The Quad – Summer 2015 by Grove City College

he T Summer 2015

uad Q Grove City College

Editors’ Note I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

The Quad Senior Editor John Gordon Junior Editor Laura Egan Associate Editors Grant Wishard Julia Connors Department Editors Rachel Pullen (Creative Nonfiction) Nick Hiner (Poetry) Luke Sayers (Essays) Kelsa Batting (Short Stories) Assistant Editors Adeline Fergusen (Creative Nonfiction) John Hermesmann (Poetry) Alicia Pollard (Poetry) Daniel Rzewnicki (Short Stories) Julia Connors (Book Reviews) Daniel Chapman (Essays) Art Director Rebekah Fry Art Director’s Assistants Alyssa Baldwin Austin Zick Jenna Hershberger Design and Layout Editor Abby Cliff Style Chief Laura Storrs Copy-Editors John Anastasio Tucker Sigourney Grant Wishard Distribution Chief Mary Leone Conundrums Tucker Sigourney Marketing Director Rachel Reitz Faculty Advisor Dr. H. Collin Messer Editorial Advisory Board Dr. Joseph D. Augspurger, Dr. Daniel S. Brown, Dr. James G. Dixon III, Dr. Joshua F. Drake, Dr. Michael F. Falcetta, Dr. Gillis J. Harp, Dr. Charles E. Kriley, Dr. Julie C. Moeller, Dr. Jennifer A. Scott, Dr. Kevin S. Seybold Cover Art Rebekah Fry

-Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

People have always laughed when I’ve told them finals are my favorite part of the school year. They’re laughing “at me,” rather than “with me,” which I completely understand. It takes a true nerd (am I allowed to say that in the editor’s note?) to enjoy finals more than any time of “the college experience.” But I maintain my position: there’s an unrivaled satisfaction of plopping a heavy paper down on a professors desk, or handing in that last Scantron only to go back to your room and collapse on your bed and sleeping harder than Rip Van Winkle. More important than satisfaction, the end of the year also brings a note of hope – hope, belief, and joy at the coming future. Many pieces in this issue reflect this theme. Tucker Sigourney wittily argues for a sense of the indescribable in his essay, “A Brief Argument: That the World is Governed by Magic,” while Susan Thomas reflects on the future in her piece “Letter to My Unborn Nephew.” Nick Hiner’s poem, “A Church in the Trees,” beautifully describes the “divine affection” of the world. In our final issue of this school year, we would like to thank all of our fantastic staff, who have worked so reliably and diligently to make The Quad a reality. Thanks as well to all of the writers on campus who submit pieces to the magazine. Without your work, I’m not sure what we would do. It is on this note that we pass on another copy of our little magazine to you. I am very pleased to leave the magazine in the capable hands of Laura Egan, Julia Connors, and Grant Wishard, all of whom will be serving on our editorial team for the next year. I could not have asked for a better team behind me in my time as Senior Editor, and am very grateful to the people over the years who I have met through The Quad. Looking back over the past three years, I can wholeheartedly say, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

John Gordon Senior Editor

Laura Egan Junior Editor

Volume 7, Issue 4 , Summer 2015 The Quad is published quarterly by students of Grove City College and funded by the college. The works in this magazine, however, do not necessarily represent the views of Grove City College, the editors, the advisor, or the editorial advisory board. The editors are responsible for the selection of articles; responsibility for opinions and accuracy of facts in articles published rests solely with the individual authors. The Quad grants permission for any original article to be photocopied for local use, provided that no more than 1,000 copies are made, are distributed at no cost, and The Quad is properly cited as the source. Anyone may submit to The Quad. Pieces are selected by a blind submission process. Submissions must be sent to quad.submissions@gmail.com. Include what department you are submitting to, year, campus mailbox number (or address) with your name and use 12 pt Times New Roman font, double spaced; when citations are necessary, use Chicago style. Any rejected submissions which are not returned will be destroyed. Accepted submissions may be withdrawn at any time. Anyone interested in writing a review should contact the editors. The Quad is available online at www2.gcc.edu/orgs/TheQuad

The Quad | SUMMER 2015 VOLUME 7 ISSUE 4

Contents 4

Weeping Willow

Nick Hiner

Poem

A Brief Argument: That the World is Governed by Magic

Tucket Sigourney

Essay

My Trusted Trawler

Taylor Lake

Poem

Letter to My Unborn Nephew

Susan Thomas

If I Leave

Anna Mittelman

Poem

Once

Grace Hermesmann

Poem

A Plot to Till

Dan Rzewnicki

The Balcony

James Moore

Poem

Plummeting Falcon

Carley Shartner

Poem

A Little Adventure in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont

Dr. T. David Gordon

Essay

Nine to Five

Peter Herman

Poem

Self and Other

Julia Connors

Book Review

Church in the Trees

Nick Hiner

Poem

Not These Waters

Laura Storrs

Poem

Conundrums How to Burglarize your Dragon (Viking Conundricles, Part 4)

Creative Nonfiction

Short Story

Weeping Willow Nick Hiner I really hear the bugs sing for the first time all summer. My insides have decayed with age; the noise is a light push. I sit on the steps. I remember catching lightning bugs in the night. They showed themselves perfectly against the mass of willow branches. Bonfire smoke drove them to the tree. The noise and lights of the Pennsylvania insects were a constant din of life upon lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; now I spend the nights hidden in my room looking at lights on a screen while my soul longs to drift skyward like an ember and burn with the lightning bugs. I hold my head in my hands and think about how the weeping willow fell a few summers ago. It was dead for years; the soft rot concealed inside could no longer support it, so it broke. My phone joins the buzzing of the night air. I ignore it. Memories sit around me on the steps to console me while I weep, listening to the bugs sing.

Nick Hiner (â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15) is a Chipotle burrito trapped in a human body.

