“Welcome to New Orleans (Valentin Hude)” by Xuyan Dong, Noa Yamaguchi, Zoe James, Taein Eom

Shorts An Ant-astrophe

By Sammy Deol

The early morning sunshine beamed through the tall grass blades surrounding my colony, creating beautiful shadows below. Everything was peaceful until the violent trembling started. I knew instantly: a human was on the loose, running through our lawn.

In shock, I tried using my six legs to crawl away, but within seconds, the human caught up. Piercing screams rained down around me as the human began stomping on my friends and family. I witnessed their mangled, crushed corpses limply flying through the air between each step. But suddenly, everything went dark. Looking up, I saw its massive foot above me.

Prose The Slow Descent

By Cecilia Grace-Martin

The air smelled of stale rain and sickly sweet flowers. It was the smell that came after a torrential storm when the air was wet but no longer fresh, the stirred up dirt leading to the prevalent scent that brings to mind an untended basement. The rain had torn the flower petals from the newly blossoming trees and battered them relentlessly, spreading a smell that was almost pleasant but left a bad taste in your mouth, like that of fruit on the cusp of rotting.

The damp air clung to her skin, pressing in on her and making her feel like the air was hugging her just a little too tightly. The air seemed too thick to flow in and out of her lungs, and she felt like she was slowly suffocating. Her bare toes curled into the wet earth beneath her feet, trying to ground herself, but she barely felt the cool mud as it squelched between her toes. All she could focus on was the stickiness of her hands and the slight tickling feeling as thick liquid dripped down to her fingertips and then fell to the saturated ground.

She might have been imagining it, but she could see a deep red stain slowly spreading out from her and the form lying at her feet. As she watched, it spread out over the hills and up into the gray sky, consuming the entire world. Dazed, she looked back down at the ground, at the body lying there. All she could see was too pale, clammy, sickly skin and lifeless, soulless eyes staring up at her, locking her in place, immobilizing her.

There was a metallic taste on her tongue mixing with the acrid sweetness of the flowers. As she stood there, frozen, a strong wash of salt overtook her taste buds, nearly overpowering the tang of blood. She brought her hand up to her face, inadvertently smearing her cheek red, and realized she was crying.

She was finally able to tear her eyes away from the sight on the ground, and she stared with unfocused eyes as her tears drew tracks through the deep red liquid on her fingertips. She tried futilely to come back to herself, but she just floated further away, all of her other senses fading as the sounds of screams filled her ears and her mind, calling, begging for her to stop, for her to put the knife down. She smelled the fear in the air, thick and choking. She felt the flesh resisting, for just a moment, before her hands plunged the knife in, over and over and over and over and over. She tasted blood as it flew up into the air. She saw the life drain from once vibrant eyes.

And she smiled.

Music Performance “Welcome to New Orleans” (Valentin Hude)

By Xuyan Dong, Noa Yamaguchi, Zoe James, Taein Eom

The Capybara’s Lake

By Rowan Catterall

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Prose From “As Autumn Dies”

By Adowyn Ernste

The first snowflakes fall like daisy petals caught in a breeze. From the first accidental flakes, the world becomes gradually illuminated in a silver haze. The garden, ratty leaves dried brown and brittle from the cold, seems to wither slowly within the breath of winter. I watch as autumn dies, staring out at the desolate world through the haze of my breath. Dry air catches in my throat, and I hold the instinctual cough deep within my chest until it dies away.

I would hate to be the one to disturb the stillness that seems to freeze the world into itself. In the silent wood, all the little creatures are huddled away in their dens. There is not a single wind to disturb the silence. Not a single birdcall to filter through the trees. All that is left is this barren landscape of the trees and the sky and the snow.

As the flakes descend slowly all around me, kept aloft by their thin, crystalline frames, time slows to a standstill. And maybe I too will stand here for eons, moss growing along the skin of my arms and legs. Maybe this body I wear will turn to stone and I will become a statue for the birds and squirrels to rest upon. Maybe small, red berries will sprout alongside the feet that will be obscured by snow. Maybe snow and ice will bury me beneath the naked limbs of this lonely forest and I will be forgotten.

The world is painted the muggy brown of late autumn, all the color and life leached from its veins by the changing of the seasons. Only the faint glitter of frost on leaf tips hints that winter has come. Like the softest whisper, its first, gentle flakes fall upon the world. Who could imagine, gazing out upon the new, silver sheen of a dying world, that winter brings with it a new form of despair? Burying old sorrows and regrets within its pristine facade, it becomes a constant discomfort that gnaws away at the insides. Until you forget that you ever knew the meaning of joy or warmth.

A kind voice draws me from my thoughts. I turn my head and see the woman approaching me. The sound of her bare feet crunches against leaves and twigs as she draws near. With a woven shawl slung around her bony frame, she hunches inward, away from the cold. She offers me a warm smile, but says nothing else besides the initial greeting. She simply stands beside me in silence, staring out at the wood with the air of someone regaining contact with a long-lost friend. Close up, I notice the stark creases beneath her quiet eyes as she smiles, and I wonder if she has grown old here in this little patch of forest. I wonder how many years she has lived alone with the man called Smith and the many cork-topped bottles of vines and powders.

Now she is an old woman, and yet not even she is old enough to remember a time before the War. Those memories have been buried away beneath the snow, lost.

We stand there together, this strange, forest woman and I, as the snow falls endlessly from a rolling, grey sky. We watch as the golden browns and auburns are glazed with a silver dust as subtle as dew. A quiet wind sweeps through the treetops and sends the last of the leaves into a downward spiral towards the forest floor: autumn’s last, resigned sigh.

By Anneke Ryan

1 Music Composition

Who’s got time to name their pieces smh

By Elliot Salpekar

Curvature

By Loke Zhang-Fiskesjö

By Anneke Ryan

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Poetry anniversary By Clara Weber

it’s been ten years ten years since reality shattered ten years of puzzle pieces that fit, but show a different, clashing picture

it’s been ten years ten years of new contexts ten years of new people that i have no choice but to tolerate if not like

it’s been ten years ten years since the world split in half ten years of tug of war neither side willing to admit they’re pulling aiming to win

it’s been ten years ten years of “the new normal” ten years of “for nows” that last years or forevers that last only months after ten years ten years of give and take ten years of this or that where do i, the broken piece, fit back in?

after ten years ten years of “you choose” ten years of “it’s up to you” how much choice do i really even have?

after ten years ten years of here and there ten years of now and then when was i, with two lives, supposed to live?

after ten years ten years of surviving ten years of learning and relearning will i ever learn how to be one again?

Poetry How to Steam Asparagus in the Microwave By Sam Sachs

Again will spring come

tree

Drawn and quartered Cut and bartered Rationed, wasted, quickly slain

Only touch to cleanse Only touch to undress

Upon long-hardened floorboard Green, wet, fresh

Clothed pieces, wrapped like snake’s warm scaled embrace

Oil, power, sense of dangerous newfound place Arise, sing!

Unclothed for all And taken in like strangers from a storm

Repeated sickly Repeated loudly Repeated, repeated

And winter, finally gone to bed

Rerouted dish Rerooted wistful

Tree

come spring will again