Pegasus Fall 2016 by The Haverford School

Cameron Hoorfar | Tyler Campbell | Will Merhige Robb Soslow | Troy Gibbs-Brown | John Nelligan

PEGASUS

Pegasus | Issue 32 | The Haverford School

Myles Scott | Joe O’Brien | Will Towle | Michael Schlarbaum

The Haverford School Issue No. 32

The Haverford School 450 Lancaster Ave., Haverford, PA, 19041 610-642-3020 || www.haverford.org Upper School Population: 438 || Issues Printed: 150

Letter from the Editors Submissions to the literary magazine are chosen by a panel of students and faculty members. Entries are judged name blind and on their own artistic merits. The pieces from the magazine showcase outstanding creative work that comes from assignments born in the Haverford classroom. We value the excellence of this work. Simultaneously, we also recognize the group of gentlemen who hone their craft outside of school assignments. You will come to know them by way their names echo and refrain throughout the magazine. As a result of renewed student interest, our read nights have gone from an hour and a half to three hours of deliberation. Our staff gathers around the table to choose pieces; passionate support for nearly every submisson turns into heated arguments. In the end, we end up the wonderful final selections that you will see and read throughout our magazine. Students who might not make the cut for this magazine should understand that competition for publication drives an outstanding product. Keep submitting; publication in Pegasus has become an accomplishment. We received over two hundred and fifty entries for this issue alone. We would also like to thank our editorial staff who has put in so much time and effort and, of course, our two advisors: Mr. Dan Keefe and Ms. Taylor SmithKan. Thank you. Regards, Jack and Robb

Table of Contents POETRY I pg. 4 PERSONAL NARRATIVE pg. 16 FLASH FICTION pg. 38 POETRY II pg. 42 FICTION pg. 54

Cameron Hoorfar Montana 38

Poetry Part I

Table of Contents Summertime â&#x20AC;&#x2122;08

Storm & With You

Count & Pizza

Tyler Campbell

Robb Soslow

Robb Soslow & John Nelligan

Our Bond Too Strong

Beyond Illusion

Yeshwin Sankuratri

Michael Schlarbaum

Cameron Hoorfar Montana 24

Summertime ’o8 By: Tyler Campbell

covet cliches: Watching redundant sitcoms over family dinner with rickety TV trays, 1$ fresh squeezed lemonade stands, Bike rides with no helmets and cut off shorts, revealing scraped knees from hours of picket fence climbing, Cold showers soothing summer’s rays, Apple picking at dawn with my dearest friends, Getting lost in a corn maze, Love pure and honest like that of which my father gave. This is a lie, sugar coated for diabetics. My daddy just as messed up as me. Been dying to live since I was a kid, Playing on the porch with a 45. My almond eyes glint like twin switch blades As my cheeks become roadways, traffic jammed with tears. In the depths of solitude, I sit; cold crushing waves penetrate my skin like 14 hollow tips lodged in the barrel of fathers 45. I tell him, “Nothing human pours absence into the light regions of our world.” He smiles, like only he can, He tells me I sold my soul. Funny, I don’t recall ever having one.

Poetry I 7

Will Merhige Stately

Storm (7/22) By: Robb Soslow

This

was a summer storm, unheralded, wild, and beautiful. I could feel as you came close, as magnets do, the space between us Twisting, taut, tenuous. I’ll be able to handle these sharp memories later, once they have been dulled and blunted by handling. I can still remember it; the imperative unveiling of the soul, the bare self I saw reflected in you.

With You. By: Robb Soslow

I’m not afraid of silence.

I’m not afraid of crowds. Before I was alone, and I am here now.

Poetry I 9

Troy Gibbs-Brown Route 30

Count By: Robb Soslow

Computers

used to be humans,

in offices and basements. Abaci sat on the right hand of kings. Index cards and vacuum tubes: who’d’ve thought this would be the end.

I am the last of them, and goddamned will I hold on dearly. Grasping to my father’s father’s father’s abacus. Moving slowly, perfectly, the beads that count out my last days.

Tossing

Pizza By: John Nelligan

the dough in the air, Because everyone loves a good za. They say I make the best in the world, But really I learned from my ma. The tomatoes must come from a place in Italy; Where the sun always shines, And the rain is so pure, So I can make the sauce so deliciously. Made from fresh milk and only the best, My cheese is the secret I won’t tell the rest, So if you wanna taste my pizza step in line My pizzas sell fast and you’ll run out of time.

Poetry I 11

Taj Bland Montana 4

Our Bond Too Strong By: Yeshwin Sankuratri

Thee

girl shalt ne’er hurt, for a love binds, A bond so strong, strong for as long I laste, For if me lytel gal ache, I too feel on the inside. But, one damp night, It came to me in haste,

“For what betides, if her hardships too fierce.” Then came to my thoughts, I shall not forget, “For after I am past, she shall shed tears.” And to her shed tears, is to me to wail.

Now, I can not say, how I really feel, For I now have been struck at a crossroads. “And I wish to protect me lytel seal,’ ‘But a sad fate for my gal will lie forward.”

However, great God, gives one more long day to act. The day to fix our bond too strong.

Poetry I 13

Cameron Hoorfar Montana 37

Beyond Illusion By: Michael Schlarbaum

Start

at the extremities: The hands, holders, grippers, grabbers, The very things that make humans distinct and cut. Proceed to the feet, the soles – Uncountable steps walked. They must have quite the story to tell. And slice. Tear off the legs, discard the arms. Move to the torso; slice the belly, Remove the guts, spill the bile – A life’s worth of meals gone. Reach into the chest and find the heart, the centerpiece, and rip it out. Hold it in your hand, Feel it pump sweet warm blood, life, Watch it contract for the last time. Decapitate. Cart off the body, Drain the blood and fluid. Proceed to the eyes, The gateways to the soul. Go deeper, pass thought, leave emotions behind. When beliefs, dreams, memories have long since past, what remains? The soul itself. And as you stand at the precipice, Look down. Ponder the unfathomable depth, and step off the edge. And as you fall, what remains, then? Being and breath; Immortality.

Poetry I 15

Intel Chen Dawn

Personal Narratives Personal Narrative

Table of Contents Each Dish Has A Story Chris Williams

pg. 18

A Misunderstood Conflict Malik Twyman

pg. 22

Starry Lights Taj Bland

pg. 24

Love And Life On The Harvard Bridge Shea Dennis

pg. 26

Level Mind Grayson Potter

pg. 30

The Beautiful, Mangy Leg Ross Haryhill

pg. 32

A Pivotal Point Myles Scott

pg. 34

Personal Narratives 17

Each Dish Has A Story Chris Williams

Intel Chen Culture

A cold and rainy day outside, we are glad to see the warm smile of the manager who seems to be always working. My family often eats at Margaret Kuo’s, and, this Sunday, we eagerly anticipate a midday feast. Only being four, we are not enough to merit a lazy susan; thus, we sit at a small square table by a window on which drops of rain collect. I never look at the menu when we eat at Chinese restaurants, for my mother knows all the best dishes. So while she reads the menu, I busy myself with the two small plates that have just arrived. One contains fresh cucumber, a Chinese favourite; the other, salty peanuts. Shortly after, a white porcelain pot of Jasmine tea arrives. While the common Chinese for this tea is mo li hua cha, literally Jasmine flower tea, my mother’s family has always called it xiang pian, which means fragrant slice tea. As far as I can tell, this is a very archaic name, and I have never been able to use it with anyone other than my mother, whose family exclusively drinks Jasmine tea. I chat excitedly with my sister about her semester in California. We discuss her English courses in college, which teach Chaucer and other Medieval authors. While we talk, the first dish of the meal arrives: xiao long bao. Served in a wooden steamer, the xiao long bao dumpling contains soup inside of it. The arrival of these dumplings reminds me of my family’s summer in Beijing — we lived in an apartment; we lived like locals. We often walked to a xiao long bao shop across the plaza about five minutes away from us. Beijing was hot and dry. On the edge of a desert, the city always collected dust, except when the High Officials seeded the clouds and downpours ensued. Unused to the new rains permitted by technology, the city’s streets flooded. More often than not, however, dust ruled the city. The constant construction of Beijing also created a lot of the dry dirt. While walking to the xiao long bao shop, we would pass an active construction site most likely destined to be an office building. The workers had only just begun construction, and they had only built their housing. Unlike the US, workers live on construction sites for weeks while they build. I still remember the light-blue dust covered bunkhouse. Not long after the arrival of the xiao long bao, the waiter brings another plate of dumplings. Potstickers are very different from xiao long bao — fried, not steamed; long, not short; open-ended, not enclosed. While they cook most types of Chinese 20 Personal Narratives

