Wingspan
2017
Volume 17 Fall 2017 Jefferson State Community College Editor: Katie Boyer
Cover image: “Ragina” by Julia Kafeena, Chalk pastel
Special thanks to Greg McCallister for photographing visual artwork.
Editorial Policy Wingspan is an annual literary and visual arts publication of Jefferson State Community College in Birmingham, Alabama. Its purpose is to act as a creative outlet for students, faculty, alumni, and residents of the surrounding areas, thus encouraging and fostering an appreciation for the creative process. The works included in this journal are reviewed and selected by a faculty advisor with student input on the basis of originality, graceful use of language, clarity of thought, and the presence of an individual style. The nature of literature is not to advance a religious or political agenda, but to raise universal questions about human nature and to engage reaction. Therefore, the experience of literature is bound to involve controversial subject matter at times. The college supports the students’ right to a free search for truth and its exposition. In pursuit of that goal, however, advisors reserve the right to edit submissions as is necessary for suitable print. Appropriateness of material is defined in part as that which will “promote community and civic well-being, provide insight into different cultural perspectives, and expand the intellectual development of students. The opinions expressed are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of the college administration, faculty, or staff. Letters to the editor or information on submission guidelines can by obtained by email at kboyer@jeffersonstate.edu. All rights revert to the author or artist upon publication.
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Sigma Kappa Delta is the national English honor society for two-year colleges. The purpose of the society is to reward and encourage outstanding student achievement in English language and literature. Sigma Kappa Delta provides opportunities for advancing the study of language and literature, developing writing skills, meeting scholars and writers, attending conferences, submitting work for publication, and winning scholarships and awards. Students also receive recognition of their membership in Sigma Kappa Delta on their transcripts and at graduation by wearing honor cords. Each year, SKD members assist in the production of Wingspan by soliciting, reviewing, and selecting submissions for publication. Contributors with the ivy image beside their name are also members of SKD.
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Table of Contents
Literary Art Poetry Bryan Marbuary
“Red Light”
16
Chelsea Hollis
“Angels Fall from Blinding Heights”
17
“Battlefield Born”
15
“There is a Universe in You”
18
Connor Strickland
“Just before Mo(u)rning”
11
DeMarcus Nobles
“We Are Assassins”
16
Diego Garcia Hernandez
“Organ of Words”
9
“The Coming Hour”
10
“Another Chance”
13
“Carnival Controversy”
14
“Journal Entry—April 3rd, 1968 | Memphis, TN”
8
A. A. Malone
“Lucia’s Journey”
35-40
Alexis Nelson
“Six Days of Rain”
20-22
Dianna Hyde
“What I Saw in Food Barrel”
34
Holli Holcomb
“Reincarnate”
23-32
Katie Boyer
“Good Neighbors”
33
Burt Veal
“Burt Veal Witnesses German Unification”
44-46
Ty Barham
“Packing Away Forgotten Memories”
42-43
Jasmine Goodman
M. D. Thompson
Fiction
Personal Essay
Somewhere in between Anna Farley
“Breathless”
11
Chelsea Hollis
“Letters to a Daughter I Don’t Have, 3”
12
4
Visual Art Photography Anna Farley
“Gray Skies and Bright Beginnings, London”
65
Greg McCallister
“Pepsi Can One,” “Pepsi Can Two”
49
Untitled
62
Kim Rigg
“Castle Donegal, Ireland”
67
Kyle Sullivan
“Approaching the Ice Monster”
58
“Late Summer Penguins on Ice”
59
Mark Partain
“Paris Bridge”
69
Nadezda Krumina
“Old Fortress off the Baltic Sea, Latvia”
64
Nic Kin
“Goat Tower, Paarl, South Africa”
68
Olivia Brockman
“Aerial Photography”
26
“Character Study”
50
“Dragonfly”
41
“Footprints in the Sand”
38
“Lonely Train”
52
“Turners Falls, MA”
19
“Cave Tree”
70
“Eagles”
60
“Garden Reflection”
7
Untitled
35
Samuel Nganga
“Almost There, Nairobi, Kenya”
66
Sarah Lowe
“Rose”
12
William Dunning
“Blue Heron”
63
Untitled photographs
53, 61
Pam West
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Table of Contents
Visual Art Painting / Sketch / Mixed Media DeMarcus Nobles
“The Scream”
22
Elizabeth Clark
“Engineering Tree”
48
Julia Kafeena
“Mixed Emotions”
51
“Ragina”
Cover
Untitled
10, 57
Karjiana Cadet
“Batman Logo”
32
Kaylea Roberts
Untitled
55, 56
Natasha Bates
“Face”
20
Nathan Messersmith
“Lantern”
47
Patrick Canevaro
“Pathway”
54
William R. Priola
“House”
9
6
Poetry
Pam West | Garden
7
Reflection | Photograph
Poetry M. D. Thompson
Journal Entry – April 3rd, 1968 | Memphis, TN Lord, I am afraid. Please, forgive me for my fear. I know fear does not come from you, but it still eats at my soul. There are so many people, Lord, who now look up to me, And many people, just the same, who now just want me dead. The whites tell me I need to be quiet, And that blacks need to know their place. The blacks say I’m making life worse for them, And that I need to know my place. I don’t know what I’m doing Lord. I don’t know why you chose me. I’m just a Negro from Atlanta. I’m not an important man. Why would you choose me for this task? … Maybe I just chose myself. I have a passion for my people, and I’m sure you do as well, But I can’t help but fear for what might happen if I fail. What if this chaos is for nothing? What if I make things worse? I doubt myself when people supporting the cause Leave in a hearse. Your people are dying, Lord! What if it’s all my fault? I’ve come too far to end it now, but how will I know when to stop? What if I speak for 80 years and nothing comes to change? What if the way things are right now are how things ought to stay? … I will keep marching on, my Lord. But, God, my knees are weak. I need an answer better than applause after a speech. Please give my brethren strength, dear Lord, And what’s left, please give to me As their loved ones come to me in tears, New victims every week… I’m sorry for complaining, Lord, but I can’t help but weep. Please help me carry on these years, My soul is yours to keep.
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Poetry Diego Garcia Hernandez
Organ of Words Catch the Javelin and hold the ember. Light up the torches to the dungeons Resist its neglect, Sustain the mind And cut the bullets. Succumb to the organ of words. Their syllabus harmonies the air And vibrate the emotions. They Speak in soft tones and hear the gods. For this is poetry. A bible of emotions And the church of thoughts. Father speaks in only passions and ambitions. Red moons become suns, Tides become mountains. Air becomes rock. And emotions become physical. Poetry holds us in its chambers of ideas. Nonexistent presences become us. And we become them. It is finite. For this is poetry.
William R. Priola House Mixed Media Collage
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Poetry Diego Garcia Hernandez
The Coming Hour Over the clouds it is all prepared. The midnight is not darkAnymore The sun is black And the Universe has abandoned us. The words “My God� have perished from meaning The feathers of the Phoenix are burnt away. The Scythe of the Reaper is dull and cracked. Oblivion is now full. Ignorance became intelligence And knowledge is owned by the Devil now. The Fruit of Peace has now been swallowed. And only the seed of War is left. Godspeed.
Julia Kafeena | Untitled Ink and watercolor
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Poetry Connor Strickland
Just before Mo(u)rning Swaddled ‘n cicles ‘neath a piercing sky. Huddled ‘n Hollow, Shiver ‘n Slice. Black, Blue, Lack ‘n Red. If meager were but only more. Ice, Bites, Cleave ‘n Shear. The morphine of the dull creeps cold. A balmy spring, A world? A day? A’way. Calling low, To sleep. To lay. To stay.
Anna Farley
Breathless I remember the good days. That time we ran for hours, arms suspended as the wind filled our lungs with drive. The bamboo brushed against me as I ran fearlessly; free. I was breathless. That time when I was dangling simply by air. The greatest mountains adjacent, we were dancing with them. Only an inch of glass kept us from touching. Its beauty captured me, I forgot to inhale. Breathless. Remember the first time you opened the door for me? We rode down that old road with the jeep’s top down. The warm air flowed through me, its smooth heat glided across me as I caught your glance. That blushed smile of yours, breathless. Desperate for air, grasping for all that was left around me. My lungs felt as if they were full of blood, I was drowning. I counted every breath. Though you stood in front of me, you didn’t know me. The muted noise was a dream, everything had changed. I hate change; breathless. I remember stepping off of that bird’s eye view. I wanted you there, picking me up off my feet. I searched for your smile in a crowd of fond faces, habit. Your absence spoke, and was silently left behind. Breathe
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Poetry Chelsea Hollis
Letters to a Daughter I Don’t Have, 3 Dear One, you will spend your life learning. you will learn to walk and talk; you will learn to share and play nice. you’ll learn letters and numbers, and who did what when. you’ll learn to ride a bike, and to color in the lines, and to brush the teeth that will make your mouth ache.
you will learn that family is what you’re given, but it is also what you make, and that is just as important. you will learn that not everyone can be everything, and you will learn to fail despite giving your best, and you will learn that is okay. you will lean that life is cruel, and abides by no rhyme or reason. you will learn that getting up is even more important than knowing you’ve been knocked down. you will learn to stand your ground and face a world that is not guaranteed to like you. Dear One, you will learn that it does not matter if the world likes you, so long as you like you.