A Brief Argument: That the World is Governed by Magic

Tucker Sigourney

o not listen to those scientists who would say that, at its very smallest, the world ends in such-and-such a collection of particles (or fields, or whatever it is that they are calling the most fundamental stuff of the world at the moment), their interactions governed by a set of enumerated and indexed laws. Do not listen to the scientists who say that fire is a rapid oxidation reaction, or that the stars fall into classes and sequences. Do not listen to the professor who tells you that Homer’s Odyssey is a story of the pitfalls of pride, and a man’s tenacity. It is my contention that the whole world is, plainly and simply, a play of magic. All sorts of magic, of varying depth and flavor, and all of it just as strangely opaque to the mind as an opal is to light. You have likely gathered already from the title that what I mean by “magic” is not merely the craft of the performance magician, nor is it the craft of a real sorcerer. It is not a craft at all, in fact: it is not wielded by people. Instead, this magic is the sort of thing that underlies every fantasy world - the thing that animates the ents, that raised Aslan, that told Yoda of the galaxy-wide suffering of his fellow Jedi. It is the thing out of which Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel is made, and also out of which (as I hope to show) dew-laden grass and baby laughter emerge. I am sure that those of you who have seen a field of wet grass in the morning sun, and those of you who have heard the laughter of a baby, will need no convincing at all that all the world is magic. The rest of you, though, I ask to consider my argument. I challenge you to come up with any “reasonable” way to define the word “magic,” used as described above, that does not pertain to the world in which we live. Feel free to take a moment to think. Perhaps the sneaky among you will say to yourselves, “I will define it so that it necessarily does not pertain to the natural world,” and give me some definition like, “that which is supernatural.” First, that’s totally cheating. This definition will not work anyway. Perhaps the natural is based in the

supernatural (who ever said the two cannot touch?). That possibility makes no difference to my point, and it will turn out that any appeal to the supernatural will only push the issue back a step. I will recommend this definition for “magic”: the child of beauty and mystery. But whether or not you accept my definition, I think you will find yourself unable to separate the concept of magic from the mysteries of our world, and you will have to conclude that the things we touch every day are just as full of fairy-tale-ness as fairy tales themselves. It does not matter how well we describe this universe, or how specifically we can predict its behavior. What it is, and why, will always remain to us what they are now: totally enthralling, and totally beyond us. Do you remain unconvinced? Then allow me to apply one more tactic, this one my strongest and most sound argumentation. Have you heard of the jellyfish turritopsis dohrnii, that, once it has aged, can revert to an immature state and live its life over again, and repeat this indefinitely? Did you know that the imaginary unit raised to itself is equal to the inverse of Euler’s number raised to one half of pi? And have you heard that traveling near the speed of light will make you gain mass? And still you will not admit that all of this is nothing less than the most potent and enigmatic wizardry!? What are you, that you can gaze upon such mysteries with mouth closed and eyes ready to follow? No, really, what are you? In answering, I guarantee that you will run into only more magic. I should come clean, reader. If it wasn’t obvious, I do not mean much of what I have said literally, and neither will I mean literally some of what I say following this sentence. Sometimes, a view is presented with the claim that it is plainly and simply true (the platypus is a semiaquatic monotrematous mammal), and other times, a view is presented because it offers a helpful way of thinking and understanding (the platypus is what would happen if a duck

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mated with a beaver). My argument is of the latter kind. Of course you should listen to scientists and professors. Often, they are right. More than that, what they tell you - how fire is, what stars are, what Homer means - is more and more magic for you to hold, and let fall through your fingers. The words of those keepers of knowledge are of immense value. But always remember that the end is not mere knowledge of the magic; the end is wonder. It is a tragedy that we sometimes manage (what should be an exceedingly difficult task) to learn about fire and stars and Homer without grinning stupidly and praising the one who created all three. All the rules that comprise Quantum Mechanics are useless if they never widen anyone’s eyes.

I hope you don’t take me to be disparaging toward the sort of mechanical precision of analysis that permeates academia - that elucidates terms, defines methods, and allows us to reach deeper and deeper into our reality. Nonetheless, reader, every now and then, I urge you to throw mechanical precision to the winds. For those of you who have read An Experiment in Criticism, I will say: receive the world (it is art, after all); for those of you who have not, I will say: when you can, dive into the sea of metaphor and magic. Before you surface again, let it refresh you, and let it remind you why you are studying what you are studying. Q

Tucker Sigourney (‘16) has thus far greatly enjoyed his studies in Physics and Philosophy (or, as they are sometimes called, “Learning World Magic by Sciencing,” and “Learning World Magic by Arguing”).

My Trusted Trawler Taylor Lake For you I ate a fish, A whole fish, by myself. Cold and clumpy, It slugged its way down Daring my epiglottis to Jump, send it back Rejected; Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sorry This cannot pass. When my stomach revolted I quelled the rebellion; Forced it down, down, No insurrection allowed. To the gleam in your eye My clean plate replied, Your gesture too charming to refuse. How was I to know you Were a trawler of trillions? Not to me, but to many, your Pietistic net full of Nettles and niceties, Doled out carrion Kindness under pretense Of grace and giving You Janus-faced freak, With your piscine gut And your slimy gaze. The flotsam and jetsam In my crowded sea, All your doing. Those days derelict, waterlogged, But I have caught you.

Taylor Lake (â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;16) is a junior English major from Atlanta, GA.

Letter to My Unborn Nephew Susan Thomas Dear Nephew, Your due date is now a mere six weeks away, and I’d like to write you this letter before then. I want you to know about the two people who will spend the duration of their days caring for you, and I wish to do so before your relationship with them begins. Thus, I will write this letter today. I have known your father for five years, your mother, for over twenty-two. You will find your dad to be an accessible parent: he’ll attend your ball games, teach you how to imitate owls, make you die laughing when you’ve skinned your knee. He knows what to say when someone is hurting, and you will find comfort and strength in that tenderness. Though flawed and fallible as the rest of us, your father is a gentle soul, and you will love him effortlessly. While it is tempting to offer the same assurance with regard to your mother, I am afraid I cannot so easily put those words to paper. You see, your mother is fierce. She simply does not stand for any nonsense, and she backs down from no argument. I once witnessed her quibbling with a cashier over fifty cents. She tolerates no pretense, and she is entirely comfortable drawing back the curtain to reveal difficult, painful truths. Over the course of your life, she will be exacting, unflinching, and tenacious toward you. And that’s why I love her. Dear Nephew, this woman will care for you with a ferocious love. She may fight with you, but she will certainly fight for you. She may correct your word choice, but she will certainly correct those who would speak ill of you. She may cause you many a headache, but she will storm through any medical center on this earth to make you well. Beyond question, she will be there for you. As her little sister, I have witnessed this indomitable spirit all my life. She candidly mocked my first boyfriend, but she let me stay with her during the painful break-up. To this day, she insists on doing my make-up during our visits, convinced not only that she could do it better herself but also that she will make me feel beautiful. I am positive that she desires the downfall of any person who hurts me. You may not often understand or appreciate this feisty mother of yours, but never question the strength of her love for those dear to her. And as for me, Nephew, I see the two of us getting on splendidly. I fully intend to introduce you to cool things like French curse words and mountain climbing and bike rides, and I will certainly back you up when you inevitably ask for a dog. I will also listen to you whine about your mother’s media ecology rants, her insistence that you clean up after said dog, and her nosiness about your love life. I’ll listen, and then I’ll read you this note. All my love, Aunt Susan

Susan Thomas (‘15) has written letters to her Ugandan pen-pal Lilian, Wendell Berry, and Santa Claus. She has only heard back from two of them.

