on the edges of my forehead, my stomach rises and falls rhythmically as I stand there, my thighs rubbing against one another. I can’t help but smile. Perhaps part of growing up is accepting the things that you’ll never have and learning to embrace your losses.

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An Abandoned Room in Two Poems

Laura Kapp

1.

Where’s my sweater?

It used to be here In this anguished box Where now the cat can Sleep in the mattress And the rats can come Out of the wall.

How this wreckage, no, This reorganization Came to be, I can’t be certain.

But it is rather colorful.

2.

The fabrics drape like frozen silky waterfalls out from The doorway, which looks like they forgot to put one there in the first place.

The hole in the wall is a sideways mountain range, And the bars on the windows could be snapped by a toddler.

But a toddler that wandered into this room Could hide and never be found.

Serena Wecker

Scratchboard 95

But the Air and Sky Are Free

White Flash

Lily Berger

A white flash burst through the backdoor: our dog, Snoopy. A superhero in rescue clogs sped after him: my mother. My brother Charlie and I, perfectly trained sidekicks, grabbed our scooters and joined the chase.

Powering in pursuit, Supermom wheezed out “Sorries” to annoyed neighbors between bellows of “Snoopy!”

Up ahead, Snoopy darted between the legs of a smartly dressed man carrying a cello. “Bloody hell!” He exclaimed, as my mother, Charlie and I barrelled past him and pursued our beast into a backgarden.

Charlie and I threw our scooters down in time to hear the flapping of wings and panicked squawks pierce the air.

Through a delicate flurry of white feathers, the Superbeast emerged triumphant. A dove dangled from his jaws.

A soft sob broke the silence. A woman had emerged from the home, soap suds still covering her arms, to find these intruders in her back garden: a Supermum with her two sidekicks and a Superbeast covered in the blood of the woman’s sacred pet.

“Good god,” said the man, in shock, who had followed us into the back garden.

My mother turned to the couple.

“I am so incredibly sorry.”

The woman, unable to look my mother in the eye, slowly walked back into the house, supported by her husband. I thought I had witnessed the first and only time that my Supermum failed to save the day.

I was wrong. Just a few months later, my mother and the owner of the dove, Bud, would be laughing hysterically over a bottle of wine and a good game of Scrabble. My Supermum could conquer anything.

I remember marveling at Supermum’s effect on people.

Her powers included: laser vision (to break down the invisible barriers between strangers), a fiery forcefield (to protect 98

anyone in her life from evil) and super speed (to propel her through any darkness straight into the lightheartedness of this life).

The rough hospital sheets brushed against my arm as I leaned over to give my mum a goodnight kiss. Through her oxygen tubes, she smiled at me. The smile was forced, tight.

Not vibrant. Not Super. Not hers. She was in pain, and there was nothing I could do.

The first time I visited my mother in the hospital, I was assaulted by its antiseptic smell and artificial lights. Doctors, nurses, and grieving families, completely absorbed in their own priorities, pushed past me. Then, the chaos engulfed me; now, after nearly two years of nightly visits to my mum, I was unfazed.

From the day she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, everybody knew her case was hopeless. Everybody but me.

To me, nothing could hurt my Supermom. Radiation was weaker than her will power; no amount of chemotherapy could kill all her good cells. Cancer was just another bad guy for Supermum to destroy with her love.

After she died, I moved to live with my father in Greenwich, CT. The foreign world of big houses and small talk and perfect people with their perfect dogs made me feel alienated. The social barriers between me and the people around me felt unbreakable. I resolved myself to isolation, until, one day, I realized Supermum’s powers remained— in me. I had her laser vision to break down superficial exteriors. I had her fiery forcefield to make people feel accepted. I had her super speed to help me see the big picture and stay lighthearted in life. Strangers became friends; my sense of terminal alienation was replaced by a sense of home. Now, I get up every day and put on the cape Supermum left me. The world awaits super connection, super listening, super love. I’ve inherited my mother’s love for life and sense of duty to help ignite the same in others. I hope I will do her proud.