Sarah Lowe | Rose | Photograph
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Poetry Jasmine Goodman
Another Chance You have given me another chance. To desire, acquire, and to achieve. To soar, explore, and to obtain more. I am a college student who must keep a studious stance. I must never misconceive, I have to believe, and have hope that all of the work I do will relieve. You have given me another chance. I still can’t handle the fact that failing my summer semester was my worst circumstance. All I can do now is retrieve and never grieve. To soar, explore, and to obtain more. Hopefully, I’ll pass this fall semester in advance. The devil better not pull anything up his sleeve, for; You have given me another chance. I hope that my family nor my future university of choice will look at my grades with a feeling of askance. We all know that anything below a C is a pet peeve. To soar, explore, and to obtain more. After I graduate, I know that I will have to finance. Let me just have a nice house and some gifts to give to my nieces and nephews for Christmas Eve. You have given me another chance. To soar, explore, and to obtain more.
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Poetry Jasmine Goodman
Carnival Controversy Day by day, I’m only seeing that there are few left. Evil men lurking to shed innocent blood like treats. Are you ever so shocked that it makes you open your cleft? Teenage boy whose mentality is by the gun. His interests are rap music, females, and the streets. Day by day, I’m only seeing that there are few left. Children in Center Point are just having fun. As time elapses, trouble greets. Are you ever so shocked that it makes you open your cleft? The rollercoasters weigh about a ton. Everyone is full of excitement as they sit in their seats. Day by day, I’m only seeing that there are few left. I don’t understand why someone would kill a little girl whose hair is shaped like a bun. The popcorn is popping so loud that you could hear beats. Are you ever so shocked that it makes you open your cleft? You must remember that you are a son. You must not run after people like a football player in cleats. Day by day, I’m only seeing that there are few left. Are you ever so shocked that it makes you open your cleft?
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Poetry Chelsea Hollis
Battlefield Born here you are, he says, always spoiling for a fight here i am, you say, raised in the middle of a battlefield
how do you live, he asks, with this jagged thing you call a heart inside your chest?
where do you go, he asks, in the middle of the night?
with tender care, you say, not to cut myself open and bleed out before i'm done
why, to war, you say, what else is a battlefield good for?
done with what, he asks, what is there to be done with? done waging war, you say, it is, after all, what i was born to this is no life, he says, not for someone like you do not raise me in the midst of war, you say, and expect me to be anything other than a warrior
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Poetry DeMarcus Nobles
We Are Assassins We are assassins - We are few in numbers but we make up for it in strength - At the same time each of our journeys could be as long or as short as our blade length - We stay hidden among the shadows to hunt down templars we must kill - Although the templars don’t take us seriously we have much skill - We fight and die for our cause and our creed - To bring freedom to this world and stop those filled with greed -Assassins must remember nothing is true everything is permitted - We must follow the creed or be forever conflicted - We work in the dark to serve the light - We are assassins and as long as there are templars we will always fight!
Bryan Marbuary
Red Light Alone under the moon light Another shot to get my head right, An empty bottle and floating sorrows Hm but no one knows my problems No one knows my pain I smile and blend in just the same but just not sane im just not Red light Left alone for the night The memories of good night sleep are gone Insomnia takes it place My new best friend My only friend besides the Red light Alone under the moon light The stars they shine so bright
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Left alone again tonight tonight Another shot to get my head right Sleep tight With An empty bottle in hand I might go out tonight With my all my friends Green light Go ahead and live your life Dont stop Living your dreams Don't stop putting up a fight Dont let your troubles put you behind a red light Red light red lights They change oh yes they change
Poetry Chelsea Hollis
Angels Fall from Blinding Heights there are more things in Heaven and Hell, he says, than are dreamt of in your philosophy
do not speak to me, you say, of Heaven and Hell until you have fallen from those blinding heights and clawed your way up from the depths of brimstone do not speak to me, you say, of Heaven until you have rejoiced at the altar of your Father and have been pushed from your place On High for the sin of loving too much, too completely do not speak to me, you say, of Hell until the flesh of the Father has been carved from your bones and you are left to drown in the lake of fire just for the sin of loving too wholly, too Holy
do not speak to me, you say, of family, of seraphim, and brothers, and those who stood idly by as i was cast out for what was meant to be our greatest Gift do not speak to me, you say, of Gardens and Temptations. do not blame me for the shortcomings of the souls molded of dirt and clay do not speak to me, you say, about what you have been told is coming. i am not the one who has set your fate in motion, and i am not the one from whom the Fifth Trumpet will sound do not speak to me, you say, of things you are too young to understand. i have been here since before you were Created, and i will be here long after you have returned to the ash from which you were carved
- angels fall from blinding heights
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Poetry Chelsea Hollis
There is a Universe in You
one day you will wake up and you will wonder, ‘who am i?’
you, darling, are made from the debris of a thousand shattered stars
‘what am i?’
and, darling, i think the cosmos would be proud of what it’s made
you, darling, are stardust your crown is weighted by constellations and your shoulders carry mountains you were only meant to climb
- there is a universe in you
your spine is made of iron, red hot, forged in the fires of a dying star
your hands reach for heights you only knew in a past life, and this pair of feet keeps you planted firmly your ribs are the rings that circle stars, pelted by meteorites, drawn to your gravity without knowing precisely why your heart is the center of a galaxy, a star itself, and made for so much more than the darkness it is surrounded by your lungs breathe life into this place you call home, this place you’ve carved from the universe with your own two hands
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Fiction
Olivia Brockman | Turners
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Falls, MA | Photograph
Fiction Alexis Nelson
Six Days of Rain Monday: Alice rushed down the hall with sweat dripping down her forehead as she thought of excuses to tell her teacher to why she was late. The bell rang and Alice shifted gear into a full on sprint; she made a sharp turn into her class and found her seat in the back. She closed her eyes to slow her heart beat down until it stopped once the teacher called her name. She slowly opened her eyes to meet the faces of her classmates and teacher glaring back at her. “Yes, Ma’am?”, Alice said with a shaking voice. “Go sit in the hall. If you really wanted to come to my class then you would have been here on time. You will miss the test and I will not take any excuse for you to make it up,” the teacher said coldly. Alice picked up her purse and her backpack and made her way down the row of desks, avoiding eyes from her classmates. She walked out into the hall and closed the door. Salty tears ran down her face as she sat on the floor and clutched her knees. She sobbed and listened to the rain outside.
Natasha Bates | Face | Collage
Tuesday: Alice sat next to her window typing the late paper for her English class. She glanced over at the old worn out library book to retrieve a quote. She mumbled to the music playing in the background and tapped her feet to the rhythm. She turned to her bed and grabbed her English binder with her instruction paper in it, when she turned back the sky was grey and cloudy with heavy raindrops falling from the sky. She sighed and sat back down in the chair. Biting her lips she pressed on with the paper. She looked over at the door when she heard it creak open. “Alice, Today is not a good day for ...ya know… so maybe tomorrow,” her dad said. Alice nodded her head and watched her father turn and close the door. She bit her lip even harder and closed her eyes as her mouth became dry and her eyes began to water. She opened them and stared at the rain, then she glanced down at the fresh wounds on her wrists. Wednesday: “ Your Grades are a mess and I am sick of retrieving phone calls from your
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Fiction teachers every single day, Alice!” her dad shouted. “I mean, why can't you get it together?! Don’t give me some sorry excuse or tell me that your teachers are plotting against you,” her dad said as he glared at her. Alice looked down at her feet and shook her head as her response. Her dad mumbled cuss words under his breath and walked away from her. Alice made her way upstairs and walked into the bathroom. She stared at herself in the mirror. She had her father’s freckled face and his dirty blonde hair but her eyes were a crystal blue just like her mother's. She began to cry as the voices in her head told her damaging factors about herself that she had to unwillingly listen to. She wiped her tears and walked to her room, closing the door and locking it behind her. She crawled into her bed and listened to the rain drop upon her roof. She closed her eyes and ignored the growls from her stomach. The voices praised her for this. Thursday: Alice closed her locker and walked down the crowded hallway. She looked down at her feet and listened to the music that was beating in her ears. She glanced up every now and then to make sure she wasn't going to run into anyone. She stopped as she heard a noise that didn't belong in the music. Pulling out one earbud, she tuned into the thunder that roared outside of the school. She rolled her eyes and pressed on. Anger swelled within her. Friday: Alice closed her science book and shoved it into her backpack. She followed the line of students out the door until she noticed her necklace was entwined with the strap of her backpack. She pulled off the heavy backpack which fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Along with it was her necklace that was now snapped in two. Alice held her breath with shock and reached for the broken necklace. The blue diamond was missing out of one of the owls eyes and the rose gold chain was broken at the clasp. She threw the chain to the side and searched for the diamond, but it never showed up. Alice sighed heavily with her losses and walked out of the classroom. Once she walked into the rain her red eyes swelled up and her tears matched the rain droplets down her face. Saturday: Alice stared at her ceiling and sat in silence. All she could hear was the rain. She blinked and her body felt numb. She replayed the week in her mind over and over and over again. The voices did not bother her during this moment because they knew that they had won. Alice walked over to her desk and wrote a note to her father in her notebook. Once she was finished, she planned out her suicide. Sunday: Alice walked with her father down the gravel path and in silence they made their way to her mother's grave. Alice laid the flowers down and her father rested his head on her tombstone. He mumbled some words and sat in silence for a moment. Once he opened his eyes, he kissed her tombstone and raised up from his knees. Alice knelt down and spoke to her mother in a soft whisper. “I'll see you soon, I am sorry.” She whispered with pain in her voice. Alice raised up and her father rested his hand on her shoulder. They stood there in silence
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Fiction Six Days of Rain and stared at the burial site, as if they were expecting, hoping, that she would say something to them. Alice’s father led the way back to the car and Alice went over her plan again in her head. She stared out the window and peered up at the clear blue sky. Once home her father left for work, leaving Alice alone. She went to work. Alice cleaned the house from top to bottom and dressed herself in her black dress, the same one that she wore to her mother's funeral. She placed the note on the island in the kitchen and walked outside to the back yard, where the noose was waiting for her. She stepped up onto the chair and placed the noose around her neck. With a moment of hesitation she kicked the chair and blacked out. Alice woke to see the sunshine between the leaves and feel the warm wind blow against her skin. Feeling weak, she laid there until she had regained her strength. She heard the flapping of wings. Slowly she turned her head and focused on a chestnut colored owl sitting next to her. She stood up, but the owl didn't move. It wasn’t afraid of her. She stared at it as it stared back at her with its light blue eyes. Alice felt at peace. “Alice!” her father shouted. The owl flew away and Alice watched it until it was out of sight. Her father wrapped his arms around her tightly and sobbed into her shirt.