dumplings, Margaret Kuo’s does not actually sell my mother’s favourite style. Originally from Shandong, my mother’s family ate boiled dumplings. Her grandfather, my great grandfather, had left their ancestral home in Shandong to start a grain exchange and a porcelain kiln in Manchuria. Every year, just before New Year, he would gather all his employees, the kiln workers, the truck drivers, the shop clerks, along with his family, and they would all make dumplings. For three days, through the harsh Manchurian snow storms, they would make dumplings. The outside temperature would be so low that any scrap of food left outside would freeze. For three days, after they had made thousands of dumplings, they would eat a great feast. The true Shandong style New Year’s feast — only boiled dumplings, and lots of them. Then all of his employees would have a month holiday to return to their families; he would bring his family back to Shandong for the New Year. The Shandong peninsula, meaning “Mountain East,” sticks out into the sea just south of Beijing. It is a mystical, spirit half-island from which immortals depart — Lush, green, temperate, and filled with garlic farms. Shandong is known for nice people, simple food, buns, and many dumplings. My family has once been to Shandong, in order to visit the fountain from which we have sprung. We found the old style dumplings. Coarse chopped meat and small home-made dumpling skins, these were not the mass produced items consumed by the masses. Unlike the Southerners, the people of Shandong ate more wheat than rice. They consumed lots of noodles, buns, and dumplings. These dumplings had not changed since the age of Confucius. Shandong was, in fact, the homeland of Confucius and birthed much of Chinese culture. I remember driving past fields of garlic, each farm had a pile drying out by the road, past old traditional houses, each made of brick with terracotta roofs, past a little row of trees, each with lush emerald green leaves. Then a small temple hidden around a corner, came into view; built in the Song Dynasty, the temple worshipped the Yellow Emperor. The architecture differs from that of most Chinese temples — it is older, more stylized. The Red Guard had not seemed touched this sacred place, but upon closer inspection, they had. The temple bears smashed poetry tablets and beheaded statues of scholars as the scars of war. Behind the temple lurked another sign of modern changes: a large

stone pyramid built by the Communists after the end of the Cultural Revolution.

“The poet admonished the Red Guard and decried the damage done, the beauty destroyed, the knowledge lost.” Walking back to the car, we noticed one more modern addition — poetry carved into a free standing stone, words bathed in red ink. The poet admonished the Red Guard and decried the damage done, the beauty destroyed, the knowledge lost. While the central government has slowly become more critical of the Cultural Revolution, such protest would not be allowed anywhere but in a small town in Shandong. All Chinese share a love of poetry. Scholars pursue poetry to form subtle expressions of great ideals. A famous poem lines the wall of Margaret Kuo’s. The poem describes solitude with the company of only the moon and a shadow. My mother explains this to me as our third dish arrives. The gong sounds, and the harbinger shouts. The chef carries the duck on a platter, then proceeds to carve it. Margaret Kuo’s has a very traditional preparation of Peking Duck. The pancakes are housemade and small and remind me of Beijing. Again sitting by a window, but on a sunny day with a breeze blowing through the open window. Nuage had an open dining room with wood paneling, wood tables, and wood chairs. Peking Duck was one of their specialties, along with many other palace cuisine dishes. The Emperor ate very differently from the commoner. Every night he would have a feast so large that he could not see all the dishes on his table. Some say that the cooks would only put the best dishes close to him, because he would not touch the far away plates. All the food would be in a rich sauce, with fatty meats, and fresh vegetables. Nuage preserved this luxurious style. Through that open window, sitting in Nuage, we could see Houhai. The man-made lake was, in the Chinese style, given such a grand name as “Back Sea.” The entire area of Houhai had once been the gardens

of the Emperor. Since the upheaval, it has become the residences of various Party Elite. My great grandfather still worked in Manchuria when the revolution started to take hold. When it became clear that the Republic would lose Manchuria, his family fled south; again in Shandong, the Republic lost, and they fled south; again in Shanghai, they fled south; again in Guangzhou, they fled south; finally to Taiwan. They were ever fearful. Eventually, each one of them made it to America. Now, we sit together in Margaret Kuo’s, enjoying a delicious meal which echos with centuries of meaning. As we get our check and walk out to our car, the sun now shining on drying puddles, I know that, even through trying, changing times, there will always be my family and our food.

Personal Narratives 21

Cameron Hoorfar Montana 7

A Misunderstood Conflict Malik Twyman

“Mujahid, if you believe you’re so damn grown, then leave my damn house.” Amazing, to think even now, these words shot out from the mouth of my mother. I assumed she would always be my caregiver, supporter, and provider. The cold tears rushed down my burning face. I stared into my mother’s eyes wondering how things escalated to this point. I turned my head to the side, feeling the scratch she had previously made on my neck; I noticed the blood that had dripped from my shoulder onto my fresh white undershirt. “Mother, please. I just want to talk. I didn’t mean for this. I feel like-” “No, Mujahid! Get out of my house!” I clung onto her, begging and crying for her understanding. She desperately tried to pry me off of her. To my mother, holding on was a sign of defiance. I wasn’t fighting her; I was holding on hoping she wouldn’t pull away. It was not until she hastily walked to the knife drawer I knew I should leave. I darted out of the house, the breeze pouring through the torn holes in my bloody shirt and down my spine. I ran barefoot through countless backyards. My feet stung with every rock, stick, and dead leaf. Eventually, I reached my old neighbor’s house. It did not look like he was home, so I struggled to lift my body over the fence, every muscle too weak to hold me up. Sitting on the dead grass, I realized that I had run away. I sat in the backyard feeling homeless. I did not have a phone, money, pants, socks, food, but simply the torn white shirt and underwear I wore when I left. The questions began to pile: Should I run away and leave my family unaware of my location? Would anyone miss me? Would anyone forget me if just disappeared? I prayed. “God, is there a reason you put me in this situation? Do you want me to just leave my old life? Enter a new one? Or was this so I can take the hardship from others? Please let me know. give me a sign.” I heard a car pull into the driveway and quickly realized that I needed to leave. I stood, wiped off all the dirt from the ground and the tears from my

eyes, and attempted to rid of the dried up blood stained on the shirt. I lifted myself over the fence once more, waiting for the neighbors to enter their house before jumping to avoid being caught. I walked on the cold curb feeling embarrassed. As cars drove by, kids stared in wonder at the man who looked as if he had survived a kidnapping.

“She desperately tried to pry me off of her. To my mother, holding on was a sign of defiance. I wasn’t fighting her; I was holding on hoping she wouldn’t pull away.” As I paused before my street, I saw my mother, my caregiver, sitting on the porch, face cemented into her hands. She slowly lifted her gaze and saw the young boy whom she adored. I smiled back realizing that the incident was over. I still loved my mother, and she still loved me. I felt my body begin to tingle once more. Except only this time it was for tears of joy. The sun warmed my back as I strolled down the sidewalk looking into my mother’s eyes. I was so happy; it felt great to be home.

Personal Narratives 23

Starry Lights Taj Bland

We are on our way home. My phone beeps to reveal a text message from my father. I take a quick look around the first floor of my house to straighten some things up.We spent all of last week cleaning, so I looked at my reflection in the floor, flustered. I have to find something to do or I will be bombarded with annoying questions about what I spent the past two hours doing. As I walk up through one sparkling room after another, my anxiety begins to reach unhealthy levels. Meeting my parents’ absurd expectations became my only worry for the night. I sit down with a cup filled with popcorn, thinking of everything to avoid the hysterical rage of my parents. God answers my prayers. I look over to see my hero, a large black bag that sits directly in front of my trash can. My mind wanders through infinite times where my mother 24 Personal Narratives

has yelled about bags sitting in front of my trash waiting to be taking out. My dash from my chair would have startled Usain Bolt. Almost salivating over my prize and the fleeting thought of screaming “my precious” zoom through my head, I grab the trash and run out of the door. I sprint out of the house and quickly throw the bag in a steel garbage can. I begin my victory lap to my kitchen sink. I try and twist the doorknob and continue my lap in Rio. The door doesn’t follow script, and I run headfirst into it. Distraught and confused, staring at the door like an unsolved puzzle, twisting my head ever so slightly, I go for the door once again. I sit down on the steps leading up to my walkway and watch the cars speed by. My hope resembles a sine graph, rising and falling as I wait for my family. I sit back and stare at the streetlight-bleached sky with only a glitter or two of light defying the hierarchy.