If I Leave Anna Mittelman Give me your soul to hold And I will hold it gingerly, Peel back its cover with somber hands And read with eager patience, And if I leave I promise to hand it back gently.

But I cannot promise to remove the creases.

And if I leave Promise me that you will not to see them as scars, But rather as proof of how earnestly I read. And if I leave Promise me that you will write a new chapter That smells like my perfume And sounds like my laugh And remembers our long conversations, And write until the ink I’ve left you has run dry.

Give me your soul to learn And I will learn it diligently. Do not ask me to skip any chapters Or tear out any pages, And if I leave, I promise to remember every chapter equally. Give me your soul to love And I will love it slowly. Let me read and reread its story Until the pages are soft,

And if I leave Promise me that you will not forget that I have held and learned and loved you, But that I did not promise to stay.

And if I leave I promise to turn up each dog-eared corner.

Anna Mittelman (‘15) thinks you’re cool.

Once Grace Hermesmann Once I ran into the woods And built a good man of snow With dark eyes of coal, A pointed carrot nose, Rosy, glinting cheeks I pranced to the edge of these woods And there, my spirit lived, But I did not return And I never shall It was the last snowman I built. Once I put on my tennis shoes And found a many-limbed tree With thick, sturdy roots, Green leaves rustling their applause, A robin’s nest, promising life I wrapped my legs around its trunk, and I climbed to the top, and My soul remained there, and I never descended It was the last tree I climbed.

I splashed through white-capped waves And I chased this solitary creature, and My heart stayed with his And love was not carefree again He was the last sea turtle I cared to chase. Once I found a yellow kite And strung it to a silver string With tattered, worn knots, A wooden spinning spool I ran with it through Autumn’s wind, and It rose until its bright hue no longer blinded my wide eyes And it became ensnared in a dying tree Whose leaves had transformed to golden orange It rested there among the leaves, Most beautiful in their dying state And it never fell. It was the last kite I flew.

Once I ventured into the rolling sea And spotted a wise, green-shelled turtle With steady, leathered legs Serious marble eyes A subtle grin which held its place

Grace Hermesmann (‘18) once hula hooped indoors for two and a half hours without stopping.

A Plot to Till Dan Rzewnicki

e waved as the last car, kicking up dust, sped down the road back to civilization. He wrapped his hand, wrinkled from the passing of years and coarse from the working, around the handle of the barn door. Straining the muscles in his stomach he pulled; the door rattled but did not slide along the track. He pulled a second time, willing his old muscles into action. This time the door slid, and he walked it along the track until it banged closed. He remembered the days when he could have stood at one end and ripped that door closed with one arm. Yes, he remembered a lot of things that had long since passed. John Powell, or Jack, as most people called him, had been born—literally, in the second floor bedroom—and raised on this old farm in Pennsylvania. No matter what the weather or the occasion, he wore blue jeans, faded and well worn, and a plaid shirt, always tucked in. He was careful not to put too much wear in his shirts. They didn’t make the kind he liked any more. The new kind itched and sweltered you in the summer. Just as he had watched the farm grow and shrink again, he too had grown and shrunk. On this farm he had grown from a small child to a tall, tanned, muscular farm boy, strengthened by the work and the hot summer weather. Then the farm waned as he did. Over the years his once thick, sandy blonde hair had thinned and grayed, his tight legs, arms, and stomach had accumulated some extra padding, and he walked with a limp. The only thing that had never changed was his bright blue eyes. They still shined at the world the same way they had when, as a young boy, he had stood at the top of the hill and surveyed all the land that would one day be his. He turned from the front of the barn and set off for the path that sloped around the front of the house. The house sat on a small hill that sloped from the front of the house down to the road. Walking around the front had gotten hard for him since his limp favored his right leg. No, he told people, I didn’t hurt myself. I guess my right leg just got old a little faster than my left. He guessed he could go around the back of the house and get to the garage just as fast, but he had been going around the front so long that it seemed silly to change now. He followed the front of the house and slipped into the side door of the garage. He and his dad had added the garage onto the house in 1973, when he, his wife, and his parents had all been living under one roof. Some people thought that was strange, but everyone used to live like that in the old days. He missed the old days. Stretching out his left hand, he steadied himself on the old refrigerator in the garage as he pulled it open with his right hand. Careful not to take a dive into the fridge, he bent over, pulled out a Yuengling, and cracked it open. Still steadying himself with his left hand, he took a long drink. He remembered the days when Yuengling cost a lot less and tasted a lot better. He took a deep breath, and left the same way he had come in. In 1984, the year after his father passed away, he had built a bench in the front yard. It overlooked the road and the cornfield they owned across the road. He rented the corn field out to a young man, Amos, who lived down the road now. People usually didn’t name their kids things like that these days, but Jack thought it fit him. Something about the way he farmed the land seemed honest and biblical. Anyway, his wife thought the bench could be a place they could sit to enjoy the quiet and the land they had tilled. Over the years, his wife, Mary, sat on the bench with him less and less until it became understood that it was his place of solitude. He hobbled out to the bench. The paint was chipping and the wood was splitting, but that didn’t seem to matter much anymore. It had grown old with him. He had originally built a small canopy to keep the sun off the bench. Now ivy and all manner of weeds had grown into the canopy. It kept the sun off better this way. Lately, he came out to sit on the bench almost every night. Sometimes he would spend most of the afternoon there, too. He would usually sit there