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The Big Screen that feeling of staring at the big, bright screen and your eyes start to water from being open too long and you’re leaning back in the red, cushy seat and you try to squeeze your shoes in the gap between the seats in the row in front and suddenly it gets cold as the cinema does and you reach for your jacket on the back of your seat but you can’t bear to turn your head away as Vader tells Luke who he really is as Morpheus offers Neo that life-changing pill as Dom waits for the totem to stop spinning once and for all the big screen it pulls you in like a black hole

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Anisha Laumas

A Quick Tour of the Universe

Aiyanna Ojukwu

She once said that she hated her freckled nose, That the spots reminded her of murky swamps splattered on her face.

But obviously, they were stunning swamps, because Mimicking the stars, a map of the night sky was glistening on her skin.

She once said that she hated her blushing cheeks, That the red resembled the anger of a stinging fire ant.

But it must’ve been a splendid fire ant, because Copying the sun, a reflection of the setting day was tattooed on her smile.

She once said that she hated her curly hair, That its strands were a mess of tangled branches hanging from her head.

But they had to have been the prettiest branches, because Imitating the moon, thousands of round circular curls were embedded in her hair.

Caitlin Lefferts

Sculpture 101

Mackenzie Reynolds 102

Paper Cut

Zoe Morris

Mixed Media

103

Blue Jay

Katherine Mintchev

I remember because water was streaming through my fingers, filling the array of cracks that inched up my body with the promise of lacing them into a single being. The vast, cool darkness below echoing a hymn of cherry-red sunrises spilling across an indigo canvas. A distant but almost tangible dream I was entranced by.

The darkness was licking at my collarbones, now, teasing. It smothered the peaks and valleys of my chest, gliding across the cool skin below with broad strokes of a master’s brush.

Is it time to go home? Not just yet.

I remember home: our little cabin nestled between towering evergreen trees where, each morning, we would wake at dawn to catch a glimpse of the first rays of sunlight peeking through the coarse foliage. Sometimes we would sprawl across a spare tablecloth in a cathartic sort of silence, the thin sheet of mildew below us inevitably dampening our backs and varnishing the entire forest into a display of polished glass; your fingers toying with the curled ends of my dark hair and mine exploring the endless little daisies that peeked over the grass.

But as the water continued its journey up my throat, I kept wondering how long it would have taken for that tablecloth to fully soak into the mud, and what the exact shade of my raw hands would have been after scrubbing the yards of fabric for hours, a stain likely reminiscent of red wine by the time you’d deem each inch adequately spotless. Maybe I would think of you while scrubbing; about the tablecloth’s grimy color, one akin to those ridiculous coffee grounds you often tucked into every corner of the home— to mask the overbearing scent of smoke from the fireplace, you argued— and I would loathe myself for washing away the 104 104

remnants of your cologne from the tablecloth, a scent spiced with saffron and bittersweet animosity.

Is it time to go home ye— I was completely submerged now, lips sputtering as frigid water spilled into my throat and its abounding presence smothered my breaths into wicked silence. I started thrashing, then, and my hands desperately clawed at the water, searching for any foothold with an innate need to survive.

But maybe I didn’t know what I needed. Perhaps I had never known.

I remember your mother: her sentiments toward my hair, my smile, my worthiness of you— all amassed in the colorful words she often hurled my way, most simply bouncing off the surface of my skin but a few sinking in their claws enough to stain my cheeks shades of saffron and red wine, stark patches against my pallor. Neither of us spoke of it, but I remember how intently you would observe those splotches, how the thrill of capturing even a moment of your attention would dart through my body in swift flashes of lightning. And so I became her canvas, relished the debasement. I regret nothing.

Do you remember the day my sister came to visit? It was the first day of March when a few violets were just peeking through the soil and the snow deposits atop the dirt path leading to the cottage had finally begun to melt. I’d been unable to warn her about staying away before she showed up uninvited, that audacious nature entitling her to barge into the cottage and baldly remark on its squalor. I remember how my cheeks flamed as I scanned the space, listening to her note the discolored patches on the ceiling and the haphazard floorboards that had previously seemed so trivial to me. She continued fussing, but her delicate brows furrowed as she took notice of your raging spirit that simmered beside me and promptly quieted.