Cameron Hoorfar Montana 12

My imagination projects Van Gogh onto my city canvas. It seems contradictory that the light of the stars is drowned out by the lights sitting in front of my house. A light bulb smaller than my hand can beat out the light of fiery balls that have an average size of 1.4 million kilometers. If Van Gogh were to paint now, would the sky be pitch black? Would the street lights stand in the foreground like the forever-debated tree or mountain? The devices of the present alter the perceptions of the past. When I look up the sky, I no longer see what Van Gogh did. A thousand years ago, people saw their rich history

on the starry canvas. Billions and billions of total years sprawled across trillions of miles. Now if I am lucky, I can see maybe a decade in false terrestrial bulbs. How can I understand what the past has left for us, when the filmy hands of invention left prints on the mirrors of creators like Van Gogh? My starry gaze is interrupted by a Black Honda Odysseyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s headlights. My little brother Isaiah runs up to me. When we make eye contact, I am sure he sees the universe unfolding in my gaze. Relieved, excited, enlightened - I walked in my house a different Taj.

We are on our way home.

Personal Narratives 25

Troy Gibbs-Brown Bridge View

Love And Life On The Harvard Bridge Shea Dennis

The bridge is full of people; the August sun shining on us all. The Charles River slowly flows beneath me. The occasional goose or sailboat passes through the arches. My headphones blare my workout mix into my ears. The sweat of my run still clings to me, the heat and humidity not letting it fall from my skin. Suddenly, my music stops. The ringer on my phone goes off. My girlfriend calls asking my advice on depression. She has been going through a rough time and wants to hear my voice. Unfortunately, I deny her that comfort. I see the railing across the road in front of me, check the road and bolt across the street. A jeep blares its horn, but I hop the divider and make it to the far side. My girlfriend keeps talking and asking me questions, I give one word answers and noncommittal responses; my mind is elsewhere. As I face east I clearly make out two spots on either side of the river. To my left, in the city of Boston, I see the dock where I had my first kiss and fell in love and entered myself into a world I was too young to even know existed. To my right, I see Baker Dorm. A girl three years older than me leads me up the stairs and into a cramped dorm room on Valentine’s Day. I take a deep breath and stop the train of thought before it gets worse. 28

Personal Narratives

I start listening to my girlfriend, and help her talk through her troubles. I explain that no matter what, she has to fight to remember the good in life. I realize the irony, as the last time I stood in this spot on the bridge, I was standing on the side daring myself to jump. Of course, this was before I knew what it actually meant to be a man. No matter what, I had to stand and deal with my problems. Before I knew that, I did not have to drink or lie to be myself. I look to the dock and remember last September. I was sitting reclined on my elbow. The girl who I “loved-” whose name I had already forgotten after meeting her an hour ago- laid her head on my stomach. We looked out across the river to Cambridge. We spoke of our dreams, our aspirations, our pasts. I was Shea Dennis. I had graduated high school in 2015 and was enrolled in the UCLA School of Film. Her name started with an A. She had also graduated in 2015, but from a school in Bangalore, and had just started her Freshman year at BU. She laughed at my jokes and had beautiful eyes that rolled at me when I said they were the prettiest things I had seen all night, and for once in my life I felt that I was not defined by mistakes. With her, there was no eating disorder or depression or torment. With her, there was safety. Then she kissed me.

“My girlfriend calls asking my advice on depression. She has been going through a rough time, and wants to hear my voice.” “Hey Asshole!” The biker yells at me as I lean on the side of the bridge. I dodge out of his way, too speechless to throw some witty remark back at him. I start my walk toward Cambridge and see Baker again. The dorm lies in my way as I move further into MIT to meet my brother for lunch. I didn’t eat lunch that Valentine’s Day, my mind focused on alleviating the stress of a particularly awful winter anyway I could. That way’s name was Naomi. She was my brother’s age, studying computer science. We met at a party, I maintained my lie, and she pretended to believe it. While the one beer I had downed in September helped to calm my nerves, the several I had consumed the four days leading up to this night were proving to not only be the worst way to deal with my feelings. They drinks made the witty, cute, vulnerable persona I was so desperately trying to put forward come off as a bad impression of myself. She didn’t care. My pale imitation was still apparently cute enough to garner an invitation back to her room. I took it, sensing my opportunity to finally get the closure I had missed out on in September, or alleviate my depression, or even become a man. Instead, I emerged from her room ten minutes later having overstayed my welcome by nine with absolutely nothing but an empty condom

wrapper and a lesson that alcohol can cause sexual dysfunction. She offered to call me a cab, and the feeling that I was an immature whore increased tenfold. I found my way out and began to walk across the bridge. I was the only one; no car or pedestrian stood to give me comfort. I was accompanied only by dark and by cold. The wind chill broke through each layer I was wearing, and I remembered that I had once heard that water is warmer in the winter than the air. I stopped my walk and stood up on the railing. I stared into the dark abyss, waiting for some poetic force to make my decision for me. Seconds turned to minutes. Minutes turned to an hour as my phone finished my playlist of sad music. I realized I would not jump and stepped down onto the asphalt. “Hey are you ok?” A woman in her forties asks me. She leaves before I answer, asking her teenage son if the Latino man who walked by was Junot Diaz. I notice I am crying and my call has dropped. I quickly call my girlfriend. She picks up and realizes that I am crying. She asks if she can help me feel better. I tell her she already has. I tell her that I can be with her while being myself, and while also wanting to make that person as good as I can. I tell her that I do not have to be drunk to say it. I tell her that I love her. Personal Narratives

Level Mind Grayson Potter

Intel Chen Swoop

Clouds cluttered the sky, a warm gust of wind rifled through the air steadily. The flag sock was blowing to the west, all conditions pointed towards a good day of flying. I walked onto the tarmac, immediately greeted with a gust of warm air and the humidity that was brought along with it. Cirrus 317A was my favorite airplane in the fleet, she was sturdy, reliable and quick. I walked around the airframe, checking various parts of the plane for weak spots, scratcher or dents. I climbed on top of the wing and opened the cockpit door, accosted with hot air filtering out. I sat down in the seat and began running tests, batteries on, alternators running, flight screen was operational, everything was working beautifully. Pace, my instructor, came down and did a brief preflight. He checked the oil and then he asked, “Would you fly this alone?” Eagerly I responded, “yes I would.” We ignited the engine and it roared to life blowing our doors shut, we began to taxi towards the runway awaiting our departure. After obtaining clearance, we rotated off the tarmac smoothly. Climbing at a good rate we reached our current cruise altitude of eight thousand feet, just at the cusp of the clouds. We began heading for Allentown airport, practicing maneuvers along the way: touch and go’s, steep turns and slow flight. Abruptly, Pace simultaneously rips the throttle to idle and fuel mixture to cut off. The engine went from a vociferous roar to a soft hymn. My stomach dropped and a lump began to develop in my throat. It was a simulated engine failure at a low altitude. Pilots are trained to be quick on their feet; I froze, sat their in a blank state watching the altimeter dropping fifteen hundred feet per minute. Pace barking over the coms, “what are you going to do, hold altitude now.” Adrenaline coursing through my body snapped me out of my vegetative state. I began searching for the nearest airport, the closest one was three miles away. We had roughly three minutes to go before we would land, our only option at the time would have been to pull the parachute. I began recovering by putting the fuel

back into the engine and punching the throttle forward. The same silent hum was still there, their was no audible feedback from the engine to the the addition of power. Beads of sweat began dripping down my face and neck, my body began trembling with fear. I began praying to a god I did not believe, in doing so I found no hope. Pace began fiddling with the instruments, trying to figure out the reason why the engine was not responding. He instructed me to hold altitude, deploying flaps and pitching up was what I was trained to do. The airspeed began getting too low, stall warnings ringing in our ears the fuselage trembled violently. I pointed the nose down and continued the same process trying to buy time for Pace to resolve this issue. Every second reassured my doubts of the engine starting again; I expedited all of my efforts to focus on one thing at a time and stay calm and precise. We then began pitching for glide which dropped altitude less rapidly. We cycled the keys to the left then the right twice, steadily adding and decreasing the fuel flow. We took the keys and turned them left to off then right to on, the engine parameters were holding steady at idle. We steadily increased fuel flow, the screen read back that it was receiving a positive fuel flow. Slowly, we added increments of power, the propeller began spinning rapidly, the engine screamed back to life. Pace instructing me to bring the flaps up and climb back up to three thousand feet. The lump in my throat was dissipating, we found a small municipal airport one miles away and began tracking towards it. Even though the engine was up and running, my doubts were still their. A mile away we began descending, hoping the engine would not give out on us during landing; I touched down heavily on the tarmac, just glad that I was safe on the ground. My hands quivered as I switched the keys to off, my legs were hesitant as I took my first steps out of the plane. This flight was one that I would never forget, it taught me why it is crucial to keep a level mind.