DeMarcus Nobles |The
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Scream |Oil Pastel
Fiction Holli Holcomb
Reincarnate *Editor’s note: This story has been edited for length. The text below represents the first sections of a longer piece.
Hades In ancient times, our abilities set us apart from the others. Once the people knew we had these amazing abilities they treated us like gods and burned sacrifices in our names. We spent years living amongst the Greeks and during those years the sacrifices started to change us. You see we did not start out as immortals, and to this day we are not completely immortal. The years that the mortals spent sacrificing to us we started to become different a little at a time, we started to act like we were better than everyone and everything around us. After a while we felt the change and decided that it was time for us to move on, but the same thing happened with the Romans. We started to wonder if we would ever return to our normal selves, and then the strangest thing happened - we died. After our deaths, we returned in the form of different bodies with the memories of our past selves. We tried to remain in the shadows but every time something always brings us out of the dark and it tends to turn out bad for the mortals around us. We started to realize that each time we were brought back to life that we ended up further away from each other as if something was keeping us from reuniting. Over the years, it became harder for us to find each other until finally we stopped trying altogether. Now I spend my days trying to be as normal as I can and suppress this part of me that is waiting to be set free. So I continue to pretend to be normal, as I sit back to watch and wait for the moment when I can become myself again. I wait for the moment when the Olympians will be together again at last and I can claim my right as Hades, lord of the Underworld. I have always tried to remain as close to who I really am all of my lives. In this life, I am a forensic medical examiner. I know, sounds exciting. This allows me to get away with using my abilities for a little while before people start to notice. You see, my abilities allow me to talk to the dead, so while most medical examiners have to dig through bodies, I simply ask them how they died - it’s much cleaner that way. I spend most of my days around the dead and most of my nights trying to find my family. The Greeks painted my family and I as a dysfunctional family that spent our time fighting each other, but we were always stronger together. We had our abilities while away from each other but our powers seemed to get an extra boost when we were together. I am trying to do everything I can to find any information on the rest of my family. In the past finding my brothers was not very hard, Poseidon could be found near an ocean and anywhere a major storm erupted Zeus probably wasn’t far away. The rest of my family can be a bit tricky; they tend to stick close to their “elements”, but until they turn seventeen they will not understand what is happening to themselves. Every time we are reincarnated we are born with our abilities, and for the first seventeen years of our lives, we learn to live with the powers inside of us. Once we turn seventeen everything
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Fiction Reincarnate changes; we start to have dreams, but these dreams are special. These dreams are the memories that we have made over our many lives. Once the dreams start they stick around, but eventually we catch up with the memories and we have full knowledge of who we are. The tricky part is finding out who has finally reached the right age; we are not always born in the original order as we were in Ancient Greece, in fact most of the time Hestia is one of the youngest even though she is our oldest sibling. Once we reach our seventeenth birthday and the dreams start, our powers start to react with our emotions stronger than they do in our younger years. I have spent the past nineteen years searching for any of my family members, ever since the night of my seventeenth birthday and the night of my first dream. I have finally made a breakthrough; it seems that one of my siblings is living in Florida; if I had to guess I would say it is Poseidon, but I have been mistaken in the past. For now I will have to make preparations for the trip I will be making to Florida; I just hope that I will find at least a clue to the rest of my family there. Artemis I close my eyes and let the cool air surround me like a blanket, protecting me from the outside world. I feel myself coming to the place in my mind where I am at peace, and for the first time in the past year I feel relaxed. I open my eyes and take in the display of nature around me. I see the trees dancing, and I feel the crunch of the leaves under my feet as I stand in the right position. I look off into the distance and see the target leaning up against the tree at least thirty yards away. The bow in my hands feels light as I pull back and listen to the cries of the strings. I steady my hands, take a deep breath, and release. I watch as the arrow flies through the air until it settles right in the middle of the target as if it was meant to be there. “Congrats, you made another shot.” I look around with my eyes wide open. There is no one around, but the voice sounded like it was a person standing right beside me. I look around for a few more minutes before passing as a figment of my imagination. “Really? You still think I’m not real? I think it’s time to accept the possibility that I might actually be real, Artemis. We’ve been talking like this for months.” “My name isn’t Artemis. I don’t know who you are, or where you are, but this isn’t funny. Please just leaving me alone!” I shout out into the empty forest; I look around knowing that there is no one and keep listening, waiting for the annoying voice to return. “Really, Arty. You’re resorting to calling me names now, wow, real mature. And I thought I was the immature one.” This time I could hear the amusement in the voice as it spoke to me and I couldn’t help the feeling of rage that welled up in me. “My name is Thea. I don’t know who you are or why you are doing this, but please just give me a few minutes of PEACE!” I listen, waiting for the voice to return, but the only thing I hear is my own labored breathing. I
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Fiction Reincarnate catch my breath and let out a sigh of relief. This is how my life has been for the past year and a half. When I am not having dreams about some other person, I hear the same voice calling out in my head. I don’t know what I did to make someone think I deserved this, but I wish whoever it was would just take it all away. I didn’t ask for dreams about a random girl from who-knows-what time period and I certainly didn’t ask to have another person talking in my head. “Well, I didn’t ask to have your stubborn voice stuck in my head either, but here we are. Might as well make the best of it.” I groan and start to pick up all of my equipment before heading back to the wildlife center where I work. There are a few spots on the reserve that are not being used for any animals so whenever I get a free minute my boss lets me come out and practice my shots, but it’s not like I need the practice. I don’t mean to sound full of myself, but it’s the truth. Ever since I was a little girl I have always loved archery. I guess it helps that I never missed a shot. “We’ve been over this. The reason you can’t miss is because you are Artemis, the goddess of ARCHERY!” I grab my head and squeeze my eyes shut. I stay still for a couple of seconds trying to get rid of the oncoming headache, curtesy of the never-ending voice in my head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. Sometimes you just frustrate me with how far you go with your stubbornness. I just wish you would accept who you are. It would make things easier for you. I don’t like feeling you hurt and confused, Arty.” This time the voice came to me in a whisper so low I almost didn’t hear it. These are the moments when this voice makes me feel guilty whenever he is trying to be nice, but then the feeling goes away as soon as he calls me that name again. “My name isn’t Arty or Artemis. My name is Thea. If you are going to talk to me, could you at least use my name? I don’t even know your name.” I wait for a few seconds before I start heading back to the center thinking the voice has finally gotten fed up with me and decide to do something else. “It doesn’t work that way. I could do anything and still you are in my head and vice versa. We are stuck with each other. I will try and call you Thea, but it’s hard for me to remember when my instincts are telling me that you are Artemis.” I look around waiting to see if I will hear anything else, but when nothing comes I continue until in finally see the sign hanging in front of the center with big shiny letter, beckoning everyone to enter. “My name is Orion, but my other name is Apollo. I am meant to be your twin brother. Personally now that I understand a little of who I am, I’m a bit offended that my parents named me such a name but I guess it’s meant to be karma or something like that.” After hearing this I stopped walking for a second, trying to take in this new piece of information. I shook my head and entered the center going to the back and getting ready for another day at work. “I never understood your obsession with animals and nature. It always seems a bit overkill to me.” I rolled my eyes and finished putting on my uniform trying to block Apollo out of my head.