105 105

I’ve committed to memory the lines of tension inscribed in your body, ones that contorted your sculpted arms and livened the glower on your elegant face into a smoldering condemnation of her that burned and burned. I wasn’t sure what to do, then, as her dark eyes darted between the two of us and settled on my face. When I met her gaze, the sea of desperation and compassion glimmering there was so overwhelming that even shutting my eyes didn’t chase the image away. It still lingered as the heavy oak door swung open, the parting draft stirring my hair and blowing across the strands with traces of her sweet perfume. I didn’t have to open my eyes to feel your barely contained anger filling the pit of silence between us; I didn’t have to look to sense that you were content with never seeing her again, so I yielded to your unspoken command. Our relationship demanded sacrifice.

In what could have been an instant or an eternity, I sunk so deep within myself that the blaring in my ears, the cool kiss of water on my skin, and the tightly wound knot in my stomach all faded away— discarded as little more than an afterthought. So when there was nothing left to feel, I remembered you: that one morning sprawled across the cherry-red tablecloth with your eyes trained upon my dark hair and mine turned away, toward a single blue jay perched atop a tree branch with its graceful neck stretched toward the rising sun. I thought it looked so beautiful there, those teal wings ruffled from the slight breeze. Completely free. But your presence loomed over me, a star of its own. So I followed its blinding saffron light home, drowning in its glorious haze.

And everything else fell away; there was only you. You pushing my head under water, you muffling my constant question.

Is it time to go home? You are home.

Is it time to go home? You are home.

Is it time to go home? You are home.

Can I go home?

You are home.

Chris Ramos

Mixed Media

108

August Nostalgia

Kate Wilson

The rumbling of car tires on sea-shelled gravel alludes to the night ahead. The thin screen door acts merely as a sign to knock and dissuade the mosquitos, but the sounds of car doors slamming and Dean Martin traverse through the thin gray mesh, signaling that the nighttime escapades of August have begun. Most know to just walk in through the door, but the ones still unfamiliar with the sun-laden informality of our home knock on the wood, only to be met with a loud yell from inside. The freshly clipped hydrangeas, cicadas and the scent of an open door to the Sound help to amplify the sensory orchestra of a late summer afternoon. After the first greetings of the neighbors are exchanged, the bustle of kitchen comradery provides a somewhat needed distraction until the sun dozes off and enough beverage has been dispersed amongst the guests. Soon the preparation of tonight’s ceaseless meal is underway, and the tomatoes and fennel halve under the strength of Mom’s knife. The door opens and closes by way of newcomers so frequently that the night promises one of constant introduction, interaction, and the unbroken beauty of Long Island.

Lily Berger

Pen 109 109

A Cry for Yelp

Noor Rekhi

Yelp should be a place for all to complain about their neighbors, family, and friends. In the same fashion of Uber, users can rate people on how well they like them. Except, instead of simply pressing a number of stars, the masses can go on long-winded and poorly punctuated rants about how the girl in their spin class didn’t wish them a good morning or how their nephew should learn some more manners. (For some this is known as Facebook.)

Take a moment to muse on the idea. A website for the idiosyncratic to complain that their fries were too cold or a waiter had funny-looking eyebrows can turn into a place for the humble first-worlder to vent their dissatisfaction on other people. This notion may seem radical; however, complaining is nothing new for anyone in a comfortable situation. In fact, why leave this New Yelp as solely a place to complain about people? Why not use it to complain about anything?

There will always be the coworker who rubs you the wrong way or the taxicab that didn’t go at the right speed or the fact that it rained the day that you straighten your hair.

Life will not always be in your control.

Hence our new slogan: New Yelp: a place for a voice and a choice! You are given the unique ability to get upset about situations beyond your grasp and the chance to speak your mind on whatever you’d like. So why waste precious words ranting to a bored colleague or classmate? Instead use New Yelp; you’ll be saying, "Welp, it's New Yelp."

Isabel Allard 110

Colored Pencil

111

Portrait of Rita Pynoos

Elena Tan

A groomed brush strokes the blank canvas, from her tired cheeks to her love-ridden crinkles.

Light so weak it could be blown out by the whiff of one’s breath surfaces from the depths of her foggy, cataract eyes.

Red hues filter down her neck to meet crisp white linen, still warm from its earlier press.

Cranberry juice-drenched satin drapes to her feet, the silky webs of scarlet fibers cinching her waist.

Hockney pauses, and Rita rolls each of the smooth freshwater pearls between the creaky joints of her fingers, much in need of some oil.