Personal Narratives

Cameron Hoorfar Montana 9

The Beautiful, Mangy Leg Ross Harryhill

A year and a half ago, during one of my shifts as a student ambassador at Pennsylvania Hospital, I was invited to visit the pathology department to observe a dissection. The appendage sat exposed upon a metal table. Wrinkled and missing toes due to previous amputations, it looked mummified, alien. I squeamishly looked on as the doctor prepared to dissect an amputated leg. The amputee, an elderly woman, suffered from severe diabetes that inhibited blood flow in her tibial arteries. The pathologist’s job was to locate the source of the blockage—a job he executed well. It was a routine procedure for the doctor. I, on the other hand, would never be the same. Behind every leg, there is a story. You are born with it, learn to walk on it, watch it grow, and, for the unlucky ones, break it or lose it. Our bodies are a beautiful machine. Seeing the ravages of age and the effects of disease on a table before me, I came to understand that I am a sum of my parts. As most do, I want to see great success in my life. I want to do what I love and be rewarded for it. I want to live out the American Dream. However, in order to achieve long term success, I would need to find balance in my life. I will have to make sacrifices in order to succeed, which may require me to sacrifice parts of my life that make way for new opportunities. In the case of the old lady, she had to sacrifice her leg in order to live out a better life.

“Behind every leg, there is a story.” The fact that the woman needed to do this in order to improve her life put an idea in my head that changed how I viewed the concept of myself. In order to be successful later in life, I realized that I had to make changes. For example, in order to make time for the rigorous academic curriculum I was to face in my final years in high school, I would have to “amputate” bad study habits from my life in order to allow a smarter, more focused version of myself to emerge. This is just one short term

example of a change I would have to make. In fact, many of these sacrifices are time-sensitive. High school seniors like myself are preparing to cut off the sheltered environment they have spent nearly their entire lives in, and enter the world of college and preparation for entering the workforce. For us, high school is the leg. We are sad to see it go and we valued our time with it, but we also understand that our lives must go on and the pursuit of dreams must be taken outside of our childhood environments. Yes, these types of sacrifices are often difficult, and some sad, but they are also beautiful. They are necessary for long term growth.

“The leg no longer represented death and loss to me. It was now a portrayal of hope in physical form.” It is in this way that the mangy, diseased leg appeared beautiful, sitting there on the cutting table. The leg no longer represented death and loss to me. It was now a portrayal of hope in physical form. It is the progression of life in today’s everchanging world, and I learned to understand that for the greater good, it would need to be let go. For me, the leg is the immense change my life set to undergo in the next four years; it is a part of me that I must excise before leaving to follow my dreams. It has served me well, but time and circumstance require to me to relinquish it. And thus, as I forge on in life, one question remains with me: everyone has a dream—what are you willing to sacrifice (or maybe even amputate) to achieve it?

Personal Narratives 33

A Pivotal Point Myles Scott

Intel Chen Shore

“Okay class, today we will learn about Hanukkah. Does anyone know what Hanukkah is?” Ms. Mary asked our kindergarten class. Ms. Mary was a nice, white, middle aged teacher. “It’s a holiday,” replied Mikaela, the smartest kid in class. “Very good Mikaela; you get a sticker.” I hated Mikaela so much. She was such a teacher’s pet and got special treatment for it too. I couldn’t understand why she always knew the answers to every question. Furthermore, I didn’t know why the other kids would talk to her when her breath smelled like a skunk. I was the type of kid that the teacher would yell at for not paying attention and talking constantly. “Hanukkah is a holiday that Jewish families celebrate instead of Christmas. Jewish families buy a menorah which has nine candles. Each night they light one of the candles until the ninth night when every candle is lit. Families that celebrate Hanukkah exchange presents every single night. Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah because long ago a candle survived a long eight day struggle.” “The candle stayed on for eight days?” asked Sean, who was the dumbest kid in class. “Yup,” answered Mikaela. “They get nine days of presents?” I asked rather rambunctiously. “Were you listening?” Mikaela immediately sassed backed. She always retorted quicker than my mind could move. “Ugh...umm...shut up.” “Myles, the holidays aren’t just about presents. It’s about being with your family,” Ms. Mary stated. “Yeah yeah.” I couldn’t have cared less about spending the holidays with my family. I was sold the second I heard that Jewish people get nine days of presents. I decided I was going to convince my mother to trade the big, smelly Christmas tree for a small Menorah. During the car ride home I sat in silence, plotting my devious plan. My abnormal behavior caught my mother’s attention “You’re awfully quiet today.” “Yeah.” “Well how was school today, Myles Mason?” “Good.” She was trying to pry out of me the reason why I wasn’t speaking because talking was my favorite pastime. Unfortunately for my mother, I would not 36

Personal Narratives

give in. “Want some pizza, Myles?” Clearly she had no intention of buying me pizza. This was just a trick to get me into speaking to her. “No.” The rest of the ride we sat in an awkward silence. My mother did not realize it, but my plan had already been put into motion. Stage one was to make my mother worry over my silence and it worked with flying colors. When we got home, dinner was already cooked. “Let’s eat together,” my father insisted. We lived in a small apartment in Abington, Pennsylvania after we moved from Mt. Airy. It was only a temporary stay until we waited for our new house to finish being built. I stayed silent the whole time. The only sound at the table was the silverware clinking against my plate. Finally my mother could not take it anymore.“John, he’s been like this all afternoon. I don’t know what happened at school but this morning when I dropped him off he was chatty like always. Now Myles won’t say a word.” “Is this true, Myles?” my father inquired. “I don’t know.” “What do you mean you don’t know? You’re the one who won’t speak.” He started to speak sharply. He only speaks this way when he’s angry. Even though he was getting irritated, stage two of my plan was now complete, getting my father to show concern. I tried to muster my cutest and most convincing five-year-old voice to ask my parents, “Can we celebrate Hanukkah?” With a quizzical look on his face my father asked me, “What? Why do you want to celebrate Hanukkah?” I questioned myself several times on why I wished to be Jewish. The reason seemed complex at the time but in the spur of the moment I decided to be candid with my father. “I want nine days of presents.” The dinner table was silent again. Both of my parents were astonished by what I had just proposed. Neither one seemed like they wanted to address my request. Honestly, I did not see the magnitude of changing religions. I just assumed that we could easily make the switch to Hanukkah overnight and leave Christmas forever in the past. My mother finally broke her silence and said, “Myles we don’t celebrate Hanukkah. You know, cause

we’re Black and Christian; we celebrate Christmas.” Clink, Clink! My fork full of potatoes had slithered out of my hand and struck my plate. My mouth had dropped so far that my chin was comfortably resting on my chest. My world started crashing. In those two sentences, my mother had destroyed everything I have known. I had never felt so appalled. Did she just say that we are black? I can’t believe she dared to associate us with them. Little did I know, my melancholy lashed me into an emotional identity war which would last years. All of my shock, pain, and sadness had bubbled up and finally came out, “What, we’re black? We’re the bad guys?” My voice cracked. “Since when are black people bad?” My father inquired. “Since always! Everyone knows white is good, black is bad! Why do we have to be the bad guys?” I was practically screaming at this point and on the verge of tears. “We aren’t bad guys, Myles.” My mother tried to console me. She was too late. I let the tears go. I bawled and screamed all the way to my room. I could not believe it. I was living a lie my whole life. This whole time I thought I was white. Look at my skin and my mother’s, we looked white. Even my newborn sister looked white. It’s not fair how I had to be so different from all of my friends. They get to enjoy life knowing that they are good. How was I supposed to be happy knowing I was a villain? “Myles?” My dad walked into my room. “What’s wrong?” His concerned visage made me pay attention. “I don’t want to be a bad guy, daddy.” I tried my best to hide my tears. “I don’t know who told you black people are bad, but we are not. Your grandfather grew up in South Carolina. People made fun of him all the time for his skin color.” “Really? They made fun of pop-pop?” “You know how nice pop-pop is. He was made fun of by white people because they thought he was evil. Pop-pop never did anything wrong either. He just smiled and persevered. Do you know what that means? He never gave up.” “If pop-pop never did anything bad, why did they make fun of him?” “Because some people are racist. They don’t like people that look different. I think it would be boring if we all look the same.” He started to look at the floor