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Fiction Reincarnate “Hey! How come you can call me Apollo but I am forbidden from calling you Artemis? That seems a little unfair to me.” I let out a sigh and started heading to the front to start my shift. I got to the front of the center and looked at the list that told who had what job for the day. A rush of excitement went through me when I saw that I would be working with the animals out in the field today. It has always been my favorite part. I headed out of the building and into the fields ready for a long day of work. “You know, I think you like your precious animals more than you like me and I am meant to be your twin, your other half. What’s that about?” I could feel the headache coming on, but I wasn’t going the let Apollo ruin my day with the animals. For now I was going to enjoy life and later tonight when the dreams come to me again, then I will worry about everything else.
Hades The only thing I hate about the Morgue is the fact that everything is white. The dead are put away and the room is absolutely clean; it’s disgusting. I head out into the most exciting place New Orleans has to offer, the French Quarter. I walk for a little while until I come to the front of the apartment building that has been my home in this life. The building looks like the ideal place to host a haunted house party. It’s dark and dreary and absolute perfection. I open the door and announce my return with a long and eerie groan of the door. I make my way up the stairs each protesting with their own wailing creak. As I make my way to my apartment, the door opposite opens with a loud resounding bang. I turn and see three sisters who have become my only friends. “Hello, dear. We didn’t know you would be returning so late. We were starting to worry.” Each of the old ladies looks at me with small beaded eyes, each looking at me as if they knew my identity. One of
Olivia Brockman
Aerial Photography | Photograph
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Fiction Reincarnate them holds out a black scarf with needles still in it. “We are knitting you a scarf. We hope you like it. It’s almost finished!” I look at the scarf and then down at my own clothes. I am wearing my usual outfit, black leather jacket and a gray t-shirt that goes with a pair of black skinny jeans, complete with some combat boots. One thing this time did get right was comfortable clothes. Skinny jeans took a while to get used to, but it’s better than togas. I look back at the ladies and the scarf before inching a little closer to my door. These ladies may be the only friends I have, but while they do seem familiar, something about them sends a chill down my spine. “Oh, you didn’t have to go to all that trouble. Besides, it’s not that cold out. I will be fine.” I take out my keys and unlock my door trying to get inside and away from the conversation. “It’s no problem, dear. You’ll know when it’s done.” With that the three ladies slam the door shut and I am listening the deafening silence all around me. I go into my apartment and look at the sight before me, my three Great Danes each laying in their own selected spot not caring to see who it was that was entering the apartment, each too content to stare at the nothingness in front of them. “Good to see you, too. I had a lovely day. What about you three?” Again, I take in the silence that is my only response, not even a lift of the head at the sound of my voice. Sometimes I wonder why I chose these three. You would think I would find dogs who acted more like Cerberus, but now that I think about it, this is exactly what he was like. I pour food into each of their bowls before setting out to find my own dinner. Once I find something edible, I sit down on the only free spot on the couch and turn on the TV, thinking about my leads on one of my brothers. Both leads look like they could be real, but there is not enough proof to get me to travel that far yet. My leads are also on opposite sides of the country: one in Florida, which could be Poseidon, but California has also had a few storms that could be from Poseidon also. So for now I will stay home and continue to look for clues. “In other news, it seems this young man was saved by waves?” I look up at the TV and see the news lady talking with a picture of a soaking wet teenager standing on a beach. I turn up the volume and try to take in the rest of the segment. “This young man was deep in the waters at Daytona Beach, Florida. After the waves got to be too rough, he was brought under by the waves with no hope of survival. The young man says that the waves were suddenly bringing him closer to the beach until finally he was sitting in the sand and he could make out the shape of a man holding his hand towards the water.” I jumped up and started to grab clothes and stuff them into an overnight bag. This was the sign I was looking for. Most people would put this off as a guy that was looking for attention or just plain crazy, but the chances were too close so I finished getting things before rushing out of the door and banging on the door opposite of me. The door was opened almost immediately. The three ladies were standing there looking at me with bored expressions. “Something we can help you with, dear?” I was out of breath by this point, just trying to hurry and head to Florida. “Could you check in on my dogs for a few days? I have some business I have to handle
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Fiction Reincarnate down in Florida and it’s urgent.” I looked at the three ladies, waiting for anything from any of them. “Of course, my dear, we would love to. Have fun on your trip, we hope you find him.” As soon as they agreed, I made my way down the stairs two at a time rushing to get to my only way of transportation. The black Harley motorcycle was sitting in the same spot it has for the past six months. I strapped my bag on and headed out towards Florida. Riding a motorcycle from New Orleans all the way to Orlando, Florida, probably wasn’t the smartest idea, but it was the only option and it was fast. The second I crossed the city limits into Orlando, I knew I was in the right place. When we get close to one of our family members a strange pull starts to guide us in the direction of each other. So, when I felt the effects of the pull I let my body relax and let the pull take me where I needed to be. “You have got to be kidding me!” I looked at the entrance and immediately knew which one of my siblings I would find today. SeaWorld was not a place I would normally visit for anything, but it seems my brother has decided to stick close to his natural habitat this time around. I made my way through the park trying to keep far away from all the screaming children, all the while reminding myself why I like the dead so much. Finally, the pull became a strong push and I found myself in an arena that was home to a bunch of dolphins. “You’re doing so good. Come on, just a few more bites and we will be done for now. That’s a good girl. See, it’s good, isn’t it?” I look over and see a man feeding a dolphin that looks to be what most people would consider a baby. I know right away who this was. “Really, Little brother. This is what you spend your days doing in this life?” This was something we did every time we found each other, just to be certain we were finding one of our own. Each of us have lived many lives, sometime in different countries learning new languages, but there are two places we were all together. Ancient Greece and Rome. Both had their own languages, and whenever we have our memories restored to us, the languages come with it. We always greet each other in our first language, Ancient Greek, just so we know we are meeting each other. I looked at the man in front of me and noticed the way his back tensed up at the surprise of hearing someone behind him. I stood in the same spot and waited, hoping to get a response out of him proving who he was. “Hello, Hades. It’s been a while, hasn’t it, brother?”
Artemis The trees start to blur as I run. “Faster, don’t let them catch you. Faster!” I hear Apollo’s voice booming throughout my whole body. The adrenaline running through me is telling me to listen to Apollo and keeping going no matter what. I turn my head to try and
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Fiction Reincarnate catch a glimpse of the thing that’s chasing me, but everything I see is a blur. I don’t know how long I have been running. All I know is that I can’t stop or it will tear me apart. I hear a loud, bone-chilling roar somewhere behind me and the hair on my arms and neck stand on end knowing that this thing is calling out for help and any minute I could be its dinner. “Artemis! Stop holding back! Let your instincts out— it’s the only way!” I break through a giant wall of trees and bushes and come to a clearing. It’s completely deserted. From the bottom of the clearing all the way to the top of the trees up into the sky, every part of it is dead. I can hear their cries. “Why did you leave us? What have we done to deserve this treatment, My Lady? Please, save us!” I stop in the middle of the clearing and slam my hands over my ears trying block out all of the noise. “Stop! I need a minute to think, I just need a second, please!” Slowly I drop down to the dried-up forest floor and sit on my knees trying to think of a way out of this mess. Any minute now the things chasing me are going to break through the same barrier I did and then I will be done. “NO! You can’t think like that, Artemis! You will survive this. Just let yourself in!” “What does that even mean? I need to let myself in. How exactly am I supposed to do that, huh?” I can feel my lungs screaming at me telling me to stay where I am and catch my breath while the rest of my body is finally slowing down, as if this dry patch of land should make me feel safe. My brain is telling me to run as far away as possible and I can’t help but feel like I am in my own personal tug-of-war game with myself. “Artemis, you’re in the middle of a clearing, a part of nature, this is your habitat. Let it in, it will help you. Please, you have to at least try.” I look around the clearing. It doesn’t look like much of anything. I look at all of the bushes with dead leaves and the trees with branches that look like they could snap at any second. The grass has turned from a lush green to a sickly yellow. I continue to look around and for a second I see a glimmer of a clearing filled with all kinds of flowers and trees that meet the sky. I blink and open my eyes and the clearing is back to being nothing more than scraps of land. “What happened to this place?” “You left us.” I jumped and turned around to see a lady dressed in a flowing green dress. She had a light green glow around her that almost made her look transparent. She would have been beautiful, except the glow around her seemed to be flickering around her as if her light was about ready to go out. She is dying. “What do you mean I left you? I’ve never seen you before in my life.” “You may not remember yet, but that does not mean I speak falsely. This is our home. Many years ago, we lived in the place and you protected us. Then you left along with the rest of your family.”