The skirt, once oozing effervescence, deflates like a dying balloon.

Wrinkles in her once impeccable shirt become visible amongst the brighter lights.

Her forced smile breaks and the soft light, peaking through thick curtains of eyelid, dims with a hazy varnish of age.

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to the tiny pink hairbrush I keep in my backpack

Maya Hurst

I have an unhealthy attachment to you, to your exaggerated femininity, your reassuring presence. why is it that I need you to tell me that I am worthy? why is it that the smoothness of my hair determines my worth? you feed off my insecurities, beg to be brought into the world, pulled out between each class, a constant reminder of my flaws. you drag me and my thousand-pound backpack down. the world may say your weight, the weight of the mascara on my eyelashes, the concealer under my eyes, balances out the books, the math, the essays. my strong opinions, my female opinions, my teenage opinions, cancelled by a tiny pink hairbrush. quick pause in the hallway, backpack slung on a bench, pencils and notebooks pushed aside. you are brushed against my scalp in five quick strokes, and quickly shoved to the bottom of my bag.

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Sterling Mock Mixed Media

Sofi Gallegos Mixed Media

Wyoming

Alex Stengel

A blue pickup truck sped down the road, a trail of dust lingering behind it. Once it rose, Noah pressed his foot to the gas and sped out of his long driveway. His neck jerked as he made the ninety degree turn. He reached to turn on the radio, firmly holding the beat-up wheel with his left hand. The soft lilt of the guitar began and Carly Simon’s voice filled his dirt-coated pickup. He could imagine Lilian as that vain antagonist her beautiful song. Fully self-obsessed, always in the right place at the right time, so damn vain. He could smell her soft hair and see her almond eyes, blue like the January sky with silver flecks that looked like day-old snow falling from a tree branch.

His eyes scanned the road. A rabbit rushed across hundreds of feet ahead, a barn rose on the left from the dense green grass, and in the distance the mountains cut through the plains, their jagged peaks firm against hovering clouds. The sun shone on the fresh spring grass, bursting with verbena and yarrow and chives.

“I fucking hate Wyoming,” he thought. “All this majesty, so much room for big ideas but full of such small-minded people.”

He looked to the sky and saw a hawk cutting spirals in the air, its speckled wings beating up and down. It circled once more and dove towards the road. Going for the rabbit. Noah looked back down at the road and then saw the hawk careen into the pavement. Its beak split and cut back into its tiny head, its life gone in an instant. The rabbit darted into the bushes while the hawk’s intestines and blood drifted across the pavement twenty feet ahead.

“Disgusting,” Noah muttered with a scornful glare and a knot in his throat. He pulled the wheel an inch to the left and aimed for the corpse. He heard its skull crunch under his tire as easily as those wafer cookies his sister always sprinkled on her ice cream.

He kept driving and thinking. Thinking about how bored he always was, thinking about his constant contempt for his new schoolmates, thinking about her, thinking about how much he hated it here.

“All anyone says is ‘oh you’re so lucky to live in such a majestic place.’” Their condescension, their ignorance perturbed him. They had no idea what it was like to live here. On the frontier.

“Everyone is boring and dull and dumb. I can never talk to anyone about the truth. No listens. No one is sophisticated or smart or understands me. No one except Lilian.

“Oh, that hair the color of marigolds! And her smile. She always

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looks so happy when she smiles. Aloof but happy. And I love the gap between her teeth and the freckles on her shoulders.”

He came to the stoplight and pressed on the brakes. He was used to this drive to school now. Five miles down Highway 287, right on main street, and left into Jackson Hole High School, that bleak and desolate building, paved like concrete right onto the plains.

Walking through the front gate he glanced up and saw Sean.

Sean, who thought Noah was his best friend. Sean who was dumb and boring but loved by everyone in this wasteland.

“You going to the bonfire tonight?” Sean asked.

