“Beethoven Quartet Op. 95 No. 11” by Anna Cummings, Alice Burke, Zoe Galgoczy, Claire Russell

Prose 11.9.2021

By Anonymous

The bell sounds in the middle of the period. I hear the principal stutter over the loudspeaker that students must move into classrooms and lock the doors immediately. Panic sets in because I’m in the bathroom and what happens if I can’t get back to my class before it’s too late? My rubber soles squeak on linoleum as I run down the hallway and around the corner. There are windows everywhere. Should I crouch?

I make it back to my English class and frantically rap on the door, hoping school protocols allow my teacher to let me in (school protocols can be quirky). Today, logic prevails at IHS, at least on this front. The handle clicks and I scramble inside.

My teacher is shepherding everyone into the corner around and behind her desk, out of view of the narrow glass window in the door. But we’re right in front of a bay of much larger windows, which seems to kind of defeat the purpose. At least we’re not visible from the hallway, but what good is that going to do if the shooter’s a student and knows the geography of the school? I push the thought aside for now and crawl under an adjacent table, settling next to a friend with our backs to the wall.

“I wish I was shorter,” he groans as his head scrapes the bottom of the table. Light teasing about my height (or lack thereof) is a daily occurrence in my life, so I make some kind of dumb joke about it. But once my nervous giggles subside, anxious thoughts swarm inside my head.

Are these my last moments on Earth? Will I die in this room, in these clothes, with these people beside me? I try to drink in every detail—the slight itch of the alpaca wool sweater that my great-grandpa brought back from Peru before he died, the normal force of the cold, hard floor against my lower spine (I just had Physics). But something inside me refuses to fully focus, to accept my mortality here and now.

Worrying about myself becomes unbearable for a moment, so my racing mind turns to other people. My little sister goes here too; oh god I hope she’s safe. My friend’s texting someone—his parents? Girlfriend? I wonder if he’s as worried as I am. Oh god, what about my parents? I reach for my phone to tell them where I am and that I’m safe, but my teacher’s already telling my friend to put his away. Am I going to die without saying goodbye to my parents? My sister? Was every interaction with everyone outside this room my last? Does that even matter if my life’s going to end anyway? I don’t want to spend what could be my last moments of consciousness tortured by anxiety, but I can’t dispel the profoundly uncomfortable thoughts crowding my brain.

A light touch on my arm brings me back to reality. “Are you okay?” It’s my friend, who feels others’ emotions as his own, who’s always cared about me even when I didn’t care about myself. As I vaguely nod in response to his query, I feel a twinge of guilt for being so locked in my own mind that I’ve barely stopped to consider how the people around me must feel. My friend has a little brother who goes here too. We all have friends and girlfriends and boyfriends in this building, and families outside it who we might never get to say goodbye to. I wonder what people around me are thinking, if they’re praying. And I find myself wishing for a moment that I was religious, because I have no one to pray to and nothing to comfort me but the cold, prickly, inexorable fact that once you die, that’s it.

My thoughts drift back to my parents. I barely saw my mom this morning; we were both in a rush, ships in the night. My dad was already at the office. Was that it? Hot tears start to crowd my eyes, and my breathing gets shallower and faster. But then I feel a touch on my arm again, this time a bit more insistent, laden with a bit more concern. I’m clearly not okay. I clearly lied the first time. I usually lie the first time. I don’t need to explain all that out loud, because my friend already knows. His hand slips into mine and our fingers interlace. It’s going to be okay, he tells me without saying a word.

And it is.

Music Performance Beethoven Quartet Op. 95 No. 11

By Anna Cummings, Alice Burke, Zoe Galgoczy, Claire Russell

Poetry alone

By Alice Burke

there used to be stars in the sky countless jewels suspended in a dark pool of nothing loving me unconditionally forever unchanging

but me— i was always going to change maybe maybe i changed too fast for the stars so they let me go

and now i look up where i once saw constellations i see only black expanse pale beacons fading away losing to the growing darkness of the night

or maybe the stars are winning because i know they never fought for me not really they were glad to see me go

soon there will be no stars in the sky gaping holes in place of light is all i will know nothing left for me during the darkest nights the moments when all seems lost because now it will be

and i will be completely utterly wholly forever

alone.