like he was trying to recall something. I realized how in denial I was in accepting the truth. I wished to be white so badly that I convinced myself I was because my mom had light skin. I never even payed attention to my father’s skin, which was clearly too dark to be white. My father continued, “I think people who look different are special because they are different. I think your special, Myles. Your mother’s parents and my parents had been treated unfairly because of their skin color. Your mom and I were also treated badly by many people. When you get older you will have to face many people who don’t like you. Just smile and stay strong just like pop-pop did. Your mother and I believe in you, Myles. You know why?” “Uh...no.” He had grasped my curiosity. I had not the slightest clue what his answer would be. “Because you’re special, Myles.” It had been a long time since my grandfather grew up. Due to this reason, I believed that what happened to my ancestors would not happen to me. I was surprised when a few years later kids would make fun of me for being black. The only thing is they would make fun of me saying I was not black. Kids would say I was white because I did not talk black, live in the ghetto, or have a name that they thought sounded black. At first I was fine with that because I previously wanted to be white. I never felt confident as an African American until the sixth grade. I had learned about how deep African American culture was that year. Most of this learning came from outside of school. I had learned about discrimination, African American music, and soul food. This was when I started to try out all the different kinds of soul food. I loved how it felt when the skin of fried chicken would crunch in my mouth. I instantly enjoyed the powerful voices of soul singers like James Brown and Aretha Franklin. I slowly started to learn how silly it was of me to believe that someone was bad because of their skin. Now when someone tells me that I am too white to be black I just think about my grandfather. I remind myself about how far he came even though people tried to bring him down. I constantly try to follow in his footsteps. I do not care if someone thinks I am black or white because I know I am black. After my abrupt identity change in kindergarten, I slowly evolved into a young man who embraces his African American culture. Personal Narratives

Cameron Hoorfar Montana 4

Flash Fiction. Rules: A short story of 50 words or less using 3 supplied words.

Joe O’Brien

He continued on. His struggle felt interminable, like time stopped; the sun never cooled, his thirst never quenched and the road never ended. He wondered if it really existed or was the city a dream. He had gone too far to second guess; no time to wonder only to walk.

Will Towle

Dry air and sunlight drowned me. Nothing but road laid ahead. Where was I? Large shadows circled my head, filling my ears with raucous noises. I looked up, nothing was there but the abyss of a blue sky. I started walking. That’s all I could do. Wander until my questions were answered.

Evan Haas

As the young child wandered down the street, he was raised up high by a strong gust of wind. He was lifted so high that the road now looked like a single strain of hair. He slammed his eyes shut, and opened them quickly, realizing he was in a dream.

Jared Holeman

Eyes fixed, hands cold, heart stopped. Through the sprawled arms of the pale corpse, a rodent wandered. The head, detached, laid mere inches from the tire tracks etched into the cold, hard road. A gaping mouth told not the story of what happened, who brought about this end of dreams.

Scott Zelov

There was no turning back, nothing to return to. His wandering mind reverted to the distant memories, the city now covered in smoke, slowly disappearing from his mind and the world at large, shrinking as the road stretched on. The struggle to survive continued, the dream of peace everlasting.

Evan Scott

I forgot about our room. She told me to clean our room. “I walk three miles down the road and come home to this? Am I dreaming!?” I felt the bullet as though it had shattered my skull. I wandered around, dodging blood, picking up socks and shirts.

Max Brooks

The blistering sun, the chilling water, the coarse sand. It appeared just a few steps ahead of me. I felt the radiating heat of the asphalt road. I was so close. I wandered onto the sand and it all went black. I knew it. It was only a dream.

John Nelligan

Standing on top of a huge rock engraved into the mountain, the sudden wisp of the wind sent chills throughout my body. Looking into the serene water, I took a step forward and leaped off. While falling it felt like forever, asking if I would ever do it again.

Mitchel Hark

I’m not sure where I’m going. I’m lost, adrift, undetermined. I am wandering. I don’t belong. I try to walk but have no feet. I see the road to success but no way of getting on it. My reality is unreal. I wish it was dream but it’s not.

Flash Fiction

Wander. Road.

Dream.

Cal Williams

Reality is not enough. A dream, Being idolized by a wandering mind Provides an outlet from a world which can be much too taxing. A dream takes the role of a road, A road of escape, Escape from the stress of reality.

Caleb Clothier

The sheriff wandered down the road in the middle of nowhere and the winter, dreaming of a cozy cottage – fireplace, bed, and all. This was outlaw country. Through the flurry, he saw a light. A shot echoed through the dark canyon, and a body hit the snow.

Dean Manko

I can barely see: the surrounding air is almost solid. I don’t even know if I’m wandering anymore — the road that echoed with the sound of my footsteps is now lost beneath so much haziness. My thoughts, jumbled, are too real to be dreaming; not real enough to be awake.

Luke O’Grady

The wanderer dreamed of the road that lies ahead. He had many dreams, night after night. The infamous travel was to be made. Visible bricks, stained in yellow as a munchkin wanders across the road. Eyes now into the sky, he sees a sign labeled “Oz.” This wasn’t Kansas anymore.

Charlie Baker

I am the wanderer. I sneak across the road between reality and the stuff of dreams. I die inside, but I am immortal. I am hit, beaten, and thrown until I no longer function. I react in ways that many do not understand, but you do and you always will.

Connor Brala

He wandered down the dusty road at a slow, drawn out pace. He was trapped in a dreamy trance that left his mind cloudy. He didn’t think, just walked step by step, one foot in front of the other.

Kwaku Adubofour

The waves continued to pull his legs as if he was a piece of dust in the vacuum that was the ocean. He let go, his thoughts and stresses wandered away. The dream of tranquility was his, but on the road to this peacefulness, his effort to float slipped away.

Mr. Luqman Kolade

No longer the wanderer, Qui looked up to the sky, its vastness terrifying him. He tried to remember when his dreams came easily, like new days, but the road had changed. Shuffling his feet, the chains clinked against the pebbles as he walked. He sighed, hoping for the end.

Flash Fiction

POETRY II

Taj Bland Montana 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS Crying Blood

Connor Lees pg. 44

Monday Morning Muses

Tyler Campbell pg. 46

The Poetry of Science

W.D. Ehrhart pg. 48

Dark

Myles Scott pg. 50

Cold Days on the Creek

Graham Rantanen pg. 51

Black or White

Tyler Campbell pg. 52

Poetry II

Crying Blood Connor Lees Red dribbles down her face stopping in each wrinkle only to keep inching down Leaving behind crossing paths of red stains Her eyes I see in them swelling pain I see in them that motherly instinct The one that fights to cover up The black and the blue and the red and the cuts and the bruises and the blood but she canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t I stand her up With a limp arm around my shoulder we push on Her legs Her legs were twigs trying to hold up her body One step and snap Her body was on my back The snap echoed across her face but no tears We make it to the couch I wipe the blood off her face with my hand The stains The stains stay They always stay

Poetry II

Yeshwin Sankuratri Roses

Monday morning Muses Tyler Campbell There is nothing more poetic than death in the summertime. Beautiful black bodies lay barren and skewed in city avenues and corners. No weapons, just blood, And beauty. The coroner’s phone dangles off the hook. The mayor gave us gifts of glocks and wooden benches, for broke moms to wait for busses, as rich men whiz by in Benzes. This begins the conceptual, Summed up by a gummy no tooth smile Not that of a new born baby but of a crackhead mother to be. I see, everything through fragile defiled glass windows Like the zoo. I the wide-eyed, gullible on-looker baring witness to society’s atrocities. Girls double dutching through needled littered sidewalks. Boys buried barefoot and fatherless. I saw them put us in red, rusted shackles, Give us a Bible Knowing damn well we can’t read. Just like they can’t hear us, when we can’t breathe. Melanin infused, soon to be skeletons swept underneath the carpet. Forgotten. Another child lost.