“No, I have to break in the new yearling,” he complained. In truth, he wasn’t really complaining. He had no interesting in going to some dumb bonfire and track meet to celebrate their athletic “accomplishments” and rally the community and spark school spirit and all of the other bullshit made up by the administration. It was stupid and childish. Sporting events here consisted of tired parents whose sagging jeans and dated video cameras were grim reminders of their boring lives, poor style and growing age. Nothing like the adrenaline and energy of the football games back at Randall. Sure, they had bonfires there, but they were real and big and required a fire engine and called for fanfare. Tradition set to the tune of apple cider and falling leaves under misty Massachusetts fall skies. He missed the crisp uniforms and girls yelling in the stands and the sophistication and ceremony of it all. He missed his dad’s seasonal visits out east. How his dad got excited to see his old dorm and how Noah had still been normal. He missed being around people who didn’t make fun of his money. He didn’t miss being called farmboy though, something that made his hands itch and his anger harder to quell.

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117

The Devil’s Appointment

Megan Meyerson

Tuesday at four o’clock, Thela sat in her office, notepad in hand, ready for her new client. She was always nervous before meeting new clients, but she felt particularly anxious for this one, though she couldn’t explain to herself exactly why. The client had set up the appointment over email and had left no name. Usually, she did not trust anonymous appointments, but he had seemed sincere in his letter, and her therapist’s sixth sense recognized a soul in need of help. She tapped her pencil against her pad, glancing every few moments at her watch.

She was not kept waiting long. A knock sounded at the door, and, before she could call in answer, it opened.

The Devil walked in.

Thela knew without question, by a mixture of instinct and observation, that it was Satan who stood before her, but she was surprised to find that he looked almost normal. Except for the two small, red horns curling out of his dark hair, and the tendrils of smoke that coiled around his hands and face, he could have passed for an average man in a nice suit.

“I hope I have not kept you waiting.” His voice was of average pitch, but clear and authoritative. Under the confidence in its tone, Thela thought she heard the slightest waver of doubt and anxiety, and an instinctive wave of compassion for her client lessened her fear.

Thela gestured to the seat opposite her as casually as she could. “Please, make yourself comfortable. You can call me Thela. What would you like me to call you?”

He took the seat and paused in contemplation at her question. “Perhaps...Yen-lo-Wang?” Seeing her brief moment of confusion, he corrected himself. “Excuse me; I often confuse the names mortals use for me. It has been a while since I have been to this continent. You use Satan, yes?”

Thela responded awkwardly, “I...am familiar with that name.”

He nodded. “Then you may call me Satan.”

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Thela continued hastily. “Well, then, Mr...Satan...before we get started, I wanted to take a moment to tell you that you should feel comfortable telling me anything, and you can be sure that it won’t leave this room.”

Her client nodded.

“Now, is there anything you’d like to work on today?”

“I have been struggling with some guilt and conflict lately, and I was hoping you could give me advice.”

“You’ve come to the right place. Just tell me whatever you want.”

“I never thought about right or wrong— or ethics at all, really— until recently.”

Thela jotted a few notes on her pad. “How recently?”

“A few millennia ago. I lost my temper and let loose a flood that wiped out almost all life on Earth. Then, a few centuries ago, I caused the Black Plague and wiped out a third of the European population. And yesterday,” he continued, tears starting to pool around the edge of his eyes, “I forgot to feed my dog.”

Thela could not quite keep the surprise out of her voice.

“You…have a dog?”

“Of course. He’s the one with three heads. I’m afraid he’s more popular than I am these days…” He sighed.

Thela responded hastily, “Ah…of course…I thought that one belonged to a different…never mind. Please continue.”

The Devil did so, his words less fluent than before, as if it took a greater effort to say them. “I just get so angry…and being evil feels so natural…but I know it’s wrong…at least, that’s what I’m always told. I try to control myself, but I’ll lose focus and come back to my senses a few decades later realizing that I’ve caused a thousand natural disasters, a million poor decisions, and at least thirty different groups of people to believe that the end of the world has come.”

Thela tried to process this information just as she would with any client. She decided that a little release would be good for him. She told him gently, “I can be someone who just listens, or I can help you work through your emotions.

Is there something that makes you particularly angry that 119 119

you’d like to get out of your system?”

“I hate it when people dress up like me at Halloween… and... when people blame me for their problems – even when it is my fault – and I know that’s wrong, but I – just – AHH!” He let out a frustrated roar and stood up with frightening alacrity. He smashed his fist into a vase on the table, spraying flowers, shattered porcelain, and dirty water over the rug. He then raised the table itself over his head and sent it crashing down onto the floor, again and again, until it too lay in pieces.