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and think. He fell asleep there quite a bit as well. It seemed like he fell asleep just about everywhere these days. Mary was usually there to scold him as if he was a schoolboy falling asleep in class. He settled into the wood, feeling the pressure on the familiar places in his back. He favored the left side of the bench, always leaving room for someone next to him. Maybe leaving room for his conscience to plop down and tell him about the things he was sad about and happy about and the things he wished he could change. He didn’t leave much room for feelings anywhere other than here. He took a sip of his beer. The cold carbonation chilled and tickled his throat as it slid down. He felt the nostalgia setting in that he always felt after the whole family gathered and left. His nephew’s graduation had been the occasion today. Having all the family here reminded him of the days when the farm had been twice the size it was now and a day didn’t pass without a gang of little kids chasing each other through the corn fields. It reminded him of all the days he had sat with his workers in the garage and drank beers and talked about politics and women and anything else that came to mind. Those days had passed now, though. The family and friends had moved out to the real world to be lawyers and engineers and they forgot about the little farm they had come from. Don’t you remember when you helped me plant the flower garden in the back? Don’t you remember when you fell on the road learning to ride your bike and skinned your knee and your Aunt Mary bandaged you up and we all laughed afterwards? He wanted to ask them when they came here. Yes, he guessed they did, but they had forgotten why it mattered to them. Today had been the first time in months that he had seen his son Matthew. Matthew had run off to the State University and then left for the city to work for a law firm. When Matt was born, Jack had hoped he would grow up to take over the farm, just as he had taken the farm over from his dad and his dad had taken over the farm from his dad’s dad. Matt had other plans. There’s no money in farming, Dad, he had said before he left. And today he saw the one thing that proved that. Jack and Mary were usually good at keeping things cleaned up, but today they had left out their stack of bills. It was quite a collection, and he guessed Matt had seen every single one of them. “Do you need money, Dad?” Matt had asked him. “No,” he had said before walking away more abruptly than was polite. No, dammit. We don’t need money. We have the farm, and savings. Well the farm wasn’t making much money other than the rent from Amos and his savings had run out a long time ago. Sure we’re in a bit of a tight spot but we’re supposed to be taking care of you not the other way around and if I can’t make my own money and take care of this farm then what the hell am I good for? Well. He guessed maybe it was time for him to give up the farm. He guessed that time had come a long time ago but he hadn’t been ready to admit it to himself yet. The farm was the only thing he ever knew, and he had spent all these years making sure that the world of cell phones, laptops, and turbo-charged cars couldn’t get anywhere near this holy ground. Yes. He guessed that he couldn’t care for this holy ground any longer. Yes, he had spent a long time keeping the world from getting to his farm. Or maybe he was keeping the world from himself. Technology scared him. And people these days moved so fast and talked so little that their love for the world and one another seemed so diminished. Time after time the realtors had come, asking to buy a piece of the land for one housing development or another. Time after time he had sent them away, even though they offered him much more money than what the land was worth. Until the last fifteen years, when he couldn’t work on the farm as much and money was short. He had to start selling it off piece by piece, until he was down just to the land he could see. He wouldn’t let that go. No, he would go in his basement and get his shotgun before he sat in his bench and watched a housing development begin across the road. No, he wouldn’t have that.

The Quad

He guessed what he had now wasn’t much better. When he walked out the front yard he couldn’t help but think that just over the hill there was a housing development full of people texting and watching colored televisions bigger than some of the rooms he had in his house and driving cars that used less gas in a year than any of the tractors he had used over the years used in a month. His bench was the only place that the lies he told himself about people and the world moving in didn’t seem like lies; he could look out across the road and see Amos plow the cornfield in perfect, honest lines and the world seemed all right. Jack sat in the wicker porch chair and looked out across the mountains of Boone, North Carolina. He took a long drag on the Marlboro cigarette he had clamped in the corner of his mouth. The Marlboro man was big that year. He had just about every man in America convinced that smoking Marlboro’s was the secret to having a pretty girl and a good job. The rain came down hard on the roof of the porch, splattering in big drops and pouring out of the gutters. Mary had gone off to bed a long time ago. Across from Jack sat Mary’s mother, Grace. Looking off into the mountains and avoiding looking at one another, both chain smoked their cigarettes. Grace took a long drag. She talked through the smoke. “Smoking helps me think, Jack.” “Yeah. The problem is it makes me think too much.” “Mary always said you were pensive. What you got to worry about, Jack? You and Mary gotta good place to move into up there. Sure you gotta share it with your parents for a time, but one day it’s gonna be your place to till.” What have I got to worry about? I have a new wife and probably kids on the way soon and sure we have a place to live but I have no money. I guess Dad will cut me in on the money from the farm. Sure he will. He always has. “Yeah. I guess you’re right,” Jack said to her. She pulled on her cigarette, burning it down to the filter. She slid the next out of the pack as she died out the nub of the one she just finished. She extended the pack to him. He took one. Crumpling the old cigarette into his ashtray, he lit his next. “What about the days when they don’t need farmers anymore?” He asked her. She exhaled, blowing the smoke away from her face and out from underneath the porch where the rain swallowed it up. He always wondered why smokers did that. They already filled their lungs with it, what did they care if they had it around their face for a few seconds? “Well, I suppose they’re always gonna need farmers. Maybe just not as many someday. You worry too much, Jack. Worrying is for people like me who chain smoke cigarettes and live alone.” “What do you think about when you smoke? Do you mind living alone?” “Which one of those questions you want me to answer?” “Both.” “Well Jack, when I smoke I wonder why people would wanna live anywhere other than on these mountains or on a farm. There’s all these people moving to the city, living on top of one another, and there’s crime and people selling cars worth fifty bucks for a thousand and the damn things don’t even run. There’s noise and people don’t ever stop talking but don’t ever say what they mean. I never been there but I reckon that’s what it’s like. And in terms of living alone, I’m a widow Jack. I ain’t got much choice.” “All the boys that live around me went off to the State University. They said farming’s not worth much anymore.” “No, it’s not. But it beats the hell out of running off somewhere to work a job and find a wife when that’s really not what you’re looking for.”

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What they were looking for, Jack never quite figured that part out. Even he had gone off looking for a while. He had tried going to the city to make money and realized that wasn’t all that much better than being poor. He had tried getting right with the Lord, too. He had gone with Mary to a little country church and a nice country preacher and they both figured out that the people there were just like the people anywhere else—they put five bucks in the collection plate and made out like they were giving ten and they invited you to dinner once and they didn’t ever ask you again. He and Mary decided they would get right with the Lord back on the farm, plowing their land and raising their animals and selling them as honest as they could and praying that was enough. Problem was, while he was selling his work for what it was worth, more and more of the big commercial farms were raising more crops that weren’t worth a shit but they had a lot of them to sell for cheap. Sooner or later people could get anything they needed from the supermarket. Sure it ended up costing a little bit more, but things went on sale. And you can’t put a price on convenience (though stores went ahead and did so). It didn’t take too long before people didn’t care so much for going to the farmer’s market. And when the realtors figured out that local farmers weren’t making money, they started offering them money for their little farms. They would always come right after holidays, when people were in good spirits from the festivities but were sad that they hadn’t been able to buy their children or their friends as many presents as the year before. At first it was easy to turn the realtors away, but every year when there were fewer and fewer presents under the tree it became harder to say no. He heard Mary’s shuffling footsteps coming up behind the bench. She hadn’t come out here in years. She must want to talk about something. He didn’t like to talk out on the bench. He had tried it a few times and gave it up. Talking while you looked out at the honest farm across the road exposed words for the shabby things they were. It seemed like no matter what you thought about or felt, when the words came out they didn’t say anything of the feelings. Mary settled into the bench. Neither of them said anything; they just looked out over the rows of corn that Amos had planted. Jack remembered that his father had said that the corn should be knee high by July. It looked like Amos was right on schedule. Mary broke the silence. “It’s time to sell the farm, Jack.” He looked out over the rows of corn, not wanting to say the words that he needed to say. “Yes.” “You just can’t take care of it anymore. It’s not making the money we need it to make. And if we keep selling off the land piece by piece it won’t be long before we’re dividing up plots not big enough for a doghouse. The only money it’s making right now is the rent we get from Amos.” “I know it.” “I’m sorry Jack.” She wiped her eyes. “I’ve just been too old and stubborn. We should’ve passed this land along a long time ago.” “To who? You’ve been hell bent on not letting the realtors get it and they’re the only ones that want the damn place.” He laughed. He liked when she got riled up. She had made him a better man all these years, but she still allowed him to be stubborn. “I know it. No, I won’t let them have it. This is no place for all those people to live.” “We might have to let them have it.” Jack didn’t say anything.