Skating in Central Park

By Loke Zhang-Fiskesjö

Sunset

By Joyce Spears

The sun is falling down The sky is blazing pink The trees are shifting in the breeze And the birds are screaming Despite all of this chaos There is still serenity Because the sun will fly back up The sky will turn back blue The trees will shift back in the breeze And the birds will sing anew After nightfall comes The sun will see it’s day And the moon will patiently wait So through the night it can light our way But for now I watch the sun descend Into the night it goes And I lay here in the grass Waiting for the moon to show

The Houses on Rosebud Street

By Sophia Elliott

1

There was a house on Rosebud Street that we passed on the bus to and from school each day. The paint was a faded memory of blue, and it had started to peel off in places. The windows all looked cloudy and warped, and the curtains were always shut. The grass in the front yard was always overgrown with weeds, and there was a single dead-looking shrub at the corner.

One day in January, as we passed the house, there was an ambulance in the driveway.

The next week, we saw a moving truck. The house was completely empty for a bit, and then in February there was another moving truck. With it came a family with two little kids and a fluffy dog.

In early March, the windows were all replaced and we could see a “Happy Birthday!” banner hanging inside. Four birdhouses, held together with hot glue and luck and painted in rainbow stripes, were tied to the shrub’s branches with yarn.

In late April, the snow melted, and one of the parents cut the grass. Dandelions took the place of the tall thistles that had been there before.

In May, as it was getting warmer outside, a swingset went up. The whole family always left for a walk with the dog as we passed, always laughing about some unknown joke.

In June, there were people outside on ladders, scraping off the greyish paint and replacing it with a bright red. There was a baby pool by the swingset and there were flowers by the front door. The little family in the house seemed happy. The house itself seemed happy. School ended for the summer.

In September, as the bus passed by, we saw that all that was left of the house was its charred foundations and overgrown grass. The birdhouses, as broken as the house itself, were scattered in pieces around the shrub.

We heard that there’d been a fire in the middle of the night in August; that none of the little family had survived.

Everything about the plot of land where the house had been looked sad and dead all through the winter.

In the spring, the remnants of the house were gone. The hole in the ground where the basement had been was covered up.

Our bus route changed. We never drove down Rosebud street again.

It’s been almost five years, and a few weeks ago on the way to a dentist appointment, we drove through that neighborhood. There’s a new house that’s taken the place of the one that burnt down.

It’s painted green, and the dead shrub in the yard is gone, replaced by little bushes along the edge of the road. They’ve planted some saplings.

There are flowers by the front door, and a swingset in the yard, and at least three kids with an almost-unreasonable number of cats.

They hung seven colorful birdhouses on wooden posts.

Perfect Year

3

By Lorelli Cervantes She stands there, unbeknownst of what’s to come to her that year She stands against a tree holding up nine of her fingers Her first day of high school You can see the excitement in her eyes The sun highlights her hair and projects her shadow onto the tree behind her She wears the perfect white dress Perfect white jewelry and sandals to match Perfect smile She has a perfect year waiting for her

A perfect year she tries to have The perfect smile fades away She cared less and less about her jewelry and her shoes to match

The sun quickly disappeared behind the clouds like a bird when something gets too close.

The excitement in her eyes dimmed as she got further into the

“perfect” school year

Her first year of high school was not like the movies

She didn’t get a perfect boyfriend and make friends with everyone

She did get a girlfriend who made her smile

But that smile only lasted for a week

She didn’t ace all of her classes like the years before

She was failing more than half of them

Halfway through the year school shut down 48

And she could no longer see her friends She had to teach the subjects she already didn’t understand To herself She had to teach herself because her mother worked And nobody else could help her She could have asked but her anxiety held her back Just ask for help, her mother told her If she doesn’t then she’ll never get her perfect first year