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Fiction Reincarnate I looked at the lady and then my eyes traveled around the clearing trying to see if anything looks familiar to me, but nothing came to me. “Look, miss. I don’t know who you think I am but...” “I know you are Artemis, My Lady. You may not know it yourself yet, but with time you shall see.” “I don’t know who you or Apollo want me to be, but I’m not Artemis, okay? I can’t be.” The lady looked at me, and the look in her eyes made shivers run down my spine. She continued to stare at me as if she was looking into the deepest parts of my soul trying to pull something from me. She steps closer to me and I tried to take a step back but I couldn’t move. She put her hand against my chest right over my heart. She stayed like this for a few seconds before I felt something happening. There was this warm feeling traveling into my heart and once it was their traveling through the rest of my body. I closed my eyes and let the feeling take me over. I saw all kinds of things in those few seconds. Flashes of animals running beside me as if we were friends running through the forest. I saw the lady and many other girls fighting along side me and listening as I gave them orders. I saw a boy walking up to me. When I looked in his eyes I knew it was Apollo. My eyes shot open and I gave a startled gasp. I backed away from the woman and put my hand where hers once was. I stood there for a moment trying to catch my breath. “What did you do to me? What was that?” She just looked at me. Finally she moved closer again, but this time I took a step back. I was not ready for another round of soul searching just yet, if that’s what you would even call it. “I have just shown you pieces of the memories that have been coming back to you. The next time we meet you will know all about yourself, My Lady, but for now your presence has done enough for us to sustain ourselves for a short while.” “No! That doesn’t tell me anything. What did I just see? Who were all of those people? Where are they now? Please, I have to know.” I don’t know why I felt this rush of protectiveness come over me, but I needed to know about the girls, if they were okay or not. I needed to see more. “Do not worry My Lady. Once you have reunited with Lord Apollo, your memories should fully awaken in the both of you. Until that time comes, I thank you for what you have done for my home.” I looked around the clearing. It was just like the vision from earlier. The ground was covered in flowers and grass and the trees and bushes looked as healthy as ever. This couldn’t have been the same clearing that we were just standing in. I turned back to the lady. She had a vibrant healthy glow around her and she seemed to be to be floating off the ground by a few inches, but she was walking the other way back into the trees. “Wait, there are monsters out there. They’ll get you. Please don’t go out there.” She just continued walking until she vanished along with the wind in a cloud of leaves. I gasped and looked around. I was back in the forest. I can feel the stomping of the monsters behind me again and just as suddenly as the fear left me it was back again, telling me to run.
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Fiction Reincarnate “Artemis! Artemis hurry! Artemis!” I looked around trying to figure out which way to run but it sound like they were coming from all directions. I looked into the distance and the monsters were starting to get larger as if they were growing with each pounding step they took. The ground under my feet was quivering from the weight of all the monsters coming towards me. Half of the monsters were big and bulky. As they ran through the forest, they were knocking down all the trees in their path. The other half of the monsters were small and slinky, but that didn't stop them from crawling around as silent as the wind and blending in with everything around them. Each of the monsters were heading straight towards me with an incredible amount of speed, so fast I could barely see a blur as they moved. All of these creatures seemed to have one motivation. To kill me. Great, just great. Thud I looked down and laying at my feet was a bow that I’ve never seen before. I felt something wrap around my right shoulder and continue down to my left side. I froze and tried to think of what to do. I looked behind me to see what it was and gave a sigh of relief. Sitting on my shoulder was a quiver full of arrows. I grabbed the bow and notched an arrow, aiming at one of the ugly creatures clamoring towards me. I shot the arrow. At first I thought the creature moved out of the way, but as suddenly as the arrow hit, the monster dissolved into a cloud of smoke. I notched another arrow, aiming for the next monster when all of the sudden the air grew cold and a voice started speaking from everywhere. “Do you honestly think you can kill all of my children, little goddess? Hahaha, I don’t think so. You can try all you want but one way or another, you will be mine.” I felt chills go through me as a presence got closer and closer to me, almost as if it was trying to suffocate me. I looked everywhere trying to find the owner of the voice, but there was no one, only the monster getting closer every second. I tried to control my breathing so the arrows would go in a straight line, but I was terrified and it felt like I was breathless. The bow in my hands started to become heavy as if all it wanted to do was be thrown to the ground. My arms were moving at a slower pace, my eyes started to widen out of fear and I tried to lift the bow and defend myself but I couldn’t do it. “Artemis, come on, concentrate. You can do this.” My body started to feel numb. I tried to pick up my arms but when I looked down they were still at my side. I felt the fear coming from me and the desperation in my head from Apollo. “Artemis come on, don’t give up. Artemis! Artemis!” I closed my eyes and prepared myself for the pain I knew was coming, but nothing happened. I felt my myself getting lighter, my hands moved at lightning fast pace to grab another arrow. My body started to move faster than my head could keep up with. I could still feel myself getting lighter by the second. I gasped as I felt, for a brief second, like I was weightless. In the background I could hear that evil voice coming back screaming for her minions to get me. My stomach started to flip in so many directions I wasn’t sure if I was going to be sick or just pass out.
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Fiction Reincarnate I stopped moving and it seemed like everything else did, too. I listened to the wind or the howling of the creatures barreling towards me, but it seems like everything just stopped. I opened my eyes and gasped at the what I saw. I was standing in the middle of my bedroom, almost as if the whole thing was just one big nightmare, and I would have believed it, too, except I was still holding the bow and the weight of the quiver told me I was still carrying a full set of arrows. I looked around at the blackness in front of me and tried to understand what was happening. Could it have just been a dream?
Karjiana Cadet |Batman
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Logo |Pencil Sketch
Fiction Katie Boyer
Good Neighbors If I’m gonna do it, the timing would have to be just right. John wouldn’t like it none, so I’d have to wait til he was out of the house and none of them Curriers was at home. John’s been under my feet something awful since he retired, but next time when all them Curriers is gone, I can send him down to the Piggly Wiggly with a list of things he won’t find in a hurry. Buy myself half an hour. Got my list wrote out already and stuck in a drawer, just in case. With the Curriers, now, you don’t even got to watch the cars to know when they ain’t home. You can hear it, so help me. That dog of theirs will be out running the fence and yapping his fool head off. He done figured out how to make his bark echo off that shed in back of the house, and he spends bout half his time talking to hisself that way and half yapping straight at my kitchen window. I ain’t trying to be ugly or nothing, but them folks don’t even belong in this neighborhood. We don’t got no rules bout what all you can put in your yard – this ain’t one of them ‘planned developments’ like they got closer to town – but anybody with the sense God gave em knows to cut the grass around a car if you gotta put it up on blocks for a while. Or move it round to the back if you’re too lazy for cutting grass. I done planted some extra hydrangeas round the front walk so our place looks specially different from theirs. Course, the Curriers don’t believe that dog ever bothered nobody. Tub Peters on the other side of us went for a talk with Jack Currier a couple weeks ago. Man plain run him off the property. Such a shame. We’d all be better off if we could get us some better neighbors. If I ever get my chance, I’ll take it. Law help me, I will. Get the rifle out back of John’s closet, open the kitchen window a sliver. John done showed me the scope that thing’s got on it, even if I ain’t never used it myself. I used to handle a gun as a girl, bet I can member how to do it. The arthritis done started up in my hands, but it ain’t so bad yet I can’t squeeze a trigger. All I gotta do is wait for that dog to come in range. Squeeze a shot off. Problem solved. Nobody’d think it was me, even. Alls I ever do is fry chicken for my husband and knit blankies for babies at the church and sit on the porch singing hymns to myself. They’d blame them Morgan kids across the road. Ain’t nobody gonna do fancy TV ballistics on a dog what’s been disturbing the peace for a full square mile.
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Fiction Dianna Hyde
What I Saw in Food Barrel You have to know a little something about Food Barrel before I begin to tell you what I saw there. Food Barrel is an old grocery store chain –not cool old like vintage, or charming old like antique, but built-up wax old, yellowing and peeling old, mothball old, like the “donations” we leave at the dropbox for the local women’s shelter. At Food Barrel, the cashiers don’t stink-eye the check writers who slow the line down; instead, they stoically double coupons, smooth rumbled bills, count mountains of change, and tell you when to swipe your card, be it a food stamp debit card or a doing fine debit card. There’s no soft music playing as you shop, just the whine of buggies with bad wheels and the sound of three-for-a-dollar cans of whatever being chucked into them. The pork section of the meat case is king and plenty-well stocked, with regular, respectable cuts under tightly stretched commercial plastic and sketchier pig parts under thin store-brand plastic from Aisle 3. Chicken makes the next strongest showing, with real space given to inconveniently whole fryers, but beef, especially ground beef, is also piled up, nevermind the fat, cholesterol and spiritual objections of some. Are you looking for an exotic fruit or vegetable you saw on the Cooking Channel? Before you ask to speak to the Food Barrel produce manager, just go somewhere else for your blood oranges, beansprouts and jicama. You can lately get a mango, but only since a recent wave of immigration to the city. Before that, you’d have been embarrassed to ask for anything more unusual than a rutabaga in Food Barrel, and even the foreign sound of that homely vegetable would make you a little uneasy. Anyone working in the store could easily direct you to the fivepound cans of lard, the cane syrup, the oxtails, or the pepper sauce and could further offer an informed opinion about whether the collards looked a little old and would cook up to be tough. In Food Barrel, a woman in a scarf covering push-pin rollers might pass you in the bakery. At lunchtime, men in steel-toed boots wait patiently at the hot food counter to pick up covered plates while stooped little people creep up and down the aisles, wife with husband, magnetically drawn to the familiar. Food Barrel is the poor cousin of an upscale grocery chain in town, the kind of poor cousin we claim as proof that we aren’t snobs, even if we secretly delight in the accusation. Food Barrel is down-home, hoedown, just this side of rundown. Food Barrel is for the salt of the earth. Which makes so unlikely what I witnessed there about two weeks ago. I was in the store to pick up a package of pork chops for dinner that night, trying to remember that pork chops meant I needed paper bags instead of plastic to flour them in. I was tired and ashamed of drive -through food, and I had no leftovers to serve because earlier in the week I had let an old culinary magazine in my dentist’s office make me forget that I live with Philistines who want “plain food, Mom—just plain food.” Consequently, each of the two previous nights, my expensive new saucepan did just as it promised and released its exotic contents straight into the trash with virtually no clean-up required. Thank God, then, for the simple magic of pork chops, which everyone loves.