Just as suddenly as it had come, his anger subsided, and he stood staring in horror at the mess on the floor. He sat down again, head bowed, hands clasped in his lap, looking much like a small child caught in wrongdoing.

Thela stared at him, shaken, but also strangely moved.

He added quietly, as though his outburst had never happened, “And then it’s just…I enjoy being evil, but I do tire of being demonized.”

Thela refrained from pointing out that he was, in fact, a demon, and instead tried a different tactic. “Let’s talk about some ways to deal with your anger. First, you should never believe that your anger is unjustified; I’m sure that anyone in your position would act the same way. Feeling guilty will only make the anger worse, so don’t focus on that. Instead, think about a place where you feel at peace. Can you do that?”

He nodded, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply, smoke curling around his head.

“Now,” Thela continued quietly, “I want you to think about what first made you angry. Can you explain it to me?”

He answered without hesitation. “It was when men first began to build altars to God. A few were built in my name, but they always prayed for me to spare them, to go far away.

None ever invited me into their midst.” He sighed deeply.

“I never get the credit I deserve; I helped build this world, but I am only ever seen as one of its creations, one of God’s creations. Men have little use for me now.” He shrugged helplessly. “I just don’t fit in.”

“Why do you think that is?”

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“Men used to fear my name, and with that fear came fascination. But humans have grown too bold. Most do not even believe I exist. Those who do offer me no prayers. They use God’s name to curse, but seldom use mine. They build altars to Him, write music for Him, and praise the glory of His love, while I, his founding brother, am forgotten. I am a stranger in the world I helped to create. At least my dog still cares about me…” He stared dejectedly at the floor.

“So, would you agree that you feel alienated from others by their lack of attention to you, especially given your former glory?” “…Yes.” “Can you think of anything that would make you feel less alienated?”

“Maybe, if I caused a really big disaster, people would notice me, and know to fear and worship me again…”

“Has brute force ever made humans worship you before?”

“On occasion, yes.”

“Does it make them love you?”

“I was not born to be loved.” He said the words without anger, but with simple resignation that was somehow more saddening to hear than rage or grief.

“Everyone is loved,” said Thela firmly. “No matter how great the disaster you cause, there will always be one person who derives some good from it. There will be one person who feels the light in the world a little more for your tragedy.

And that person, knowingly or not, feels some love for you in their heart.”

He stared at her, bewildered. She let her words sink in, and slowly, she saw him understand. “I…am…loved?”

If he had been created to be the root of all human flaws, Thela reasoned, he must be more human than many, and thus no less deserving of love. She said with conviction, “You are.”

He leaned back in his chair, and said quietly, “I have existed for all of eternity, and never once has anyone told me that in earnest.”

Thela smiled kindly at him, and the silence that stretched between them did not feel awkward in the slightest. She 122

watched him carefully. There was no material change in his appearance; the Devil he remained, but no less human than any person.

He sighed with quiet contentment. “I was going to have an avalanche kill two mountain climbers today, but perhaps I will take Cerberus for a walk instead. He could use the exercise.�

He stood up, and without saying goodbye, walked from the room. The door handle smoked slightly when his hand left it, and Thela noticed that the chair in which he had sat was somewhat charred.

I should keep a fire extinguisher handy, she thought contentedly, just in case he comes back.

Charlotte Gillis

Pen and ink

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Watercolors

Anna McCormack

Scattered papers litter the desk, interrupted by pencils positioned at sharp angles.

Words and equations in spidery black type are harsh against their white paper backgrounds.

The work of the week, unceasing for five days, monotonous and monochrome.

But beneath these layered papers lies a small haven, the work of the weekend.

Small silver tubes pile beside watery wells of vibrancy, blots of color on palettes nearly submerged beneath the black and white sheets.

On days off, from among the dull and muted papers these swirling, shifting colors emerge.

Silver tubes of paint gleam as they stand in their rightful positions, and delicate, slender brushes replace the jagged mechanical pencils.

The desk is no longer engulfed in craggy black type.

There are no equations, but instead only the beautiful mathematics of painted architecture.

No words, but rather the poetic strokes of Irish cabbage roses.

A world of vivid, brilliant color.

An escape, however temporary, a beautiful distraction. from the words and numbers and piling papers I have hidden from view.

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Rachel Ong

Pastel, Painting