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“Where are we going to go, Jack?” “Well, I sure as hell am not moving in to the city with any of the kids. That leaves us a few options. We sell what we have and either go die in an old folk’s home or in a little shack in the mountains like what your mom had. I prefer that option. I don’t care much to live around all those old people. Or I can get the shotgun out of the basement if you’d rather do it that way. I’m pretty open to either of the last two options.” She laughed a loud, triumphant laugh, letting the tears spill down her cheeks. He smiled. “You thought about all this for a long time out here.” “Yes.” “I love you, Jack. You’ve taken honest care of this land for a long time.” Most words sounded pretty forced, falsified on the bench. These words sounded real enough, like they meant something a lot more than the sounds conveyed. “Yes. I think I have.” *****

Jack sat on the bench the next morning, drinking his coffee and watching the sun come up over Amos’s corn field. He had built the bench the way he did so he could watch the sun come up while he drank his coffee. It had become a morning ritual. It was hot in Amos’s field, and would be until the sun dipped over the house and shone over the west part of the property. He and his father had always started their work on the west part of the property while it was cool and finished in the east field, working until the sun slipped behind the hill. It was funny how the little things affected you as a farmer. His father said it kept you honest to the world. “Jack,” Mary called from the front porch, “Amos is here to see you.” “Send him out.” Amos walked up to the bench. Because of the vines growing around the bench, Jack couldn’t see him until he was right next to him. He walked tall, holding his head up and his shoulders back. He wore faded blue jeans, tattered near the tops of his boots. He kept his red t-shirt tucked into his jeans and wore a dark brown, rugged looking belt. His clothes hugged his lanky yet muscular frame. He kept his hair, dark to the point of being black, cropped short. His hair curled at the forehead and near his sideburns. He left his facial hair scruffy even during the hot summer. In contrast to his dark features, he had soft blue eyes, eyes that had yet to see what the world can do. Amos held out his hand to Jack. He took it and squeezed hard. Amos’s hands felt rough, hardened by months in the corn field. Amos took the seat next to him, still not saying anything. He’s just a kid yet, Jack thought. He always thought of him as a man because of the work he did in the field, but he couldn’t be much older than twenty. He guessed being a man didn’t have much to do with age, though. “My wife offered you coffee?” “Yes, Mr. Powell.” “My name’s Jack, Amos. I gave up being Mr. Powell a long time ago.” Amos laughed, his soft blue eyes shining. “Yes, sir.” “You’re not going to call me Jack.” “No, sir.” “Your corn is right on schedule.”

Summer 2015

Amos dodged the small talk. “I came to talk to you about your farm, sir.” “I know it.” “You’re selling it.” “My wife told you that?” “Yes, sir.” “I figured that. The word’s not exactly out yet.” “I’d like to buy it from you.” The rain had come hard that summer. The ground was soft but not wet. The high humidity and the warm evenings meant the corn had finished early. Jack’s father drove the tractor pulling the combine. Jack followed him in the truck, heaving the filled bags of corn into the bed. They worked in silence most days. Today was no different. They couldn’t hear one another over the engines anyway. After finishing the last section for the night, they drove the tractor and the truck up to the barn as the light waned. Jack’s father backed the combine into the lower part of the garage. If they put it in the top, it would be too heavy and would break through the floor. Each unhooked one side of the combine, hanging the chains on the wall when they finished. It took Jack longer to unrig his side but his father pretended not to notice. That was Jack’s first summer using any of the machines. They drove around the back of the barn, Jack’s father leading the way in the tractor and Jack following in the truck, crushing the weeds beneath the wheels. They pulled into the barn and killed the engines. Jack’s father pulled the barn door closed, walking it along the track until it banged against the frame. The sun disappeared over the west hill. Listening to him talk about the big shucking bees in the summers before the combine, Jack followed his father around the front of the house and into the garage. His father handed him a cold root beer from the fridge. The condensation on the can made his hand wet. His father pulled two lawn chairs from the pegs they hung from on the wall. Letting the day’s weariness settle in, they each took a seat. Quiet and darkness settled over the farm. Well, the crickets chirped and the animals stirred, but that was a good, quiet kind of noise. “Yep,” Jack’s father said, “in the days before that combine there would be thirty guys here every night, shucking corn and tossing the full bags into trucks. Then we would all grab a lawn chair and drink root beer until your mother fell asleep. Then we could drink whiskey.” He laughed. Jack smiled. “Having this combine almost feels like cheating. My dad certainly wouldn’t have liked it. Or maybe he just wouldn’t have liked not having a reason to drink whiskey with all the guys.” They looked out the garage door and down the dirt road. “You’re doing well this summer. Catching on quick. You’ll take good care of this farm someday.” “Why do we farm?” Jack asked his father. “Well, my dad farmed this land and it’s just about the only thing I know.” “We might make more money doing something else.” His father laughed, “I know it.” Jack was about to break in again when his father cut him off. “I read somewhere envy is ignorance and the whole world is full of good but no good can come to a man except through the plot he’s been given to till, and he’s happier putting his honest effort in there than he would be anywhere else. What do you want money for anyway?” “I don’t know. They make some nice cars now.”