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Fiction
Pam West |
Untitled | Photograph
A. A. Malone
Lucia’s Journey “How did I get here?” I thought as I look at the dark gray sky. The sun was just starting to rise, as I looked out over Birmingham from the top of Children’s Hospital. “What led me down this path? Why am I here? What’s the point of it all? What happened to God? Where did he go? I needed him and he left me. I’ve lost everything…. My best friend, my grandparents, even my mom.” My eyes watered and tears ran down my face one right after another as it started to drizzle and the wind started to blow. When the wind blows it always makes me miss home; not where I live now, but my real home out in the country with all the animals, my grandparents and my best friend. I loved it there with my parents. Every morning we would all come together to eat breakfast. I’d walk down the steps and see momma in a beautifully-styled dress with her pretty brown curls swaying in the back. I loved momma with all my heart. She was the only one who ever believed in me, encouraged me, stood up for me, helped me, and was always there for me. I always liked it when she made her delicious gravy biscuit with bacon and hash browns. Next, you’d see my dad come down the stairs wearing his old worn out baseball cap, holey shirt, overalls, and the most noticeable farmers tan with a very serious face, but I knew he had a song in his heart. At least I hoped there was. He, honestly, scared me with his yelling and tone of voice. Every once in a while, he would have something up his sleeve, a couple of jokes, and stories in his
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Fiction Lucia’s Journey back pocket. Then, Nana would come in through the back door with a basket of fresh eggs. I liked Nana, but she wasn’t always my favorite person. She did some iffy things and wasn’t always the nicest person to be around. And of course, Pop would come in from a new place every time, going on about some story. After he got Alzheimer’s, we never knew what to expect from him, but he still helped where he could on the farm. I hated that he got Alzheimer’s. It was really hard to watch his personality fade into nothingness like it was never there. I miss who he was. I always had fun with all the animals on the farm. Polly, the dog; Spot, the cat; Bessie, the cow; Suzie and Curly Tail, the pigs; and Lucy, Rickie, Fred, and Ethel, the chickens. Nana named the chickens that because she always loved I Love Lucy. I loved all the animals on the farm and missed them when they eventually left. And then there were the geese, Bert, Ernie, Patrice, and Drake. Drake wasn’t around for very long. One of the things we did on the farm was breed geese and Drake had a horrible habit of drowning the pregnant ones. When Nana saw him drown Patrice she yelled, “You son of a gun!” and grabbed her shotgun off the wall and went out there and shot him. That’s not really what she said, but Nana never liked people to cuss and yet she was the worst about it. You would never know what she would say next. I felt bad for Drake, but he kind of deserved it for what he did to poor Patrice. I also didn’t like that Nana cussed at him. She cussed all the time, and I didn’t like hearing it. I don’t like cussing, nor approve of it. It’s just so negative and crude, but it’s not like she was going to stop. I figured I’d just have to get used to it, but I never did. It was never boring when my best friend, Jeremy, would come over and we’d do school together. It was amazing to school with him. He made it so fun, exciting, and probably the best part of my days. I’ve known him my entire life. Plus, we even have the same birthday. I loved Jeremy. He was such good friend, always being there for me, and I loved when we just got to be us goofing around having fun. When we were younger, we’d go out to the barn and pretend it was some foreign place that we had to explore so we could find the lost city. One day, we even played hide n’ seek in the “Lost City of Atlantis.” He ran and hid as I counted to 10, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 — Ready or not, here I come.” I ran around the barn looking for him until I tripped over poor little Ethel. I busted out laughing as Ethel fixed her ruffled feathers and the rest of the chickens ran over. “Hello, chickens,” I said as I continued to laugh. “Hello!” I heard a voice yell back. “Jeremy, is that you?” I said. “Yeah…,” he said. I started laughing more as I yelled, “Are you a chicken?” “Uh… no,” he said as he poked his head out and began to laugh too. That’s the day he got the name “chicken,” even though he didn’t act like a chicken or look like a chicken. He always looked sickly, but really, I was sicklier than him. Ever since I was six, I’d get one illness right after another, but that never stopped me from doing school, going to church, or helping with the farm. I hated being sick. I didn’t want to be sick. I wanted to play with my friend. I always felt left out when I was sick, like I was completely cut off from the world.
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Fiction Lucia’s Journey Sunday morning church was always interesting. My mom would always help the Sunday school teacher, and it was never easy to learn anything with those annoying boys constantly interrupting with their jokes about Lady Gaga. “Hey, Mrs., want to hear a joke?” those ridiculous boys would continually ask my mom, and of course she would always say yes. The joke was the same every time: “How do you make Lady Gaga cry? You poke her face.” The boys would start to laugh as they would finish the joke, but when we got to actually hear the Bible stories, I loved them. I would always take them to heart and memorize them. I really liked momma going to Sunday school with me, because I wouldn’t go without her. I was too nervous to be by myself and those boys freaked me out. I hated those boys. They were constantly being annoying, interrupting, laughing, snickering, and you could hardly hear the teacher. I never understood why momma would put up with it. I think they should have been kicked out or punished for how rude and inconsiderate they were to everyone else. I could never figure out which one was my favorite, but my mom’s favorite story was about Zacchaeus, but she didn’t really like the story. She just liked going around the house chanting, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he,” as she cleaned. She always had a habit of singing about what she was doing, thinking, or just something randomly funny. One day, Jeremy was wanting to get his ears pierced, so I happily helped. We ran into my parents’ bedroom and grabbed my mother’s turtle earrings. I grabbed an ice cube while Jeremy was sanitizing the earrings. “Here put this on your ear,” I told him. “Why?” he asked. “To lessen the pain.” “THE PAIN?!” “Yes, now sit still,” I said as punctured his ear. “OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!” he screamed. Mother came running in from the barn to see what had happened. When she saw what I did she busted out laughing. Thankfully, we didn’t get in trouble and for the rest of the day she was singing around the house, “Jeremy got his ears pierced. Jeremy got his ears pierced.” Every time I heard her I would always burst out laughing. I was so glad I got to pierce his ears. It was so much fun, and really cool. I stabbed him in his earlobes! It was great, and I was so relieved when momma wasn’t mad. I got kind of nervous when she came running in, but it was funny. I still laugh about that day. As the wind stops blowing, I am brought back into the cold harsh reality of it all. I move closer to the edge of the building and continue the debate in my mind, “What should I do?!” Everything is falling apart around me. I can’t believe we went from that happy life to this… and all because of me, and yet my parents blame themselves for it. It started years ago, one thing right after another. It seemed like we never got a break. It started with me getting sick with Lupus, but it just wasn’t a normal illness. I’ll have it for the rest of my life. I don’t want this. I never wanted this. Day after day with endless pain and suffering and it wasn’t even easy to diagnose. Our days would consist of waking up early and heading to Birmingham for a doctor’s
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Fiction Lucia’s Journey appointment then heading home, still as lost as ever. The doctor’s appointment would take up the entire day, going in, filling out the same paperwork over and over again, seeing the doctor and getting told, “Yeah something’s wrong, but it’s not my specialty. Go see someone else.” Or, “She’s just faking, she’s fine.” I felt so frustrated. The doctors didn’t believe me. I felt like I was going crazy. No one would believe me. This was my life for an entire year. In the end, I was finally diagnosed with Lupus and I have to get a shot every week along with daily steroids to keep the symptoms under control. The shots are horrible. My hair falls out, and I continuously throw up from the side effects. This is when I stopped reading the Bible, and when we had to leave the farm to be closer to the hospital, I left it behind. No one understands the pain or what I have had to go through, not even my best friend. I hate the doctors, the appointments, the looks, the stares, the thoughts, the comments, the arguments, and this disease. It’s hard to take Olivia Brockman |Footprints in the Sand | Photograph every day. Some days I feel like I just can’t. After my ordeal slowed down my mom was diagnosed with cancer and we were forced to move to a small apartment next to the hospital for treatment. I can, so clearly, remember the day she told me. I was sitting in the barn playing with Spot and Polly when she came in. She sat down next to me and the animals. Tears in her eyes. “I have something I need to tell you,” she said. “What is it?” I asked, “What’s wrong?” “I have cancer.” “What,” I said as my eyes began to fill and my lip started to quiver. “I have a very severe aggressive cancer, but they got it early,” she said as tears began to run down her face. I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing I could do. I collapsed in her arms weeping hoping she would get better, but she never did. I couldn’t believe that this was happening. It felt like my world was ending. Her world was ending. Our world was ending. What was I going to do without her? I need her. This is when I prayed the hardest. As she got worse, the prayers ceased altogether, but my