Poetry II

Troy Gibbs-Brown Saved for a Rainy Day

David Bunn Science Building

The Poetry of Science W.D. Ehrhart

“Science is the poetry of reality.” —Richard Dawkins Was it Ptolemy who posited the music of the spheres? Aristotle guessed there must be atoms. Galen gave us medicine while Archimedes gave the world “Eureka!” Galileo used a glass to prove Copernicus and Kepler had it right. Leonardo knew that men would fly. Descartes, the French philosopher, could think because he was, and what is science, after all, but natural philosophy? An apple fell on Newton’s head, symbolism Isaac took to heart. Smith’s map of Britain changed the world. Darwin grasped that men and monkeys aren’t so different as we’d like to think while Lister gave us more than Listerine. Indeed, the world would be bereft of poetry if mass times speed times speed again were not the perfect poem. And if you’re not convinced, consider this: Madame Curie’s burning passion killed her. How much more poetic can you get?

Poetry II

Dark Myles Scott

Help. I’ve gone too far that I can’t find the shore. I’m not even sure if I’m going left or right. I’ve never been a strong swimmer, but this is like an Olympic Race. These emotions are too overwhelming, my energy is waning. This sea of love is as thick as honey and as murky as mud. It’s too dark to see the bottom. I’m starting to drown in this multicolored ocean. The pain hurts too much that I just want to let go. One...Two... Dark.

50 Poetry II

Gaspard Vadot Organized Illumination

Intel Chen Tide

Cold days on the Creek Graham Rantanen A fish swims in the cold cold rippling blue water, sleek and beautiful.

Cameron Hoorfar Cow Poke

Black or White Tyler Campbell

Momma lied. I am black on both sides. Braggadocios literate bastard boy. Skin the color of mahogany on wood. Thick as the cast that mends broken bones crushed underneath aspirations of disillusioned generations. Skin black as the tar that lingers on her rosy lips. I desire a kiss. Skin black so the bruises blend but still poison, like grey goose bottled like water. Camouflage like soldiers eating lead for a Country that left them out to dry underneath a storm cloud. My love is thunder loud. resembling raucous arenas and testimonial subpoenas. To be authentically black you must have ideas, only to lose your soul never to be seen again. Like George Washingtons in between seat cushions or like the hearts of black men who become fathers. My daddy never lied when he bestowed me the only treasure in his possession, skin black like his.

Poetry II

Fiction Table of Contents

Devin Weikert Montana River

Zombie Dance by Ms. Noel Straight

Portals by Will Russell 58

The Colosseum by Jack Biddle 60

Appreciation by Connor Tracy 62

White Christmas by George Rubin 65 Fiction 55

Zombie Dance

by Ms. Noel Straight

this were written from a zombie’s point of view it wouldn’t be written at all because zombies don’t have language. I know this because at one point in my career I lost my language and became one of them. One of my colleagues, an older anthropologist considered their dance, strange and frightening, “primitive.” He said, “Look! See! This is proof that animals danced before humans.” He described it as repetitious, limited and an unconscious form of self-expression. He watched recordings of the dance on large screens in one of the old lecture halls, as to avoid too much contact. He studied the footage to figure out the unconscious pattern created by the zombies. He speculated, maybe the zombie dance was just a form of play, black magic, or maybe courtship between male and female zombies. It was hard to tell. He finally concluded that the dance, in essence, was a simple act of solidarity between zombies, similar to the spontaneous patterns schools of fish make together in the ocean. I was not as afraid of the zombies, so I followed them around. They had hundreds of dances, not just one like the older anthropologist assumed. Their dances were all unique, belonged to a certain rhythm, and used for different purposes. The dance most ingrained in my memory is the first one I tried. The zombies started this dance by sacrificing a chicken. They cut parts of its skin to bind around each of the new zombies’ wrists and ankles. Then

other zombies began to play long double-sided drums whose tops and bottoms were covered in goat-skins. The dominant zombie was dressed in white and smoked a thick cigar as he bounced his shoulders and shifted his weight from side to side to the rhythm of the drums. The others followed behind him but began to throw their arms, now dripping with chicken blood, above their head, up and down, up and down, letting their neck loose nodding yes and no as they danced. I have to admit when the zombies invited me into what I had come to learn was an initiation dance, I was frightened. I admired the zombies in a way, but was not sure I wanted to become one of them. The zombie dressed in white came closer to me and placed his hand on my head and spun me around. My body just started convulsing. When my body calmed down to steadier movements, following the drum rhythms, the zombies crowded around me and pressed on my shoulders until I was kneeling and then they pressed down on me again until I was face down in the dirt. They danced around me, with shoulders bouncing and their gaze shifting, ever so subtly, from side to side. One of the zombies in the circle had another chicken in his arms. I knew what was next. They slit the chicken’s neck and cut strips of skin and feathers to tie around my wrists and ankles. I continued dancing but more wildly than before, throwing my arms up to the sky like the rest of the zombies. I sensed that I was entering something from which there was no return, that I had done what many anthropologists secretly feared,

Taj Bland Montana 3

gotten so close to my subjects, so engrossed that I had become one of them.

***

When I reappeared on the scene of young anthropologists, I did nothing but try to fight the ignorant claims of the older anthropologist in my department. I told him that his assertions were not only inaccurate but ethnocentric. I said, “Who are we to assume that the zombie dances are any less conscious and skillful than our own? And how dare you use the word primitive?” The older anthropologist was shocked because it seemed that I was betraying him, taking sides with the zombies. I never told him that I had actually been initiated by the zombies years ago, for fear of losing credibility and he still feared me. Once when he and I were walking across the campus lawn together, I heard drumming and an old rhythm that reminded me of the initiation ceremony. I was not able to focus on our conversation; my legs just seemed to be taking me away and toward the music. Without excusing myself I left the older anthropologist’s side. He was in the middle explaining his theory of the evolution of polyrhythms. Almost already out of ear-shot I yelled back at him, “I’ll catch up with you later.” My shoulders bounced, I shifted my weight from side to side and finally arrived in front of the mysterious source of the music, it was a group of hippy undergrads messing around in a drum circle. The students seemed amused by my dance and egged me on. I felt as if I could dance forever, that my body would never tire. After what must have been an hour they stopped playing. When

the music stopped, I also stopped dancing, suddenly. It was as if I had been flying and then all of a sudden landed on a part of earth I was not yet familiar with. I tried to talk to them, as if nothing had happened. But I really felt an intense fear of myself, my loss of control. I looked at them. They stared back, but not at my eyes. They stared at my right wrist. I looked down at it and saw that there was a small band of flesh, opened and oozing. It resembled the chicken flesh from the ceremony but this time was my own flesh, raw and disfigured. Later, I heard through the grapevine that the older anthropologist started speculating that I may have been exposed to zombie blood, that my brain had been altered, damaged slightly and that I had not truly been “one of them” for a long time now. And that he had begun to plan, secretly of course, to burn me alive so that the disease would not spread to other anthropologists.

***

But like I said, if this were written from a zombie’s point of view (and it most certainly was not) it wouldn’t be written at all. My theory, although I am only an amateur anthropologist, still young in my field when it comes to zombies, is that it’s not so much that they do not have things to express, it’s that words aren’t enough when trying to express the magnitude of what it means to be half dead. Wouldn’t you do the same if you knew that your body did not belong to you or the galaxies?

Fiction 57

Portals by Will Russell

Small

, yellow, and plastic. It’s one of those cameras you only see used by the very young or the very old, one of the cameras you can only shoot twenty-four photos and then wind the little wheel zip zip zip until the number changes, leaving a corrugated red line on the pad of your thumb. It’s the camera where you can’t develop the film yourself, you have to go to the local Wallgreens and give it to the tired, balding man with the red vest, and the pictures will be returned in 5-7 business days.