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His father laughed again. “I’ve been letting you listen to the radio too much. Sure, you could buy a nice car or live in a big house, but I reckon it wouldn’t be long before you wanted a nicer car and a bigger house. No Jack, I think the radio is making people look for the wrong things in the wrong places. I think the Good Lord put me here to plow this land and to teach you to plow this land, and I think you’ll find there’s something different you’ll find here that you won’t find anywhere else.” Jack set his eyes toward the horizon. He wiped his eyes as if he had something in them. He fought back the temptation to kick him out like one of the realtors. Don’t you realize that this farm is mine? It’s been in my family for generations, and you can’t have it. He tried to convince himself that Amos didn’t realize what he was getting himself into, didn’t know what it meant to be a farmer, but gathered that he was wrong. He snapped back to attention, noticing he had let the conversation lull longer than was appropriate. “I know it. I figured that might be what you were coming to tell me. I thought you might have asked before now.” “This is your land. I wouldn’t have asked for it before I knew you were ready to give it up.” “What makes you so sure I’m ready to give it up now?” Amos didn’t say anything. “Amos, a long time ago my father told me there was something special about this farm you wouldn’t find anywhere else.” “You haven’t let the world get in between these hills. It’s almost like the time hasn’t passed here.” “You know, your parents made me your Godfather, and all these years I haven’t told you a thing about the Lord. I suppose I let them down in that way.” “You taught me how to plow my fields honestly and to sell what I had honestly. I guess you’ve been teaching me about the Lord by teaching me how to plow this land.” “Where’d you learn to talk like that? You sound like an old man.” Amos laughed, his voice bellowing out over the fields. “I should be a philosopher. I don’t have much to do but think out there in the field.” “That’s one of the benefits of farming. You get a lot of time to think about the world and where it’s going and where it’s been.” Neither of them said anything for a long time. They looked out over Amos’s corn field. Jack guessed that Amos would have his name on the whole thing now. They watched the sun rise, warming the field in the east and shining down on the little piece of the past hidden between the hills in Pennsylvania. “The world doesn’t love the farmer anymore, Amos. You’re going to run into some tough times here.” Amos looked out over the field, thinking that over for a while. Neither looked at the other. “I know it,” he said. Q

Dan Rzewnicki (’16) is a junior English major who has never lived on a farm but is open to doing so.

The Balcony James Moore There’s a wistful wind trying to moan, A purple sky above the road home, But where is home? The balcony lit by torches, The balcony’s not yours The balcony’s not home.

This bloodied heart still sings of home The restless wind, trudging like my mind Oh, silent home be kind. I sing, but you don’t respond, To the balcony where we watched dawn. Your balcony was home.

These words twist your fragile heart No matter where you roam. “Oh, where is home?” The song closes out the world And your heart departs from you, So all you sing is home. But where is home?

Can “someday” come now sooner? Can dreams step out the dark? We rested on a storming sea, Your balcony our ark. But we never saw a wave. We vowed that we’d come home someday, But time my dreams did clave.

The road leads on, you don’t know where. Will it give you time to stop and stare, Upon your search for home At all the beauty in the sky And all the things you miss through time, In your desperate search for home?

There’s a wistful wind trying to moan, A purple sky above the road home, But I have no home. I walk upon the balcony. The balcony’s not yours. The balcony’s not home.

James Moore (‘16) has a tea addiction and he is currently between rehab programs.

Plummeting Falcon Carley Shartner Bridge over fusions of pumping hearts Surging like the Rush of a falcon Clasping the edge of crumbling surety. Rarely speaking the caution language, The toil of a race long to be run. The end comes in sight, wings breaking light. Over the edge they plunge - no catchers. Bare ruin awaits upon morningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s call. Blinking eyes at brazen chests - unsure. But sure. Fusion flings far its reason, Clasping hands to arch into the plunge. Blood seeps, beauty sighs in sharp release.

Carley Shartner (â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;15) is graduating this May and will be getting married in June and then moving out to Seattle in July.

A Little Adventure in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont Dr. T. David Gordon

ince early Fall, I planned to spend the week break in March snowshoeing to a cabin in northeastern Vermont that I went to many times when we lived in New England. The only difference, this time, was that it would be my first time soloing in the winter (one old friend did join me later for a couple days). The winter trail to East Haven Cabin is slightly over two miles, so it is not a long trek. However, the elevation gain is 1,100 feet, most of it in the last ¾ of a mile, so it is steep going, which is difficult in deep snow (most years over four feet deep). Snowshoes are ordinarily necessary in the winter. I prepared carefully for the trip, and made lists of groceries and equipment necessary, and tested almost all of the equipment. To my surprise, when I arrived at trailhead at 1 pm Sunday afternoon, I found that one of my snowshoes was broken. Hi-tech snowshoes are nearly indestructible, and cannot be broken under ordinary usage, because they are made of aluminum and specially-engineered plastics. So I had not even checked them beforehand, because while I have heard of many other equipment failures, I have never read or heard of Tubbs snowshoes breaking. I had loaned them to some students in one of the clubs a year or two ago, and had not used them since then. I don’t think it is possible that they broke the shoe under ordinary usage; they probably either unwittingly backed a vehicle over it, or threw something unusually heavy on top of it when they were packing to return to the college, and so were not even aware that the shoe was broken. So I faced a choice: I could either drive back to the nearest town to see if I could find a place that was open on Sunday afternoon that rented or sold snowshoes, and then try again the next day (because the time involved in travelling to and from the nearest town would have pushed the limits of available daylight), or I could test the trail to see if it was passable with just boots. A party of four people had been in on snowshoes the previous day, and had snowshoed out that very morning, so the trail looked well packed, and I decided to give it a try (I could always turn around and return if the trail would not support my weight plus a 45-pound pack). Sure enough, the first half-mile was perfect; my boots stayed completely atop the packed treadway. This continued for another half mile. At about a mile and a quarter, though, I “post-holed,” the term we use for when one foot breaks through the packed crust, and goes down to light, unpacked powder. It is very difficult to get back up when this happens. Imagine doing squats as an exercise, and then imagine doing them not on both legs, but on just one leg, and you will get a sense of how difficult it is to get back up with only one leg. Then add a 45-pound pack, and try squatting with one leg, and you will realize how arduous it is (helped a little, however, by my trekking poles). I thought little of this post-hole event, and continued on, and then noticed it happening several times between 2,200 feet and 2,400 feet (an eighth to a quarter of a mile). Between 2,400 feet and 2,700 feet, it became frequent; my friend who came in the next day said that it appeared to be happening every eight or ten feet. On two occasions, after one foot post-holed, while I leaned all my weight on the other foot to try to stand up, the other foot post-holed also, and I was up to my waist in snow, and neither foot was resting on anything solid. All I could do was cross my trekking poles on the snow in front of me, and lean forward in a push-up position, and lift both feet out, and crawl on my hands and knees for 25 or 30 feet, until the snow would permit me to stand. At 2,700 feet, I realized that I would not be able to make it to the summit at 3,100 feet at that rate, because I was very close to exhaustion and still had about a half mile, and 400 feet of elevation gain, to go. So I could either return to the bottom or jettison my pack. Without the weight of the pack, there was a chance that I could remain on top of the treadway. But I needed to be sure that I could make it to the cabin by nightfall; with a fire in the woodstove, I could get warm, and there is always some non-perishable food in there (noodles,