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Fiction Lucia’s Journey mother still made me go to church. Unlike me, she never lost her faith or hope. She never stopped shining bright and joyful even in the end. I watched for four years as signs of hope would come and then the universe would take her down, and us with her. It was like the universe was just toying with us seeing how much we could take before breaking. It was as if everyone was allowed to be happy except for us because we did something to the universe. I felt so hated and unloved by the world, like I would never be loved again. I always saw my disease as my punishment for being in this world. My parents would beat themselves up over and over again because they brought me into this world and put me through this life. They’d blame themselves for giving me this disease when they hadn’t done anything. I remember hearing them one night as I walked past their door yelling and screaming. “It’s my fault. Look what has happened to our daughter!” father yelled. “Your fault! How’s it your fault? It came from my side of the family,” mother screamed. “You can’t change genetics. I’m her father. I’m supposed to protect her.” “Well, what about me?” “Well, what about you. What?” “I not only gave her Lupus, but I also have cancer. What if I leave her motherless or give her cancer through my genetics like I did with Lupus? Look what I have done to our poor child.” “Look what you’ve done?! Look what I’ve done.” They continued with the fight, but I couldn’t listen anymore. I couldn’t stand to hear them fight. It’s my fault, not theirs. I don’t want them to fight because of what’s happened. I hated myself for this. I just wanted a family again. They couldn’t have changed this. This was supposed to happen …this is my punishment. I’ve always seen my disease as my punishment for my sin and yet my mother has done nothing and got punished for something she didn’t do. I watched day after day as she got sicker and sicker. Her skin changed color; she didn’t have her ivory skin anymore, nor even a pale skin color. She was now a sickly chartreuse from jaundice in her skin. Even her eyes had changed from that bright blue to a faded worn out blue and yellow. Her hair went from beautiful dark brown curly hair to gray straight short hair with patches of no hair at all. She now looked sickly and weak, when before she looked like she could do anything. It was hard for everyone. I couldn’t watch. I cried every day. All I wanted was my mom and she was no longer there anymore. I’m just a lost child now. All alone in this world. No love and so much hate, not only for this world but for me. She went through so much pain and fought so hard, and yet she got greeted with death as her reward. It was hard to watch her in so much pain. I wished so much that it would have happened to me instead of her. I wish I could have taken the pain and suffering away from her. I wish I could have had that burden on me, not her. I wished I was dying; if it meant she could have lived. I would happily have died for her if it meant she could live to see another day. I don’t see the point in life without her, being in this universe, in pain day after day without her. After she died I knew that there was no God. Even if there was a God, I’d hate him. How could I ever forgive someone who would do this? I felt betrayed and lied to. What kind of God would put someone through this just to die in the end?! It’s not fair! She didn’t
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Fiction Lucia’s Journey deserve it! It was all my fault and now I couldn’t do anything. … After the funeral, we went back to the farm. I stopped going to church and believing in God altogether. My dad turned to drinking, and in a rage one night, killed all the animals. I couldn’t believe what he had done. This was supposed to be our home and now it was nothing but a graveyard. He destroyed everything. It was awful and I felt even more unloved and uncared for than I already did. I didn’t have a dad anymore. He was now nothing but a wasted shell of a man. I lost him, too, after mother but instead of death, he drank his life away in his pit of sin. The next morning Nana cussed him out during his drunken hangover, but at this point, he didn’t care anymore… about anything. He didn’t even care about me anymore. All he did now was yell with Nana and drink. He was never there for me. All I could feel was abandonment. I eventually stopped leaving my room and stopped talking to everyone. I didn’t care anymore. What’s the point? What is life anyway? Why should I live when others die? I stopped eating and working on my education. Why should I be educated when all I’m going to do is die? One day I decided I didn’t deserve anything. I moved everything out and locked myself in my empty room. I didn’t deserve all these nice things when I had caused this to my family. All I bring is pain. My grandparents got worried and broke down the door. They tried to make me eat, but I refused and fought them. I didn’t see the point in anything anymore. How could I live now after all this? Last night I couldn’t take any more pain, guilt, sadness, yelling, or my life. I stole my dad’s old pickup truck and headed to Birmingham. I didn’t know where to go, so I just picked the place I knew the best, Children’s Hospital. I had come here so many times, I knew this place by heart. It was easy to get to the top of the roof and that’s how I got here… no God and thousands of questions. Someone is probably going to notice that I’m gone. I burst into tears as the rain pours down harder. I move closer to the edge. I think I’m going to do it… I think I’m going to end it all. There is nothing left for me here. I have nothing. I have no one. I can’t go back to that farm. The farm is not what it used to be. It used to be a happy place and a safe haven. Now, it’s nothing but a desolate land of pain, suffering, and death. I don’t want to be there. I bend down to see how high up I am. Maybe things could change. I could run away. I don’t have to be in a place where I’m not wanted. I don’t have to go back to the farm. I could find a new place. Build a new life. I don’t have to be miserable. I can find a new home. I can build a new family. More tears run down my face. I can be happy. I can have it all. I get to make my own destiny. I get to choose my own path. This is my life, not someone else’s. No God gets to say what I do or where I go or how I live. These are my choices, not his. I can make it. I can live. I stand up to head back down the stairs, but as I do I start to lose my balance. Before I know it, I am falling. I guess it wasn’t my choice after all. Maybe you can’t pick your own destiny. Maybe you can’t choose your own path. Maybe this isn’t my life to control. Maybe only a higher power can control things. Maybe you can’t-do anything. I can’t stop falling. All I can do is accept the cruel reality of death. As I fall I scream, “Goodbye!” and that is the end. The end of me and my story.
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Personal Essay
Olivia Brockman |
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Dragonfly | Photograph
Personal Essay Ty Barham
Packing Away Forgotten Memories Our personal humor styles can be molded by our environment, culture, and our sense of self, which can in turn be either negative or positive. Self-defeating humor style is one comedic style that I believe can embody both, by being a negative outlet that produces positive results. High School for me was the negative collection of awkward, uncomfortable memories that swiftly developed my self-defeating humor that followed me into adulthood and ultimately allowed me to accept the harsh realities of the world and my own demons in order to understand them in order to move forward and make a change to solve them. One beautiful day of packing away memories made me realize why having such a dark, negative sense of humor, perhaps was my positive. It was the summer before my younger brother, Brandon, left home to start his freshman year of college. I had agreed to help him pack despite feeling bitter about him moving out of the house before I did. I knew that the ill feelings were stemming from my regrets about my past life choices, so I made my pride take a back seat. As we sorted through the piles of clothes, old video games, elementary book reports with little neon smiley faces plastered on them, holey socks, and embarrassing photos of the two of us in 90’s garb with toothless grins, my mood softened. The photos completely distracted us and we eventually ended up sitting shoulder to shoulder at my desk in my room cackling over more photos and videos that were saved on my laptop. The remnants of the packing still surrounded us in an ordered mess but lay completely forgotten. Then a grainy video, whose quality reeked of the front camera of an old laptop, of two awkward teenagers slinked onto the tiny screen. One of the teens is noticeably
Ty Barham | Screenshot
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Personal Essay younger, gruff, and has the look of “I am being made to do this” written all over his face, while the other is an excited, giggly mess. The giggly mess was me. The video was of a “Sibling Tag” video that I had dragged my brother to the den of our basement to record. In a “Sibling Tag” video there are a series of pre-made questions about the relationship that have to be answered. In the video, my brother answered them dryly but eventually cracked a smile as I answered the same questions enthusiastically while beaming into the camera. Halfway through the long uncut Sibling Tag video, Brandon in real time turned to me, nudged me and said half-jokingly, “Wow, you used to be really happy.” As my brain registered what he said, the smile that had been etched into my face from watching the video grew wider. I started to chuckle, but then it immediately graduated into full blown laughter that I am sure my parents could hear downstairs over the smooth jazz blasting through the speakers. But in my room there was silence save for my laughter. My laughter grew to the point that I began to gasp for air and thoughts of recent failures, suicidal thoughts and my insecurities pummeled through my mind, which only added to my breathlessness. I came to and between breaths I was finally able to tell my brother that I agreed with him. Then that is when my laughter abruptly changed into a groaning, strained cry. My brother all the while looked on at my emotional hurricane with a confused, helpless expression. Feeling his awkwardness, I looked up, saw his expression, and burst back into uncontrollable laughter. Eventually the moment lost steam and we continued to pack in an awkward silence. Although the reason for my laughter was not from a pleasant experience nor was it because I was happy, it did, however, serve as a reminder. It made me realize how much emotional distress I had been “packing away” and allowing it to build up and how much time I was wasting doing so. And the humor or irony of it all was that I was simultaneously telling others not to do the exact same thing I had been doing. Laughter and humor should not have to be exclusive to rainbow and butter flowery concepts. We should allow ourselves to find humor in every gross, embarrassing, dark and painful nook in our lives, and be free to laugh in the face of pain and learn from it in order to deal with our problems and move on. Humor is the combination of joy and pain, dark and light that helps to bring balance and understanding.