Oh how I wish you could have had the perfect year I wish you could have not lost so much of yourself I wish your confidence was increased with your girlfriend I wish it wasn’t the opposite I wish she didn’t drag you down Tear you apart I wish you could have had the perfect smile lasting you till the end I wish you could have enjoyed every minute of it I wish you could have just reached out to someone Instead of isolating yourself

If you had just told someone how you were, maybe you wouldn’t struggle so much later on If you had just reached out and said help Things could have been different They wouldn’t be perfect but maybe it’d be a little easier

When The Stone Falls Still

By Simon Cohen

2

For so long I’ve believed we are only a set of beginnings and endings, endlessly crashing and rising in search of something, a Sisyphean task I was given by a three pronged fury.

But what of the falling, the space between the rising and crashing? Why only birth and death and not life, why only how things begin and conclude when life is what happens in between?

I wonder what Sisyphus felt not when he began pushing his great stone, nor what he felt as the stone rolled back down. I think about the moment between the two, the moment the stone fell still and the man who nearly cheated Hades wondered if he’d ever see life again.

Who heralds those who fall? Who protects those souls from the winds that raze their backs as the earth closes its gates? Who clipped their wings in a fit of rage, happier seeing them fall then fly? Why did Lucifer fall so much further than the Earth?

I stand among barren fields of earth and stone and I feel no field around me. There are no luscious crops, nor blazing heat turning them black. I feel the field’s absence. Everywhere I go, I am absence.

If life is our descent from heaven, then is the clipping of our wings not a beginning but an end? A death written in the stones that cradle us as we begin again?

The fall isn’t where you land. It’s the wind in your hair.

Everywhere I go I am falling. An end is not relief, a beginning is not opportunity. Life is not important because your bones form then one day begin to decay.

Life is precious because while we float downwards, we are beautiful. We are ourselves.

Life is what propels the bones forward without direction.

Life is the moment when the stone falls still.

She Burns So Brightly

By Caroline Sine “We’ll be adventurers,” She says. “Sailing uncharted seas

Together,” She says. “Explore the colors Of the sunset.”

And while she dares the Orange from the sun Or strikes the vivid blue From the sky, I Compromise with The green between.

Then the sun sets Along the caverns Of her mind, yet I Am barely allowed The light to touch The moss in mine.

So she stretches Her hands over All she can see, Ignoring the Flickering me Who may just want to sit, see The daring orange Attack The vivid blue And appreciate The green Controlling The between.

By Sammy Deol

Closing the Door

By Raia Gutman

the calm after the storm

By Lilli Rotondi

Muninn floats along the earth grazing up against trees and brushing against the ocean, touching the tips of mountains and caressing the low hanging valleys and ravines. The whole world is at the wind’s fingertips and yet it wants nothing to do with it. The wind yearns for another time. One could say it has all. It is an uncaged bird, a falcon soaring high above with not a care in the world. It is after all the wind, unbound from earthly desires as they say. Free to whisk around the world. But what would Muninn say to these assumptions? Sure, they may be the wind, but they are confined, not by any physical limitations but the pain of remembrance. The wind remembers all. Muninn has been around since the beginning and unfortunately has continued to be here after the end, for the wind is constant, ever moving, ever the same. By now you may have guessed that Muninn is the wind and the wind is Muninn. But there is another side of the story, another half. Muninn isn’t alone in the world. The other is the rain, or Huginn. However Huginn does not share these same feelings that Muninn has. Each day Huginn falls from the heavens to the ever awaiting earth. The ground soaks up the water, giving it life again. Every day Huginn rises back up towards Muninn with its own new life. The rain is refreshed as the world blossoms into new seasons. The rain beholds anew the world each and every day. Every small detail, every crevice and wrinkle in the ground. Each vein on a leaf and every gurgle of the rivers. All of these are perceived for the first time by Huginn, and as they marvel about the beauty of the world Muninn wistfully glides on by.

Muninn has been around since the beginning and fortunately will continue to be here for their own beginning, for the wind is constant, ever moving, ever changing.

3

Music Composition

Bumper2Bumper P2

By John Clarke Jr.

By Sammy Deol By Sammy Deol