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rice), so I wouldn’t starve. So I took the top portion of my pack off, which doubles as an impromptu fanny pack, and continued the hike, leaving most of the pack itself behind. Sure enough, I only post-holed twice in the remaining half mile, and, since I didn’t have a 45-pound pack, getting up each time was comparatively easy. So I made it in by 4; put a fire in the woodstove, lit a propane lantern, drank as much of my Gatorade as was not frozen, and assessed the situation. I had another hour or so of light (sort of—the snowcloud had descended on the mountain), so I decided to empty the contents of the fanny pack, and hike back down to my jettisoned pack and fill it a second time, which I did, and was back in the cabin for good by 5:30 pm, but was nearing exhaustion. There was plenty of battery in my cellphone, so I called my buddy to alert him, so that when he hiked in the next day, he wouldn’t panic if he saw my pack without my being attached to it! I figured once he got in, I could borrow his snowshoes and go back over and get my pack, but he said he had two pairs of snowshoes, so he would just bring the second pair along with him, which he did. So the week was saved, and I could otherwise have just made two or three more trips with the fanny pack to get in everything I really needed. Going out would not have been a major problem, because the food and water, etc., would have been consumed, and the pack would have been lighter, and going downhill, I could even have pulled the pack behind me on the ground like a sled, and gravity would have helped (which it would not do on the ascent). At least I kept my head; I sized the situation up, and realized that I was fatiguing rapidly from the effort required to get back to my feet each time. Although I didn’t get in with all my gear, I got in, out of the elements, and the cabin was in the high-sixties within an hour or so (the previous party had stoked the woodstove before they left, so the stove was still fairly warm when I arrived). Of course, my clothing was very damp from sweat, so I hung them over the woodstove to dry out, and threw a blanket over myself to stay warm until the clothes dried out (they were dry by about 9 p.m.). I was unable to eat for about three hours, due to the exhaustion; but by about 8:30 I was able to prepare and digest a meal. I would not recommend that many people do what I did; most people should probably enjoy the woods with company, not alone, especially in below-zero temperatures, when the snow is four-to-six feet deep. Not everyone would have been clear-headed enough in those circumstances to have averted a catastrophe; many would have simply kept pushing until they fainted away from exhaustion, and would likely have died of exposure (minus-sixteen degrees, snowfall, and wind). The remainder of the time was delightful, though I was sore for most of the week (and the next). I enjoyed some interesting weather, some beautiful views on the clear days, good company for two days, and some interesting reading. Where better to read Thoreau’s account of living in a primitive cabin for two years than in a primitive cabin (no plumbing or electricity)? Fortunately, although my wife is ordinarily somewhat anxiety-prone, she isn’t too anxious when I take off into the woods alone. I guess she figures that I have done it a number of times over the last thirty years, and, like a stray dog, I have always returned. I learned something, too. I learned that there is no such thing as “indestructible” or “unbreakable.” Somehow, someone managed to break a contemporary, hi-tech expedition snowshoe like the Tubbs Katahdin, something I did not think was possible. But now I know that unbreakable things can break, and that they tend to do so under difficult weather conditions and when one is alone. I need to check ALL of my gear before a trip, not just the gear that I regard to be unbreakable. Even a cursory inspection would have revealed that the shoe was broken, and a near-disaster could have been averted.Q

Dr. Gordon is a professor at Grove City College where he teaches classes on Religion, Greek, Humanities, and Media Ecology. He has been published in New Testament Studies and The Westminster Theological Journal, and authored many books, including Why Johnny Can’t Preach.

Nine To Five Peter Herman When he looked up he saw stains, coffee-tinted blemishes in tile ceiling. Water had slowly seeped into each piece. His tired tendency was to gaze at those dark holes as if they were a clear, starry night sky. His heart was stained from holding back the leaks of never exerted emotions, a heart discolored by the drips of desire and despairâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; pressing to escape, yet contained in discontent

Peter Herman (â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;18) is a sophomore English major. His summer will include enjoying the poetry of W. B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney in preparation for a short visit to Ireland. He hopes this poem will never describe himself or you.

Self and Other Julia Connors “I cannot become myself without another.” – Mikhail Bakhtin

ho is my neighbor? Every Sunday school child She furthers this illustration with the images of mirlearns that the command to love our neighbors is ror and window. The mirror symbolizes learning which a greater calling than simply being friendly with the fam- provides a helpful reflection of the self. A book that serves ily next door. This kind of neighborliness calls not only as a mirror helps a reader see her place in the world. The for love amongst ourselves, but love for others. In a world window symbolizes the learning which gives a glimpse into which enables knowledge of and communication with the the life of another. A book that serves as a window helps a whole globe, the task of loving our neighbors becomes reader to understand his neighbor. A window creates the more expansive. As Christian faith becomes prevalent in possibility of love between self and other. the Southern hemisphere, we who are Western Christians VanZanten defines these postures of scholarship must ask ourselves how we will encounter the expanding early in in her story as a foundation for her later defense faith and scholarship in Africa. What does a self-identified of African literature. She recognizes two tendencies in body of Christ do with a new and different member? scholarship which she believes lead to misunderstanding To provide resources for this conversaof global literature. In worthy efforts tion, Joel Carpenter has begun editing a to explore South African scholarship, VanZanten, Susan. Reading series called “Turning South: Christian American scholars have taken various a Different Story: A Christian Scholars in an Age of World Christianapproaches with the goal of connecting it Scholar’s Journey from America ity.” Susan VanZanten, professor of Engwith Western literature. VanZanten proto Africa. Grand Rapids: lish at Seattle Pacific University adds her vides an example based on her research Baker Academic Press, 2013. voice to the conversation in the form of an on the novel Waiting for Barbarians, by 134 pages. $19.99. intellectual memoir. Her academic interSouth African author J. M. Coetzee. The est in global Christianity is the produce first tendency she sees in the scholarship of cultural currents and “academic winds” which directed is that of universalization, which deems the book valuable her own volition (3). She happened upon South African as a “brilliant universal fable” (67). The second tendency is literature (which became her specialty) when asked to teach that of aestheticism, which values the book as a “virtuoso a class on it for an understaffed English department. In linguistic exercise in meaninglessness” (70). The scholarher concise, 130-page memoir, VanZanten offers not only ship she found while doing her own research sought to a narrative of her academic journey, but an apology for understand South African literature based on its similariChristian scholarship, an exploration of human vocation, ties to English literature. They look for a mirror in what and an exhortation to seek our neighbors globally. VanZanten believes is a window. Early in the book, VanZanten introduces a distinction As a professor, VanZanten seeks to tap into the pomade by the early church fathers between two different tential of South African literature, not just to stimulate approaches to learning: curiositas and studiositas. Cu- her students’ minds, but to move their hearts. While she riositas names the desire to learn in order to “control or believes in the capacity of African literature to “teach us triumph” over material. Studiositas characterizes the desire truths about ourselves,” she focuses on how the books can to “participate lovingly” in what is learned (28). With due “function as a window” (50). In an African proverb which humility in learning, we dwell in proper relationship with she cites, we are told, “People are people through other what we study. people” (86). VanZanten studies African literature not