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Personal Essay Burt Veal
Burt Veal Witnesses German Unification It had been over a year since President Reagan had stood in the city of Berlin and said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” And the ninety-six-mile serpentine Berlin Wall did come down, but there were still two German nations, commonly referred to as West and East Germany. Gone also was the seven-hundred-mile long mine field that had separated the two countries for over forty years. Missing, too, were the Grenzetruppen, the East German Border Guards, who had kept the citizens of the German Democratic Republic (known ominously to the Germans as the DDR), and its second world, Warsaw Pact neighbors, from fleeing into the villainous western zone. No longer would anyone have to ride a train or drive a car through a corridor across the no -man’s land that kept apart the two different worlds. Over were the days of having to get out of one’s car or one’s train compartment when entering the country just so that the authorities could look for anything that in any way could be used to let the citizens of the DDR know anything about the freedom in the West. The mass demonstrations in Leipzig, Dresden, and other cities had accomplished their goals, and German unification was now only a short time away. Concerns about the currency conversion had been settled; one East German mark would equal one West German mark. Property seized after 1949 would be returned to the rightful owners. East German citizens would enjoy all of the rights as their cousins in the West. Countless other details that involved the merger of two countries into one nation had been debated and resolved. Other details had been debated and remain unresolved. The only thing that had to happen was for October 3, 1990, to roll around. That was the date of the unification of the two German states. On October 2, 1990, I arrived in Germany to take care of a little business and for a vacation to visit some old friends. After arriving at the Frankfort/Main train station from the Frankfort Airport, I got on board a train that would take me to the small town of Goslar. There, I would meet my journalist friend, Wolfgang, and his American wife, Linda. Linda had made a reservation for me at a seven-hundred-year-old hotel. After I arrived, Wolfgang asked me if I knew the importance of that night. It was going to be a special night for all of Germany. For several weeks, I had known about the coming German Unification, but I did not know that it would be so soon. Hearing me confess my ignorance, Wolfgang asked me how I could not know that that night was to be the Deutsche Einheit, the German Unification. After taking a big yawn, I excused myself and walked to my hotel, went to my room and lay down for a short nap. But I could not rest easy. After all, traveling all the way across the United States and then all the way across the Atlantic Ocean in just a few short hours had upset my internal clock and I could not fall asleep. As I lay on my bed, I began to think about what Wolfgang had said about that night being very important. Slowly, I realized that in just a few hours, a major event in the history of Germany would be taking place. The town of Goslar was close to the de-mined mine field border of East Germany. So I got up, put on some blue jeans, went to the taxi stand in front of the hotel and told the driver that I
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Personal Essay wanted to go to Stapelburg, the first little farming village just inside the East German border. When I got there, all that I saw was a few people standing around in a pasture, and drinking beer. Some enterprising souls had brought in a few big wagons and were selling beer to those of us who needed it. Slowly, more and more people arrived to take part in the night’s activities. As darkness began to settle in, I walked to where the mine field and dragon’s teeth had, only a few months before, been removed. Those dragon’s teeth were lengths of railroad rails that were fashioned together in a crisscross pattern and then welded together. These teeth were placed next to each other all along the border to slow down NATO tanks from entering the Warsaw Pact frontier. Plus, they were a deterrent for any East German tanks that wanted to escape. I noticed that some upside—down “J” shaped concrete posts were still in the ground. Those posts were the last sentinels of the East German border as one entered into West Germany. Between the posts had been a metal fence that was the final barrier preventing East Germans from getting out of their homeland. Just in case a person who was trying to escape did make it past the guard towers, and get through the mine field and did not stumble over the dragons teeth, then that metal fence would be the clincher to keep them in. Machine guns were strategically positioned to fire along the fence should someone just jump onto it and try to climb over to freedom. But here I was, just casually walking across the old border with a plastic cup of beer in my hand, wondering how many souls had been killed trying to get out. I walked along the border for a few hundred feet and saw that a musical band had set up their instruments, but no one was around to play them. Behind the band’s impromptu stage, someone had set up a digital clock that was counting down the hours and minutes until midnight, when the unification was to take effect. Then I noticed that the few dozen people there had turned into a few hundred people. And not only was it possible to buy beer from one of the big wagons, it was also now possible to buy some food. Many people were walking around eating their sausages and/or drinking their beer. The whole evening had taken on a carnival atmosphere. Groups of four or five teenage girls were walking arm-in-arm, as is the local custom. Probably due to the importance of the night, many young children were allowed to stay up well past their bedtimes, and many of them were playing the games that little children play. Several young fathers were walking around with their infant children asleep on Burt Veal |In Germany just days after unification
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Personal Essay their shoulders. I talked to several people there that night about what was going on and what they wanted to do. One young girl asked me where I was from, and did I work for a newspaper. Fortunately, I had remembered to bring my camera with me, and I took a few pictures. As I drank yet another glass of beer, I walked back to where the band was and they were playing. They played some disco, and some rock and other numbers that I did not know into which genre they fell. Behind them, the count-down clock indicated that midnight was only one hour and fifty six minutes away. As I continued to walk around and enjoy my beer, I suddenly realized: I should have asked Wolfgang and Linda if they wanted to come along with me and witness this historical event. Oh well, I forgot about it, thinking that I could apologize to them the next day. By now, there were no longer dozens or hundreds of people at the border, but there were thousands! That was certainly more people than had ever been to the small dorf of Stapelburg. As I continued to walk, talk and drink, I noticed that it was just a very few minutes until midnight. I positioned myself in view of the count-down clock and started to watch the faces of those around me. Everybody was happy. Many of the young ones could not stay awake and were being carried by their parents. Many of the teenagers (or “teenies” as they are called in German) were still laughing and playing, and some were even drinking a little beer. As the last minute before midnight began to tick away, many were counting down along with the clock. Zehn, nuen, acht, sieben, sechs, fuenf. The crowd had nothing but glee in their collective voice. Vier..drei...zwei...eins!!! It was midnight and the German Democratic Republic no longer existed. I thought that there would be no end to the shouting and the fireworks and the revelry. But a few minutes after midnight, everyone suddenly became very silent. A not-so-small marching band had been assembled at the border. Its members were all wearing uniforms, but they were not in the military. They began to play that old tune composed by Haydn those many years ago, which now served as the tune of the German national anthem. Several people were singing along with the music. Many of the elderly folk were crying. Perhaps they remembered all of the hard times and economic depression that they went through before the war. Maybe they were thinking about a son or a husband or a brother who had died in the war. So many changes in one lifetime. And then the music was over. The band broke up and walked away. Those who had gathered to enjoy the evening began to leave. Much quicker than it had started, the evening was over. There was once again just one Germany. The next day, I told Wolfgang and Linda what I had done the night before at the border. Then I apologized for not having thought about them and asking them to go along. Their only reply was, “Burt, we’re not night people.” Over the next two weeks, I saw many changes to the former communist East Germany. It was not the same place that I remembered when I had been there thirteen years before In the imperial city of Leipzig. I noticed that the giant posters of Lenin were gone. There is now a MacDonald’s hamburger restaurant where once Russian soldiers had gone window shopping. In Dresden, the scars of the firestorm that went through that city after the American and British bombing are being erased. No longer is it necessary for young couples to wait for as long as twenty years before they can obtain a telephone. And no longer will anyone be shot while trying to visit a friend or family member in the now not-so-far away West.
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Visual Art
Nathan Messersmith | Lantern | Plaster and acrylic paint
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Visual Art
Elizabeth Clark | Engineering
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Tree | Mixed media collage
Visual Art
Greg McCallister
Greg McCallister
Pepsi Can One | Photograph
Pepsi Can Two | Photograph
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Visual Art
Olivia Brockman | Character
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Study| Photograph
Visual Art
Julia Kafeena | Mixed
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Emotions | Alcohol ink
Visual Art
Olivia Brockman | Lonely
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Train | Photograph
Visual Art
William Dunning | Untitled | Photograph
William Dunning | Untitled | Photograph
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Visual Art
Patrick Canevaro | Pathway | Pen and Ink
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Visual Art
Kaylea Roberts | Untitled| Paper flap project
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Visual Art
Kaylea Roberts | Untitled | Pen and Ink
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Visual Art
Julia Kafeena | Untitled | Charcoal, graphite, watercolor paint
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Visual Art
Kyle Sullivan | Approaching
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the Ice Monster | Photograph
Visual Art
Kyle Sullivan | Late
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Summer Penguins on Ice | Photograph
Visual Art
Pam West | Eagles | Photograph
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Visual Art
William Dunning | Untitled | Photograph
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Visual Art
Greg McCallister | Untitled | Photograph
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Visual Art
William Dunning |Blue
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Heron | Photograph
International Education Week
First Place, Student Category
Nadezda Krumina | Old
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Fortress Off the Baltic Sea, Latvia
Photography Contest Winners
Second Place, Student Category
Anna Farley | Gray
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Skies and Bright Beginnings, London, England
International Education Week
Third Place, Student Category
Samuel Nganga | Almost
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There, Nairobi, Kenya
Photography Contest Winners
First Place, Faculty Category
Kim Rigg | Castle
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Donegal, Ireland
International Education Week
Second Place, Faculty Category
Nic Kin | Goat
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Tower, Paarl, South Africa
Photography Contest Winners
Third Place, Faculty Category
Mark Partain | Paris
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Bridge: Paris Pont D’Lama, France
Visual Art
Pam West | Cave
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Tree | Photograph
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