“You have to go to the local Wallgreens and give it to the tired, balding man with the red vest, and the pictures will be returned in 5-7 business days.” If you find the camera lying on the asphalt, pick it up. You’ll see that it has eight exposures remaining, so you take all eight. Maybe you snap a busker and her dog, then just the dog (it is certainly the cutest beagle you’ve ever seen). Click, click. A cherry tree in full bloom, the commuter train passing just as the morning sun breaks the top of the locomotive. Click, click, click. You take the last picture, the train one, and

zip zip zip the little widget with your thumb, the number comes up a big fat zero. You return it to Walgreens on a Wednesday, because Monday and Tuesday you work in a cubicle, and Wednesday is the only day you have any time for errands. So you walk into the pharmacy with the ‘Welcome to Walgreens!’ banner and the buy-oneget-one-free sale on peanut M&M’s and go up to the cash register. This is the first time you’ve been to this store, so you ask the tired, balding man with a red vest where do I return one of these and you pull out the camera and he mumbles something about a counter in the distance and points, so you follow his finger through the feminine products aisle to the small metal desk with another tired, balding man with a red vest standing behind it. You exchange the camera and some cash for a small white receipt imprinted with a pixelated smiley face at the bottom beaming, ‘Have a nice day!’ even though your Wednesdays are usually pretty average. After seven business days you exchange the small white receipt for a fat cardboard envelope, with tiny portraits of happy families and cheery yellow lettering. You open the envelope in the front seat of your rusty Corolla. The train picture faces you, glistening. You recognize the next seven, turning each over slowly and then placing it neatly on the passenger seat. Number eight makes you laugh: you caught the busker and her dog while they were both blinking, their eyes now identical pink blurs. You turn to the ninth picture, waiting to see

Intel Chen Cross

what the camera’s owner wanted to memorialize in glossy four-by-six-inch rectangles. But it isn’t what you expected. It’s a picture of you, selfie-style, holding a grey tabby cat that is nuzzling its unamused face against your chin. The ninth photograph, and the ones that follow, chronicle your selfies with the cat’s perturbed face. You flip through the pictures, the discard pile growing rapidly. You’ve never seen this cat before, you’ve never even liked cats. The twenty-fourth photo is a close-up of the cat on its back, rolling around on the asphalt. The picture clearly outlines the cat’s collar and, staring up at you from the bronze of the tag, the name Schrödinger.

Garret Johnson Starry

“The picture clearly outlines the cat’s collar and, staring up at you from the bronze of the tag, the name Schrödinger.”

Fiction 59

The Colosseum

by Jack Biddle

isn’t long until the siren starts blaring. Lights turn from red to green, locks clink, and three men dressed in white barge through doors one by one. The locks close after they leave. The lights turn red. The siren keeps blaring. Kids are gathered in a circle like a pack of hyenas, snarling and foaming at the mouth. They are as attracted to violence as animals are to food, so it’s unsurprising to find the fight in the middle of the circle, along with splatters of blood on the concrete floor. Both boys dance around each other, one with a cut above the eye, the other with blood running from a broken nose. While Eye-cut is older, he hasn’t been in many fights. His hands are down by his sides, and he hops from leg to leg like he is performing a demented salsa. Despite his inexperience, Eye-cut laughs with every hop, living off the high of one lucky punch. Nosebleed is unmoving and expressionless, arms raised in front of his head. Nothing would make him happier than knocking the laugh out of Eye-cut’s mouth. He starts forward, arms held high, and waits for Eye-cut’s punch that he knows is coming. He ducks, lands a shot to the stomach, and another to the side of the head. Eye-cut falls to the ground. Nosebleed pins a knee of his chest as fists fall like sledgehammers, explode like hand grenades. The crack of knuckles on flesh slowly deadens into a sickening squish. The kids, once roaring like Romans at the Colosseum, now turn silent and pale. And then the men in white arrive. The kids

scatter like leaves as the whites pull Nosebleed away, leaving Eye-cut unconscious on the freshly painted floor.

***

Warden Connors sits in the old leather chair behind his desk, waiting for his head doctor to arrive. He looked like a president after eight years in office: hair moving passed gray and into white, eyes fading as the soul drains out. They had seen too much, yet will see much more.

“Kids are gathered in a circle like a pack of hyenas, snarling and foaming at the mouth.” With a clipped knock on the door, the doctor enters, a file tucked underneath his arm. The black print is too far away to read, but the warden can guess what it says. “He gonna be okay?” The doctor removes his glasses and puts them in his pocket. “It’s not pretty,” he responds, “but yes. I believe William will make a full recovery.” “Thank god,” The warden says as he runs a hand through his hair. “But sir—” “Yes?” “We need to decide what to do with Aaron,”

Gaspard Vadot Le Vol

The doctor slides the file across warden Connors’ desk: Incident Report: 12/17. “and we cannot handle this normally.” Connors opens the file and looks away after seeing the first picture: a child standing over another, clenched fist dripping. “We’ve had fights before,” the warden says as he turns back to face the doctor. “But I’ve never seen anything like this.” “That’s because it never has, sir. I’ve been pouring over the medical reports from every incident since I’ve been working here, and nothing this severe has ever happened in that amount of time. I mean, think about it. In the two minutes it took the guards to arrive, William received a fractured skull, a broken eye socket with the eye nearly damaged permanently, a dislocated jaw, and a bruised liver. That’s the kind of violence expected from a heavyweight prizefighter, not a goddamned sixteen-year-old.” Connors sighs, “So what would you recommend, doc?” “Certainly solitary. Maybe psychiatric help? I’m honestly not sure.” “You’re so helpful,” the warden responds. He thumbs through the pictures one last time. A single shot to the face, followed by absolute destruction. And a final picture of what he could barely recognize as a face. “Keep Aaron in solitary for a month and get him to a psychiatrist. Maybe that’ll do some good.”

spaced eight hours apart, of thoughts and stillness. Silent except for splats of fists on walls—practice. Cellmates are too easy. Anger and cockiness are traits of bad fighters, and punches land unblocked. Wall’s don’t have weak spots. Learn how to punch through broken hands, and they will turn to stone.

“The kids, once roaring like Romans at the Colosseum, now turn silent and pale.”

When the men in white dragged Nosebleed away, they kept repeating “This is for your own good.” It’s not. It’s for the good of the heap he left behind. Maybe he took it too far. He knew Eye-cut was outmatched; kids in juvy always are. He touches his nose. The crooked bridge can’t be fixed, despite his attempts to snap it back into place. Dried blood comes off in flakes like skin off of a sunburned back. They hadn’t sent Nosebleed to the medical wing; they didn’t even clean up his face. “It’s for your own good,” they said. Yeah, right.

*** Nosebleed enjoys solitary. Twelve meals, Fiction 61

Appreciation by Connor Tracy

Every

day I wake up, but I don’t know where I am. It could be a dream, but all my dreams are the same now. I don’t mean that I experience the same dream over and over again, but it’s always similar. I wake up, get dressed, go to work, go home, and eat dinner in my small apartment. At the end of the day everything is a blur. I go though the all the motions and then less. I’ll make some mistakes and watch my boss panic. He won’t be able to tell who it was. It makes me laugh. The only thing I come home to is my dog. But is that my dog? She climbs into bed and falls asleep at the end. Before I go to bed I put in my earbuds. It’s not something I want to do, but a force of habit. I can’t sleep without my music. Then my dream begins. I wake up in a large house next to my wife. I get up and wake up the kids and pack their lunches. I don’t have work because I already made enough money in stocks. I haven’t had very much to do lately, so everyday I go to the country club and play a round of golf with my friends, but they aren’t really my friends. We’re just guys who have nothing better to do with enough money to last us far beyond our deaths. After 18 holes we grab beers. Then I come home and fight with my wife. There’s something new every week. It could be I don’t do enough around the house, or it might be never going to anything my children do. I don’t know what they do. Near the end of the fight she’ll bring up the noise machine. She says it bothers her all night and that she can’t get any sleep. I tell I can’t sleep without. After that we stop talking for the rest of the night. We both know

neither of us will comprise. So we climb into bed, me on the right side, her on the left. Then I fall asleep and dream again.

“We’re just guys who have nothing better to do, with enough money to last us far beyond our deaths.” My name is either Francis Gardner or Sam Brody, and I don’t know who I am. At one point I did remember which was the real me, but I’ve gone through the cycle so often that I can’t remember. Everybody does the same thing. They all want to dream about different lives. A lot of people dream of life as the elite. They want to experience what they could never get in the real world. Some people dream of worse places to make their real lives seem better. That’s all my friends talk about. They like living in a hole, eating garbage, and getting wasted in their dreams. They get a thrill from being chased by the cops and committing heinous crimes. It seems like they’re jealous of people they refer to as scum. It’s also what all of the people I work with talk about. They say the best part of their day is waking up in a mansion and being catered by butlers. They live in a world that they can only dream of, which is exactly that. A world they can only dream about. I don’t live in those extremes, I just live in disappointment.