Summer 2015

because it is the same as English and American literature, but because it is different. The question of neighborliness between self and other meets VanZanten’s interest in South African literature in the grave effects of ethnic division on South Africa. From the late 1940s to the early 1990s, the black population suffered strict racial segregation under the governmentenforced policy of apartheid, a name which means literally “apart-hood,” or “the state of being apart.” For South Africans still recovering from the horrors of apartheid, divisions between advantaged selves and oppressed others is in no way an abstraction, but a vivid and painful reality faced day-to-day. Looking for a framework for healing, VanZanten cites American philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff’s writing as a primary inspiration (49). In his 1983 book, Until Justice and Peace Embrace, Wolterstorff depicts the synthesizing vision of shalom—“the human being dwelling at peace in all his or her relationships: with God, with self, with fellows, with nature” (50). The call to shalom echoes Paul’s exhortation to the Romans to “live peaceably with all, so far as it depends on you” (12.18). Shalom effects the bringing together of two neighbors in mutual peace. This vision of Shalom leads VanZanten to explore the relationship of human with human in its most vulnerable form: confession. From the works of literary critics Michel Foucault and Mikhail Bakhtin, VanZanten forms a view of confession which integrates both its perversion and its capacity for healing. Foucault considers confession an “inevitable oppressive act,” forced by self against other to gain

power. Bakhtin, however, saw the potential of confession to “affirm and promote the mutually dependent existence of self and other” (90). Both forms of confession are part of South Africa’s history, important to its cultural and national identity. Political prisoners were often forced by their captors to admit to crimes they had not committed, confessing under the coercion that Foucault describes. However, confession played a significant role in later healing. In post-apartheid South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission instated a national process of confession and absolution. Prisoners who had lost their identities through torture and penal confession could re-identify themselves through confession. Captors could confess their heinous deeds and find forgiveness. Archbishop Desmond Tutu called this time a “corporate nationwide process of healing through contrition, confession, and forgiveness” (96). Susan VanZanten asks us to seek understanding of South Africa, but this request has implications for the rest of the Christian life. Her distinctions between curiositas and studiositas, mirrors and windows, coercion and confession provide a new way to consider our posture towards one another. The rise of Christian faith in Africa will inevitably alter the shape of Christendom in our future. While the “Turning South” series is only near the beginning of a long conversation, VanZanten offers a compelling vision of a confessional, restorative understanding as Western and African Christianity meet.Q

Julia Connors (‘16) hopes one day to witness the aurora borealis.

A Church in the Trees Nick Hiner

The tabernacle reaches with aging maples, Jabbing earth’s blue dome with steeples— Harvest-winds brush darkened timber. Logs rested upon one other interrupt Those with roots still dearly holding earth. Doors of gentle adulation yawn open At the crossroad of sacred and mundane. Seek and find, farmers of God’s land, Abundance and respite midst the simple stained glass; For even creatures of field and forest find mercy Within the natural house of God’s good pleasure. This tender temple with oaken frame beckons All cultivators of nature; for the church, too, Grows from dirt and divine affection.

Not These Waters Laura Storrs It was on the bank of a creek I first encountered that dreadful stillness we call death. Two fish, side by side— perhaps “first-fishing-trip” trophies to be mounted, left to dry, or a meager meal, forgotten til the dinner hour— with one eye skyward, one eye earthward, their chain mail sides glinting in sunlight. I saw their waterless eyes drained of life— drowned in air— no silent gasping— not flopping as they should be— I poked one with my finger, to investigate this dreadful stillness, but a scale flaked off and onto my finger. Then I ran— Ran for a stick to push them back to the water, back where they could breathe again. The fish froze beneath the surface, and then, with a jerk and a flutter of tailfin— but no, it didn’t happen that way. It was as I feared, and my stomach sagged as the fish drifted to the sandy bottom. And I heard a voice behind me say, Not these waters, child, Not these waters.

Laura Storrs (‘15) is a senior English major. She went fishing with her dad once, but they threw that fish back into the pond.

Conundrum

How to Burglarize your Dragon (Viking Conundricles, Part 4)* As it turns out, the two dragons were just getting ready to head out for vacation, and soon after you reached the other side of the pass, they set out for the sunny southern beaches (you gathered this because you overheard the dragons speaking of their plans in Ancient Sweltzhoffendish, which, of course, is the preferred tongue of dragons). Once more overcome with visions of glory, Olaf Smitsglomen rushes back toward the dragons’ cave, disregarding all of your objections about the moral questionability of robbing an innocent dragon family. But when you and the rest of your party enter the cave, you are met with a puzzling sight. It appears that the dragons have stored their valuables inside several very large stone vaults. You find the master key to the vaults hidden uncreatively under the skull by the cave entrance, so you figure that opening them will be no problem. But just as you go to try it, a cautious-looking gnome named Pistachio leaps out from behind a pile of charred sheep bones and gives you a warning: “Be careful. All the doors but one hide things you would not want to meet. Of the names given to the vaults, only one is false, and of the statements written on their doors, exactly one is true. One vault has no truth on it at all.” As Pistachio bounds away out of the cave, you hold a torch up to the vault doors to read their names, along with the following statements: 1 - Vault of Expired Sauerkraut: Go ahead… this vault is totally safe. 2 - Vault of Nietzsche and Syphilis: Nietzsche and his syphilis are actually in the fifth vault. 3 - Vault of Two She-Bears: The Sauerkraut is not really expired - the first vault is clear. 4 - Vault of Ninja-Powered Deathmurder: This vault contains lots of shiny dragon treasure. 5 - Vault of Dr. Gordon’s Mother-in-Law: Nietzsche has long been dead - the second vault is safe. 6 - Vault of Rambunctious Goblin Children: The fifth vault is dangerous (just ask Dr. Gordon). Well, it seems that it has all come down to either untold riches or gruesome death. Assuming you’d rather have the former, which door should you pick? *See the year’s previous issues for backstory

Submit your answers to quad.submissions@gmail.com. The first person to correctly solve the conundrum will receive a free book of their choosing. Correct answers will be published in the next issue.

The Quad | SUMMER 2015

Volume 7 â&#x2122;Ś Issue 4 The Quad c/o John Gordon GCC #807 200 Campus Drive Grove City, PA 16127