Troy Gibbs-Brown Lonely Waters

I’ve been living in the cycle for about two and half years without grounding myself in reality. Right now I’m stuck in between. I can’t really remember what I fall asleep as, so I don’t know what I’ll wake up to. Although I don’t really do anything, these are the only moments when I can think clearly. So here I am, waking up. Time to test my motor skills. Testing fingers, I can make obscene gestures towards the world. Testing arms, can still move them frantically in a mostly empty universe. Testing legs, I can kick whatever is sleeping to my left out of bed. Looks like I’m Francis. What’s licking my toes? Did my wife get a dog, or did I bring someone home? Looks like I’ll have to open my eyes, but it’s darkness.

“They get a thrill from being chased by the cops and committing heinous crimes. It seems like they’re jealous of people they refer to as scum.” “Who turned out the lights?” “I’ll turn them back on!!!” said what seemed to be the voice of a little girl. I must be Francis, but my daughter doesn’t sound like that. “Can you see again, Daddy?” “I’ve always been able to see!” “How many fingers am I holding up?” “Can you turn on the lights first so I can see?”

“They are on.” “Then three.” I still couldn’t see, but I just knew instinctively. “How did you know? Can you see again?” “I haven’t been able to see since I was thirty, but you always hold up three!” I say with a little bit of excitement in my voice. I haven’t been excited for while. “Why is mommy on the ground?” “Daddy probably had another nightmare, and was frightened,” said a woman’s voice from the ground. But what nightmare? I can’t remember dreaming at all. “Can you give mommy and daddy a minute?” “Okay.” Then the girl left. “How was the dream? Feel better?” What is she talking about? I didn’t have a nightmare. My dream must have been pretty boring. “Just because your dream seemed boring, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a nightmare.” “Can you read my mind?” “No, but you told me about this before.” “I’ve never met you before.” “It’ll come back in a few minutes.” “What’s going on?” “Was it the dream where you’re in between different lives, but neither was good?” “Yeah, I think so, but what the hell is happening?” “It won’t take long. You’ll remember.” Everything came back. I’m Harris Miller. I did have that dream she was talking about. I’m blind. “Alright, honey, I’m going to work now.” I was just having one of those longer dreams Fiction 63

Parker Henderer Ranch House

again. I’m not or Francis or Sam. “Love you,” is what I say to my wife as I’m leaving for work. I’m carpooling with Steven. It gives me a little bit of a rush trying to get ready before he comes to pick me up. When I get to work, I greet the members of the club that say hello. Francis is one of the members. It’s funny to think that his friends pay to live the lives of others. It feels real though, the experience. I believed that I was Sam and Francis, and I’m sure they would believe they were me too if they dreamed my life. I don’t know how to bring it, if I should.

“It feels real though, the experience. I believed that I was Sam and Francis, and I’m sure they would believe they were me too, if they dreamed my life.” So after that I begin managing all the inner workings of the Wilson’s North Western Arizona Country Club. My day can range from dealing with renovation and expansion of the club to the theme of next year’s Christmas party. I have almost absolute power over the club, and the respect of everyone that works here. I began working at Wilson’s when I was fifteen. I caddied for Gardner’s father who was good friends with the owner. After about a year and a half,

he pulled some strings and got me a job working inside, then after that I kept climbing the ladder. It’s not often that caddies make it this far, so you could say I’m satisfied with how my life is turning out. I’m much better off than the members. I don’t have to pay for the best part of my life. The people that pay to become different people aren’t as connected. They force themselves to dream about becoming certain people. I don’t need to dream about becoming other people because I’m happy. I, Harris James Miller, am happy with my life — this life.

White Christmas

by George Rubin

The

fluorescent lights flicker artificial white between speckled drop-ceiling tiles. The walls are whitewashed, the floor tiles fabricated from grossly brown shades of linoleum. A sterile smell like a gauze bandage penetrates the walls of the building and hits me right as I walk through the automatic lobby doors. Old people in wheelchairs float slowly through the halls like ghosts. Members of the family sit around two folding tables draped with a cheesy, red and green table cloth from Giant. The pierogis lay like corpses in shiny foil trays. This is Christmas. The carolers enter the lobby of the nursing home, singing Christmas carols with enough power to wake the dead. They sing with energetic faith, and with respect for a family tradition long dead. I see one of the carolers has his little girl with him. She sings in flawless Ukrainian; I cannot understand a word. I imagine the carolers piling into my aunt’s old house twenty years ago, my great uncle and grandfather singing along in their deep, Ukrainian voices — warm voices that have suffered, but now celebrate happy times. They sing loudly and deeply from stomachs warmed by good vodka and hot pierogies. As the carolers finish their final notes, everyone moves back into the whitewashed room. Shallow conversations resume and I ask my aunt how my cousin, a heroin addict, is faring in rehab. She says he’s doing fine but that it’s a shame he has to spend Christmas Eve alone. I feel like I’m spending Christmas eve alone this year too, despite the family surrounding me. The dinner begins, and I fill my cheap paper plate with warm, homemade pierogis. I remember

the previous morning, rolling out the dough and molding it around the cold potato mixture. We make them the same way we used to, but somehow they just don’t taste the same. Biting a piece off my plastic fork, I realize that there’s something missing, something special. I want them to taste like home the way they used to. Now they just taste like boiled dough and potato. I think to years back. The basement of my great aunt’s house offers a warm retreat from the bitter cold outside. The scent of fresh Christmas tree and borscht fills my nose with warm memories. Joyous laughter permeates the air, coming from one side of the room where family members exchange gifts. Everyone has their fill of perogies and borscht — peasant food, but it reminds the first generation Americans of their childhoods. They enjoy spending Christmas Eve the same way they did in the homeland before the war. I see my grandfather’s face, smiling, totally at home. I see the corners of his mouth raised slightly at this warm memory as he is lowered into the ground. My grandfather died before I was born. My uncle died ten years ago. And this tradition, this famed Christmas celebration, the most sacred family holiday, dies today. I hear the cold wind whip against the window panes. Inside the room, it is warm, heated to 72 degrees all seasons of the year. But I still feel cold inside. My heart feels cold.

Fiction 65

COLOPHON All poetry body text is Garamond Premier Pro (Regular) of various font sizes; all prose text is Minion Pro (Regular) 12 pt; all photo credit lines are Minion Pro (Regular) 10 pt; all poetry I title text is Superclarendon (Regular) of various font sizes; all personal narrative title text is Minion Pro (Regular) 32 pt; all poetry II title text is Capitals (Regular) of various font sizes; all fiction titles is Capitals (Regular) 78 pt; the software used is Adobe InDesign CS6.

Awards: Columbia Scholastic Press Association Silver Medalist 2013 Silver Medalist 2014 Gold Crown Winner 2014 Gold Medalist with 2 All-Columbian Honors 2015 Gold Medalist with 2 All-Columbian Honors 2016

Editors-in-Chief Jack Biddle Robb Soslow

Art Editors Satch Baker Gee Smith

Advisors Mr. Dan Keefe Ms. Taylor Smith-Kan

Staff Jack Molitor Chris Williams Jonathan Hanson Miska Abrahams Mike Schlarbaum Alec Manko Intel Chen

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Pegasus editorial board thanks the following: Dr. Nagl and Mr. Green for their support; The Haverford School English and Art Department faculty members for their encouragement; Dr. Ehrhart and the Poetry Club for their frequent contributions; The Haverford School Custodial Team for accommodating our late hours; Lulu Publishing for its press resources; Mr. Keefe and Ms. Smith-Kan for their extended patience while advising the meetings and all of our contributors for their hard work and limitless talent. Cover photo by Intel Chen

In an anonymous screening process, the Pegasus staff considers submissions and selects works for publication based on creativity, quality, maturity of style, and variety. Editors reserve the right to make technical corrections, although authors and artists reserve all rights to their individual works. The views expressed in this magazineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s published works are those of individual contributors.

Cameron Hoorfar | Tyler Campbell | Will Merhige Robb Soslow | Troy Gibbs-Brown | John Nelligan

PEGASUS

Pegasus | Issue 32 | The Haverford School

Myles Scott | Joe O’Brien | Will Towle | Michael Schlarbaum

The Haverford School Issue No. 32